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the indemnity money paid to the U.S. after the Boxer Rebellion was used to fund a scholarship program which led to the founding of Tsinghua University in Beijing?
An indemnity is a sum paid by A to B by way of compensation for a particular loss suffered by B. The indemnitor (A) may or may not be responsible for the loss suffered by the indemnitee (B). Forms of indemnity include cash payments, repairs, replacement, and reinstatement.
In common parlance, indemnity is often used as a synonym for compensation or reparation.
As a legal concept, it has a more specific meaning, namely, to compensate another party to a contract for any loss that such other party may suffer during the performance of the contract. For instance, compensation connotes merely a sum paid to make good the loss of another without regard to the payer's identity, or their reasons for doing so. As the following paragraphs should explain, an indemnity is a sub-species of compensation, in the same way that Damages and reparation are.
The obligation to indemnify differs from the obligation to pay compensation, or make reparation, in that an obligation to indemnify is a voluntary obligation. If C crashes into B's car and damages it and the crash is due to C's negligence, most legal systems will impose liability upon C to pay B for the damage caused. C's obligation to B arises by force of law irrespective of whether C subjectively wishes to compensate B or not. This is not, therefore, a situation of indemnity; the relationship between B and C is involuntary. In legal terms, it is a case of tortious (common law) or unlawful act (civil law) liability.
But, if A had a contract with B under which A agreed to pay for any damage to B's car, then A paying B would be obligatory (even if A subjectively regretted the contract at this point). In legal terms, A's liability is contractual and the sum paid is an indemnity. The contract just described between A and B is of course one of automobile comprehensive insurance.
It was stated in the first paragraph that the indemnifying party (A) may also be the party responsible for the loss. This is because although A will probably have a legal duty to compensate B (depending on the rules for damage wrongfully caused in the relevant legal system), A may also have a contractual duty to compensate C. Such indemnity clauses can be found in many contracts aside from those specifically for insurance. For instance, (staying with the automobile theme), a car rental contract may stipulate that the renter will be responsible for damage to the rental car caused by their reckless driving. In other words the renter will indemnify the rental company.
An obligation to indemnity can also be distinguished from a guarantee granted by one party in regard to the potential debts of another. For example A might agree to stand guarantor (or surety) for her son C (an impecunious law student) so that if C cannot afford to pay his rent to B (his canny landlord), A will be obliged to pay for him. Here, C is the one primarily responsible for payment of the rent. A's liability is only ancillary. The liability of an indemnifier, properly so-called, is primary. This distinction between indemnity and guarantee was discussed as early as the eighteenth century in Birkmya v Darnell. In that case, concerned with a guarantee of payment for goods, rather than payment of rent, the presiding judge explained that a guarantee effectively says "Let him have the goods; if he does not pay you, I will." By contrast, an indemnity is like saying "Let him have the goods, I will be your paymaster."
Under section 4 of the Statute of Frauds 1677, indemnity clauses must be constituted in writing.
In the UK, under the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 s4, a consumer cannot be made to unreasonably indemnify another for their breach of contract or negligence.
In England and Wales an "indemnity" monetary award may form part of rescission during an action of Restitutio in integrum. The property and funds are exchanged, but indemnity may be granted for costs necessarily incurred to the innocent party pursuant to the contract. The leading case is Whittington v Seale, in which a contaminated farm was sold. Due to the contract, the buyers renovated the Real estate and, due to the contamination, incurred medical expenses for their manager who had fallen ill. Once the contract was rescinded, the buyer could be indemnified for the cost of renovation as this was necessary to the contract, but not the medical expenses as the contract did not require them to hire a manager. Were the sellers at fault, damages would clearly be available.
The distinction between indemnity and damages is subtle, but they may be differentiated by considering the roots of the law of obligations. How can money be paid where the defendant is not at fault? The contract before rescission is voidable but not void, meaning that, for a period of time, there is a legal contract. During this time both parties have legal obligation. If the contract is to be voided ab initio the obligations performed must also be compensated. Therefore the costs of indemnity arise from the (transient and performed) obligations of the claimant rather than a Breach of obligation by the defendant.
Slave owners suffer a loss whenever their slaves or indentured servants are granted their freedom. Slave owners may be paid to cover their losses.
In the 1860s in the United States, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln had requested many millions of dollars from Congress with which to pay slave owners "for the loss of their property." On July 9, 1868, Section IV of the Fourteenth Constitutional Amendment dismissed all of the claims that slave owners had been injured by the freeing of the slaves.
In 1807-08, in Prussia, statesman Baron Heinrich vom Stein introduced a series of reforms, the principal of which was the abolition of serfdom with indemnification to territorial lords.
The nation that wins a war may insist on being paid compensations for the costs of the war, even after having been the creator of the war.
Following the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95, the Treaty of Shimonoseki required that China pay Japan the sum of 200,000,000 taels (or liangs).
China incurred an indemnity which resulted from massacres of foreigners during the Boxer Rebellion. The payment of 450,000,000 Haikwan taels, or $330,000,000 became necessary.
The term was created by the Brazilian jurist Leonardo Castro. The article was published in BDJUR (the Brazilian Superior Court of Justice library). The term means that in civil cases of indemnity you can never predict the result (sentence).
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0.985768 |
Searching an array for a value in another array.
Been spending a few minutes (x 30+) trying to figure this one out in a nice manner.
I want to search an array, to see whether a value of another array exists in the first array. This being in Ruby of course.
So, there you have it. This piece of code will return true if one of the values in the first array exists in the second array. Here's a little for google indexing: Find a value in an array, or locate a value in an array.
A true programmer would probably shorten "value" to "v" to make it less legible for the "meagre earthlings", but I'm a "Nice Guy"(tm).
Hope that's of any help to anyone out there.
(["a", "b"] & ["a", "b", "c"]).empty?
(["z", "x"] & ["a", "b", "c"]).empty?
He could have not AFK'd and helped me when I asked. Eitherhoo... His solution is much neater than mine, and I'm grateful for his help! :) Sweeet!
!(["a", "b"] & ["a", "b", "c"]).empty?
!(["z", "x"] & ["a", "b", "c"]).empty?
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0.958675 |
How can we investigate fraudulent dependents on employee W-4 forms?
A. Prior to 2005, in an effort to combat tax avoidance, the IRS required any W-4 listing more than 10 personal allowances to be filed with the IRS. However, beginning in 2005, the IRS abandoned that practice in favor of a different process. Now, employers are directed that they should not knowingly use an invalid Form W-4 to calculate withholding.
If you know, you must tell the employee when a W-4 is invalid and ask for another one. However, the guidance is not all that clear. The rule says you are supposed to follow an employee's instructions unless you know the W-4 is fraudulent, which you can only know if the employee actually tells you. At the same time, the IRS also says you should know it is probably not correct.
As a practical matter, you can question the employee and remind them that filing a false W-4 is punishable by a large fine and potential jail time. And if they still want to implement it, so be it. The most likely response is a “lock in” letter from the IRS that will increase withholdings to the maximum and overrides any W-4s.
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Ronnie Milsap was Born in January 16, 1943 in Robbinsville, North Carolina, Ronnie Milsap is an American Country/Pop Singer and Musician. He was one of Country Music's most popular singers in the 1970s and 1980s. He became Country Music's first blind superstar. He was one of the many crossover Country singers in Country Music at this time, which was also called Country Pop. His biggest crossover hits include No Gettin' over Me, Smoky Mountain Rain, and Lost in the Fifties Tonight. He is credited with forty number one songs, third only to George Strait and Conway Twitty.
Ronnie Milsap was one of Country Music's most influential artists in the 70s and 80s, becoming one of Country's biggest stars, appealing to both Country and Pop markets. Milsap was born blind. Milsap lived with his grandparents until the age of six, when he was placed in the State School for the Blind in Raleigh, North Carolina. When Milsap was seven, his instructors noticed his musical talents, and he soon began studying classical music formally. Soon, Milsap became interested in rock and roll music and soon formed a Rock band called The Apparitions Milsap was awarded a full college scholarship and attended college briefly in Atlanta, Georgia, until he decided to become a full-time musician. In the early 1960s, he got his first professional gig.
He released his first single, Total Disaster, in 1963 at the age of twenty. Milsap moved to Memphis, Tennessee to become a session musician. He frequently worked in Memphis and can be heard playing the piano on the Elvis Presley hit Kentucky Rain. He also sang harmony on another Presley hit, Don't Cry Daddy. In 1970, Milsap enjoyed brief pop music success with Loving You Is a Natural Thing. After that success, he released his debut album.
In 1973, Milsap moved to Nashville to pursue his dream of Country Music recognition. In 1973, he was signed onto RCA Records. He released his first single from RCA that year called I Hate You, which became his first Country hit and also just breaking the Country Top 10. Another single he released that year became a hit called (All Together Now) Let's Fall Apart, which also just broke the Country Top 10 in 1973. The next year, 1974 his two singles Pure Love and then Please Don't Tell Me How the Story Ends went on #1.
In 1981 he had done some pop music crossover which was again success for Milsap. That year, two songs were crossover hits, There's No Gettin' Over Me and Smoky Mountain Rain. There's No Gettin' Over Me Milsap's biggest hit on the Pop charts, making it to the Top 5, as well as being an Adult Contemporary hit for him.
? I Wouldn't Have Missed It For the World.These songs were big Pop hits, making Milsap one of Country Music's most successful crossover singers. He was not the only crossover superstar in Country Music at the time.
? Where Do the Nights GoIn 1989, Milsap had his last #1 hit with A Woman in Love. By 1992, Milsap's chart success faded away, but he didn't stop touring the country. He has remained as one of Country Music's most popular concert attractions.
Ronnie Milsap has remained one of Country Music's greatest influences. His biography has been featured on A&E Networks's Biography television series. He has been featured on CMT's numerous shows, including 40 Greatest Men of Country Music. Milsap has 40 number 1 hits, which few Country singers have achieved.
The average person has come to rely on the normal functioning of their senses to such as extent that they easily overlook the fact that true creativity and virtuosity transcends their fickle nature. Time and again, personalities such as Mozart and Helen Keller have defied the odds and persevered in expressing themselves. In recent times, Stevie Wonder and Ronnie Milsap have crafted their own musical legacies sans the ability to see.
Being born blind in 1943 due to congenital glaucoma, Ronnie Milsap's musical prodigiousness was discovered early on by his instructors at Governor Moorhead School for the Blind and by age 8, he had come to be recognized as a violin virtuoso. However, the mastery of the violin was only the first conquest in a series of instrumental endeavors that entailed piano, guitar and various woodwinds. Excelling academically as well, Ronnie was awarded a pre-law scholarship but declined to pursue a full-time career in music.
Ronnie Milsap started an R&B band in his early twenties and celebrated his achievement with his first hit single Never Had It So Good. Highlighting his session-musician phase with playing keyboards on Elvis's Kentucky Rain, Ronnie's own career started to gain momentum with top-ten hits in the mid seventies and then snowballed from there onwards.
Ronnie Milsap's albums have garnered him half-a-dozen Grammys and a dozen ACM and CMA awards, with There's No Gettin' Over Me and Lost in the Fifties Tonight peaking at the top on the US country charts.
So for seeing and believing in sightless musical prowess, get your Ronnie Milsap tickets.
Ronnie Milsap, full name Ronnie Lee Milsap, is a spectacular country music artist who has been entertaining countless country fans with his awe inspiring music and widely considered today as one of the greatest country singers. Ronnie Milsap is also an instrumentalist who plays the piano, a pianist accomplished at this instrument. He was very popular back in the seventies and the eighties, regarded as one of the most influential and popular country artists of his time. Ronnie Milsap became the very first popular blind singer who not only attract country fans but also attracted pop music fans and crossed over successfully into the world of music. He released numerous songs, many of which became immensely popular and topped the charts.
This popular country and pop music superstar is behind some of the most awesome country songs that were crossover smash hits; It Was Almost Like a Song, (There's) No Gettin' Over Me, Smoky Mountain Rain, I Wouldn't Have Missed It for the World, Stranger in My House and Any Day Now. He has also won six Grammy Awards, four Academy of Country Music Awards, two Billboard Awards both for Country Song of the Year and eight Country Music Association Awards. And if that isn't enough, this legendary and iconic country star has had forty of his hit singles rank at number in the charts; any artist, be it country or pop, who has had not one, not ten but forty hit number one singles is someone you must see play the most fantastic live, something possible only through Ronnie Milsap Tickets.
The average Ronnie Milsap tickets price will cost you between $75 and $383, if you are looking for the cheapest seats then catch the event being held at the The Event Center at Jack Cincinnati Casino, Cincinnati on 27/04/2019. The average ticket will cost you the highest on 17/05/2019 at the Riverside Casino & Golf Resort, Riverside.
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0.999972 |
The Congress of Soviets was the supreme governing body of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and several other Soviet republics from 1917–36 and again from 1989-91. After the creation of the Soviet Union, the Congress of Soviets of the Soviet Union functioned as its legislative branch until its dissolution in 1936. Its initial full name was the "Congress of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies. It was also sometimes known as the "Congress of People's Deputies."
The Congress of Soviets was an assembly of representatives of local councils. In theory, it was the supreme power of the Soviet State, an organ of the dictatorship of the proletariat. No bourgeois, no noble, no aristocrat, no priest could vote – only working people. Officially, the Congress of Soviets created laws and elected the Council of People's Commissars, which was the government. In the interim its functions were performed by designated executive bodies, see VTsIK. In practice the Congress became increasingly deferential to the Bolsheviks after the Russian Revolution.
Hewlett Johnson (25 January 1874 – 22 October 1966) was an English priest of the Church of England. He was Dean of Manchester and later Dean of Canterbury, where he acquired his nickname "The Red Dean of Canterbury" for his unyielding support for the Soviet Union and its allies.
Johnson was born in Kersal as the third son of Charles Johnson, a wire manufacturer, and his wife Rosa, daughter of the Reverend Alfred Hewlett. He was educated at The King's School, Macclesfield and graduated from Owens College, Manchester in 1894 with a BSc degree in civil engineering and the geological prize.
He worked from 1895 to 1898 at the railway carriage works in Openshaw, Manchester, where two workmates introduced him to socialism, and he became an associate member of the Institute of Civil Engineers. After deciding to do mission work for the Church Mission Society, he entered Wycliffe Hall, Oxford in 1900 and later attended Wadham College. The Society rejected him because of his increasingly liberal theological views, so he concentrated on training for priesthood and was ordained in 1904.
Did Russia train psychic soldiers with superpowers?
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0.997012 |
The kind of person you are and the circumstances you're in play a key role in the decision to sell your own car. Before setting out to sell your car yourself, make sure that you have confidence in negotiating with prospective buyers. Test-drives and phone calls are part of the process, so it's vital to be prepared to handle these as well. Simply knowing yourself and what you're going to face is absolutely critical.
The best way to begin when first planning to sell a car privately is to know the market#to be armed with enough information. This ca be done by simply determining how much the old car is worth. Try to determine the answers to these important questions: Is the car going to be easy to sell? Is it a popular commodity? Is it likely to receive multiple offers? What kind of buyer is most likely to be interested in this kind of car? In order to answer these problems with accurate results, the first step should be to check some car ads online.
Several online used car guides are now available on the Internet. By knowing a car's make, model, mileage, and general condition these Web sites will doubtless prove to be a good place to begin determining the value of the vehicle. Based on those basic details it is quick and easy to secure accurate estimates for things such as how much a local dealer is likely to offer for it as a trade in. It is also helpful for determining how much to expect to make by selling your car privately by visiting and examining the used car guides on the Web.
The used car price guides that are now commonly available at libraries or bookstores are useful in addition to checking the online used car guides. The local newspaper's automotive advertising section can also be checked for similar vehicles. By combining information from all of these sources it will become easy to gain the knowledge needed to be fully prepared for private automobile sales.
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0.928952 |
Why is the MacBook Keyboard not working after upgrade to 10.9.2?
I am (not a Mac expert) trying to repair the Macbook of a friend, whose keyboard has stopped working after an upgrade to 10.9.2. It is an icelandic keyboard and right now types only three characters and all others either do not respond or come as blank spaces.
An external bluetooth keyboard and a usb keyboard work fine. Tried to reset (through the usb keyboard) PVRAM but it keeps going into the Mac utilities, safe mode option is also not working. Could not reset SMC with the Shift-Control-Option keys (on the left side) and the power button... so opened the back panel and disconnected the battery connector and pressed the power.
Apr 1 05:30:53 localhost Language Chooser: Prepaired wait done.
Apr 1 05:30:53 localhost Unknown: Keyboard Layouts: duplicate keyboard layout identifier -16899.
Apr 1 05:30:53 localhost Unknown: Keyboard Layouts: keyboard layout identifier -16899 has been replaced with -28673.
Apr 1 05:30:53 localhost Unknown: Keyboard Layouts: duplicate keyboard layout identifier -16900.
Apr 1 05:30:53 localhost Unknown: Keyboard Layouts: keyboard layout identifier -16900 has been replaced with -28674.
Apr 1 05:30:54 localhost Language Chooser: Found primary language hint "en"
Please guide me as to the next step.
IF this is an incompatability problem with Mavericks... could I reinstall 10.8 and restore my docs and mail from 10.9 Time Machine back-up??
It sounds like there is a bug with the update. I don't use a mac, so I would be guessing if you can reinstall the prior version of the software. But if it is possible, downgrade the os and see if that resolves the issue.
You've got me with the boot sequences. Sorry I can't be of any more help.
Malware. Yes there's tons of it for Mac. Check the National Institute of Standards for Technology National Vunerability Database of Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures, almost 9,000 for Apple as of Feb. 2018.
About 1/10 as many as Windows but uh would you go out in a thunderstorm if you knew you had a 1/10 chance of getting struck my lightening?
Unknown: Keyboard Layouts: keyboard layout identifier -14934 has been replaced with -28673.
Either Apple is totally off their game or its malware. Guess its true about what goes up...Too bad.
They're totally screwing themselves over by not confronting these problems and just living in denial and refusing to help their paying customers.
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0.964856 |
Marnie is one of the best examples of what a bluewater passagemaker should be. She was custom built by Salthouse Brothers, one of New Zealand’s finest custom builders, and designed by Al Mason who is one of the most highly regarded cruising designers in the world. John Salthouse told a prospective purchaser who contacted him in 2012 that it was the best yacht he’d ever built. The current owner has had her for 15 years.
Exceptionally strong, beautifully finished and maintained to the highest standard, Marnie is a very special classic that is in a class of her own. Marnie’s first owner crossed the Atlantic and Pacific and cruised in Europe, the Caribbean and Pacific Islands. Her second and current owner recently completed a circumnavigation. He has spent the extra personal time and money to keep her in top mechanical and cosmetic condition. The result of his loving care, upgrades and improvements is a yacht ready to move aboard and cruise the world.
Marnie’s replacement cost today would exceed $2.5m to build to the same level of quality, workmanship and engineering. Her construction used kauri, one of the world’s strongest woods. Over 15000 board feet of kauri was taken from one tree to build Marnie. An example of the longevity of kauri is a bowl made from kauri that came out of the ground and was carbon dated to 6,000 years old, displayed on his dining table.
Two companionway aft cockpit design provides superior light, ventilation and privacy with the benefits of a low profile aft cockpit design. With three staterooms plus crew quarters, Marnie is equally well suited for owner operated family cruising, or world cruising with a captain.
The bright, airy main salon features off white bulkheads and varnished kauri. To starboard is a beautiful U-shaped dinette with seating for 6, with storage outboard and under the seating. Opposite to port is a settee with storage outboard/under and a well crafted teak box for tools. Aft, adjacent to the curved kauri staircase is the door to the fully insulated engine room. Outboard to port is the full nav station. The cabin sole is natural finished 7/8" teak.
The galley is located aft of the salon to starboard, with excellent counter space, gimbaled 4 burner stainless stove and oven, and cold plate refrigeration/freezer draw with dual compressors.
The private master stateroom is aft with a separate companionway to the sheltered cockpit under the hard dodger. A generous double berth is outboard to port with a single to starboard. The master en suite head offers a full stall shower with stainless shower pan and teak grate.
The guest cabins are forward of the salon. To port is a upper and lower berths and to starboard a double berth. There is a large hanging locker and chest of drawers and a seat in each along with good storage. A guest head is shared by both cabins.
Access to the fore peak crew cabin/workshop is through the port guest stateroom. Currently set up as a workshop complete with excellent storage, and work bench with vise. A single berth and marine toilet (removed presently) is provided if needed. The work shop could be returned to its former state with little fuss.
New (2012) Simrad NSE 8 at nav station, NSS12 repeater with touch screen technology in the cockpit under the dog house.
Heart kauri hardwood consisting of two 5/16" diagonally planked with a 7/8" outer planking, Epoxy bonded, and copper nailed and bronze screwed to 43 kauri laminated frames. A laminated internal gunwale or shelf measures 5" thick. The outside of Marnie was then sheathed at original construction by Salthouse in two layers of 6oz. Dynell fiberglass in epoxy resin.
Lead ballast poured and secured by 10 Monel keel bolts.
The cockpit is superbly designed, protected by the low profile hard dodger/dog house with comfortable seating and beautiful folding teak table.
Marnie was originally built for Donald Dalziel a knowledgeable West Coast yachtsman and racer. Having experienced over eight Transpacs, Mr. Dalziel sought out Al Mason to design a fast and sea kindly ocean cruiser but one suitable to be sailed by a family.
Between Don, Al Mason and John Salthouse, there was more than enough practical experience to draw upon. This is evident as you step aboard, the more you look the more you see!
Eventually age caught up with Don and he was forced to retire from the cruising life. This is when the current owner became custodian of this beautiful and capable yacht. In 1999 my wife and I cruised from Northern California along the coast to Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, thru the Canal and back to Virginia. From there Marnie has seen the East Coast, Caribbean, Bahamas, across the Atlantic and throughout the Mediterranean. Our cruising visited Turkey, Croatia, Greece, France, Italy, Spain, Canary Islands, Cape Verde and back across the Atlantic. We finished a six year circumnavigation in June 2013.
Throughout our adventures, the attention to detail and the quality of this yacht always stood out. Marnie is an excellent and comfortable sailing yacht in both light air and heavy wind and seas, capable of taking you and your family safely to any point on the globe.
For the sailor who truly appreciates a proper classic style offshore cruising yacht maintained to the highest standard, Marnie is one that should be put on the short list. She offers the total package, exceptional rugged construction, comfort and cruising performance.
MARNIE WAS DESIGNED BY NAVAL ARCHITECT AL MASON AND HAND CRAFTED IN NEW ZEALAND BY SALTHOUSE BOATBUILDERS LIMITED. SHE WAS LAUNCHED IN 1985 AND SAILED HER MAIDEN VOYAGE OVER 8,000 MILES FROM AUCKLAND NZ TO THE ST FRANCIS YACHT CLUB IN SAN FRANCISCO BAY. SHE HAS CIRCUMNAVIGATED, SAILING THE OCEANS IN SAFETY, COMFORT AND STYLE. MARNIE IS ONE OF THOSE VESSELS THAT WILL CONTINUE TO BE SEEN IN HARBORS AROUND THE WORLD FOR GENERATIONS TO COME. SHE IS THE CONSUMATE GO ANY WHERE VESSEL ALLOWING HER CUSTODIANS TO FOLLOW THEIR DREAMS TO THE END OF THE RAINBOW.
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0.942585 |
A picturesque volcanic island rising out of the South Atlantic Ocean, the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena is one of the most isolated islands in the world, located 1,200 miles (nearly 2,000km) from the west coast of Africa. Ascension Island, 703 miles (1,131km) away, is its nearest landmass, and forms part of the same British territory along with the island of Tristan da Cunha.
Despite its small size and extremely remote location, St Helena has been described as a 'beautiful emerald set in bronze', with its lush subtropical forests and rolling hills almost entirely enclosed by sheer volcanic cliffs. Instead of bright lights, sandy beaches and shopping, the island offers tranquil beauty and 300 years of colonial history. Only about 4,500 people permanently live on the island; the local people, known as Saints, are friendly and charming, a mixture of descendants from British settlers, African slaves and contracted workers from Asia.
St Helena was discovered by the Portuguese in 1502, and was quickly established as a strategic and valuable stopover for ships travelling between Europe, South Africa and Asia, providing fresh water supplies and much-needed fruit to crews on long voyages between continents. It became a British dependency in 1834 and for many years was used as a place of exile, most famously for Napoleon after his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. Napoleon lived on the island, in Longwood House, for six years until his death in 1821, and the residence is now a museum owned by the French government. St Helena was also a prison during the South Africa War (formerly known as the Anglo-Boer War), and King Dinuzulu and about 5,000 Boer prisoners were held there from 1900 to 1904. The Boer Cemetery, located at Knollcombes, is a popular tourist attraction from this period.
St Helena's capital and only town is the Georgian seaport of Jamestown, nestled between towering cliffs and protected from the sea by 18th-century fortifications. The town's most prominent feature is Jacob's Ladder, 699 steps embedded into the near vertical cliffs that connects the valley floor to the top of Ladder Hill. It is popular with energetic tourists, as well as runners who come from around the world to compete in a race up the steps every year. Other attractions in St Helena include the Heart-Shaped Waterfall, the castle and its gardens, Sandy Bay, and the Central Peaks.
St Helena can currently only be reached by ship, which is a big part of the appeal for adventurous travellers. A commercial airport has recently been built, with the first large passenger jet landing in April 2016. The airport is not yet fully operational due to concerns over high winds, but the aim is to introduce frequent commercial flights between St Helena, South Africa and the UK.
We are looking for contributors for our St Helena travel guide. If you are a local, a regular traveller to St Helena or a travel professional with time to contribute and answer occasional forum questions, please contact us.
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0.997465 |
Aren't the parents responsible for the acts of their children?
While, in terms of parenting, the answer is yes, to some degree the parents are responsible, that is a far cry from rendering parents legally liable for their childrens' bad acts.
A parent cannot be held responsible for damages caused by the child on account of that parent's failure to supervise properly the child ( Holodook v. Spencer, 36 N.Y.2d 35, 51, 364 N.Y.S.2d 859, 324 N.E.2d 338).
Where the parent negligently entrusted a "dangerous instrument" to the child.
By giving this dangerous instrumentality to a child, the parent has placed others in harm's way, and in that fashion, has breached his or her duty to control the child's (who may lack appropriate judgment) use of dangerous instruments to protect others (in legalese, "third parties") from foreseeable harm.
This exception has been recognized on more than one occasion by New York's Court of Appeals, New York State's highest court. See, e.g., Nolechek v. Gesuale, 46 N.Y.2d 332, 338-339, 413 N.Y.S.2d 340, 385 N.E.2d 1268 ; see, also Rios v. Smith, 95 N.Y.2d 647, 722 N.Y.S.2d 220, 744 N.E.2d 1156 .
Some Examples of "Dangerous Instrumentalities"
Two (2) examples where parents have been held liable for negligently allowing their children to play and/or use dangerous instrumentalities (as a result of which other, third parties, were injured) include where under age children were allowed to play with (1) air guns (in contravention of New York's Penal Code), and (2) All-Terrain Vehicles (ATVs).
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0.999972 |
If you were to describe what it means to be a man in one word what would it be and why?
"There isn't really a word in our modern language that fully describes what it means to be a man. So I chose Virtus, which is the Latin word for manliness. Virtus means strength and martial courage at its core, but also encompasses all the higher virtues, like resolution, faithfulness, industry, discipline, and integrity. It means harnessing all your potential as a man in order to live and excellent and flourishing life."
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0.999998 |
Informaci³n sobre la vacunaci³n contra los virus de la polio. Historial de la investigacion y desarrollo de la vacuna.
Translate this page The polio Quiz. Take the polio Quiz! ¡Responde al Cuestionario sobre la polio!Réponds au questionnaire sur la polio! Responda o Teste da Pólio!
Brief history of Salk's efforts to stop polio; written in comicbook style. From PBS.
Information about the drive from International Broadcasting Bureau.
Extractions: VOA News Now ... What is Polio? A description of the disease and its causes. What is the Risk? What are the risk factors and what you can do to prevent the spread of the disease? What is the World Doing? A profile of worldwide polio eradication efforts and links to other partnering organizations. What Can You Do? How to become involved in eradicating polio. Photo Gallery Take a walk through a slideshow from our reporters. Audio/Video Library A library of some VOA and WorldNet programs. The Polio Eradication Project Annual Report Download a PDF file of the PEP's annual report.
"A Paralyzing Fear:The Story Of Polio In America"
An online companion resource to A Paralyzing Fear The Story of polio in America,a documentary produced by Nina Gilden Seavey and Paul Wagner for PBS.
Provides information on medical and rehabilitation services, including polio surviror center.
Extractions: Web posted at: 11:43 p.m. EDT (0343 GMT) WASHINGTON (CNN) If vaccination programs continue, polio could be eradicated by 2000, the World Health Organization said Saturday. Nearly 450 million children were vaccinated in 1997, WHO said in its annual report to be released Sunday. But the program is in danger of losing momentum and becoming a victim of its own success, said Dr. Harry Hull , who directs WHO's global eradication effort. "It's like climbing a mountain and it gets steeper and steeper and steeper the closer we get to the end," he said. "We've made fabulous progress. The number of cases worldwide is down by 90 percent. Polio is totally gone from the Americas. It's gone from Europe. It's now gone from China. It's concentrated to south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa right now. So we're winning the battle but we've still got a long way to go." CNN's Richard Blystone reports One problem is money. Hull said there was a $60 million shortfall in the program's budget. Rotary International has pledged $400 million for the campaign, but WHO says more money is needed.
Extractions: Post-Polio Syndrome (PPS) is a condition that can strike polio survivors anywhere from 10 to 40 years after their recovery from polio. PPS is caused by the death of individual nerve terminals in the motor units that remain after the initial polio attack. Symptoms include fatigue, slowly progressive muscle weakness, muscle and joint pain, and muscular atrophy. The severity of PPS depends upon how seriously the survivors were affected by the first polio attack. Doctors estimate the incidence of PPS at about 25 percent of the survivor population. The only way to be sure a person has PPS is through a neurological examination aided by other laboratory studies (for example, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), neuroimaging, electrophysiological studies, and muscle biopsies or spinal fluid analysis).
Contains polio surveillance data for India updated weekly, with information and documents on the polio Eradication Programme.
A Brief History of polio. From Ancient Egypt to the 20th Century. polio hasprobably caused paralysis and death for most of human history.
Features product topicrelated poems by this noted Post polio Syndrome author.
Independent publisher of books featuring reallife stories about polio, WWI and managing stress.
polio Post polio Links and Resources! From polio Electronic Discussion GroupArchive you can SUBSCRIBE and you can read some of the previous postings.
Extractions: Thanks to the St John's Polio List, I have learned alot and get loads of support too! From POLIO Electronic Discussion Group Archive you can SUBSCRIBE and you can read some of the previous postings. I found this group late May 1997. What a blessing. Helped me learn and now I have a whole new set of friends! Thanks! Update: October 10. 1997- Have now filed for disability retirement, long term disability and social security. Life is changing rapidly. Pool therapy is helping the pain somewhat. Will get to visit the electric wheelchair clinic at UCLA soon and figure out if it is gonna be a power chair or electric scooter.
Postpolio Syndrome, CFS, progressive long term disabilities, helpful hints and links, information on SS Guidelines, equipment options, accessibility solutions, handicap lifestyle changes, family awareness and support.
Extractions: We have since then bought a Ford F150 and replaced the tailgate with a commercial quality electric lift usually used by agencies like the Sheriff's Department. We will supply a picture as soon as we can borrow a camera. We had many reason's for making this our choice after looking into all the other ramps, vans, lifts available on the market. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to drop us a note. Let us explore the question "Who has a Disability" with an open mind and heart. Is someone disabled only if you can see that they have a physical limitation? Is someone disabled by something you can not readily see or perceive? If you take a very broad brush and label anyone who has a limitation of any kind, either mentally, physically or emotionally, then everyone is disabled on some level. Why do some people feel uncomfortable if they see someone using a "tool" to help them walk or get from point A to point B? Everyone uses tools to get a job done, don't they? If someone has a physical limitation, does that automatically mean they have a less than average mental capacity? Who and what defines an individual's worth to society? We hope to explore these questions and many more with you and will look forward to hearing your thoughts on the subjects as time goes on.
Extractions: Reprinted from Medical Hypotheses , vol. 42, 1994, pp. 347-354, with permission of the publisher. Go to subsequent clarification to this article. This article is part of a collection of material on Polio vaccines and the origin of AIDS which in turn is part of Brian Martin's website on suppression of dissent University of California San Francisco, Mission Center, 1855 Folsom Street, Suite 566, San Francisco California 94143-0286, USA. *California Pacific Medical Center, California Campus, 3700 California Street, PO Box 7999, San Francisco, California 94120, USA (Correspondence to RBS). Abstract Although mass vaccination programs have resulted in the eradication of a number of human infectious diseases, vaccine contamination has been a persistent concern. In particular, it is now known that the early polio vaccines were contaminated with at least one monkey virus, SV40. The transfer of monkey viruses to man via contaminated vaccines is particularly relevant to the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), since the causative agent of AIDS, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), is thought to be derived from a simian precursor virus. Furthermore, human infection with this virus appears to be a relatively recent event. We hypothesize that the AIDS pandemic may have originated with a contaminated polio vaccine that was administered to inhabitants of Equatorial Africa from 1957 to 1959. The mechanism of evolution of HIV from this vaccine remains to be determined.
Translate this page Schweizerische Interessengemeinschaft für polio-Spätfolgen (SIPS) - Communautésuisse d'intérêts des suites tardives de la polio (CIPS).
polio and Postpolio Syndrome. Search MEDLINE for recent research articleson polio and Post-polio Syndrome polio Postpolio Syndrome.
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Inside HSAs: Knowledge is Power!
HSAs or Health Savings Accounts are the result of federal legislation passed in 2003.
Their main purpose, as far as the government is concerned, is to help bring down the cost of health insurance, and also health care.
HSAs are what were known as High Deductible Health Plans, or HDHP, for short.
Q. How can I reduce the expenses?
One can reduce the expense of, for example, automobile insurance by increasing the deductible(s).
This means that coverage generally doesn't begin (sometimes preventative care can be an exception) until the deductible has been met.
Typically, people with an HSA will choose a deductible that is at least twice the amount that people typically choose for a regular PPO policy that offers first dollar benefits for doctor visits and prescriptions.
In the meantime, policy owners fund a separate account that is, for the most part unconnected with their health insurance policy to pay for out of pocket medical, dental, and vision expenses.
This separate account which is roughly similar to an IRA which is highly tax-advantaged, but it has some important rules associated with it that anyone with an HSA should become familiar with.
In a nutshell, the idea of the HSA is that if consumers spend their own money, they will be more careful about which kinds of health care services they consume, and from whom.
Efficient providers will be rewarded, while inefficient providers will be punished, and this should have an effect on prices.
HSAs have a bit of a track record now, and there is some evidence to support that they are actually working as intended if perhaps a little slower than expected.
Q. What are the reasons I should consider when buying a HSA policy?
A. There are many reasons to consider purchasing an HSA-qualified health insurance policy.
HSAs are essentially a tax shelter for money earmarked for medical expenses. Thus, once you establish a qualified health insurance policy, you are able to make contributions to an HSA account. The money going in to an HSA can then be written off on taxes even if it remains in the account unspent.
It can accumulate from year to year, and can also draw interest or be put in to financial vehicles of different types like stocks or mutual funds.
The capital gains are also free from taxation as long as the funds are used to pay for qualified medical expenses.
If funds are withdrawn from an account before Medicare eligibility, and used for non-qualified expense, all applicable taxes will be due as well as a 10% penalty.
After one becomes eligible for Medicare, if funds are used for non-qualified medical expense, there is no penalty, but normal rates of taxation will apply.
Though there are some rules governing how you can use an HSA which you would be wise to become familiar with, overall, they tend to make health insurance simpler, and more affordable.
To understand why HSAs are a good deal, it helps to look at health insurance the way that health insurance companies do.
Q. What is the price of policy based on?
A. The price of any insurance policy is based on probability of use.
Even if you’re very healthy, you may use your health insurance frequently to pay for doctor visits or prescriptions drugs if your policy offers first dollar coverage (plus copays) for these benefits.
Since the insurance company assumes you will be using these benefits if you are paying for them, the health insurance company will set your premium high enough to cover these costs.
As it turns out, if you opt for such a benefit rich plan, you will very likely pay more to the health insurance company than you would have paid if you simply had paid for these costs out of pocket.
Q. What all factors add to the monthly premiums?
A. Insurance companies will always do what they can to cover their costs. One significant driver of high premiums is the escalating cost of healthcare in general.
The current model of healthcare benefits actually fuels this problem because it doesn’t encourage people to shop for the best price.
If you have health insurance, and the cost of your prescription medications are the same no matter where you buy them, you are likely to shop based mainly on convenience.
Why go any further than the corner pharmacy?
If your health insurance policy didn’t cover incidental medical expenses like prescriptions and doctor visits until you’ve met your deductible, you would then have an incentive to become a better shopper.
Once there are millions of really good shoppers, the overall cost of healthcare is likely to go down. People will quickly find ways to save even if it does require slightly more effort, and HSAs are at the heart of this transformation of healthcare.
Even so, it is understandable for people used to benefit-rich plans to have difficulty in adjusting their thinking.
Some of this is due to the fact that the insurance benefits most people are used to are almost entirely employer-sponsored.
Q. What if I have an employer-sponsored plan?
A. If you have an employer sponsored plan, for example, of course it makes sense to take full advantage of whatever benefits you have.
Employers pay a lot for benefit because they see it as a way to attract and retain quality employees. As such, they are in competition with other employers for this scarce resource.
When considering an individual plan, however, you only have to worry about doing what is most financially prudent.
This is why HSAs are the way to go. Look at a benefit-rich plan, and compare the cost to a similar HSA plan.
Usually HSA qualified plans are considerably more affordable. If you were to purchase an HSA plan, every month you could save the difference in premium between the two plans.
You could then pay for the majority of medical expenses out of your HSA with pre-tax dollars—something you can’t do with a regular insurance policy.
If you’re tax bracket is 25%, you will automatically save at least this much on health care expenses right off the top.
Further, since you’re spending your own money, if you made even just a minor effort at comparison shopping, you will find that it is not difficult at all to save an additional 12%.
Q. What do I need to remember?
A. You need to remember that this is on top of the network discount you should also be receiving. When you compare all of these savings against the costs of a more traditional plan, HSAs become the easy choice.
If you decide to get an HSA, you should familiarize yourself with how they work. One thing you will want to do is keep all of your healthcare related receipts.
Additionally you will want to know how much you are allowed to put in every year, what the eligible expenses are, and much more.
Chances are, once you use it a few times you will understand how it works and you will better appreciate the benefits it has to offer.
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When it comes to analyzing an investment, what kinds of things do you look at? Do you read books, look in the newspapers, or use the internet? For most people, investment research is a very difficult process. While information is abundant and easily accessible, it is also excessive and confusing. Most investors have little to no clue as to where to start.
As a financial expert, I would like to give you some of my favourite investment research tips.
Can you potentially lose capital and if so, under what circumstances?
How much capital could you lose?
Is there potential for fraud?
Look at multiple periods of data. When it comes to quantitative research (studying numbers), it is very important to avoid something I call snapshot data. Far too often, I see investors look at one set of data when evaluating an investment. You see, I can show you two different sets of the same type of data but just at different points in time and you could come to two completely different conclusions. It's no different than looking at two different pictures of the same thing taken at different times of the day and you have a completely different perspective of the object. The bottom line is to look at multiple periods of data to get a better understanding of the investment.
Be aware of the fees and costs. Every investment has some costs associated with it. Some fees are very transparent like mutual funds. For other investments, you will have to dig really deep to try to figure out all the fees and costs. Be very cautious with investments when you cannot get a good sense for the fees. In most cases, the higher the fees, the worse it will be for the investor. However, it is equally important to know what you will be getting for those fees. It is very possible that higher fees can sometimes translate to a bigger benefit. Basically, it boils down to something I call value. Value to me is the benefit less the cost. The cost is only half of the equation.
Know the tax implications of the investment. When investing money, it is not about how much you make but rather what you keep that counts. Imagine two investments that give you returns of 8% and 10%. Which would you choose? It's not a trick question. Given this data, you would always choose the 10% investment. However, what if after taxes, the 8% investment becomes 7% and the 10% investment becomes 6%? Now, which would you choose? Every investment can have different tax implications. The smart, savvy investor always take the time to understand the after tax benefits.
Know something about the company offering the investment. Often the quality of the investment comes from the quality of the company offering the investment. For me, knowing something about the company is simply a security blanket. It is that added dose of comfort if I know the company has been around for a while and has some track record. It does not mean that new companies are bad but rather that I need to do a little more homework for re-assurance.
These five tips are simply some of the essential parts in my research process; the list is far from exhaustive. My basic principle for research is that the more research you do, the more likely you are to make better investment decisions. Good research should incorporate a combination of quantitative data as well as qualitative analysis. In the end multiple dimension analysis will always be better than single dimension analysis. Research is not something you simply do once. Rather good research is an ongoing process.
Hey, really good ideas you’ve covered here.
A lot of people jump in with the promise of a quick buck.
Excellent, excellent website. One personal bias is that you seem to like “Funds”. I will never invest in anything with the word “fund” in its name.
Great insights so succinctly and clearly put. I have been looking for some guidance on this. Thank you Jim.
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Sean McDermott [url=http://www.authenticsbuffalobills.com/cheap-ryan-groy-jersey]http://www.authenticsbuffalobills.com/cheap-ryan-groy-jersey[/url] , e on the way The Buffalo Bills have played just two regular season games - both, to varying degrees, blowout losses - and enough has changed about the team’s makeup and outlook that a bullet-point recap is necessary.Josh Allen replaced Nathan Peterman as the starting quarterback after just two quarters, and far ahead of the rookie’s assumed timeline for the promotionVeteran wide receiver Jeremy Kerley was released prior to the Week 2 game, paving the way for undrafted rookie Robert Foster to see more playing timeHead coach Sean McDermott took over defensive play-calling duties from coordinator Leslie Frazier after Buffalo’s defense surrendered 75 points in the first six quarters of the seasonAfter being inactive in Week 1, cornerback Vontae Davis started in Week 2, played for less than two quarters, then pulled himself from the game and promptly retiredMore change may be on the way as the 0-2 Bills try to find ways to play competitive football, let alone try to win. Buffalo feels very much like a team that is winging it at the moment, and that may not be a bad thing for the long-term development of the franchise.Year one of the McDermott and Brandon Beane era in Buffalo was not necessarily different. There was the ill-fated Peterman-for-Tyrod Taylor flip at quarterback in the middle of a playoff run that did not seem like it was part of any sort of long-term plan [url=http://www.authenticsbuffalobills.com/cheap-corey-bojorquez-jersey]http://www.authenticsbuffalobills.com/cheap-corey-bojorquez-jersey[/url] , for instance. But it was such a process-oriented year that, if only to me, McDermott mostly came across as a coach of routine and rigidity.That impression of him is starting to give way (again, maybe just for me) to one in which McDermott is actually pretty good at making unplanned adjustments on the fly.His second starting quarterback switch was a much more prudent move than the first one from last season. Allen had some bad plays, not limited to the two in which he threw interceptions, but he also clearly provided more juice for the offense than the man he replaced. If at any point the Bills’ offensive line can find it in themselves to block competently, Allen may even start to elevate the play of his supporting cast. Obviously there’s no way of knowing whether or not he’ll pan out this early on, but at minimum, the Bills clearly have a worthwhile experiment going on under center.And though he downplayed the development as coincidental, the moment McDermott started calling plays against the Chargers on Sunday, Buffalo’s defense improved not only dramatically [url=http://www.authenticsbuffalobills.com/cheap-star-lotulelei-jersey]http://www.authenticsbuffalobills.com/cheap-star-lotulelei-jersey[/url] , but immediately. In the second half of yesterday’s game, the Bills held the Chargers to just three points. Again: they had given up 75 points in the six quarters prior. They were suddenly defending the run better, pressuring Philip Rivers on the regular, and had far fewer coverage breakdowns. It was a dramatic improvement in a very short period of time. That can’t be pure coincidence.All of this is to say, though they may be winging it already as they try to turn their season around, what we saw from McDermott and Allen in yesterday’s loss was enough to remain cautiously optimistic about the long-term. In the short term, the team needs to keep with the change theme, because what they’ve been doing for most of the first two games of the season isn’t remotely good enough.Everyone’s wish list will differ slightly than mine, but here are some additional changes that I’d like to see the Bills make, sooner rather than later:Add a veteran quarterback to the roster. Allen needs as many experienced voices in his ear as possible. There’s so much riding on his development. (Yes, I realize that this is an easy request to make [url=http://www.billsauthorizedshops.com/authentic-john-miller-jersey]http://www.billsauthorizedshops.com/authentic-john-miller-jersey[/url] , but a difficult one to pull off in the middle of a season.)Use Chris Ivory more. The Bills lack an edge on offense at the moment, and Ivory’s running style is perfectly suited to fixing that particular problem.Employ a faster pace in the passing game. I understand the desire to take advantage of Allen’s arm strength, but the Bills need more rhythm in their passing attack at the moment, and the line isn’t blocking well enough for those slower-developing route combinations to play out.Add depth to the secondary. Even before the Davis situation and injuries to Taron Johnson and Phillip Gaines, the Bills didn’t have enough depth in their secondary. They can do better than having a journeyman safety taking most of the reps as the nickel cornerback.Are you okay with the Bills winging it a little in what appears to be a down year for the organization? Apparently there isn’t much national appeal to watching Derek Anderson make his first career start for the Buffalo Bills. When Anderson, a 13-year veteran who signed with Buffalo on Oct. 9, leads the Bills (2-4) into action against the Indianapolis Colts (1-5), only fans living in the Buffalo and Indianapolis television markets will get to watch the game as CBS’ featured 1 p.m. Eastern telecast. This matchup between sub-.500 teams doesn’t carry much national intrigue, continuing a recent theme for the Bills. As was the case with Buffalo’s Week 5 home game against the Tennessee Titans, and the Week 6 road game against the Houston Texans, broadcast coverage of Sunday’s Bills/Colts showdown will be limited to the local markets. CBS’ No. 6 broadcasting team of Spero Dedes (play-by-play) and Adam Archuleta (analyst) will handle the Bills/Colts clash. The areas that can see Buffalo are highlighted in blue (map courtesy of 506sports):Most of the national audience gets to watch Tom Brady and the New England Patriots travel to the Chicago Bears (in red) [url=http://www.billsauthorizedshops.com/authentic-jerry-hughes-jersey]http://www.billsauthorizedshops.com/authentic-jerry-hughes-jersey[/url] , while the other 1 p.m. CBS telecast pits the Houston Texans against the Jacksonville Jaguars (in green). This will be the 70th meeting all-time between these former AFC East rivals. Buffalo leads the all-time series 37-31-1, including prevailing 13-7 in overtime at snowy New Era Field on Dec. 10, 2017, a game the Bills won when LeSean McCoy rambled in from 21 yards out late in the overtime period. The last time the Bills traveled to Indianapolis, the Colts pulled out a 20-13 win on Nov. 25, 2012.
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You will find that carpenter ants in the Charlotte area are one of the largest ants in North and South Carolina. There are several species of carpenter ants that may be found infesting homes and other buildings. Normally workers are black or red and black in color and range in size from 3/8 to 1/2 inch. Winged queen ants may be as large as one inch. However, size is not a reliable characteristic to identify carpenter ants.
Ants are divided into different castes, i.e. workers, queens, and males (figure 1). Some ants, including carpenter ants, have polymorphic workers, which means that within one species the workers occur in different sizes. The best method to separate carpenter ants from other ants is by the following characteristics: 1) a waist with one node (petiole) and 2) a thorax with an evenly rounded upper surface (figure 2).
There are other ants that appear similar and are occasionally mistaken for carpenter ants. They may have one or two nodes. However, they can be distinguished from carpenter ants by the uneven profile of their thorax (figure 3). These ants are usually not wood-infesting, so it is important to correctly identify the ants before control is attempted as control strategies vary with different ant species.
Carpenter ants differ from termites by having dark-colored bodies, narrow waists, elbowed (bent) antennae, and if present, hind wings shorter than front wings (figure 4). Carpenter ants are very common and are frequently seen in the open.
Termites are light-colored, have no waist constriction, have straight antennae and, if present, wings are of equal length (figure 5). Termites are much less common. They avoid light and are rarely seen outside of their colony.
Carpenter ants in the Charlotte area feed on sources of protein and sugar. Outdoors, carpenter ants feed on living and dead insects. They are also very attracted to honeydew, a sweet liquid produced by aphids and scale insects. Aphids and scales feed on trees, shrubs, and other plants. Indoors, carpenter ants feed on meats, as well as syrup, honey, sugar, jelly, and other sweets. Carpenter ants DO NOT eat wood, but hollow it out for their home. They remove wood as they create galleries and tunnels.
In Charlotte carpenter ants will be found nesting in moist wood including rotting trees, tree roots, tree stumps, and logs or boards lying on or buried in the ground. They can also nest in moist or decayed wood inside buildings. Wood decay may be caused by exposure to leaks, condensation, or poor air circulation. Nests have been found behind bathroom tiles; around tubs, sinks, showers, and dishwashers; under roofing, in attic beams, and under subfloor insulation; and in hollow spaces such as doors, curtain rods, and wall voids. Carpenter ants may also nest in foam insulation.
Carpenter ants damage wood by excavating and creating galleries and tunnels. These areas are clean, i.e. they do not contain sawdust or other debris, and are smooth, with a well sanded appearance (figure 6).
The damage to wood structures is variable. The longer a colony is present in a structure, the greater the damage that can be done. If structural wood is weakened, carpenter ant damage can be severe.
It is common in the Charlotte area to find carpenter ants in homes during spring. It is important to try to determine whether the ants are coming from an outdoor or an indoor nest, although this can be difficult. Their presence is not sufficient evidence to conclude that there is a nest in your home. You may be able to make a more accurate determination based on when you first see carpenter ants. If you find carpenter ants in your home during late winter or early spring, that suggests the ants are coming from a nest in the building. However, if you see activity later in the year, it is less clear if the nest is in the building.
When carpenter ants nests are indoors, mating swarms become trapped inside. Finding large numbers of winged ants indoors is a sure sign that an indoor nest exists and may give the approximate location of the colony.
Finding one to several winged queens (figure 4) does not automatically mean a nest is present indoors. It is more likely the queens have just mated and have entered the home, searching for nesting sites. Wingless queens (figure 1) found walking indoors are new queens that have recently shed their wings but are still searching for nesting sites. They are not an indication of an indoor nest.
Charlotte's climate in almost all cases, carpenter ants seen indoors during winter are an indication that there is an inside nest. One exception is when ants are brought indoors in firewood. Workers from firewood are not able to start nests in homes, nor do they damage wood structures in buildings.
It is also possible for a carpenter ants nest to exist in the Charlotte area in a house during winter but not be noticed. If the nest exists at a site that does not receive sufficient indoor heat or sunshine, e.g. a north-facing outside wall, the ants will remain dormant until spring.
In the Charlotte area it is an important method for preventing carpenter ant problems indoors to eliminate high moisture conditions that are attractive to them. Also, replace any moisture-damaged wood. Be careful that wood or lumber that is stored in a garage or near the house is kept dry and, if possible, elevated to allow air circulation.
Store firewood as far away from the home as possible. Remove tree and shrub stumps and roots. Trim branches that overhang the home. Note: Be sure the tree or shrub species can be pruned at the time you wish; e.g., do not prune oak between April 15 and September 15 because of the risk of oak wilt. Also, prune branches that touch electrical lines or other wires that are connected to the house; carpenter ants can travel from branches to lines and use them like a highway to buildings.
Many foods that attractive carpenter ants in the Charlotte area, including honey or other sweet foods. During spring, carpenter ants are particularly attracted to protein sources, such as tuna packed in water. (Carpenter ants are not attracted to tuna packed in oil.) Set out small pieces of tuna for the ants to take back to their nest. It is easier to follow the ants when they are carrying food. With patience and perseverance, you can follow the ants back to their nest.
Other signs that indicate an active nest is nearby include small piles of coarse sawdust or wood shavings, consistent indoor sightings of large numbers of worker ants, i.e. 20 or more, and large numbers of winged ants indoors. Carpenter ants typically swarm from late winter through spring.
The best method to control carpenter ants in the Charlotte area is to locate and destroy the nest, replace damaged or decayed wood, and, if they exist, eliminate moisture problems. Eliminating a carpenter ant nest is a difficult and challenging task. It is possible for a home dweller to control carpenter ants on their own. However, in most cases, control should be performed by an experienced pest control applicator. They have the experience and a wider array of products to more effectively control a carpenter ant problem. Home dwellers can still play a crucial role in control programs by providing information to a pest control provider, such as when, where, and how many ants were seen.
Home Spectors is the best control, (704) 545-2847.
If it is difficult to locate the nest, an insecticidal dust can be applied into wall voids through electrical outlets. Carpenter ants commonly travel along electrical wiring and are likely to encounter the insecticides. This method works more slowly than a direct treatment into the nest. Boric acid is available to home dwellers to treat wall voids through electrical outlets. CAUTION: Use extreme care around electrical wiring and take all necessary steps to avoid accidental electric shocks.
If the nest is exposed (e.g. due to remodeling or reroofing) you can use a liquid or aerosol ready-to-use insecticide, such as bifenthrin, cyfluthrin, deltamethrin, or permethrin. Spray the insecticide directly into as much of the nest as possible. The more of the colony that is exposed, the better your chance of destroying it. It is necessary to anticipate a carpenter ant colony and have a product ready at the start of construction. Once the nest is exposed, that portion of the colony will try to relocate to protect themselves.
If the nest cannot be located, we have found in the Charlotte area baits may be an effective alternative. Baits work by combining an attractive food source with a slow-acting toxicant. A delayed toxicant is critical because it allows the ants to forage normally for days or even weeks. During that time, ants consume the bait and return to the nest to share the bait with the rest of the colony. In a process known as trophallaxis, one ant regurgitates its stomach contents to another ant. This food sharing behavior enables the bait to be spread throughout the colony before the toxicant takes effect.
There are a few baits available in the Charlotte market to nonprofessionals for carpenter ant control. Most retail products are liquid or granular formulations containing hydramethylnon, sulfluramid, abamectin, or boric acid. An inexpensive liquid bait of 1% boric acid in a 10% sugar water solution can be mixed at home, but it is very slow acting and must be constantly replenished. Baits vary a great deal in their effectiveness. Carpenter ants have complex food preferences, and some of the sugar-based baits will not be attractive to the ants long enough to be successful.
Our pest control perfessionals are trained in baiting techniques and have access to a wider variety of products than consumers. They are more likely to achieve positive results. Contact Home Spectors (704) 545-2847.
In Charlotte carpenter ant nests found indoors are satellite nests that can be traced back to a parent colony outdoors in trees, stumps, roots, fence posts, landscape timbers, and other wood structures. When possible, remove wood that contains carpenter ant nests, or destroy the colony.
When this is not practical, and carpenter ants have been discovered entering your home from outdoor nests, a treatment with a residual insecticide around the building’s exterior helps keep them out of your home. Products, such as bifenthrin, cyfluthrin, or permethrin, are available to home dwellers. Be sure the product you intend to use is labeled for use around building exteriors. Professional pest control services can also treat your home’s exterior.
Have a profesional spray the product in a band, covering the foundation and under the lower edge of the siding to help keep ants from coming inside. Trim branches that overhang buildings or electrical wiring to avoid giving carpenter ants easy access to your home. Note: Be sure the tree or shrub species can be pruned at the time you wish, e.g. do not prune oak between April 15 and September 15 because of the risk of oak wilt.
Treating the homes exterior is a short term control measure. A permanent control method is to eliminate or remove the nest. If this cannot be done directly, then use baits to eradicate the outdoor colony.
Carpenter ants nest in trees in one of two situations: 1) in rotted, decayed wood or 2) in the center heartwood section of the tree. In neither case are they harmful to the tree. Control is unnecessary for the tree's health, as the ants are taking advantage of preexisting soft, weak wood to establish their colony. Insects, disease, or environmental conditions such as drought are often responsible for weakening and killing limbs or sections of trees. This allows wood rot to set in, which results in wood decay, giving carpenter ants the opportunity to colonize the tree. Carpenter ants use knots, cracks, holes, and old insect tunnels to gain access to these areas.
Control of carpenter ants in trees is warranted if there are indications that ants are entering homes from colonies in trees. If there is evidence of this, the best control is to bait the colony.
Carpenter Ant treatment is done by Home Spectors in Concord, Charlotte, Gastonia, Mooresville, Statesville, Monroe, Mint Hill, Hunterville, and surrounding areas.
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Given the current state of affairs at 1600 Pennsylvania, it's not surprising that there's a lot of talk about revolution in the air. How can the left rebuild itself from the wreckage of the 2016 election? I've heard some good ideas, I've heard a few great ones, but I've heard one very bad idea over and over: "The revolutions needs to focus on fixing the structure of the economy and not get bogged down by distractions like abortion or bathrooms or BLM."
Any leftist movement worthy of the name includes radical social justice as a top priority from day one. I am appalled by how many people I know who think that these "lesser issues" can wait until the big work is done.
If the pitch to women, to people of color, and to the LGBT community is "Help us fix the problems that we think are important first, and then we will take a look at your issues," why would anyone believe that? If you're saying that social justice issues are distractions, you have already sent a pretty clear message that you don't think these concerns are important.
If that's your idea of a revolution, you can leave me out.
I don't agree with the phrasing, and I certainly don't agree with the idea that the two are, or even can be, mutually exclusive. A system that is economically unjust is going to be socially unjust, and a system that's socially unjust is going to be economically unjust. We're adult human beings; we can focus on two things at once.
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0.999996 |
What’s one piece of advice that you think every 20-year-old should hear?
You’re about to enter the beginning of the second phase of your life which is totally different than the first.
Realize that you know virtually nothing about what it’s like so you need to learn what it’s like & how to be great at it.
Be humble & maximize your learning, ideally working in an apprentice relationship with a great boss/mentor & in a great community.
Make sure you always have the right to make sense of things.
Be open-minded & assertive at the same time & learn how to struggle & fail well.
Realize that meaningful work & meaningful relationships will fulfill you & help you be more successful.
Remember pain+reflection=progress so your failures will give you gems/improvements if you diagnose them well.
Be radically truthful & transparent so you triangulate with others & build better relationships.
Refer to principles when you encounter issues to find the appropriate principles to consider how to handle your situation, collect & refer to great principles from people who have been successful & start to write down your own principles.
Ah, there are so many more & to be 20 years old & have all that adventure ahead of you. It’s wonderful! Make the most of it.
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0.999948 |
In heaven, we will love each and every heavenly human being completely to our maximum capacity for love. God, however, will always be the principal object of our love in heaven since the reason why we love each of our heavenly neighbours will be precisely because we love God in the first place.
A part of what I am trying to say in my quoted sentence is that God will be the principal object of our love in heaven, because our heavenly love for God will be the reason for our heavenly love for our heavenly neighbours. Is this what the above sentence is portraying?
In heaven we shall completely love each other. This shall be made possible by our love for God for he is (or shall be) the primary object of our love.
In heaven we shall love each other fully. But God shall remain the primary object of our love for it is by him that we shall be able to love each other.
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0.999529 |
Samsung’s Galaxy S4 is currently the hottest selling phone from the house of Samsung, but the smartphone will descend from the pedestal in the near future as the Korean company gears up to launch the advanced and more innovative Samsung Galaxy S5. There has not been any official word about the specifications and features of the phone yet, but the rumors coming from reliable sources and websites cannot be ignored altogether.
Summarized below are the latest rumors and news making the rounds on the web which make the device desirable.
Buyers who are looking forward to upgrading their phone to the Galaxy S5 will probably have to wait for three or four months, which is not a long time compared to the launch date of the iPhone 6 or Nexus 6.
It is believed that the electronic giant will launch the Galaxy S5 within the first three months of 2014. These release date speculations have come from multiple sources, which strengthen the expectations of the release date for the upcoming gadget from Samsung.
Samsung is expected to swerve from its trend of using s polycarbonate casing for its phones. The Galaxy S5 is supposed to be all metal, and according to the Korean news site ET news, magnesium and aluminum are possible materials.
A report from EMSOdm.com also mentioned that the Galaxy S5 would have a metal casing. Reportedly, Samsung has made a payment to Catcher, which develops cases for the HTC One, the iPad and the MacBook Air. Back in September, Catcher was in the news along with Samsung; however, the cases for the device might not arrive until the second half of 2014.
There are some interesting anecdotes suggesting that the new metallic phone from Samsung could be the Galaxy F, which may be unveiled a few months before the S5. Some reports suggest that the Galaxy F may be a step ahead of the Galaxy S5 in technology, with a flexible screen similar to that of the Galaxy Round. Another model, perhaps the Galaxy S5, would keep the standard Super AMOLED screen and plastic body shell.
A report states that the Galaxy S5 may come with a flexible screen and may sport a leather polycarbonate casing like the Note 3. Also, there are chances that carbon fiber could also be used in the upcoming S5. According to a report from Android Beat, Samsung has entered into an agreement with Samsung Petrochemical and SGL Group, which is one of the largest producers of carbon fiber. Carbon fiber is a very light and strong material which would be perfect for the Galaxy S5.
Official news came from Samsung’s mobile head, J.K. Shin, when the executive said that the next smartphone would have a 64-bit processor. Samsung would take the bull by horns and make all possible efforts to outperform the iPhone 5S, which ensures that it would enhance its processor capacity by integrating a 64-bit chip into the Galaxy S5.
A Korean website, Digital Daily, revealed that Samsung may deploy a Exynos 6 processor, a new 14nm chip with 64-bit support and ARM’s cortex A53/A57 Big.Littleocta-core configuration. These probable features ensure that Samsung would come aggressively upon other rivals through its Galaxy S5. It is expected that the Galaxy S5 would have at least 3GB of RAM, though the company is already producing 4GB LPDDR3 mobile DRAM.
There is also a host of other apparent features that the Galaxy S5 is supposed to integrate.
An eye scanning security feature has supposedly become the latest passion of Samsung, and the company is expected to use it in the Galaxy S5 to get an edge over the biometric security of the iPhone 5S, which has a fingerprint sensor. The security feature is a highly anticipated one, though no reliable source has yet confirmed the news.
GalaxyClub.nl unearthed a patent filed by Samsung which stated that the company will update its ChatON messaging service to integrate multi-person conference calls. According to the patent, through the integration of the software, both front and rear cameras along with multiple streams visible along the bottom of the screen, can be used for conferencing. The system is similar to Google’s conference call system available through Hangouts, which can run ten different feeds at the same time. The software might be integrated within the ChatON or with a new TouchWiz feature.
Smartphones are getting smarter by the day. A look into the Sony Xperia Z substantiates the fact as the phone is dust and waterproof. Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S4 Active, which is a water-resistant model of its flagship. However, according to ET News, the Galaxy S5 will be a step ahead and will use waterproof and dust-proof technology. If industry onlookers are to be believed, then the Galaxy S5 would meet the standards of the S4 Active.
Some early reports stated that the Galaxy S5 would have a 13-megapixel camera with optical image stabilization, but lately reports have surfaced revealing altogether different camera specs. According to ET News, the company would use a 16-megapixel sensor that would be able to capture better images in low light. Samsung would manufacture these sensors itself, and they could feature Samsung’s own ISOCELL technology, which reportedly enhances light, thereby regulating the absorption of electrons that, in turn, gives high color fidelity, even in a darker environment.
According to a recent report, Samsung has failed to get a smooth supply of the components, which in turn has become the hurdle in integrating optical image stabilization. The components are not available for the slimmer devices. Optical image stabilization was thought to have been dropped from the Galaxy Note 3 due to a shortage of the modules.
Rumors are ripe that Samsung would launch two different versions of the Samsung Galaxy S5. One will run on Android, and the other would sport Samsung’s own Tizen operating system. However, there are slim chances of the company bringing two versions of the mobile device. Also, looking at the massive popularity of Android, Tizen does not look very competitive. The Korean company may launch the Tizen version of the Samsung Galaxy S5 in some markets.
The Samsung Galaxy S5 is also expected to have better software support, as the difference among hardware is negligible in smartphones today. The new updates would be faster for the Galaxy S5 compared to other Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (LON:BC94) (KRX:005930) devices as the company has been following the trend of bringing the new updates in its latest flagships first.
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Turkish fire on Kurdish YPG and ISIL positions in Syria.
Turkey is experiencing clashes between Syrian border troops and ISIL militants.
Turkey provides weapons to the Syrian Opposition, primarily to Syrian Turkmen Brigades.
Turkey and Russia tensions strike as Turkey shoots a Russian fighter jet and Turkmen rebels down a Russian helicopter.
Syrian government forces capture most of the Turkmen Mountain with Russian military aid.
Turkey vows to protect the Syrian Turkmen and Syrian Turkmen dominated areas of Bayırbucak and Azaz-Aleppo-Jarabulus line.
Turkey, whose relations with Syria had been friendly over the previous decade, condemned its President Bashar Assad over the violent crackdown on protests in 2011 and requested his departure from office. Previously, after 1999 when Bashar Assad's father Hafez al-Assad expelled Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan, the relationship between Syria and Turkey warmed. In the beginning of the Syrian Civil War, Turkey trained defectors of the Syrian Army on its territory, and in July 2011, a group of them announced the birth of the Free Syrian Army, under the supervision of Turkish intelligence. In October 2011, Turkey began sheltering the Free Syrian Army, offering the group a safe zone and a base of operations. Together with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Turkey has also provided the rebels with arms and other military equipment. Tensions between Syria and Turkey significantly worsened after Syrian forces shot down a Turkish fighter jet in June 2012, and border clashes erupted in October 2012.
Turkey also provided refuge for Syrian dissidents. Syrian opposition activists convened in Istanbul in May to discuss regime change, and Turkey hosts the head of the Free Syrian Army, Colonel Riad al-Asaad. Turkey has become increasingly hostile to the Assad government's policies and has encouraged reconciliation among dissident factions. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been trying to "cultivate a favorable relationship with whatever government would take the place of Assad." Beginning in May 2012, some Syrian opposition fighters began being armed and trained by the Turkish National Intelligence Organisation.
Turkey maintains a small enclave within Syria itself, the Tomb of Suleyman Shah on the right bank of the Euphrates in Aleppo Province, near the village of Qarah Qawzak (Karakozak). The Tomb is guarded by a small permanent garrison of Turkish soldiers, who continue to rotate in from a battalion based at the Turkish border some 25 kilometres (16 mi) away, even as the civil war unfolded around them. Up until Syrian forces shot down a Turkish warplane in June 2012, the garrison numbered 15 men in total. Following the incident, the Turkish government doubled the number of soldiers stationed at the tomb to 30, while then-Prime Minister Erdoğan warned that "the tomb of Suleyman Shah and the land that surrounds it are Turkish territory. Any act of aggression against it would be an attack on our territory and NATO territory." Analysts have cited the tomb as a potential future flashpoint in Turkish-Syrian relations.
Academics, journalists, and several heads of state have noted that Turkey actively works with ISIS through funding, supplying weapons, allowing fighters to freely move to and from Turkey, and providing healthcare to wounded ISIS fighters. It is also claimed that Turkey buys oil on the black market from ISIS and that Turkey smuggles weapons to ISIS fighters.
Numerous incidents along the Syrian–Turkish border have taken place during the Syrian Civil War, straining the relations between the countries. Dozens were killed, both among civilians and military personnel. Following Syria's downing of a Turkish jet in 2012, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan changed the military's rules of engagement so that any Syrian element approaching the border would be deemed a threat and be treated as a military target. Turkey has bolstered its defenses and deployed additional troops on its border with Syria in mid to late September 2013, with convoys of military vehicles ferrying equipment and personnel and additional short range air defenses set up.
During the 5 December 2011 night, about 35 armed fighters tried to cross the border of Syria from Turkey, but were engaged immediately by the Syrian border forces who inflicted several wounds to them and were able to repel them back to Turkey. Once they were back on Turkish soil, the Turkish army allegedly picked them up in trucks and took care of the injured fighters. A further attempt happened during the night of 12 December, when 15 infiltrators tried again to cross the border. They were unsuccessful and two of them were killed by Syrian border patrols.
On 22 June 2012, Syrian air defenses shot down a Turkish F-4 Phantom fighter jet, and both pilots were killed. The incident significantly raised tensions between the two countries. Syria stated that it had shot the fighter down using anti-aircraft artillery near the village of Om al-Tuyour, while it was flying over Syrian territorial waters one kilometer away from land. Turkey's foreign minister stated the jet was shot down in international airspace after accidentally entering Syrian airspace, while it was on a training flight to test Turkey's radar capabilities. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan vowed retaliation, saying: "The rules of engagement of the Turkish Armed Forces have changed ... Turkey will support Syrian people in every way until they get rid of the bloody dictator and his gang." Ankara acknowledged that the jet had flown over Syria for a short time, but they said such temporary overflights were common, had not led to an attack before, and alleged that Syrian helicopters had violated Turkish airspace five times without being attacked and that a second, search-and-rescue jet had been fired at. Assad later expressed regret over the incident. In August 2012, reports appeared in some Turkish newspapers claiming that the Turkish General Staff had deliberately misinformed the Turkish government about the fighter's location when it was shot down. The reports said that a NATO command post at Izmir and a British base in Cyprus had confirmed that the fighter was shot down inside Syrian waters and that radar intelligence from U.S. forces had disproved any "accidentally entered Syrian waters" flightpath error. The General Staff denied the claims.
Tensions were further raised later that year when Syrian mortar rounds began landing in Turkish territory. On 3 October, a Syrian mortar shell hit the Turkish town of Akçakale, killing 5 civilians. Turkey responded by shelling Syrian army positions along the border. Throughout October, Syrian mortar shells repeatedly landed in Turkish territory, and the Turkish military launched retaliatory artillery and mortar strikes, firing into Syria a total of 87 times. These attacks reportedly killed 12 Syrian soldiers and destroyed several tanks.
In the early hours of 14 January 2013, a shell fired by unknown Syrian forces landed in an olive grove near the border village of Akçabağlar, causing no casualties. On January 30, Syrian El Muhaberat agents tried to cross the border between Turkey and Syria but were turned back under fire by Turkish forces.
On 11 February 2013, a bomb exploded at the Turkısh-Syrian border crossing in Cilvegözü, killing 14. According to BBC, the deadly attack killed 17 people and injured 30 more.
On April 30, 2013, according to Syrian opposition activists, the Syrian air force raided the headquarters of a rebel camp on Syrian-Turkish border, killing 5. Activists told Hurriyet Daily News that the air attack was made on headquarters of a Salafist group Ahrar al-Sham. A Turkish aid worker said the air strike also hit a warehouse on the Syrian side of the border used by aid groups. Another Syrian activist at Bab al-Hawa said people waiting to cross the Syrian-Turkish border were among those hit. He added that at least 15 wounded were taken to hospital near the crossing on the Syrian side and among the dead were a one-and-a-half-year-old child and two teenage girls. Some Syrian activists said some of the casualties were suffering breathing difficulties but said they did not know what type of munitions had been used in the attack. "We cannot confirm that there were any chemical weapons involved," Reyhanli mayor Huseyin Sanverdi told Reuters.
On 2 May 2013, fighting occurred between Syrian anti-government insurgents and Turkish border guards at the Akçakale border crossing. One Turkish border guard was killed in the engagement, reportedly the first armed clashes between Turkish government agents and anti-Assad militants.
On September 16, 2013, Turkish jets shot down a Syrian helicopter on the Syrian-Turkish border. According to Turkish official statement, Turkish warplanes made the intercept after a Syrian Mi-17 helicopter had crossed into Turkish airspace and the government warned it had taken all necessary measures to defend itself against any further such violations. Syrian army acknowledged the helicopter had strayed into Turkish airspace for a short time, while monitoring "terrorists" moving across the border into Syria, but said it was an accident and that the aircraft was on its way back when it was shot down.
Five Syrian Kurds were killed while crossing borders into Turkey on January 20, 2014. Zahir Mulla and Muhammad Ahmad were killed along with other three men (whose identities couldn't be identified), when Turkish border guards opened fire.
On 23 March 2014, Turkish fighter jets shot down a Syrian MiG-23. The Syrian Arab Republic claims that its aircraft was in Syrian airspace on a mission to attack rebel held areas in the city of Latakia when it was shot down by Turkey in an act of "blatant aggression." The Syrian pilot successfully ejected from the aircraft as the aircraft was being shot down. Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan stated that Turkish F-16s shot down the aircraft for violating Turkish airspace and said that the Turkish "response will be heavy if you violate our airspace."
In the night of 21–22 February 2015, a convoy of 572 Turkish troops in 39 tanks and 57 armoured vehicles entered Syria through Kobanî to evacuate the 38-man Turkish military garrison guarding the Suleyman Shah tomb and move the remains of Suleyman Shah to a different site because of a rumored attack threat of ISIL. The Turkish military did not seek permission from Syria to carry out the mission, the Syrian Foreign Ministry condemned the move, saying that Turkey "committed an act of flagrant aggression on Syrian land."
On 16 May 2015, a Turkish Air Force F-16 shot down an Iranian made Mohajer 4 UAV that had violated Turkish airspace over Hatay province entering 11 km into Turkish airspace. Initial claims by the Turkish government mentioned an intruding helicopter was shot down, but later it was admitted that the downed aircraft was an UAV as claimed by the Syrian side.
In May, there was a public scandal over video footage released by the newspaper Cumhuriyet purporting to show Turkish intelligence shipping arms to Syrian Islamist rebels. The editor-in-chief and more than thirty officers involved in the search and the attempted search of another truck of weapons some time earlier now face charges for breaking counter-terrorism laws, attempting to overthrow the government and military espionage.
Turkey has, despite national and international criticism, largely refused to directly engage militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), despite continued threats from ISIL to pursue more operations on Turkish soil. The Turkish response to the ISIL-led Siege of Kobanî as well as a series of terrorist attacks on Turkish soil allegedly linked to ISIL perpetrators, was largely subdued apart from a series of incidents on the Turkish–Syrian border. On 24 July 2015, ISIL and Turkish soldiers actively engaged in the Turkish border town of Kilis, marking a dangerous new escalation in the ties between Turkey and ISIL.
On August 25, 2015 Turkish newspaper Bugün ran a front-page story showing alleged transfer of weapon and explosives from Turkey to ISIL through Akcakale border post. A couple of days later offices of Koza İpek Media Group, the owner of the newspaper, were raided by Turkish police.
In late November 2015, Turkey started tougher controls to stop ISIL militants crossing on a 60-mile stretch of the border with Syria where ISIL had control of the Syrian side. The crossing was used for smuggling and for arms transfers. This followed Russian President Putin directly accusing Turkey of aiding ISIL and al-Qaeda, and pressure from the U.S.
With the Turkish government thinking that the declaration was enough, and with only a minimum of western airstrikes helping the defenders of Kobanî, ISIL troops edged closer to the city, eventually entering it from the south and east.
Feeling betrayed by the Turkish government and hearing that Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu's previous vow not to let Kobanî fall was in fact a lie, refugees on the border and citizens in the cities of Istanbul, Ankara, Antakya, Antalya, Eskişehir, Denizli, Kocaeli, Diyarbakır, Siirt, Batman, and elsewhere began to protest. Turkish police responded with tear gas and water cannons, and live fire in the southern province of Adana, killing protestors.
By 7 October, ISIL militants and Kurdish defenders were fighting in the streets of Kobanî, with many dead and scores wounded on both sides. American and Arab states conducted airstrikes in support of the defense of the town. However, US officials acknowledged that airstrikes would not likely be decisive in preventing the fall of Kobanî. They described the air campaign as a broad effort to undermine ISIL's ability to operate rather than an intervention that could turn the tide of a particular battle, such as the one at Kobanî.
As the battle for Kobanî continued to rage, rioting continued in Turkey, and almost 40 people were killed in street clashes by mid-October. In late October, ISIL began shelling the border post near Kobanî.
On 11 October, Turkish President Erdogan denounced the protests, claiming that they were attacking Turkey's "peace, stability, and environment of trust." He stated that the government was already caring for 200,000 Kurdish refugees from the Kobanî area and asked, "What does Kobanî have to do with Turkey?"
By mid-October, fighting had also renewed between Turkish military forces and PKK elements in southeastern Turkey.
On 29 November 2014, ISIL fighters began attacking YPG fighters in Kobanî from Turkish territory. Kurdish sources in Kobane said that on November 29 ISIL fighters attacked Kobane from Turkish territory, and that the assault began with a vehicle driven by a suicide bomber coming from Turkish territory. During the attack, a group of ISIL fighters were seen atop granary silos on the Turkish side of the border. According to the German news outlet 'Der Spiegel', ISIL fighters also attacked YPG positions near the border gate from Turkish soil. According to the SOHR, YPG fighters crossed the Turkish border and attacked ISIL positions on Turkish soil, before pulling back to Syria. Soon afterwards, the Turkish Army regained control of the border crossing and silos area.
On 25 June 2015, fighters from ISIL launched an attack against Kobanî, detonating three car bombs. The ISIL fighters were reported to have disguised themselves as Kurdish security forces, before entering the town and shooting civilians with assault rifles and RPGs. Over 164 people are dead and 200 injured, making the attack one of the largest killings of civilians in the North of Syria.
Kurdish forces and the Syrian government claimed the vehicles had entered the city from across the border, an action denied by Turkey. ISIS also committed a massacre in the village of Barkh Butan, about 20 kilometres south of Kobanî, executing at least 23 Syrian Kurds, among them women and children.
On February 22, 2016, U.S.-Russia joint cease-fire deal announced to take effect in Syria on Feb. 27, but the “cessation of hostilities” does not include ISIL and the al-Nusra Front, the main jihadist factions. On Feb. 24, Turkish president, Erdoğan, during a speech said that “The PYD and the YPG need to be out of the scope of the cease-fire, just like Daesh (ISIL) is,”.
On 27 March 2014 an audio tape recording of high-level Turkish officials discussing Turkey's Syria strategy was released on YouTube. The officials discussed a false flag operation that would lead to an invasion of Syria. YouTube was subsequently blocked in Turkey.
A vote in the Turkish Parliament was scheduled for October 1, 2014 on whether or not to invade Syria as part of the war on ISIL. while preparations for a possible invasion were made. It was later delayed a day.
The de facto "declaration of war" is to take the form of two separate motions—one on Iraq and one on Syria, which would authorize Turkish troops to invade those countries. the opposition said they hadn't been able to read either motion, as the exact text had been delayed.
Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç said that the gist of the resolutions was to extend the current mandate for "hot pursuit" against the PKK and Syrian Army into Syria and Iraq, which was to end the second week in October, and to add ISIS to the list and set up a buffer zone on the Syrian side of the border.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan opened the parliamentary session by saying that Turkey would fight against so called Islamic State and other "terrorist" groups in the region but it would stick to its aim of seeing Bashar al-Assad removed from power.
With the governing party losing its majority in the Turkish general election on 7 June 2015, rumors began to circulate that President Erdoğan would order an invasion of Syria to prevent the creation of a Kurdish state straddling northern Syria and Iraq.
On June 26, Erdogan said he would "never allow the establishment of a Kurdish state in northern Syria". By the end of June, a number of Turkish newspapers reported that Ankara was considering a ground operation to establish a buffer zone in Northern Syria to prevent Syrian Kurds from declaring an independent state, a zone 110 km long and 33 km deep along the Turkish border.
The military demanded legal backing for such a move, and on 29 June 2015, Erdoğan chaired a meeting of the National Security Council to provide just that.
Leaked plans stated that, sometime during the first couple of weeks of July, up to 18 thousand troops would invade Syria via the Jarablus and Aazaz border crossings, areas in the hands of ISIL and the Free Syrian Army, respectively, and set up a buffer zone to which refugees could be repatriated.
Limiting intervention to airstrikes has also been discussed. The idea of going into Syria proved extremely unpopular with most sections of Turkish society, dissuading the government from invading.
On February 2016 Turkey and Saudi Arabia were pressing for ground operations in Syria, hoping for the involvement of the U.S. and the other allies.
Hezbollah said Turkey and Saudi Arabia were using the Islamic State group as a "pretext" to launch a ground operation in Syria.
On October 13, 2014 Turkey denied the United States to use Incirlik Air Base for attacking ISIS militants in Syria. The US has been frustrated that its efforts to build an international coalition to tackle Isis forces from the air have been partly hobbled by the difficulty of getting Turkey engaged. Later, on July 23, 2015 after long negotiations with USA, Turkey has agreed to allow U.S. planes to launch air strikes against Islamic State militants. The U.S. officials declined to give details of the agreement with Turkey. On February 25, 2016, Saudi Arabian war planes began arriving at the base as part of an anti-Isis build-up being deployed over Syria. The Saudi deployment added to US, German and British aircraft already using the base.
on April 2 and 3, the families of U.S. troops and civilian personnel stationed at İncirlik Air Base left the base after an order by the Pentagon and the U.S. State Department to leave several areas of Turkey for their security.
In July 2015, relations between ISIL and Turkey deteriorated, and people on the Turkish side of the border began to get killed, leading the Turkish government to pursue military action.
On 7 July 2015, reports surfaced that Turkish security forces seized a truck bound for Syria loaded with 10,000 detonators and explosive primers with total length of 290,000 metres (950,000 feet) in Akcakale, Sanliurfa province, southeastern Turkey. Five people were arrested. The detainees admitted attempts of crossing the border from the village of Aegean into Tal Abyad city in the Al-Raqqah Province.
On 20 July 2015, a cultural center in Suruç was bombed by a 20-year-old male Turkish ISIL member. 32 people were killed in the town of Suruç's municipal culture center in the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa, and at least 100 people were hospitalised.
One Turkish sergeant was killed by fire from ISIL forces in Syria, and four Turkish tanks returned fire into ISIL held territory in Syria. At least one ISIL militant was killed and an unknown number wounded.
Early on 24 July, three Turkish F-16 Fighting Falcons struck ISIL targets across the border from Kilis Province with smart bombs, the Turkish government announced. According to the Doğan news agency, as many as 35 ISIL militants were killed in this first air strike.
The Turkish government claimed that this was to prevent an attempted invasion by ISIL troops.
Government officials also announced that the US was allowed to use the İncirlik Airbase in southern Turkey, and the agreement by the Americans to allow Turkey to set up a no-fly zone fifty miles deep and several hundred miles wide within Syria, between Mare' and Jarabulus.
YPG (Syrian Kurds) accused Turkey that, on July 26, Turkish tanks shelled in the Kurdish-held village of Zormikhar, west of Kobane and, also, one of its vehicles had come "under heavy fire from the Turkish military east of Kobane in the village of Til Findire". Turkey said it was investigating the claim but insisted that its forces were not targeting Syrian Kurds.
On 24 and 25 October 2015, Kurds accused the Turkish military of opening fire at its forces in Tal Abyad after the majority Arab town was included into a Kurdish enclave. The Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu confirmed it and he said that Turkey had warned the PYD not to cross to the "west of the Euphrates and that we would hit it the moment it did. "We hit it twice,". There were no casualties in the shooting and the Kurdish forces didn't return fire.
On October 25, Turkish forces also attacked the village of Buban. During the attack two civilians wounded.
Turkish F-16s shoot down a Russian Su-24 operating in Northern Latakia. Both occupants ejected successfully. The pilot was shot and killed by Syrian Turkmen rebel ground fire while descending by parachute. The weapon systems officer was rescued two days later. A Russian naval infantryman from the search-and-rescue team launched to retrieve the two airmen was also killed when a rescue helicopter was shot down by the rebels.
A Turkish survey has revealed that over half of Turkey’s population believe that Turkey was right in downing a Russian jet. Some 58.2 percent of respondents regard the act as a positive thing, while 41.8 percent said it was the wrong move. The majority of those who supported the move said that “it showed that Turkey was a big country,”.
On December 2015, Turkey rejected to join the anti-ISIL quartet of Syria, Iran, Iraq and Russia. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that he rejected it due to the presence of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad.
On 1 February Syria accused the Turkish military of shelling a location in the country’s northern Latakia province. Because of the shelling civilians had been injured. Syrian government condemned the attack.
Also, the Russian Defense Ministry presented a video which claims that shows Turkish military shelling Syrian territory using heavy artillery positioned close to the border. According to Syria’s General Staff, Syrian opposition groups have also provided video evidence of the Turkish military shelling Syrian territory.
On 13 February 2016, Turkey began heavy artillery bombing of Kurds in North Aleppo and at Azaz as they advanced against opposition groups. The US urged Turkey to stop the shelling of the Kurds and focus on fighting the group Islamic State (IS), however, Turkey defied the US and French calls and continued the shelling the next day too. Also, in a telephone call with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Turkey will continue to strike back at Kurdish fighters in Syria. Kurdish officials said that at least three YPG fighters have died since the shelling started on Saturday.
Syria called the Turkish strikes a violation of its territory, and urged UN Security Council action to "put an end to the crimes of the Turkish regime". It also accused Ankara of allowing some 100 gunmen to enter Syria, also, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said some 350 Islamist fighters had been allowed to travel through Turkish territory on Saturday 14 February 2016 to reinforce Islamist rebels in Azaz and Tal Rifaat.
Turkish artillery also targeted Syrian forces on both days.
On 15 February, Turkey hit again Kurdish forces in Syria. A Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman said the strikes came after a border security outpost in the Hatay area was attacked. In addition, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that Turkish troops were shelling, also, the road to the west of the town of Tal Rifaat and also the region to the west of the Syrian border town of Azaz, but failed to stop the advance of the Kurdish forces.
On 16 February, Turkish forces continued to shell the positions of Syrian Kurds in northern Syria for the fourth day. Turkish military said that it was retaliating to fire coming from the region.
Turkey urged its NATO allies to participate in a ground offensive in Syria to fight ISIS while continuing to shell YPG positions.
On 17 February, Turkish forces continued to shell the positions of Syrian Kurds in northern Syria for fifth day in a row. Turkish artillery units deployed at the border in the Kilis Province shelled the positions of the PYD at around 4.45 p.m. within the rules of engagement. The Turkish military stating it was “retaliating” to fire coming from the region.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey would continue shelling Kurdish militants across the border in Syria, despite calls from Washington and other Western capitals to halt the attacks.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said, after a suicide car bombing attack in Ankara, that Turkey would continue the shelling of YPG positions in northern Syria.
Opposition groups reported that over the previous few days they had brought over 2,000 reinforcements with heavy equipment from the Idlib area, through Turkey assisted by Turkish forces, to fight against Kurdish militias north of Aleppo and to support rebels in Azaz.
Turkish artillery units shelled again PYD targets in northern Syria.
Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said that Turkey’s shelling of YPG forces in northern Syria would be an “ongoing topic of conversation” between USA and Turkey.
On 16 February 2016 Turkey and Saudi Arabia were pressing for ground operations in Syria, hoping for the involvement of the U.S. and the other allies.
On 17 February 2016, as Syrian Kurdish forces advance on the Turkish border, Ankara has called for a safe zone, "free from clashes", and No-fly zone inside Syria, in order to protect border and refugees.
The proposal has not garner any real support from Washington or NATO allies who fear it would require an internationally patrolled no-fly zone and potentially put them in direct confrontation with Assad and his allies. Only, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, that such a "safe zone" would be "helpful in the current situation."
Russia with dominance over Syria's skies, come out against the idea and, also, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said: "This is not Merkel's initiative, this is a Turkish initiative." In addition, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said that any decision to create a no-fly zone over Syria cannot be made without the approval of the government in Damascus as well as the UN Security Council.
On 17 February 2016, in Ankara, a car bombing attack happened at night. The attack targeted a convoy of military vehicles.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu blamed a Syrian Kurdish militia fighter working with Kurdish militants inside Turkey for a suicide car bombing, and he vowed retaliation in both Syria and Iraq. He also, said that Turkey's armed forces would continue their shelling of recent days of YPG positions in northern Syria. President Tayyip Erdogan also said initial findings suggested the Syrian Kurdish militia and the PKK were behind the bombing.
On the other hand, the political arm of the YPG, denied involvement in the bombing, while a senior member of the PKK said he did not know who was responsible. Also, the head of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) said that Turkey is using this attack as a "pretext" to intervene in Syria. The leader of the main Syrian Kurdish group Salih Muslim Muhammad said that Turkey's accusations that the PYD was behind the bombing are made up and that Turkey was trying to escalate the situation in Syria.
On February 25, Turkish prime minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said that Turkey would not comply with the truce: "This deal is not binding for us when a party is of threat to Turkey, when Turkey’s security is at stake".
On 4 March, the YPG militia said that Turkey′s tanks had fired dozens of shells at its positions in the area of Afrin in northwest Syria. Russia’s Defense Ministry reported that Turkey continues to shell Kurdish forces in Syria, hampering their operations against Al-Nusra, and at the same time funneling supplies to the militant-controlled areas at the border. Furthermore, according to the head of the Russian ceasefire monitoring center Lt. Gen. Sergey Kuralenko, militants continue to freely cross the Turkish-Syrian border and, also, Turkish trucks crossed the Turkish-Syrian border, carrying supplies and arms exclusively to the territories controlled by Al-Nusra Front and Ahrar ash-Sham groups. In addition, he presented a reconnaissance video which he claimed that it confirmed his accusations.
On 6 March, according to Lieutenant General Sergey Kuralenko, Head of the Center for Reconciliation, jihadist militants of Jabhat Al-Nusra in Syria shelled Turkish area in an attempt to provoke a response that could lead to Ankara sending troops into the neighboring country, a move which would inevitably lead to the disruption of the peace process.
On 8 March, Mortar shells fired from Syria in Turkey and killed 2 civilians, the Turkish military returned fire into Syria. According to Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Islamic State militants were responsible for the attack.
On 13 March, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia has evidence of Turkey's "creeping expansion" in northern Syria. He accused Turkey of fortifying positions hundreds of metres from the border, inside Syria and also sending its military across the Syrian border for Operation Against Kurds and to prevent Kurdish groups there from consolidating their positions. Turkey denied the Russian claims.
On 18 March, Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin sent a letter to the UN Security Council saying that three Turkish humanitarian organizations (NGOs) sent weapons and supplies to extremists in Syria on behalf of Turkey's MIT intelligence agency. The three NGOs were the Besar Foundation, the Iyilikder Foundation and the Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms (IHH).
On April, the U.S. has asked for Turkey’s support to the Manbij offensive, but Turkey had two demands in exchange for helping the U.S.-led anti-ISIL coalition. Turkey first demanded that the Syrian Arab tribes to be included in the Manbij operation should leave the Syrian Democratic Forces, which is under the control of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and also the U.S. must increase its air strikes for groups Turkey supports.
On 4 April, according to a Turkish source, a group of U.S. military and intelligence staff traveled to Turkey to work on a plan for an operation to liberate Manbij.
On May 1, a MQ-1 modelled drone belonging to the U.S.-led coalition hit a bomb factory belonging to the ISIL and destroyed it. The drone took off from the İncirlik Air Base. Two ISIL militants were killed as a result of the airstrike and many others were trapped in the building that was hit, according to Anadolu Agency. Meanwhile, the Turkish army fired howitzers at ISIL positions in Syria and nine militants were killed as a result, after ISIL fired three rockets from Syria at Turkey’s southern border province of Kilis.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry has demanded raising awareness on the Kilis to the U.S. Department of State. Turkey also demanded the deployment of High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) rocket launchers at Turkey’s Syria border. According to Turkey, such moves would push ISIL militants southwards, leaving the border province of Kilis out of battery ranges.
Two persons were killed when two Katyusha rockets fired from the ISIL in Syria hit the southeastern border town of Kilis. The Turkish military returned fire into Syria, hitting ISIL targets, according to military sources.
Four MQ-1 drones took off from the İncirlik Air Base to strike ISIL targets under the campaign of the anti-ISIL coalition. Five weapon pits belonging to the jihadist group were destroyed and 29 militants were killed in the airstrikes, according to information and images obtained from the region.
Two rocket projectiles hit the border province of Kilis. Turkish artillery units responded to the attack by shelling ISIL positions and firing multiple rocket launchers after unmanned aerial vehicles spotted where the rockets were fired. Six ISIL militants were killed and two Katyusha rocket positions were destroyed, according to the army.
Two Katyusha rockets fired by ISIL hit the southeastern border town of Kilis. The Turkish army responded by firing howitzers toward ISIL targets, reportedly destroying two ISIL Katyusha positions and killed three ISIL militants.
Nine Katyusha rockets hit Kilis. The Turkish army said that four ISIL militants were killed and the weapon launching sites that the attack was carried out from was destroyed.
The governor’s office in Kilis released an official statement declared the province a “special security area,” effective for 15 days until 5:00 p.m. on May 20.
Four rockets fired from northern Syria by ISIL hit Kilis.
A group of 20 Turkish special forces teams reportedly conducted operations in ISIL-held areas in northern Syria at around 1.30 a.m. to scout the region to help destroy missile launchers, after a 10-day intelligence and preparation process. U.S. and Russian military officials were also reportedly informed of the operation.
Also, in the morning hours, the Turkish military carried out four separate air strikes against ISIL positions in northern Syria, as part of a joint effort and intelligence with the U.S.-led coalition forces. Two Katyusha rockets were fired from ISIL positions in Syria on the southeastern province of Kilis following the air strikes. Turkish armed forces responded to the attack by shelling ISIL targets with howitzers from the border.
In the evening hours, reconnaissance and surveillance vehicles spotted ISIL positions in the Suran region north of Aleppo and the Baragidah and Kuşacık regions northeast of Tal el Hişn. Army shelled them. A total of 55 ISIL militants were killed in the shellings, while three vehicles and three rocket launchers belonging to the jihadist group were also destroyed.
A total of 28 ISIL militants were killed by Turkey and U.S.-led coalition in operations targeting positions belonging to the jihadist group in Syria, security sources have said.
Some 27 ISIL militants were killed and five defense positions and two weapon pits used by the jihadist group were also destroyed in shelling by the Turkish army and air operations by the U.S.-led coalition forces in northern Syria.
During an International Syria Support Group (ISSG) meeting in Vienna, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu told his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov that if Moscow has any evidence that shows Turkey helping the ISIL then he would resign.
Russian General Staff Lt. Gen. Sergey Rudskoy told journalists that Al-Nusra Front is receiving daily arms shipments across the border from Turkey and that Al-Nusra Front remains a major destabilizing factor in Syria. He also added that Al-Nusra Front often attack the Syrian Government forces despite the cease-fire and that the attacks are confirmed by other nations as well.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was very angry because of some photos which showed US special forces in Syria wearing insignia of Kurdish militia (patch of the YPJ), during joint operations against Islamic State (IS). He called the US "two-faced" and said the practice was "unacceptable". Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said it is common for US soldiers to attempt to blend in with local partners.
Five people were injured when rockets fired from ISIL-controlled territory in northern Syria hit Turkey’s border province of Kilis.
Two rockets were fired at Turkish territory from ISIL-controlled territory in Syria. No injuries were reported. Turkish military hit ISIL positions in northern Syria as a retaliation for the rocket attack.
According to Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, Turkey has proposed to USA a detailed plan for joint military operation against jihadists inside Syria with the Americans and other allied troops. But U.S. officials denied it and said that Turkey had not offered a detailed plan but only a few basic concepts which involved joint efforts only to support non-Kurdish forces.
Satellite images confirmed that the first Syrian camps appeared in Turkey in July 2011, shortly after the towns of Deraa, Homs and Hama were besieged. By June 2013, Turkey has accepted 400,000 Syrian refugees, half of whom are spread around a dozen camps placed under the direct authority of the Turkish Government. In 2014, the number swelled over a million, as some 200-300,000 Syrian Kurds streamed into Turkey in September alone, upon the Siege of Kobane.
The population of Syrian refugees in Turkey has 30 percent in 22 government-run camps near the Syrian-Turkish border. The rest do their best to make ends meet in communities across the country.
Turkey has accepted over 1.5 million Syrian refugees since the beginning of the Syrian Civil War. Turkey has accommodated most of its Syrian refugees in tent cities administered by the country's emergency management agency.
According to Amnesty International, Turkish guards routinely shoot at Syrian refugees stranded at the border, also, Turkey has forcibly returned thousands of Syrian refugees to war zone since mid-January 2016.
On May 10, 2016, Human Rights Watch said Turkish border guards were shooting and beating Syrian refugees trying to reach Turkey, resulting in deaths and serious injuries. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan denied it.
On May 18, 2016, lawmakers from the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights (DROI) have said that Turkey should not use Syrian refugees as a bribe for the process of visa liberalization for Turkish citizens inside the European Union.
Turkey has been accused of supporting or colluding with ISIL, especially by Syrian Kurds. Syrian Kurds and the Turkey's main Kurdish party, HDP, accused Turkey of allowing ISIL soldiers to cross its border and attack the Kurdish town of Kobanî. They also claimed that Islamic State snipers were hiding among grain depots on the Turkish side of the border and firing on the town. In addition. the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that the vehicle which is used in a car bombing attack at Kobanî had come from Turkey. According to journalist Patrick Cockburn, there is "strong evidence for a degree of collaboration" between the Turkish intelligence services and ISIL, although the "exact nature of the relationship ... remains cloudy". David L. Phillips of Columbia University's Institute for the Study of Human Rights, who compiled a list of allegations and claims accusing Turkey of assisting ISIL, writes that these allegations "range from military cooperation and weapons transfers to logistical support, financial assistance, and the provision of medical services". Several ISIL fighters and commanders have claimed Turkey supports ISIL. A former ISIS member mentioned that the ISIS groups were essentially given free rein by Turkey's army. He said: "ISIS commanders told us to fear nothing at all because there was full cooperation with the Turks,". "ISIS saw the Turkish army as its ally especially when it came to attacking the Kurds in Syria." Within Turkey itself, ISIL is believed to have caused increasing political polarisation between secularists and Islamists. A video taken in October 2014 shows Turkish soldiers fraternising with Isis fighters near Kobane. Turkish security forces dispersed Kurds who had gathered at the Turkish border with Syria to cross into Syria and fight with Kurdish militants against ISIS. Oliver North tweeted a photograph which he claimed that it shows a Turkish soldier talking friendly with an ISIS anti-aircraft unit.
In addition, Kurds accuse Turkey of using the US-led coalition against IS as a cover to attack the Kurdish PKK in both Turkey and Iraq, and now against the YPG in northern Syria. The Kurds say that Turkey 's bombardment of their positions is helping IS to attack Kurdish-held frontline areas in Syria and Iraq. IS militants attacked Syrian Kurdish villages south of Kobane a day after Turkey began shelling the YPG.
Also, authorities in Turkey have confirmed social media reports that an injured ISIL commander is being treated in a Denizli hospital, saying the militant has every right to receive medical care as he is a Turkish citizen.
Turkey has been further criticized for allowing individuals from outside the region to enter its territory and join ISIL in Syria. With many Islamist fighters passing through Turkey to fight in Syria, Turkey has been accused of becoming a transit country for such fighters and has been labeled the "Gateway to Jihad". Turkish border patrol officers are reported to have deliberately overlooked those entering Syria upon the payment of a small bribe. A report by Sky News exposed documents showing that passports of foreign Islamists wanting to join ISIL by crossing into Syria had been stamped by the Turkish government. American website Al-Monitor stated in June 2014 that Turkey, during the Syrian Civil War, by "ignoring its own border security", had allowed its Syrian border to become a "jihadist highway" for ISIL to let thousands of international jihadists, and other supplies, reach Syria. British newspaper The Guardian stated that Turkey late 2014 "for many months did little to stop foreign recruits crossing its border to Isis". An ISIL commander stated that "most of the fighters who joined us in the beginning of the war came via Turkey, and so did our equipment and supplies", adding that ISIL fighters received treatment in Turkish hospitals. After the 2015 attacks at Paris, President Barack Obama administration told the Turkish government to close its borders to ISIS fighters. A USA senior official said in the Wall Street Journal "The game has changed. Enough is enough. The border needs to be sealed,” “This is an international threat, and it’s coming out of Syria and it’s coming through Turkish territory.”.
Turkey has openly supported jihadi groups, such as Ahrar ash-Sham, which espouses much of al-Qaida’s ideology, and Jabhat al-Nusra, which is proscribed as a terror organisation by much of the US and Europe.
Turkey reported that between 1957 and 1998, Turkish forces laid 615,419 antipersonnel mines along the Syrian border “to prevent illegal border crossings,” These mines are killing Syrians stuck on the border or trying to cross near Kobani. Turkey is required under the Mine Ban Treaty, to destroy all antipersonnel mines, but has missed deadlines. Human Rights Watch claims in its report that as of November 18 over 2,000 civilians were still in the Tel Shair corridor section of the mine belt due to the fact that Turkey had been refusing entry for cars or livestock, and the refugees did not want to leave behind their belongings.
Russia told that for a long time has been aware of oil going from Syria under the control of terrorists to Turkey. The money finances terrorist groups. Vladimir Putin said that “IS has big money, hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, from selling oil. In addition they are protected by the military of an entire nation. One can understand why they are acting so boldly and blatantly. Why they kill people in such atrocious ways. Why they commit terrorist acts across the world, including in the heart of Europe,”. Also, Western intelligence officials said that they can track the ISIS oil shipments as they move across Iraq and into Turkey’s southern border regions. The Obama administration was struggling to cut off the millions of dollars in oil revenue that has made the ISIS, but they were unable to persuade Turkey. In addition, the former Iraqi member of Parliament Mowaffak al-Rubaie has accused Turkey of turning a blind eye to the black market ISIS oil trade. He said that there is “no shadow of a doubt” that the Turkish government knows about the oil smuggling operations. “The merchants, the businessmen [are buying oil] in the black market in Turkey under the noses – under the auspices if you like – of the Turkish intelligence agency and the Turkish security apparatus.” In June 2014, a member of Turkey's parliamentary opposition, Ali Edibogluan, claimed that IS had smuggled $800 million worth of oil into Turkey from Syria and Iraq. Sadik Al Hiseni, the head of the security committee in the city of Diyala in Iraq, says they have arrested several Turkish tankers trying to take ISIS oil out of the province of Salahuddin.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said that most of the oil produced in Islamic State-held territory in Iraq and Syria was being smuggled through Turkey. He also mentioned that he sees no evidence that Turkey wants to fight ISIS. In addition he told that Turkey wants to revive the Ottoman Empire.
Sadi Pria, a top Iraqi Kurdish official in Irbil said: "Turkey shamelessly and openly backs IS and al-Qaeda terrorists against Kurdish freedom fighters,".
Israel's defence minister, Moshe Ya'alon, has accused Turkey of buying oil from the ISIS and funds ISIS militants. He, also, said that Turkey had "permitted jihadists to move from Europe to Syria and Iraq and back".
The Director of National Intelligence, James R. Clapper, said that he was not optimistic that Turkey would do more in the fight against the Islamic State. “I think Turkey has other priorities and other interests.” He also cited public opinion polls in Turkey that show Turks do not see the Islamic State as a primary threat.
Vice President of USA, Joe Biden, during a speech at Harvard accused Turkey and the Gulf countries of funding, supplying and supporting ISIL.
Donald Trump accused Turkey of being at the side of ISIS.
A senior Jordanian security official accused Turkey of training ISIS fighters. The King of Jordan, Abdullah, said that the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, “believes in a radical Islamic solution to the problems in the region” and the “fact that terrorists are going to Europe is part of Turkish policy, and Turkey keeps getting a slap on the hand, but they get off the hook”.
Egypt has accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of being a supporter of terrorists who seek to "provoke chaos" in the Middle East. Also, an Egyptian security official said that Turkey is providing direct support to ISIS and that Turkish intelligence is passing satellite imagery and other data to ISIS. Egypt, also, claimed that Turkey provided more than 10,000 passports to ISIS members to facilitate travel of its fighters across the region. Egypt official further charged that Istanbul is serving as the “headquarters” for ISIS planning.
The Minister of Defense of Armenia, Seyran Ohanyan, accused Turkey of supporting ISIS.
Cypriot Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulidis, questioned Turkey’s determination to fight ISIS.
Eren Erdem, member of the main opposition at Turkey, CHP, accused the Turkish Government that it failed to investigate Turkish supply routes used to provide ISIL with toxic Sarin gas ingredients. Because of this statement, he faces treason charges at Turkey.
Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, warned the Turkish government not to provide money and training to terror groups. He said, "It isn't right for armed groups to be trained on Turkish soil. You bring foreign fighters to Turkey, put money in their pockets, guns in their hands, and you ask them to kill Muslims in Syria. We told them to stop helping ISIS." He, also, said after the 2015 Ankara bombings that the Turkish Government is "protecting" the ISIL and that "the police department knows all", “the only reason for not having security measures taken or for not having them [suspects] detained is the absence of an instruction from the political authority to fulfill whatever was required. That’s to say, its [the political authority’s] protection of ISIL. This is not an observation, I’m saying this very openly and clearly,”. At 16 February 2016, Kılıçdaroğlu has repeated accusations that the Turkish government has sent arms to jihadist groups in Syria and built jihadist training camp in Turkey.
Russian anti-drug chief mentioned that ISIS is using Turkey for trafficking heroin to Europe. He, also, believes that ISIS makes about $1 billion from Afghan heroin trade.
Turkey's state intelligence agency, MIT, has been accused that it helped deliver arms to parts of Syria under Islamist rebel control. Turkish journalists who exposed it have charged with spying and “divulging state secrets” from the Turkish court. One of the journalists claimed:"Those who sent the convoy from Turkey knew that the weapons were “heading to end [up] in ISIS hands". Also, Turkish officers, who intercepted some of the intelligence agency’s weapons-filled trucks have faced spying charges. In addition, Turkish newspaper, Cumhuriyet, published a video footage which it said showed security forces discovering weapons parts being sent to Syria on trucks belonging to the MIT state intelligence agency.
Syria's president Bashar al-Assad during an interview at 2015 mentioned that military and logistic support from Turkey was the key factor in ISIL takeover of Idlib (2015 Idlib offensive), he also blamed Turkey for the failure of a humanitarian ceasefire plan in Aleppo. He told that: "The Turks told the factions - the terrorists that they support and they supervise - to refuse to cooperate with de Mistura".
Syria's antiquities chief has accused Turkey of refusing to return looted objects from ancient heritage sites in Syria or to provide information about them. Also, Turkey have been accused that she lets ISIL smuggles Syrian antiquities through her.
In an official letter to UN, the Russian envoy Vitaly Churkin stated that antiquities from Syria and Iraq are exported to Turkey. The main center for the smuggling of cultural heritage items is the Turkish city of Gaziantep, where the stolen goods are sold at illegal auctions. According to the envoy, new smuggling hubs are popping up on the Turkish-Syrian border, with the “bulky goods” being delivered by the Turkish transport companies. Smuggled artifacts then arrive in the Turkish cities of Izmir, Mersin and Antalya, where representatives of international criminal groups produce fake documents on the origin of the antiquities.
According to Gatestone Institute, Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) and Südwestrundfunk (SWR) ISIS was selling women and children in Turkey. Also, Consortium of Public Broadcasters in Germany (ARD) produced a footage documenting the slave trade being conducted by the Islamic State (ISIS) in Turkey. After these reports the Gaziantep Bar Association filed a criminal complaint against "Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MIT) and law-enforcement officers that have committed neglect of duty and misconduct by not taking required measures, and not carrying out preventive and required intelligence activities before the media covered the said incidents.".
Iran accused Turkey that she is the main culprits in supporting the terrorist movements of ISIL.
Katrin Kunert, a German Parliamentarian from the Green Party leaked a classified document which showed that Turkey was delivering arms to Syrian rebel groups.
Hezbollah Chief, Hassan Nasrallah, accused Turkey and Qatar for supporting ISIS.
Serena Shim, a journalist of Press TV was killed at a car crash with a heavy vehicle in Turkey in what are claimed, by her employer and her parents, to be suspicious circumstances. The car crash happened just days after she claimed that the Turkey's state intelligence agency, MIT, had threatened her and accused her of spying, due to some of the stories she had covered about Turkey’s stance on ISIL militants in Kobane. She also claimed that she had received images of ISIL militants crossing the Turkish border into Syria in World Food Organization and other NGOs trucks.
At December 2015, Turkey rejected to join the anti-ISIL quartet of Syria, Iran, Iraq and Russia. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that he rejected it due to the presence of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad.
At January 2016, The Guardian obtained documents which show that ISIL ran a sophisticated immigration operation through the Syrian border town of Tell Abyad with Turkey until its defeat by Kurds. The border crossing remained open until Kurdish forces took control of the town (Tell Abyad offensive), at which point Turkey promptly sealed it. David Phillips, an academic at Columbia University and author of two recent research papers into links between Turkey and ISIS, alleges that the country “knows the movements of all persons and can control the flow across the border if it chooses”. He said there was “a steady stream of vehicles, individuals, weapons, financing, oil going back and forth”, adding: “It’s not like people are putting on their hiking boots and crossing over rough terrain. There’s an extensive surface transport network which is highly regulated and controlled ... on both sides of the border.”. Academic researcher Aymenn al-Tamimi, an expert on examining Isis documents, said he had no doubt about the authenticity of the manifests. “The documents ... coincide with other documents illustrating daily bus routes within Islamic State territory. Though private companies provide the actual transportation, the Islamic State bureaucracy is responsible for authorising and overseeing the routes,” he said. A senior Turkish government official, in response to the Guardian’s claims, said that Turkey was doing everything it could to stop the influx of foreign fighters, including cracking down on recruitment and logistic networks such as travel agents mentioned in the documents.
Anonymous launched Cyber-attacks on Turkey after accusing it of supporting ISIS by buying oil from them and treating their wounded in hospital. They have also told that they will continue the attacks as long as Turkey is supporting ISIS.
Columbia University assigned a team of researchers in the United States, Europe, and Turkey to examine Turkish and international media assessing the credibility of allegations and published a research paper entitled "ISIS-Turkey Links". The report draws on a variety of international sources and present many allegations that appeared in the media.
In an email to The Guardian, Noam Chomsky accused Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of hypocrisy. He said: “Turkey blamed Isis (for the attack on Istanbul at 2016), which Erdoğan has been aiding in many ways, while also supporting the al-Nusra Front, which is hardly different."
Jacques Behnan Hindo, the Syrian Catholic Archbishop of Hasakeh-Nisibi, accused Turkey of preventing Christians from fleeing Syria while allowing jihadists to cross its border unchecked. He said on the Vatican Radio, "In the north, Turkey allows through lorries, Daesh (ISIS) fighters, oil stolen from Syria, wheat and cotton: all of these can cross the border but nobody (from the Christian community) can pass over.". He claimed it a day after ISIL abducted more than 90 Assyrian Christians from villages.
Transcripts of telephone calls between IS jihadists and Turkish officers has been revealed.
Members of the Democratic Union Party (Kurds) accused the Turkish military of opening fire at its forces in Tal Abyad after the majority Arab town was included into a Kurdish enclave after fights with ISIS soldiers. The Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu confirmed it and he said that Turkey had warned the PYD not to cross to the "west of the Euphrates and that we would hit it the moment it did. "We hit it twice,".
Turkey, at January 2016, didn't allow Kurdish groups from northern Syria to take part in peace talks in Geneva. Turkish PM said that the participation of YPG represents a 'direct threat' to his country.
On February 2016, US urged Turkey to stop the shelling of the Kurds and focus on fighting the ISIL.
On February 2016, Syria and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights accused Turkey of allowing Islamist fighters to travel through Turkish territory to reinforce Islamist rebels in Azaz and Tal Rifaat.
On February 2016, Hezbollah said Turkey and Saudi Arabia were using the Islamic State group as a "pretext" to launch a ground operation in Syria, after Turkey's suggestion to the U.S. and other allies in an international coalition against the Islamic State group for ground operations in Syria.
On 10 February 2016, Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin sent a letter to the UN Security Council. He said in the letter that recruiters from ISIL had reportedly established a network in the Turkish city of Antalya for foreign fighters from the former Soviet Union. He also said in the letter that, in September, a group of 1,000 IS fighters from Europe and Central Asia were taken from Turkey to Syria through the border crossing at Gaziantep. In addition, he claimed that in early 2015, Turkish intelligence services reportedly helped move ethnic Tatars who were fighting for the Al-Qaeda aligned Nusra Front from Antalya to Eskişehir and, also, that it was helping to fly ISIL militants from Syria through Turkey to Yemen using Turkish military air transport, or by sea to Yemen's port of Aden.
On 17 February 2016, at least 500 armed fighters crossed the Turkish border heading for the Syrian town of Azaz to fight against the Kurdish forces according to the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
After the February 2016 Ankara bombing the head of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) denied any involvement and said that Turkey is using this attack as a "pretext" to intervene in Syria.
According to Human Rights Watch, Turkish border guards were shooting and beating Syrian refugees trying to reach Turkey, resulting in deaths and serious injuries. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan denied it.
Journalist Arzu Yildiz was sentenced to 20 months in jail and lost her parental rights after exposing a video related to a weapons-smuggling scandal denied by the Turkish government, in what her lawyer said was “an act of revenge” by Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
↑ One dead, 26 wounded as rockets hit Turkish town. Reuters.
↑ Hurriyet Daily News, 11–12 August 2012, page 5, "No Misinformation on Downed Jet: Army".
This page was last modified on 31 May 2016, at 19:33.
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Partial sciatic nerve ligation (pSNL) markedly increased glial fibrillary acidic protein immunoreactivity (GFAP-IR) 1 week after lesion in the L4–L5 spinal dorsal horn of wild-type, but not in dynorphin knock-out, mice lacking κ opioid receptors (KOR−/−) or in wild-type mice pretreated with the KOR antagonist nor-binaltorphimine (norBNI). A direct effect of KOR on glial cell proliferation was suggested by the findings that primary cultures of type II GFAP-immunoreactive astrocytes isolated from mouse spinal cord express KOR. Sustained treatment with the κ agonist U50,488 (trans-3,4-dichloro-N-methyl-N-[2-(1-pyrolytinil)-cyclohexyl]-benzeneacetamide methane sulfonate) significantly increased the proliferation rate of GFAP-immunoreactive astrocytes isolated from wild-type mice, and this effect was blocked by norBNI pretreatment. Proliferation of cultured type II astrocytes may have been stimulated by mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) activation by KOR because (1) U50,488 treatment increased phospho-p38 MAPK-immunoreactivity 247 ± 44% over untreated cells, (2) the increase in phospho-p38 induced by U50,488 was blocked by norBNI and not evident in KOR−/− cultures, and (3) GFAP-immunoreactive astrocyte proliferation induced by U50,488 was blocked by the p38 MAPK inhibitor SB 203580 [4-(4-fluorophenyl)-2-(4-methylsulfinylphenyl)-5-(4-pyridyl)-1H-imidazole]. Similar mechanisms of astrocyte activation may also be responsible in vivo because intrathecal injection of SB 203580 blocked the increased GFAP-IR in lumbar spinal cord induced by pSNL. Although the relationship between κ-stimulated astrocyte proliferation and neuropathic pain mechanisms was not directly established in these studies, the results support the hypothesis that KOR activation induces spinal astrocyte proliferation, which may contribute to cellular reorganization after sciatic nerve damage.
Induction of painful peripheral neuropathy results in anatomical changes within the dorsal horn, including an increase in expression of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), an indicator of reactive gliosis after CNS injury (Kajander et al., 1990; Ma and Quirion, 2002). Although studies suggest that reactive gliosis is a major impediment to reestablishing neuronal pathways, little is known about the cellular and molecular signals controlling this process (Murray et al., 1990; Ma and Quirion, 2002). We reported previously that chronic pain induced by partial sciatic nerve ligation (pSNL) caused sustained dynorphin release that resulted in prolonged κ opioid receptor (KOR) activation in astroglial cells in the mouse spinal cord (Xu et al., 2004). Wang et al. (2001) have shown that dynorphin released in the spinal cord contributes strongly to the neuropathic pain response; however, the role of astroglial KOR activation after nerve damage remains unclear.
The type of glial cell responding to dynorphin release and subsequent KOR activation after pSNL was not established. Astrocytes and oligodendrocytes are the major classes of neuroglial cells in spinal cord and can be distinguished morphologically and antigenically (Hirano and Goldman, 1988; Misson et al., 1991; McMahon and McDermott, 2001). KOR is a member of the heptahelical, G-protein-coupled receptor opioid receptor family, and previous studies have shown that KOR is expressed by astroglial cells and can induce glial cell proliferation in vitro (Stiene-Martin and Hauser, 1991; Barg et al., 1993a; Eriksson et al., 1993; Ruzicka et al., 1995; Stiene-Martin et al., 1998). Accumulating evidence further suggests that KOR-selective agonists stimulate extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) and p38 phosphorylation, activate phospholipase C in C6 glioma cells (Bohn et al., 2000; Belcheva et al., 2005; Bruchas et al., 2006), and increase DNA synthesis in cultures of mixed glial cells derived from fetal rat brain or rat spinal–dorsal root ganglion cocultures (Barg et al., 1993b). Nerve injury is known to activate mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs), and this mechanism may mediate the response to opioids within the spinal cord during neuropathic pain (Jin et al., 2003).
MAPKs are a family of evolutionarily conserved proteins that play a critical role in cell signaling by transducing extracellular stimuli into intracellular responses (Chen et al., 2001). They are involved in cell proliferation and differentiation during development, neuronal plasticity, and injury responses (Ji and Woolf, 2001). Peripheral nerve lesions result in activation of MAPKs in microglia and astrocytes in the spinal cord, leading to the production of inflammatory mediators that sensitize dorsal horn neurons (Ma and Quirion, 2002; Jin et al., 2003; Zhuang et al., 2005). The primary objective of our study was to determine the cellular consequences of endogenous κ opioid system activation in mouse spinal cord after partial sciatic nerve ligation. κ receptor activation after chronic nerve injury produces sustained antinociceptive effects (Xu et al., 2004), and understanding the underlying mechanisms may have therapeutic implications.
Male C57BL/6 mice (Charles River Laboratories, Wilmington, MA) weighing 22–32 g were used in these experiments. Homozygous KOR, dynorphin, and G-protein-coupled receptor kinase 3 (GRK3) knock-out (−/−) mice were prepared by homologous recombination as described previously (Peppel et al., 1997; Hough et al., 2000; Sharifi et al., 2001) and provided for this study. Animals were backcrossed for >10 generations with C57BL/6 mice, and heterozygote breeding pairs were used to generate homozygotic “knock-out” mice of each type and paired wild-type (WT) littermate controls for this study. Individual mice were genotyped using DNA extracted from tail samples as a PCR template as described previously (Xu et al., 2004). The dynorphin, KOR, and GRK3 gene-disrupted animals show no discernible differences from WT littermates in growth, lifespan, or overt behavior. All mice were housed in groups of two to four in plastic cages (28 × 16 × 13 cm, length × width × height) using Bed-A-Cob for home bedding within the Animal Core Facility at the University of Washington and were maintained in pathogen-free housing units. Mice were transferred 1 week before training into a colony room adjacent to the testing room to acclimatize to the testing environment. The housing rooms were illuminated on a 12 h light/dark cycle with artificial lights on at 7:00 A.M. Lab chow and water were available ad libitum. All protocols with mice were approved by the institutional Animal Care and Use Committee in accordance with the 1996 National Institutes of Health Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and guidelines for the International Association for the Study of Pain (Zimmermann, 1983). Mice were inspected regularly by veterinary staff to ensure compliance.
The pSNL model of neuropathic pain used in this study has been described previously (Seltzer et al., 1990). The animals were anesthetized with pentobarbital sodium (80 mg/kg, i.p.). The right hindlegs were shaved, and the skin was sterilized with iodine. All surgical instruments were sterilized before surgery and then washed and heat treated (glass beads at 250°C) between animals. The right sciatic nerve was exposed, and approximately one-third to one-half the diameter of the nerve was tightly ligated with 7-0 silk suture (Surgical Specialties, Reading, PA). After checking hemostasis, the muscle and the adjacent fascia were closed with sutures, and the skin was closed with clips. The mice were killed by CO2 asphyxiation when experiments were completed.
To minimize the inflammatory response triggered by intrathecal implantation of a polyethylene catheter (DeLeo et al., 1997), a spinal cord puncture was made with a 30 gauge needle between L5 and L6 level to deliver the drug and vehicle to the spinal space around lumbosacral spinal cord (Hylden and Wilcox, 1980). A brisk flick of the tail was considered to be an indicator of the accuracy of each injection. The injection volume was 5 μl for intrathecal injection. One or 3 μg SB 203580 [4-(4-fluorophenyl)-2-(4-methylsulfinylphenyl)-5-(4-pyridyl)-1H-imidazole] (specific inhibitor of p38 MAPK) or saline was given 30 min before pSNL surgery and then once per 12 h after surgery for 7 consecutive days. SB 203580 HCl is water soluble, and the doses were based on previous studies (Zhang et al., 2005; Cui et al., 2006).
Behavioral tests for allodynia and hyperalgesia.
The mice were habituated to handling and testing equipment at least 20–30 min before experiments. Threshold for tactile allodynia was measured with a series of von Frey filaments (Semmes-Weinstein monofilaments; Stoelting, Wood Dale, IL). The mice stood on a metal mesh covered with a plastic dome. The plantar surface of the hindpaws was touched with different von Frey filaments having bending force from 0.166 to 3.63 g until the threshold that induced paw withdrawal was found. According to the specifications of the manufacturer, a 1 g filament induces a force of ∼9.8 mN. Unresponsive mice received a maximal score of 3.63 g. To assess thermal sensitivity (hyperalgesia), paw-withdrawal latencies to a radiant heat stimulus were measured using the paw-flick test apparatus (IITC Life Science, Woodland Hills, CA). Paw-withdrawal latency was determined as the average of three measurements per paw. The stimulus intensity was adjusted to give 8–10 s withdrawal latency in the normal mouse (baseline). The cutoff time in the absence of response was 15 s to prevent tissue damage.
Using sterile instruments and conditions, postnatal day 1–3 mice were decapitated, and spinal cords were rapidly dissected and placed in 2 ml culture medium (Neurobasal A supplemented with GlutaMAX, 2% B27, 50 U of penicillin, and 0.05 μg/ml streptomycin) (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA), at 4°C in a 35-mm-diameter dish. The spinal cord tissue was coarsely cut and transferred to sterile culture medium containing 40 U/ml active papain (Sigma, St. Louis, MO) at a volume of 1.5 ml/animal. The solution was then incubated at 30°C for 30 min on a platform rotating 120 rpm, keeping the segments suspended. The papain solution was then replaced with 2 ml of 30° culture medium and then triturated 15–20 times. After settling for 2 min, the supernatant was passed through a 70 μm nylon cell strainer (BD Biosciences, Bedford, MA). Twice more, the remaining sediment was suspended in 2 ml culture medium, triturated, and settled with the supernatant strained.
Cells were plated in 0.5 ml culture medium at a density of 2.5 × 105 cells/ml on 12 mm glass coverslips (PGC Scientifics, Gaithersburg, MD) placed in 24 well plates (BD Biosciences). Coverslips were acid washed, soaked in ethanol, and rinsed in sterile distilled water before a 24 h treatment with 50 μg/ml poly-d-lysine (135 kDa; Sigma). One hour after plating and incubation (5% CO2/95% air, 37°C; Forma Scientific, Marietta, OH), unattached cells and debris were aspirated and new culture medium was added. Cultures were initially shaken at 200 rpm overnight (VWR-OS-500 orbital shaker) to enrich for adherent cell types (e.g., astrocytes) and against neurons and microglia. Three days after plating and every 3 days thereafter, medium was replaced with complete medium containing 10% fetal bovine serum (Gemini Bio-Products, Woodland, CA). Coverslips were used for immunohistochemistry or immunoblotting 1–2 weeks after plating.
Mice were injected intraperitoneally with bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) (Sigma) solution in saline (100 mg of BrdU per kilogram of body weight) once a day for 7 d starting from the day of sciatic nerve ligation. BrdU is a thymidine analog that is specifically incorporated into DNA during DNA synthesis that can be used as a marker for proliferation. Mice were then anesthetized with isoflurane (Sigma) and intracardially perfused with 4% paraformaldehyde in phosphate buffer (PB) (0.1 m sodium phosphate, pH 7.4). The lumbar spinal cords were dissected, cryoprotected with solution of 30% (w/v) sucrose in PB at 4°C overnight, cut into 40 μm sections with a microtome, and processed for BrdU and GFAP immunostaining. Briefly, sections were washed three times in PBS, treated with 2N HCl for 60 min at 37°C, followed by two 10 min washes in 0.1 m borate buffer, pH 8.5, washed again three times in PBS, and blocked in PBS containing 0.1% Triton X-100 and 4% normal goat serum. Sections were then incubated overnight with primary BrdU monoclonal antibody (6 μg/ml; Millipore, Bedford, MA) and each of the following primary antibodies for double labeling: astroglia marker guinea pig GFAP (1:1000; Millipore), neuronal-specific nuclear protein NeuN (1:1000; Millipore), stem cell marker nestin (1:500; Abcam, Cambridge, MA), oligodendrocytes precursor marker NG2 (1:500; Millipore), and microglial marker Iba1 (ionized calcium-binding adaptor molecule 1) (1:300; Wako Pure Chemicals, Osaka, Japan). For double labeling of phospho-p38 and different cell type markers, the primary antibodies were as follows: phospho-p38 (1:200; Cell Signaling Technology, Beverly, MA), astroglial marker GFAP (1:1000; Millipore), microglial marker CD11b (1:500; Serotec Oxford, UK), and neuronal marker NeuN (1:1000; Millipore). Sections were then washed with PBS and then incubated (1 h, 37°C) with the fluorescent secondary antibodies FITC and rhodamine conjugate (1:250; Jackson ImmunoResearch, West Grove, PA) diluted in PBS containing 0.1% Triton X-100 and 4% normal goat serum. The sections were rinsed in PBS for 30 min and then mounted on gelatin-coated slides with Vectashield mounting medium (Vector Laboratories, Burlingame, CA) and sealed with nail polish for microscopy. The sections were viewed with a Nikon (Tokyo, Japan) Eclipse E600 fluorescence microscope or a Leica (Nussloch, Germany) confocal microscope located in the W. M. Keck Imaging Facility at the University of Washington. The BrdU-labeled astrocytes were counted in at least three cross sections. Data were presented as the average numbers of BrdU-labeled astrocytes per section.
Immunocytochemistry in spinal astrocyte cultures.
Spinal astrocyte proliferation was assessed using 10 μm BrdU incorporation into cells continuously exposed to the κ agonist U50,488 (trans-3,4-dichloro-N-methyl-N-[2-(1-pyrolytinil)-cyclohexyl]-benzeneacetamide methane sulfonate) (1 μm), U50,488 with the κ antagonist nor-binaltorphimine (norBNI), or U50,488 with the p38 inhibitor SB 203580 (100 or 500 nm) for 3 or 6 d. Freshly prepared drug solutions (dissolved in water) were added when the medium was changed every 3 d, and norBNI was added 30 min before U50,488. Cells were fixed with 4% paraformaldehyde in PB for 20 min, washed three times in PBS, treated with 2N HCl for 30 min at 37°C, followed by three 3 min washes in 0.1 m borate buffer, pH 8.5, washed again three times in PBS, and blocked in PBS containing 0.25% Triton X-100 and 0.3% gelatin. Cells were incubated with a mouse anti-BrdU monoclonal antibody (6 μg/ml; Millipore) and astroglial marker guinea pig anti-GFAP antiserum (diluted 1:1000; Millipore) overnight at 4°C. Sections were then washed with PBS, and detection was performed using the fluorescent secondary antibody FITC anti-mouse IgG (1:250; Jackson ImmunoResearch) and donkey anti-guinea pig IgG rhodamine conjugate (1:250; Jackson ImmunoResearch). Four to six coverslips were chosen in each group. The BrdU-labeled GFAP-positive cells were counted in at least four randomly chosen fields on each coverslip. The mean value of these fields was taken as the number of BrdU-labeled GFAP-positive cells on each coverslip.
Astrocytes express GFAP and can be divided into type I astrocytes, which are large, epithelioid cells, and type II, which have stellate processes and express a surface antigen (A2B5). Type II astrocytes and oligodendrocytes develop from O-2A progenitor cells (Raff et al., 1983); however, oligodendrocytes are not GFAP positive and can be identified by monoclonal antibody O1 (Sommer and Schachner, 1981). To identify type II astrocytes, we used primary antibodies directed against the cell surface marker A2B5 (5 μg/ml; Millipore) and the astrocyte marker GFAP. FITC anti-mouse IgG and donkey anti-guinea pig IgG rhodamine conjugate were used as secondary antibodies. To assess KOR activation in astrocytes, we used phosphoselective KOR antibody KOR-P (rabbit) (McLaughlin et al., 2003) and GFAP antibody (guinea pig) for double labeling, and FITC anti-rabbit IgG and donkey anti-guinea pig IgG rhodamine conjugate were used as secondary antibodies.
Phospho-p38 labeling of astrocytes was detected using a 1:200 dilution of mouse phospho-p38 monoclonal antibody (Cell Signaling Technology) and a 1:1000 dilution of guinea pig anti-GFAP antibody (Millipore). The secondary antibodies were FITC anti-mouse IgG (1:250; Jackson ImmunoResearch) and donkey anti-guinea pig IgG rhodamine conjugate (1:250; Jackson ImmunoResearch). The staining intensity was measured with NIH ImageJ on four to six coverslips in each group.
Three days after culture in serum-free neurobasal media supplemented with B27 (Invitrogen), primary cultures of postnatal day 1–3 mouse astrocytes were plated on 35 mm Falcon dishes (Becton Dickinson, Franklin, NJ) in 10% fetal bovine serum (Sigma) for an additional 7–10 d until plates reached near-confluence. Astrocytes were treated for at least 24 h hour in serum-free DMEM/F-12 media and then treated for 10 min in vehicle (DMEM/F-12 media) or U50,488 (1 μm) in DMEM/F-12. Lysis and immunoblots were performed as described previously (Belcheva et al., 2001). Cells were immediately placed on ice, and media was aspirated and lysed in 650 μl of ice-cold lysis buffer (20 mm HEPES, 10 mm EGTA, 40 mm β-glycerophosphate, 2.5 mm MgCl2, and 1% Nonidet P-40) with protease inhibitors [50 μg/ml PMSF, 1 μg/ml aprotinin, 1 μg/ml leupeptin, and 1 μg/ml pepstatin (Calbiochem, San Diego, CA)], a protein tyrosine phosphatase inhibitor (0.1 mg/ml, α-bromo-4-hydroxyacetophenone; Calbiochem), and a protein serine/threonine phosphatase inhibitor cocktail (Calbiochem) containing 2.5 mm (−)-p-bromotetramisole oxalate, 500 μm cantharidin, and 500 nm microcystin-LR. After 5 min on ice, lysates were scraped from each well by rubber policeman and then spun at 4°C for 20 min at 10,000 × g. Protein concentration was estimated using a bicinchoninic colorimetric assay kit (Pierce, Rockford, IL). Lysate concentration was estimated from a bovine serum albumin (BSA) standard curve generated by spectrophotometer at a visible absorbance of 562 nm. Lysates were diluted in lysis buffer to a final concentration of 15–20 μg/lane. Samples were boiled for 2 min in 20 μl of Laemmli sample buffer (100 mm Tris, pH 6.8, 2% SDS, 20% glycerol, 10% β-mercaptoethanol, and 0.1% bromophenol blue), resolved by SDS-PAGE using 10% bis-acrylamide nonreducing gels (Invitrogen) and transferred to nitrocellulose membranes. Blots were soaked in blocking buffer (5% BSA, 0.1% Tween 20, and TBS, pH 7.4) for 2 h at room temperature and incubated overnight at 4°C with a monoclonal primary antibody raised in rabbit recognizing phosphorylated p38 MAPK (Cell Signaling Technology) at a dilution of 1:500 in blocking buffer. Blots were washed, incubated for 1 h at room temperature in HRP-conjugated goat anti-rabbit secondary antibody (Bio-Rad, Hercules, CA) diluted 1:1000 in blocking buffer. Blots were washed, and then antibody labeling of proteins was visualized with an enhanced chemiluminescence detection kit (ECL; PerkinElmer, Boston, MA) on Eastman Kodak (Rochester, NY) BioMax XAR film. Blots were stripped by incubation for 60–90 min in erasure buffer (2% SDS, 62.5 mm Tris-HCl, pH 6.8 at 20°C, 100 mm β-mercaptoethanol) at 70°C, washed two times (10 min each) in TBS/0.1% Tween 20, blocked as described, and incubated overnight in total p38 MAPK (Cell Signaling Technology) diluted 1:1000 in dilution buffer. The secondary antibody used was HRP-conjugated goat anti-rabbit (Promega, Madison, WI) diluted 1:1000 in dilution buffer. Both primary p38 MAPK antibodies labeled a band of ∼50 kDa, consistent with a control cell lysate for phospho-p38 MAPK provided by Cell Signaling Technology.
Microglial staining in rat spinal cord sections.
As a positive control for p38 activation in microglia, peripheral nerve ligation was performed on two adult male rats (Sprague Dawley; Harlan, Livermore, CA), and spinal sections were double labeled with phospho-p38 and OX42 (microglia marker, purified mouse anti-rat antibody, 1:50 dilution; BD PharMingen, San Diego, CA).
norBNI was obtained from the National Institute on Drug Abuse drug supply program (National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD). U50,488 and BrdU were from Sigma. SB 203580 HCl was from Calbiochem.
In the immunohistochemical studies, cell numbers were counted and presented as the percentage of the control (e.g., contralateral side, sham, or vehicle treatment) for between-group differences. Similarly, the intensity of immunolabeling was compared for sections with the same optical parameters for the NIH Image or MetaMorph quantitation software (Molecular Devices, Palo Alto, CA). Significant results were demonstrated either by one-way ANOVA followed by Dunnett's test or Student's t test for significant pairwise comparisons. Response data are presented as means ± SEM of all groups, with significance set at p < 0.05.
Consistent with previous results, GFAP immunoreactivity (IR) in lumbar spinal cord (L4–L5) was markedly increased in the lumbar spinal cord 7 d after pSNL (Fig. 1A,D) compared with sham-ligated mice (p < 0.05) (Fig. 1B,E) or untreated mice (data not shown). The GFAP-positive cells were located primarily in the lamina I–IV of the dorsal horn. Although an increase in GFAP-IR occurred bilaterally, staining appeared greater on the side of the spinal cord ipsilateral to the pSNL (right side). The GFAP-IR appeared to more fully fill the cells in the pSNL sections, suggesting that GFAP expression increased per cell (Fig. 1D). The increase in GFAP-IR in WT mice was blocked by pretreatment with the κ antagonist norBNI (10 mg/kg, i.p.) (Fig. 1C). In addition, mice lacking the dynorphin gene (DYN−/−) did not show increased GFAP-IR after pSNL (Fig. 1F) compared with sham-operated mice (Fig. 1B). Mice lacking κ opioid receptors (KOR−/−) also did not show increased GFAP-IR after pSNL (Fig. 1G). The consistent results from norBNI pretreatment and gene deletions of dynorphin or KOR suggest that the effect of pSNL on GFAP-IR induction was mediated by endogenous dynorphin peptide activation of the κ opioid receptor.
GFAP-immunoreactive staining is increased in WT lumbar spinal cord 7 d after pSNL but not after sham ligation. The increase is blocked by norBNI and does not occur in Dyn−/− or KOR−/− mice. Transverse sections were taken of the lumbar spinal cord 7 d after pSNL. A–C,GFAP staining was significantly increased in WT pSNL mice compared with WT sham-operated mice (A, B), and this increase in GFAP-IR was blocked by the κ antagonist norBNI (10 mg/kg) (C). Mice lacking the dynorphin gene (Dyn−/−) did not show upregulated GFAP staining after pSNL (F). D and E are higher-magnification images of A and B, respectively. G, Graph showing mean ± SEM pixel intensity of GFAP staining in lamina I–IV of lumbar spinal sections. Image analysis of astrocytes expressing GFAP after pSNL, demonstrating approximately twofold higher signal intensity [114 ± 8.71 arbitrary units (AU); n = 4] than that of sham-ligated mice (57.9 ± 6.26 AU; n = 4) (*p < 0.001). In contrast, image analysis of sections from pSNL mice pretreated with norBNI (NBNI) did not show a significant increase over sham and were significantly lower than WT pSNL signal intensity (norBNI, 46.5 ± 0.85 AU; n = 4). Similarly, pSNL of Dyn−/− or KOR−/− mice did not result in significant increases in GFAP-immunoreactive pixel intensities over sham-ligated mice (Dyn−/−, 54.3 ± 0.84 AU, n = 4; KOR−/−, 48.0 ± 0.62 AU, n = 4). Scale bars: A–C, F, 400 μm; D, E, 100 μm.
To determine whether the apparent increase in the number of GFAP-positive cells was caused solely by increased GFAP expression in existing cells or by astrocyte proliferation, mice were injected with BrdU (100 mg/kg, i.p.) once daily for 7 d after pSNL. Seven days after pSNL, the number of BrdU-positive cells was increased 4.4-fold in the ipsilateral side of the spinal cord compared with contralateral side (p < 0.05) (Fig. 2A,D). The results suggest that pSNL induced both astrocyte proliferation and increased GFAP expression. Approximately 15–20% of BrdU-positive cells were GFAP positive (Fig. 2C,F), suggesting that only a portion of the proliferative response after pSNL was attributable to GFAP-immunoreactive astrocyte proliferation. Although κ antagonism completely blocked the increase in GFAP-IR (Fig. 1G), the pSNL-induced increase in BrdU staining was not fully blocked by norBNI or KOR−/− (data not shown). The results suggest that KOR-independent mechanisms were simultaneously occurring in other cell types.
The increase in GFAP-IR after pSNL is caused by astrocyte proliferation and hypertrophy. Transverse sections through the lumbar spinal cord segment were taken 7 d after pSNL. BrdU was administered 100 mg/kg intraperitoneally once daily for 7 d. Double-immunohistochemical labeling was viewed by laser-scanning confocal microscopy. A, BrdU-positive cells (green) were markedly increased on the ipsilateral side (right) of the spinal cord compared with the contralateral side (left). The immunoreactive cells were preferentially located in the lamina II–IV and VII. B, GFAP staining occurred on both sides, with a significant increase on the ipsilateral side. F, GFAP staining was more pronounced in astrocyte processes, whereas staining for BrdU was more pronounced in cell bodies (nucleus). D–F, Some of the dividing BrdU-labeled cells were GFAP-positive astrocytes (arrows), and others were not GFAP positive (arrowheads). The increased GFAP staining in astrocytes that were not BrdU positive suggested that these cells only increased their sizes (hypertrophy). G–I, Many BrdU-positive cells were obviously double labeled with nestin, a stem cell marker (arrows), but a small fraction of BrdU-positive cells were not nestin-positive stem cells (arrowheads). J–O, Similarly, a small fraction of BrdU-labeled cells were colabeled by antibodies against NG2, an oligodendrocyte precursor marker (J–L, arrows) or colabeled by antibodies against Iba 1, a microglial marker (M–O, arrows). Scale bars: A–C, 400 μm; D–O, 50 μm.
To further characterize the BrdU-positive cells that did not express GFAP-IR, we performed dual-labeling of BrdU and nestin (stem cell marker), BrdU and NG2 (oligodendrocytes precur-sor marker), BrdU and Iba1 (microglia marker), or BrdU and NeuN (neuronal marker). The majority (∼70%) of the BrdU-positive cells were nestin-positive stem cells (Fig. 2G–I). Only a very small portion of BrdU-positive cells (<10%) were double-labeled microglia (Fig. 2M–O) or oligodendrocytes (Fig. 2J–L). We did not detect BrdU-positive cells that double labeled with NeuN (data not shown), suggesting that proliferation of neurons was not evident 7 d after pSNL.
Primary astrocytes cultured from spinal cord were used to determine whether κ-opioid activation directly induced astrocyte proliferation. Previous studies showed that κ opioid receptors are expressed by brain and spinal cord astrocytes (Barg et al., 1993a; Ruzicka et al., 1995; Xu et al., 2004), and we found that primary astrocytes isolated from mouse spinal cord expressed functional κ opioid receptors. Treatment of primary astrocyte cultures using the κ agonist U50,488 (1 μm for 1 h at 37°C) significantly increased κ opioid receptor labeling detected by a phosphoselective antibody KOR-P compared with vehicle control (p < 0.05) (Fig. 3A,B). KOR-P is an affinity-purified antibody shown previously to detect KOR phosphorylated on serine 369 by GRK3 after agonist activation (McLaughlin et al., 2003; Xu et al., 2004). Coincubation with norBNI (10 μm) blocked the U50,488-induced increase in KOR-P labeling of astrocytes (Fig. 3C). Preabsorption of the KOR-P antibody with the corresponding cognate phospho-peptide prevented antibody labeling after 1 μm U50,488 treatment (data not shown). Treatment with norBNI alone had no effect on KOR-P labeling (data not shown). The results suggested that cultured spinal cord astrocytes express functional κ opioid receptors.
KOR activation increases KOR-P staining in astrocyte culture. A–I, Astrocyte cultures were pretreated for 1 h at 37°C with vehicle (A, D, G), 1 μm U50,488 (B, E, H), or 10 μm norBNI with 1 μm U50,488 (C, F, I). Cells were fixed, double labeled with affinity-purified KOR-P antibody (10 μg/ml) and anti-GFAP antibody (1:1000), and then visualized with a confocal microscope. The KOR-P antibody did not label untreated cells (A), whereas incubation with U50,488 (1 μm) for 1 h produced an increase in KOR-P antibody labeling that colocalized with the GFAP labeling (B, H). Coincubation with the KOR-selective antagonist norBNI (10 μm) blocked the U50,488-induced increase of KOR-P labeling (C, I). GFAP staining did not change significantly after 1 h U50,588 treatment (D–F). J, Mean ± SEM pixel intensity of KOR-P staining in astrocyte cultures. Image analysis of the astrocytes expressing KOR-P treated with U50,488 demonstrated a 2.3-fold higher signal intensity (62.48 ± 4.52 AU; n = 4) than that of untreated cells (27.56 ± 1.2 AU; n = 4) (*p < 0.001). Image analysis of the astrocytes expressing KOR-P coincubated with both U50,488 and norBNI showed no significant difference in signal intensity (23.8 ± 2.04; n = 4) compared with untreated cells. K, Dual labeling of anti-A2B5 (green) and anti-GFAP (red) showed that these astrocytes were type II astrocytes. Scale bars: A–I, 100 μm; K, 50 μm.
The cultured cells expressing κ opioid receptors were also immunolabeled by an antibody (anti-A2B5) specific for type II astrocytes. These type II astrocytes showed a stellate process-bearing morphology in culture (Fig. 3K) and closely resembled radial glia in the spinal cord (McMahon and McDermott, 2001). Incubation with 1 μm U50,488 for 3 or 6 d caused a robust increase in BrdU labeling of type II astrocytes compared with untreated cultures (p < 0.01) (Fig. 4). This increase was blocked by the inclusion of norBNI (10 μm) in the culture medium (Fig. 4C,F), suggesting that exogenous κ agonists can activate KOR on type II astrocytes and induce proliferation. Treatment with norBNI alone had no effect on BrdU labeling (data not shown).
KOR activation increases the rate of astrocyte proliferation in culture. Cells were pretreated with the drugs listed above each image. A, D, In cell culture with vehicle treatment, there was a greater increase in the number of BrdU-positive cells after 6 d culture than after 3 d culture (A, D), and some BrdU-positive cells were not GFAP-positive (D). B, E, When the cultures were incubated with U50,488 (U50) (1 μm) in media for 3 or 6 d, there was a significant increase in BrdU labeling in type II astrocytes at 6 d compared with that of 3 d. C, F, This increase was blocked by the addition of 10 μm norBNI (NBNI). G, Graph showing mean ± SEM BrdU labeling of type II astrocytes per square millimeter in the astrocyte culture. BrdU labeling of type II astrocytes after 6 d of U50,488 treatment (16.64 ± 2.6; n = 4) was 1.6-fold at >3 d of treatment (11 ± 2.45; n = 4) (*p < 0.05). The U50,488-induced type II astrocyte proliferation was also blocked with cotreatment of the p38 inhibitor SB 203580. Scale bars: A–F, 100 μm; K, 50 μm.
The U50,488-induced type II astrocyte proliferation was blocked by cotreatment with the p38 inhibitor SB 203580 (100 or 500 nm) (Fig. 4G), suggesting that KOR activation induced astrocyte proliferation through the p38 MAPK pathway. Consistent with previous reports, Western blotting experiments demonstrated that both 100 and 500 nm of the selective p38 inhibitor SB 203580 (Gallagher et al., 1997; Young et al., 1997; Bhat et al., 1998) were sufficient to block anisomycin (50 μm, 15 min) induced p38 activation in primary spinal cord astrocytes (data not shown). To test whether KOR mediates p38 activation in spinal cord astrocytes, we assessed the effects of U50,488 treatment on phospho-p38 MAPK levels in primary astrocyte cultures. A low basal level of phospho-p38 MAPK-IR was evident in the absence of agonist (Fig. 5A), and phospho-p38-IR was markedly increased after 1 μm U50,488 for 10 min (Fig. 5B,D). The U50,488-induced increase in phospho-p38 staining was blocked by 10 μm norBNI (Fig. 5C). Treatment with norBNI alone had no effect on phospho-p38-immunoreactive labeling (data not shown). The cultured cells responding to U50,488 with an increase in phospho-p38-IR were also GFAP-IR as shown by the double labeling (Fig. 5D–F). Quantitation of phospho-p38 staining intensities showed that the significant increase in intensity caused by U50,488 was blocked by norBNI (Fig. 5G). The in vitro results suggest that the increase in GFAP-IR caused by pSNL may have also been mediated by a p38 MAPK mechanism.
U50,488 activates phospho-p38 MAPK pathway in spinal astrocyte cultures. Cells were pretreated for 10 min at 37°C with the drugs listed above each image. A, B, In vehicle-treated cultures, some basal phospho-p38 staining was evident (A), and cells treated with 1 μm U50,488 (U50) showed a marked increased in the level of phospho-p38-IR (B). C, The increase in phospho-p38 staining was not evident in cultures incubated with both norBNI and U50,488. D–F, Double labeling with phospho-p38 and GFAP using laser-scanning confocal microscopy revealed that phospho-p38 MAPK staining was localized to the cytoplasm and nucleus of GFAP-immunoreactive astrocytes. F, Mean ± SEM pixel intensity of phospho-p38 staining in astrocyte cultures. Image analysis of the astrocytes treated with U50,488 demonstrated a 1.6-fold higher signal intensity of phospho-p38 (47.85 ± 3.16 AU; n = 4) than in untreated cell cultures (29.85 ± 1.94 AU; n = 4) (*p < 0.01). Image analysis of the astrocytes coincubated with U50,488 and norBNI showed no significant increase in phospho-p38 signal intensity (28.38 ± 2.98; n = 4). Scale bars: A–C, 100 μm; D–F, 30 μm.
Although several studies have shown that p38 was activated in different pain models in rats and p38 is activated exclusively in microglia (Jin et al., 2003; Svensson et al., 2003), p38 MAPK activation in mice during neuropathic pain has not been demonstrated previously. In this study, we used phospho-p38 antibody staining in mice lumbar spinal sections 7 d after pSNL. Phospho-p38 antibody staining was increased in the ipsilateral dorsal horn compared with the contralateral dorsal horn (Fig. 6A, inset). Most of the p38 MAPK staining was in the nucleus of astrocytes (Fig. 6A–C) or neurons (Fig. 6K–L). There was no evidence of phospho-p38 staining in CD11b-positive microglia (Figs. 6D–F); a series of 80 sections obtained from five mice at 7 d after pSNL were scanned. As a positive control for microglial double labeling, we showed the phospho-p38 staining in microglia in rat spinal cord tissue after chronic nerve injury (Figs. 6G–I), suggesting that there may be important differences in the cellular responses of rats and mice. Nevertheless, the present study was focused on the role of κ receptors in GFAP-immunoreactive type II astrocyte activation and did not attempt to further resolve this apparent microglial discrepancy.
p38 MAPK was activated in astrocytes after pSNL in lumbar spinal sections. Transverse sections through the lumbar spinal cord segment 7 d after pSNL were labeled with antibody against phospho-p38 (p-p38, red) and double labeled with GFAP, CD11b, OX42, or NeuN antibodies (green). Double-immunohistochemical labeling was viewed by laser-scanning confocal microscopy (Leica SL). A, Phospho-p38 staining was increased on the ipsilateral side dorsal horn (left) of the spinal cord compared with the contralateral side (right) (inset). A–L, The phospho-p38-immunoreactive staining was preferentially located in the nucleus of GFAP-positive (A–C) and NeuN-positive (J–L) cells. A–C, Some of the phospho-p38-labeled cells were GFAP-positive astrocytes (arrows), and others were not GFAP positive (arrowheads). J–L, Many phospho-p38-labeled cells were clearly double labeled with NeuN antisera, a neuronal marker (arrows), although some phospho-p38-labeled cells were not NeuN-positive neurons (arrowheads). D–I, No colocalization was detected for phospho-p38 and CD11b, a microglia marker (D–F, arrowheads) in mouse tissue, but, as a positive control, colocalization was detected for phospho-p38 and microglia marker OX42 in rat spinal cord sections (G–I, arrows). The insets for G–I show a two times enlargement of the double-labeled microglial cell indicated by the arrow. Scale bars: A–L, 50 μm.
We intrathecally injected either saline or SB 203580 (1 or 3 μg) in a volume of 5 μl once per 12 h for 7 d after pSNL. Paw-flick latency and von Frey hair force sensitivity was measured 30 min before the intrathecal injections on days 1, 3, 5, and 7. On day 7, the mice were fixative perfused, and GFAP-IR was assessed in the spinal cord sections. Astrocyte proliferation within the lumbar spinal cord caused by pSNL was inhibited by 1 μg (Fig. 7A–F) and 3 μg (data not shown) of SB 203580. As evident from A and B, SB 230580 treatment substantially reduced the GFAP-IR in the lamina I–VI. There was no effect of SB 230580 on the GFAP-IR in the ventral white matter. Higher-magnification images show that the SB 230580-sensitive phospho-p38 staining was predominantly in the deeper lamina of the spinal cord (Fig. 7C–F).
pSNL-induced GFAP proliferation was reduced by a specific p38 MAPK inhibitor, SB 203580. Mice were intrathecally injected with either saline or 1 μg of SB 203580 in 5 μl, 30 min before pSNL and twice per day after pSNL for 7 d. After perfusion with 4% paraformaldehyde, lumbar spinal sections were stained with GFAP antisera. A, B, The GFAP staining was significantly lower in the SB 203580-treated mice (B) compared with the saline-treated mice (A). A, C, There was a significant increase of GFAP staining in the deeper layers on the ipsilateral side (left) compared with contralateral side (right) in saline-injected mice. C, E and D, F are higher-magnification images of A and B, respectively. SB 203580 significantly reduced the increase in GFAP staining after pSNL in both ipsilateral and contralateral regions of the deeper layers of the spinal cord (B, D, F). Scale bars: A, B, 800 μm; C, D, 400 μm; E, F, 800 μm.
On day 7 after pSNL, the saline-injected mice showed significantly increased sensitivity to thermal and mechanical stimulation in the ipsilateral hindpaw compared with the baseline values before lesion (Fig. 8A,C) (p < 0.05). The intrathecal administration of SB 203580 at either 1 or 3 μg/dose modestly reduced the allodynic effects of pSNL in both the ipsilateral (Fig. 8C) and contralateral (Fig. 8D) paws. The significantly increased threshold response to mechanical stimulation suggested that there were anti-allodynic effects of this compound (p < 0.05). The higher dose of SB 203580 (3 μg) increased paw-withdrawal latency in the thermal analgesia assay (an anti-hyperalgesic effect), whereas the 1 μg dose of SB 203580 did not significantly affect paw-withdrawal latencies (Fig. 8A). Similar to our previous findings (Xu et al., 2004), pSNL did not induce hyperalgesia in the contralateral paw (Fig. 8B), but robust allodynia developed that was significantly reduced by 1 and 3 μg of SB 203580 on day 7 (Fig. 8D).
Intrathecal injection of SB 203580 partially blocked pSNL-induced hyperalgesia and mechanical allodynia. Paw-flick latency or von Frey hair force mechanical threshold were measured on days 1, 3, 5, and 7 after pSNL for mice injected with saline or 1 or 3 μg of SB 203580. A, On day 7 after pSNL, the saline-injected mice showed hyperalgesia in the ipsilateral hindpaw as evident from the significantly decreased thermal latencies compared with before pSNL; this hyperalgesia was not evident in mice injected with 3 μg of SB 203580. B, The contralateral hindpaw did not develop hyperalgesia, and SB 203580 did not affect the thermal sensitivity of the contralateral hindpaw. C, D, However, both ipsilateral and contralateral hindpaws developed mechanical allodynia after saline intrathecal injection, and this allodynia was significantly reduced by both 1 and 3 μg of SB 203580 (*p < 0.05; one-way ANOVA, followed by Dunnett's multiple comparisons test). Unlike the hyperalgesic response to pSNL, the allodynic response was not completely blocked by SB 203580 treatment.
Western blotting experiments in primary mouse spinal cord astrocyte cultures were used to extend the immunohistochemistry analysis. Cell lysates prepared 10 min after 1 μm U50,488 addition in vitro showed increased phospho-p38 MAPK-IR (195 ± 32% of vehicle-treated cells). The increase in phospho-p38 induced by U50,488 was not evident in KOR−/− cultures (Fig. 9A,B). Because we showed previously that KOR activation induced phosphorylation of p38 MAPK in transfected cells and primary cultured mouse astrocytes by GRK3 and arrestin-dependent mechanism (Bruchas et al., 2006), we next asked whether pSNL of GRK3−/− mice would show increased GFAP-IR. Basal phospho-p38-IR in astrocytes from GRK3−/− mice was significantly lower than in astrocytes from wild-type mice (54 ± 20% of vehicle-treated controls) (Fig. 9B). Furthermore, U50,488 treatment of GRK3−/− astrocyte cultures did not increase phospho-p38-IR compared with vehicle-treated controls. Equal protein loading was confirmed by stripping each blot and reprobing with a monoclonal antibody raised in rabbit to total p38 MAPK protein (Fig. 9A). Consistent with the lack of U50,488-induced increase in phospho-p38 in cultured astrocytes from GRK3−/− mice, pSNL did not cause an increase in GFAP-IR in GRK3−/− mice (Fig. 9C).
agonist activation enhances phospho-p38 MAPK-IR in primary astrocyte cultures by a mechanism requiring GRK3. A, Representative gels showing phospho-p38-IR after U50,488 (U50) treatment in cell lysates prepared from spinal cord astrocytes cultured from WT (+/+), KOR−/−, or GRK3−/− mice. Top, Phospho-p38-IR; bottom, loading control; Anis, anisomycin. B, U50,488 treatment of WT astrocytes (left bars) increased phospho-p38 MAPK-IR to 195 ± 32% of vehicle-treated controls. In contrast, phospho-p38-IR in KOR−/− astrocyte cultures did not change after 1 μm U50,488 treatment (middle bars). Basal phospho-p38-IR in GRK3−/− astrocyte cultures was significantly lower than in GRK3+/+ astrocytes (*p < 0.05), and phospho-p38-IR did not significantly increase in GRK3−/− cultures after U50,488 treatment [right bars, 54 ± 20% (black) and 43 ± 37% (gray) of WT (+/+) vehicle-treated controls, respectively] (*p < 0.05 compared with vehicle-treated WT (+/+) controls; n = 6–10 replicates). C, Consistent with the lack of U50,488-induced increase in phospho-p38 in astrocyte cultures, GRK3−/− mice did not increase GFAP-IR in lumbar spinal cord 7 d after pSNL.
The principal finding of this study is that κ opioid receptor activation mediates a component of pSNL-induced reactive gliosis in mouse spinal cord. Proliferation of type II astrocytes after pSNL was blocked by pretreatment with the KOR antagonist norBNI and did not occur in mice genetically lacking either prodynorphin-derived peptides or κ opioid receptors. Numerous studies have established that the endogenous dynorphin opioid peptides are released by neuropathic pain and contribute to the pain response (Wang et al., 2001; Xu et al., 2004). In addition, considerable evidence supports the idea that enhanced expression of endogenous dynorphin within the spinal cord promotes morphine tolerance (Vanderah et al., 2000) and is pronociceptive (Wang et al., 2001). The dynorphins act as endogenous agonists at the opioid receptors (KORs) (Chavkin et al., 1982), and the increased dynorphin expression in neuropathic pain also leads to a sustained activation of KOR (Xu et al., 2004). Several studies have documented antinociceptive effects of κ agonists (Nakazawa et al., 1991). Thus, the endogenous dynorphin-derived opioids seem to have both antinociceptive and pronociceptive actions. In our previous report, we showed that neuropathic pain induced a sustained release of endogenous prodynorphin-derived opioid peptides and increased KOR phosphorylation in GABAergic neurons and astrocytes (Xu et al., 2004). These results suggested that pSNL activated the KOR system in mouse spinal cord and induced opioid receptor tolerance. Similar results in the μ opioid system have shown that μ opioid receptor (MOR) phosphorylation increased after induction of neuropathic pain (Narita et al., 2004b), and MOR tolerance caused an increase in GFAP-IR in the spinal cord of both rats and mice (Song and Zhao, 2001; Narita et al., 2004a). However, the consequences of κ receptor activation on astrocyte function and how astrocytes may mediate the effects of dynorphin in the neuropathic pain condition remained unclear.
Among the hallmarks of reactive gliosis is an increase in GFAP-IR, hypertrophy of astrocytic cell bodies, and proliferation of astrocytes (Faulkner et al., 2004). Reactive gliosis is likely to play an important role in neuronal survival and functional recovery after central or peripheral injury (Murray et al., 1990; Liu et al., 1998). pSNL induced a proliferation of GFAP-immunoreactive cells in the dorsal and ventral spinal cord ipsilateral to the lesion. The ligation-induced proliferation was not restricted to type II astrocytes, and ∼80% of the BrdU-positive cells were not GFAP positive; these other dividing cells might be progenitors or microglia (Ishii et al., 2001; Tanga et al., 2004). In this study, we found that ∼70% of the BrdU-positive cells were stem cells (nestin staining positive), suggesting that these dividing cells were still in their early development stage. The ultimate differentiation states of these progenitors were not established in this study. The astrocyte activation observed is consistent with previous findings showing that astrocytes in the spinal cord become activated after spinal nerve injury. The novel observation was that endogenous κ opioid receptor activation played a key role. Other mediators have also been shown to be important, and previous reports demonstrated that interleukin release from both astrocytes and microglial cells results in reactive astrogliosis after spinal cord injury that can be blocked by interleukin-6 receptor antagonism (Okada et al., 2004). Although studies have suggested that the reactive gliosis in response to injury is important in reestablishing neuronal pathways, little is understood about the cellular and molecular signals that regulate this process.
Primary spinal astrocyte cultures are potentially less complex, and in vitro studies allow clearer resolution of the underlying mechanisms; however, these cultures are still heterogeneous, and cells in culture derived from neonates may represent a less differentiated state. Nevertheless, in our in vitro preparation, we demonstrated that κ opioid receptor activation could directly stimulate proliferation of type II astrocytes expressing both KOR-IR and GFAP-IR. These results are consistent with previous studies showing κ receptors are expressed by astrocytes (Barg et al., 1993a; Eriksson et al., 1993) and are consistent with a previous study demonstrating that κ agonists increased thymidine incorporation in spinal cord–dorsal root ganglion cocultures (Barg et al., 1993b). κ opioid effects differ from μ opioid effects, which have been shown to inhibit type I astrocyte proliferation in cultures derived from rat brain (Hauser et al., 1996).
The astrocyte proliferation caused by U50,488 treatment was blocked by cotreatment with SB 203580, suggesting that p38 MAPK activation was required. The three MAPK pathways identified to date include ERK (1 and 2), p38 (α, β, γ, and δ), and c-Jun N-terminal protein kinase (JNK) (encoded by three genes, JNK1, JNK2, and JNK3) (McDonald et al., 2000). All three pathways have been implicated in pain transmission and mechanisms of opioid analgesic tolerance in the spinal cord (Ji, 2004; Narita et al., 2004a, b; Obata and Noguchi, 2004). ERK is involved in both cell proliferation and differentiation during development and in neuronal plasticity. p38 and JNK are stress-activated protein kinases and participate in the injury responses (Ji and Woolf, 2001). ERK and p38 both have distinct roles in response to pain (Watkins et al., 2001). Ozaki et al. (2004) recently found that basally active p38 in the ventral tegmental area of the brain can be suppressed by sciatic nerve ligation. Other evidence has shown that p38 and ERK were activated within microglia and astrocytes after peripheral nerve injury (Jin et al., 2003; Zhuang et al., 2005). Results from the present study suggest that KOR activation of p38 contributes to the proliferative response of type II astrocytes after pSNL. Numerous publications have shown that intrathecal administration of SB 203580 significantly reduced neuropathic pain behavior, including hyperalgesia and allodynia (Obata et al., 2004; Zhang et al., 2005), which is similar to our finding. No previous anatomical studies have shown the effects of p38 inhibitors on astrocyte proliferation. In our study, we demonstrated that 1 μg of SB 203580 intrathecal administration twice a day for 7 d significantly inhibited the astrocyte proliferation induced by pSNL. These results suggest that p38 MAPK pathway may play an important role in pSNL-induced astrocyte proliferation. However, the effect of p38 MAPK activation on cell proliferation in vivo may also function indirectly through the activation of microglia. Studies have shown that p38 was activated on microglia after inflammatory pain (Svensson et al., 2003) and neuropathic pain (Jin et al., 2003), and it is possible that SB 203580 may have inhibited astrocyte proliferation indirectly.
The results showing that GRK3 contributes to the phosphorylation of p38 in primary astrocyte cultures are intriguing. GRK and β-arrestin mediate receptor desensitization and resensitization (Liu and Anand, 2001). When KOR is activated by agonist, the receptor becomes a substrate for GRK that specifically phosphorylates the serine 369 residue in the C-terminal domain of the receptor and initiates arrestin-dependent receptor internalization and desensitization (Appleyard et al., 1999). There are currently seven known GRKs and four arrestins (Pitcher et al., 1998; Miller et al., 2003). Previous results from our laboratory suggest that GRK3 and β-arrestin mediate κ opioid receptor phosphorylation and subsequent homologous desensitization in response to sustained endogenous opioid release (McLaughlin et al., 2003; Xu et al., 2004). GRK is activated by opioid receptor stimulation and phosphorylates the agonist-occupied receptor, a process that further induces desensitization and tolerance (Pitcher et al., 1998).
Evidence suggests that GRKs are targets for MAPK signaling. For example, GRK2 can be inactivated by ERK-dependent phosphorylation of serine 670 of GRK2 (Pitcher et al., 1999). GRK2 was also shown to be a target for the ERK MAPK cascade by studies demonstrating that ERK inhibition impairs phosphorylation and desensitization of A3 adenosine receptors, possibly by impairing translocation of GRK2 to the plasma membrane (Trincavelli et al., 2002). Conversely, GRKs can activate ERK1/2 MAPK, contributing to the development of opioid tolerance and withdrawal (Liu and Anand, 2001). β-Arrestin association with β2 adrenergic receptors after their phosphorylation by GRK resulted in c-src recruitment, thereby initiating ERK1/2 MAPK pathway activation (Luttrell et al., 1999), a result applicable to other G-protein-coupled receptors (Ahn et al., 1999). Thus, in addition to their traditionally acknowledged role in desensitization, GRKs and arrestins may also serve as adapters for the initiation of alternative signaling routes (Luttrell et al., 1999; Miller et al., 2003). For instance, angiotensin receptors use arrestin scaffolds to couple to MAPK family members, including ERK and JNK (McDonald et al., 2000).
An association between p38 MAPK and GRK is also suggested by previous studies as well (Bruchas et al., 2006). The human cytomegalovirus receptor US28 is a Gq-coupled receptor that is hyperphosphorylated by GRK5, resulting in constitutive β-arrestin association at the plasma membrane and resulting in maximal p38 MAPK phosphorylation and activation (Miller et al., 2003). If a similar mechanism may be involved in the KOR activation of astrocytes observed in the present study, the GRK3 gene deletion might result in basally lower p38 MAPK phosphorylation and may prevent the KOR-mediated activation of p38 observed.
A better understanding of the mechanisms underlying chronic neuropathic pain is likely to suggest therapeutic strategies that could benefit the many people with this condition. Results from the present study suggest that endogenous κ opioids induce the activation of astrocytes within the spinal cord. How that contributes to the neuropathic pain response is not yet clear, but astrocytosis is likely to result in persistent changes in neuronal function and may contribute to the expression of the spontaneous pain, mechanical and thermal allodynia, and hyperalgesia responses characteristic of chronic pain syndromes.
This work was supported by United States Public Health Service Grants R37DA11672, PO1DA15916, and F32DA20430 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. We thank Dr. John Pintar for KOR knock-out mice, Dr. Uwe Hochgeschwender for prodynorphin knock-out mice, and Drs. Marc Caron and Robert Lefkowitz for the GRK3 knock-out mice. We thank Drs. Megumi Aita and Margaret R. Byers for help with chronic nerve injury in rats.
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in mathematics, law holding that for a given operation combining three quantities, two at a time, the initial pairing is arbitrary; e.g., using the operation of addition, the numbers 2, 3, and 4 may be combined (2+3)+4=5+4=9 or 2+(3+4)=2+7=9. More generally, in addition, for any three numbers a, b, and c the associative law is expressed as (a+b)+c=a+(b+c). Multiplication of numbers is also associative, i.e., (a×b)×c=a×(b×c). In general, any binary operation, symbolized by +, joining mathematical entities A, B, and C obeys the associative law if (A+B)+C=A+(B+C) for all possible choices of A, B, and C. Not all operations are associative. For example, ordinary division is not, since (60÷12)÷3=5÷3=5/3, while 60÷(12÷3)=60÷4=15. When an operation is associative, the parentheses indicating which quantities are first to be combined may be omitted, e.g., (2+3)+4=2+(3+4)=2+3+4.
For a binary operation that is designated °, the relationship expressed by a ° (b ° c)=(a ° b) ° c.
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0.999972 |
2bd 1ba • 726 sq. ft.
The community of Joshua Tree has homes for rent in the Mojave Desert near Twentynine Palms and Desert Hot Springs. The area is filled with ways to help renters relax, including spas, resorts and fine dining. There are many campgrounds including a national park that lets renters immerse themselves in nature and enjoy a slower country style of life.
The area has many beautiful camping sites, like the Joshua Tree National Park, Jumbo Rock Campground and Belle Campground. Local wildlife include bighorn sheep, desert tortoises, and 18 different species of lizards. There are ranger-guided tours as well as plenty of opportunities for hiking and campfires.
Joshua Tree is home to several relaxation centers that can help residents unwind. The Joshua Tree Retreat Center has a spa, and Sacred Sands Bed & Breakfast has outdoor hot tubs and delicious food located just outside of the national park.
The community hosts the annual Joshua Tree Music Festival, which includes yoga, a world market and a live astronomy theater. The Coachella Music Festival also takes place about an hour's drive south, and features some of the world's most popular music acts.
Certain legal forms can be downloaded or filled out online at the Superior Court of California County of San Bernardino Web page. It also offers resources on employment and jury duty, as well as directions and hours for the Joshua Tree branch.
The Joshua Tree Village website has a community board and information on all things local for the area, like arts, commerce, government and organizations.
Residents can explore the Joshua Tree Chamber of Commerce website for suggestions on activities, information on local parks and a business directory for the region.
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0.882795 |
stop psych med weight gain!
My friend is on anti-psychotic medication and has managed after an increase in weight to not only lose it but, keep it off!
She describes it as "never feeling full". So she would eat a good meal but, then would still crave more food. She said the secret to beating the weight increase is to make yourself a meal which YOU KNOW is a healthy sized meal and then use your self-control when you get hungry again to tell yourself "I am not hungry, it's the meds making me feel hungry"!
I know this sounds quite simplistic but she gained 2 stone (28lb) and managed to lose it and keep it off so she is at her normal weight of 9st at her height is within a healthy range so it can work!
The basics are that although you have eaten a good healthy full meal, something in the meds is telling you that you are hungry....if you use common sense then you will learn that you aren't really hungry!
To use an analogy with drug addiction...you think you need the drugs (psychologically) but, in actual fact YOU DON"T..,your psychologically addicted!
I would use a food diary and write down everything you eat (like a diet etc) then you will start noticing patterns off eating that you know full well you don't need so you can start adjusting your eating pattern and retrain your brain (and your tummy) exactly what you need and don't need.
Certainly not me. I gained a BUNCH of weight on seroquel, although it definitely helped my insomnia. I switched to ambien for this very reason.
I gained a ton of weight when I was taking Seroquel (like 25 pounds or so), but the good thing was that I lost all of the weight once I stopped taking it. It probably took me 2 months to get back to my normal weight.
I did try to manage my eating/diet and exercise while I was on Seroquel, but that didn't really work. Stopped taking it because of the weight gain, and like the previous poster, I've started taking Ambien and have never looked back.
I was 10.5 lbs when I was born, and have been up to almost 300lbs since, I'm taking lots of meds that inc the ones that are supposed to make you put weight on, it's true they do.
But in the words of Billy Connelly, if you want lose weight ,eat less, do more, simples!
Chancer is right however, it's in the mind.
I have come to terms with being over weight, I just love my food and am prepared to pay the price of being over weight to continue a happy life.
Ladies and Gentlemen, It does not matter how you look in the long run, it's what's inside that counts.
And what's inside me at the moment is a big bowl of Chile Con, Tiger Bread and Butter and I'm already feeling hungry again, it's all in the mind.
Off to the kitchen, I'm sure I heard something out there.
I just saw your post after I made my own.
about losing weight on seroquel..
In my profession I have seen this drug do amazing things for people who have tried nearly everything else. The downside was in almost every case each individual gained significant weight. Whether it was a direct result of the medication or the side effects made regular activity and exercise difficult. We had some individuals taken off the drug because the weight gain caused serious heart problems but then of course they lost the benefits. There were also so withdrawal issues coming off this medication.
I'm just going to be honest. As a thin adult who grew up as a chubby child, you HAVE TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR WHAT YOU PUT IN YOUR MOUTH.
True, one of Seroquel's trademark side effects is carbohydrate craving, but you can CHOOSE to ignore it and still eat responsibly.
Do you want to know what REALLY works to become slim and stay slim? COMPLETELY cut SUGAR out of your diet. Including grains, which your body quickly converts to simple sugar anyway. Once you know longer eat "crap," you simply stop craving it, no matter what drugs you are on. Replace sugar with healthy fats such as: avocado, coconut, tree nuts, and organic butter, dairy, eggs, and meat/fish. The foundation of your diet should be vegetables (mostly), and some low-sugar fruits.
ETA: I take 100 mg of Seroquel every night, and I stay slim following the above advice.
Last edited by j2thalea; 08-16-2013 at 08:28 PM.
What do you recommend switching to if you did not have luck with Seroquel? I am experiencing the same things?
Not sure how this is used as a weight reduction. A doctor I went to gave me these as an anti depressant. And all it did was put me to sleep. I think I literally slept for days on end. Did not like that at all. Got off that crap after a week.
That is great advice! I am going to try. Do you buy it at at a drugstore, with the herbal remedies? I hate the weight I have gained, and I don't have great self-control. Someone said they ate oatmeal, but I need butter and sugar. Well, I don't NEED it, but otherwise it tastes icky. It comes down to how much you want to 'suffer' (can't think of another word) to lose weight. To me, cutting out sugar is suffering.
I have a question, I always hear people say to cut out soda. What about diet soda? If I am supposed to cut out diet soda, what should I drink (besides water, I know that). Is nutrasweet or other sweeteners ok?
One more thing @MaggieA do you get any side effects from the L-Glutamine? At the higher doses? I have been trying melatonin and getting killer headaches, so I am nervous about side effects. Thank you!
Last edited by charismajul; 08-13-2014 at 08:16 AM.
Has anyone tried kickboxing at a real boxing arena. I have been wanting too, but I wanted to lose some weight first (doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but I didn't want to look like a fool, while everyone else is in shape) I just think that is what I would enjoy, I can't run because of shin splints. Don't have alot of motivation to do dvd's at home. I lost 60 lbs before by doing Billy Blanks 5-6 days a week, but I just can't get myself to do it. I think going to a place I pay for would help. I lost alot of weight going to a club when my kids were young.
But to be honest, in both instances, the weight finally came off when I quit the meds. First it was nortriptyline and then it was seroquel. I have been out of seroquel for a week and I can't sleep, tried melatonin and got killer headaches. Even ambien alone, I still feel panicked when I wake up if I don't take the seroquel with it. Gonna try to cut down to 50 mg instead of 100mg, but I have tried that in the past and try 50 mg, can't sleep and end up taking another 50 mg. I am gonna try some of the ideas on here also.
I lost weight on Seroquel. But Seroquel made me so tired that I had to take Adderall in order to function! so the weight loss may be a product of the Adderall. @j2thalea is right. Cutting out sugar makes a huge difference...if you can do it. It's SOOOO hard! @charismajul- Benadryl May help you sleep. Seroquel actually functions a lot like an antihistamine when it is taken in low doses.
A friend of mine was on Seroquel for sleep and anxiety issues, and found the weight gain issue quite problematic. In the end, they resolved it with a combination of intensive exercise and self-induced vomiting. If I recall correctly, they followed this regime for about three years. It worked insofar as they lost a fair amount of weight. Unfortunately, the major downside was that the stomach acid in the vomit caused a fair amount of damage to their teeth. I guess the trick is find the right balance, otherwise you run the risk of getting slim, but at the cost of having a mouth resembling that of a crystal meth addict.
I have been on many anti psychotics, and every one resulted in weight gain. I craved sugar and junk food all the time. I could not stop eating them. I spoke to my psychiatrist about this, and he cut out the meds. Just kept me on Celexa. The weight gain after that just came from eating junk food because I was lazy, but the intense cravings left. I joined Weight Watchers and went from Size 22 to Size 10 jeans. That's how I got my weight off.
http://www.cellusyn.com/buy-garcinia-cambogia/, if you want to lose weight go here, you need nothing else, trust me, I'm on methad0ne. This is the newest and most talked about miracle drug on the market with Dr.Oz behind it, yes you will need to cut back on cokes some and carbs some. other then that and if you could walk just 15 mins a day. Your set, you will lose weight. In 2 weeks I lost 8 lbs. and I wasn't doing anything, if I had exercised I really think I'd lost 15lbs. You can get a free trial of Garcinia Cambogia , it works.
Last edited by seashells; 09-26-2014 at 09:52 PM. Reason: to many mispelled words, to much personal info.
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0.998526 |
Once I ran across the following statement: "In golf and in life, it's the follow-through that makes the difference." It's not only a true statement in golf, however, it really is true in real-life situations.
Whether or not we follow through on our ideas, our goals, or our intentions is what really makes the difference. If we don't follow through on our ideas, they become only wishes, and wishes by themselves don't do anything.
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0.999998 |
Identify a selection of popular Quiz and Game shows, past and present, from the images shown.
A trivia quiz called British TV: Quiz & Game Shows. Test your knowledge about British TV: Quiz & Game Shows with this online quiz.
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0.99354 |
How often have you had the frustrating experience of receiving a tax demand on account of the fact that credit has not been given for the entire amount of tax deducted at source (TDS) from your income? Earlier, this was not so much of a problem as you had to file physical certificates of TDS from your income and credit was given on the basis of such certificates. However, with the computerization of the tax information network (TIN), credit for TDS is given on the basis of information filed with the TIN in the form of quarterly statements by tax deductors.
Very often, the bank or the other person deducting tax at source from your income either does not mention your PAN in the quarterly statement of tax deduction that it files, or makes an error in entering your PAN. In such a situation, the only remedy that you have is to approach the deductor, point out that the tax deducted at source by him is not reflected against your PAN and request him to file a revised statement after correcting your PAN. Again, this is a Herculean task in most cases, particularly if you are dealing with a large bank, which has thousands of customers. More often than not, the bank or another deductor merely gives you an assurance that it will do so, but does not bother to make the necessary corrections. Unfortunately, you have no power to ensure that the deductor rectifies its mistake and accordingly you then have to request your income-tax officer to carry out the rectification on the basis of the tax deduction certificate given by the tax deductor.
The problem was more acute in cases where the investment was made in one name, but the whole income was taxable in the hands of another person. For instance, income of minor children is clubbed with the income of the parent, income of a trust may be taxable in the hands of the beneficiary, income received in the name of a partner may be taxed as the income of the partnership firm and so on. The problem was also acute where the entire income was received by one person, but only a part of the income was taxable as his income, the remaining being taxable in the hands of others. For instance, where a property which is jointly owned is let out, the rent may be received by only the first holder for convenience, but would be taxable as income of the joint owners in the proportion of their respective holding of the property. In all these cases, the PAN number of the person to whom payments were being made would have been mentioned in the tax deduction certificate, and would be reflected in their form 26AS alone. The person who was ultimately taxable in respect of such income was not getting credit for the TDS, while the person in whose name the TDS certificate was issued would get credit only for the proportionate TDS in relation to the income offered for tax by him.
Fortunately, the rules (rule 37BA) have been amended to provide that in all such cases, the person who will be receiving the income should file a declaration with the payer of the income, stating that such income is taxable as the income of the specified persons who are supposed to be taxed on such income. There is no specific form prescribed for such declaration. Though the rule does not require it, the PAN and address of such other persons should be given with their respective shares of income. The payer of the income is then required to give details of such other persons in his TDS quarterly return, and such TDS will then be reflected in their respective form 26AS.
If you have fixed deposits of your minor children with a bank, interest on which is subject to TDS, and the children’s income is to be clubbed with your income, you should ensure that you file such a declaration with the bank at the beginning of the year, giving your name and PAN, and stating that the children’s income will be taxable in your hands. The bank will have to take cognizance of this declaration and show that tax has been deducted from your income. You should, therefore, be able to claim credit for such TDS on your children’s investments.
While this change in the TDS rules is welcome, there are still various other problems in the process of granting credit for TDS on the basis of the online information contained in the TIN, which the government needs to take care of. After all, the deductors are human beings, and to err is human. Mistakes do happen on the part of deductors and there needs to be a process whereby a deductee is not penalized by non-grant of TDS credit for no fault of his.
Gautam Nayak is a chartered accountant.
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0.999404 |
Mubarak Deceived Israel as Muhammad Deceived Infidels?
In light of ousted president Hosni Mubarak's ongoing trial, Western readers may be surprised to learn who some of Mubarak's staunchest defenders are: Salafi Muslims, that is, those Muslims who practice the 7th century Islam of Muhammad, often referred to as "radicals."
He [Hosni Mubarak] was the imam [Muslim leader]; all his actions have their circumstances. Regarding this gas issue you're talking about, whoever said that exporting gas to enemy combatants, Jews or otherwise, is impermissible? Who among the Muslim jurists [fuqaha] said this? The prophet himself died while his armor was held by a Jew [an infidel enemy] as collateral; and in the Battle of the Trench , the prophet negotiated with one of the polytheist tribes [enemies] to give them dates, Medina's main source of income, just so they would quit the war—because "war is deceit"; he negotiated for this purpose . Nor did divine inspiration [Allah] come down to censure him for his actions, had such actions violated Sharia. So, show me one jurist saying that it is impermissible to deal with enemy combatants—I do not say treaty-holders, as there is a treaty between us and the Jews, but I posit that between us and the Jews is war. So who among the classic jurists said that it is impermissible to deal with combatants, buying and selling? Here are the books of jurisprudence… I say the prophet negotiated with the polytheists to give them free dates just to keep their strength at bay at that time [as opposed to Mubarak, who only sold gas cheaply, Muhammad went one step further giving things for free]. So these are political and military matters, and the authority is free to pick whichever he deems most appropriate.
Along with stressing Muhammad's attempt to appease Islam's infidel enemies with gifts when the latter were stronger than the Muslims, the sheikh also stressed that Mubarak was the "sultan"—an Arabic-Islamic term of special significance, conveying a certain form of sovereign political and temporal authority in Islam, complete with dispensations unavailable to the average Muslim.
Nor are these arcane notions; al-Qaeda itself has stressed these exact points. When discussing the permissibility for Muslims to deceive infidels, the late Osama bin Laden often alluded to Muhammad's attempt to appease the infidel tribe; and Ayman Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's new leader, quotes Islam's jurists as "unanimously agreeing" that "it is forbidden to overthrow" Muslim rulers, even if they are "cruel and despotic" yet "it is obligatory to wage jihad against" Muslim rulers found to be "apostate infidels" (The Al Qaeda Reader, pgs. 26-27, 121-122, 129 ).
The non-hijabbed, Westernized looking female host, somewhat flustered, retorted: "Excuse me sheikh, but this issue of comparing the actions of our blessed prophet and a former president, I mean, forgive me, but maybe one can't speak on or judge between similar circumstances."
Then Montaser al-Zayyat, an Islamist lawyer who regularly represents jihadists—including, formerly, Zawahiri—chimed in saying he too "found it hard listening to the sheikh," insisting that Mubarak should be condemned for selling gas to "the Zionists, for this is a betrayal of the [Egyptian] people."
Eventually, the debate descended into the usual shouting and yelling, with the sheikh boasting that at least Mubarak was a hero in Egypt's 1973 war with Israel, and asking the hostess and Zayyat, "Where were you on October 6, 1973?... Did you ever shoot a single bullet at a Jew?!"
This leads to the most telling aspect of this whole anecdote: while the two Muslim experts on Sharia argued over many things, there was no disagreement over two points—enmity for Israel and Jews, and the permissibility of using deceit to undermine them.
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0.995638 |
The latest arrival of over 190 boat people intercepted near Christmas Island, off north-west Australia, challenges the credibility of the Rudd Government's approach to the continuing problem of asylum-seekers.
This is the 15th arrival of boat people this year, and the largest. The latest arrivals are understood to be Tamils from Sri Lanka, where the government recently defeated the Tamil Tigers in a war which has left tens of thousands dead and hundreds of thousands of Tamils living in appalling conditions in detention centres in Sri Lanka (see Dr John Whitehall's article in this issue).
In light of the virtual imprisonment of the entire Tamil population in Sri Lanka, it would be hard to reject their claims for political asylum.
The boat people have been transferred to the Christmas Island detention centre, Australia's only off-shore detention facility. It can hold 800 people at a time and is nearly full. Meanwhile, intelligence from Indonesia indicates that more boats are on the way.
This poses a major threat for the Rudd Government, which has significantly softened Australia's treatment of what it calls "unauthorised arrivals" by closing the off-shore facilities in Nauru and Manus Island; softening the mandatory detention regime to ensure that people were not subject to unlimited detention; abolishing temporary protection visas; and, most recently, amending the law which required people in mandatory detention to repay the cost of their confinement.
The former Howard Government's policy was introduced in response to a massive increase in boat people after 2000, particularly people being brought to Australia by professional people-smugglers operating out of Indonesia. The policy had the effect of reducing the number of boat people almost to zero.
Abandonment of this policy has been followed by a steady increase in the number of boat people, from a trickle to a torrent.
The Labor Government's repeated claim that it would provide strong border security while treating desperate asylum-seekers fairly, is now under threat.
What needs to be done? The Government's soft policy is clearly not working. No foreign national should be permitted free access to Australia, except where there exists government-to-government agreement, as happens with citizens of New Zealand.
People who arrive without visas in Australia, from whatever country, should be detained. Australia's refugee laws are much softer towards people who arrive on the Australian mainland than those intercepted at sea, and it seems impossible to change that.
As a result, mandatory detention off-shore, pending settlement of boat people's asylum claims, will remain a necessary part of separating bona fide refugees from illegal immigrants.
If the facilities at Christmas Island prove inadequate, the Government should look to re-open facilities on Nauru and Manus Island, if agreement can be reached with the respective governments involved.
Further, the Government promised transparency in dealing with these issues.
Yet it has refused to release any information relating to the circumstances of a fire aboard a boat containing asylum-seekers last April, in which a number of asylum-seekers died. A number of Australian naval personnel from HMAS Albany were aboard the boat when it caught fire, so the Government would have had detailed information about the matter within hours of the tragedy.
At the time, the Prime Minister promised that full details would be released as soon as they became available. Months later, nothing has been revealed.
It has been widely reported that boat people are instructed to destroy all their documentation before arriving in Australia. In my view, any evidence that a person's documents have been destroyed suggests an attempt to conceal relevant information relating to the person's identity, nationality or history. Unless a person has identity documents, or a good reason for not having them, their claim for refugee status should be refused.
Australia has a relatively generous refugee program which permits the entry of some 13,000 people as refugees every year. It can be argued that it should be increased, but whatever the size of the program, there will always be more people wanting to come to this country, because of its political freedom, its social and economic development, and the opportunities it has offered to generations of new arrivals.
The program is based on the assumption that refugees will apply for refugee status at Australia's diplomatic missions in countries adjoining those from which people have fled.
Many of the boat people have by-passed the procedures put in place to assist the most deserving people by flying from countries like Pakistan to Malaysia or Indonesia, and then paying a substantial amount to be carried to Australia.
Boat people should not have priority over other deserving claimants for refugee status.
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0.999304 |
Summer is here, and that can only mean one thing for wine drinkers: Rosé season has arrived.
This pretty, pink-hued wine is a favorite for many. Its color is developed at the beginning of the winemaking process, when crushed red grapes are left with the skins for a short amount of time before the juice is strained and fermented.
We asked George Miliotes, the former food and beverage director for Seasons 52 and The Capital Grille, to weigh in on Rosé and other white wines that are ideal for summertime. One of just 236 master sommeliers worldwide, Miliotes is working toward the opening his own place, called Wine Bar George, at Disney Springs later this year.
Describe the Rosé flavor profile for someone who has never tried it.
Rosé is almost always fruit forward with flavors and aromas of raspberry, cherry and strawberry. The body, or mouth feel, of the wine is more like white wine, with a crispness that makes it so refreshing in the hot summer and a versatile food wine. Many have just a hint of tannin (the color comes from red grape skin, after all) to keep them interesting.
Is there anything that we might not know about rosé but should?
Rosé has many iterations. It can be lightly sweet to bone dry, dark to barely red-gold in color, and crisp and clean or round with some richness. This wide range of styles is what makes it so much fun and keeps us coming back for more (or gravitating toward our favorites).
Do you have any food pairing suggestions for rosé wine?
The beauty of Rosé is that it is very facile with food. It makes for perfect outdoor BBQ wine because it goes equally as well with hamburgers as it would with fajitas off the grill. The small amount of tannin that comes with the color also makes it palate cleansing. Pizza, fried chicken or all types of fish and shellfish make great pairings.
What are some other white wines that are perfect for summertime?
I am a huge fan of Vinho Verde from Portugal. It is the perfect summer white wine: crisp and clean, low in alcohol, neither sweet nor dry and just the slightest hint of sparkle. Rutherford (Napa) Sauvignon Blanc is also a favorite. The crisp pink grapefruit finish and bright fruit flavors make it an excellent summer choice.
Do you have any food pairing suggestions for these white wines?
I love Vinho Verde on its own by the pool or with white creamy cheeses. It is also spectacular with shellfish, especially crab and shrimp. Sauvignon Blanc is another spectacular shellfish wine but also generally has the richness to go with main courses.
Little Black Dress winemaker, Margaret Leonardi, transports you straight to the Mendocino County, California winery as you sip on these classic summer varietals in the comfort of your own home.
LBD Chardonnay: Medium-bodied wine featuring a crisp, fruit-forward bouquet full of citrus-lemon, pear and green apple with touches of vanilla and oak spice.
Pinot Grigio: Balanced and fruity on the palate with bright aromas of apple, pear and lemongrass up front, followed by zesty notes of orange citrus and tangerine.
Grape Variety: Predominantly Pinto Grigio with small amounts of Chardonnay, Muscat and Viognier.
Rosé: Pretty in pink with aromas of strawberry and grapefruit and flavors of ripe berries with just a dash of sweetness and a dazzling, clean finish.
Grape Variety: 54% Gewurztraminer, 23% Muscat, 14% Chardonnay, 5% Zinfandel, 4% other complementary white varietals.
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0.999998 |
By establishing a few key guidelines and identifying potential triggers, parents can make Halloween a safe and enjoyable holiday for both themselves and their children.
Halloween is the holiday meant to ignite fear and horror, and for parents of children with food allergies, it can be a justifiable fright. Trick or treating, while a timeless tradition, can cause health risks for those stricken with food allergies, especially since food allergies are becoming increasingly more common. Current studies show that food allergies affect one in 13 children under the age of 18. For a holiday that centers on distributing candy, this poses a challenge for a sizable portion of the population.
However, parents can ease their fears by taking preventative steps to educate their children. By establishing a few key guidelines and identifying potential triggers, parents can make Halloween a safe and enjoyable holiday for both themselves and their children.
There are a few easy, yet important steps parents can take to ensure a more successful and safer evening of trick or treating.
1. Be aware of potential triggers. Make sure your child is able to identify food that is off-limits. While it can be quite challenging to identify potentially threatening ingredients in packaged foods, it is important to recognize the most common foods that can induce allergic reactions. These foods include milk, eggs, wheat, soy, peanuts and tree nuts. If you have an allergy to one of these ingredients, recognition and avoidance is key to an allergy-free Halloween celebration. Candies that most frequently contain these ingredients include: licorice, fruit chews, chocolates and caramels. Additionally, hidden food allergens, such as soy, can be found in lollipops and gummy candies. Even if a particular ingredient is not listed, it does not mean that the product has not been in contact with that ingredient.
Candies can be made in factories that manufacture a wide range of food products. Therefore, even if a specific candy does not contain an ingredient you are allergic to, cross contamination can still be an important concern (this is common with nuts). Packaging for some candy brands include factory information because of the wider recognition of food allergies. For this reason, be mindful to always read the ingredient label on each candy package. Ingredients in bite-sized candy, may differ from those used in the regular size of the same candy, therefore it's never safe to assume.
2. Consider taking preventative action to make trick or treating safe and allergy-free. Establish ground rules with both your child and any parental supervision before going trick or treating. Take the time to identify candies that should not be consumed and consider having everyone in your group stick to those rules. Also, consider having a supervisor take responsibility for handling any candy collected. For some children, simply touching a specific food can trigger an allergic response. Therefore, minimizing allergen contact can greatly decrease potential reactions. It's also important to carry emergency meds, including Benadryl and, if recommend by your physician, an EpiPen.
Preventative care can be incredibly impactful in creating a safe and fun holiday. Since many candies do contain allergenic ingredients, it may be helpful to prepare a container filled with safe treats in advance to swap out for the treats collected. If you feel comfortable, consider speaking with neighbors in advance and supply them with safe Halloween treats to hand out to your food-allergic child.
Trick or treating is a timeless tradition for millions of Americans. However, if your child has food allergies, Halloween can be a truly scary holiday. To overcome the fright, do your research and speak with your children about their food allergies. By preparing in advance, you can ensure a happier Halloween for you and your family.
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0.961055 |
Pappus of Alexandria, Greek philosopher, observes an eclipse of the sun and writes a commentary on The Great Astronomer (Almagest). Pappus of Alexandria (c. 290 – c. 350) was one of the last great Greek mathematicians of Antiquity, known for his Synagoge or Collection (c. 340), and for Pappus's Theorem in projective geometry. Nothing is known of his life, except (from his own writings) that he had a son named Hermodorus, and was a teacher in Alexandria.
Pierre-Simon Girard was a French mathematician and engineer, who worked on fluids.
James Clerk Maxwell of Glenlair was a Scottish physicist and mathematician. His most prominent achievement was formulating classical electromagnetic theory. This united all previously unrelated observations, experiments and equations of electricity, magnetism and even optics into a consistent theory.
Omar Khayyám was a Persian polymath: philosopher, mathematician, astronomer and poet. He also wrote treatises on mechanics, geography, mineralogy, music, climatology and theology.
Pierre de Fermat was a French lawyer at the Parlement of Toulouse, France, and an amateur mathematician who is given credit for early developments that led to infinitesimal calculus, including his adequality.
Joseph-Louis Lagrange, born Giuseppe Lodovico (Luigi) Lagrangia, was a mathematician and astronomer born in Turin, Piedmont, who lived part of his life in Prussia and part in France.
Christian Andreas Doppler was an Austrian mathematician and physicist.
Norbert Wiener was an American mathematician. He was Professor of Mathematics at MIT. A famous child prodigy, Wiener later became an early researcher in stochastic and noise processes, contributing work relevant to electronic engineering, electronic communication, and control systems. Wiener is regarded as the originator of cybernetics, a formalization of the notion of feedback, with many implications for engineering, systems control, computer science, biology, philosophy, and the organization of society.
Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier was a French mathematician and physicist best known for initiating the investigation of Fourier series and their applications to problems of heat transfer and vibrations. The Fourier transform and Fourier's Law are also named in his honour. Fourier is also generally credited with the discovery of the greenhouse effect.
Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace was a French mathematician and astronomer whose work was pivotal to the development of mathematical astronomy and statistics. He summarized and extended the work of his predecessors in his five volume Mécanique Céleste (Celestial Mechanics) (1799–1825). This work translated the geometric study of classical mechanics to one based on calculus, opening up a broader range of problems. In statistics, the so-called Bayesian interpretation of probability was mainly developed by Laplace.
John Dee was an English mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, occultist, navigator, imperialist and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I. He devoted much of his life to the study of alchemy, divination and Hermetic philosophy.
Thomas Bayes was an English mathematician and Presbyterian minister, known for having formulated a specific case of the theorem that bears his name: Bayes' theorem. Bayes never published what would eventually become his most famous accomplishment; his notes were edited and published after his death by Richard Price.
Christiaan Huygens was a prominent Dutch mathematician, astronomer, physicist and horologist. His work included early telescopic studies elucidating the nature of the rings of Saturn and the discovery of its moon Titan, the invention of the pendulum clock and other investigations in timekeeping, and studies of both optics and the centrifugal force.
Blaise Pascal was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic philosopher. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen. Pascal's earliest work was in the natural and applied sciences where he made important contributions to the study of fluids, and clarified the concepts of pressure and vacuum by generalizing the work of Evangelista Torricelli. Pascal also wrote in defense of the scientific method.
Marie-Sophie Germain was a French mathematician, physicist and philosopher. Despite initial opposition from her parents and difficulties presented by a gender-biased society, she gained education from books in her father's library and from correspondence with famous mathematicians such as LaGrange, Legendre, and Gauss. One of the pioneers of elasticity theory, she won the grand prize from the Paris Academy of Sciences for her essay on the subject.
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0.938016 |
Learning to hash has been widely applied to approximate nearest neighbor search for large-scale multimedia retrieval, due to its computation efficiency and retrieval quality. Deep learning to hash, which improves retrieval quality by end-to-end representation learning and hash encoding, has received increasing attention recently. Subject to the ill-posed gradient difficulty in the optimization with sign activations, existing deep learning to hash methods need to first learn continuous representations and then generate binary hash codes in a separated binarization step, which suffer from substantial loss of retrieval quality. This work presents HashNet, a novel deep architecture for deep learning to hash by continuation method with convergence guarantees, which learns exactly binary hash codes from imbalanced similarity data. The key idea is to attack the ill-posed gradient problem in optimizing deep networks with non-smooth binary activations by continuation method, in which we begin from learning an easier network with smoothed activation function and let it evolve during the training, until it eventually goes back to being the original, difficult to optimize, deep network with the sign activation function. Comprehensive empirical evidence shows that HashNet can generate exactly binary hash codes and yield state-of-the-art multimedia retrieval performance on standard benchmarks.
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0.999764 |
Good work habits: These are classroom skills such as the ability to listen, attend, and participate in classroom activities. It also includes the ability to follow class rules, seek help when needed, and pass messages from school to home.
Friendship skills: This is the ability to establish and maintain healthy and rewarding relationships with their new friends and teachers. It also includes knowing how to communicate clearly, listen well, cooperate with others, and negotiate conflict successfully.
Emotional skills: This consists of self-awareness and self-regulation skills, such as learning how to identify one’s feelings and regulate them. It also includes recognizing one’s strengths and weakness, and having the resiliency and confidence to manage challenging situations.
Independence skills: This is the ability to be independent when completing everyday tasks such as toileting, dressing, recess time, and transitions. This includes the ability to buy food and clean up after eating, manage changes in routines, and recognizing and taking care of one’s own belongings.
Academic skills: This consists of basic literacy and numeracy skills required for success in the classroom. By primary one, your child should be able to read and write simple words, copy sentences from the board, complete simple addition and subtraction problems.
Involve your child in the school selection process by bringing them to the school, or going online to show them how the school facilities and teachers look like on the school website.
Prepare your child for the new school day routine by using a visual checklist or write a story with your child regarding what happens during the school day.
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0.999998 |
COLOR choice #1: Sky Blue in example. COLOR choice #2: Denim Blue in example. COLOR choice #3: Green in example.
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0.999042 |
Are you someone that always loses at beer pong or is known as that one friend that can't catch? People that match this description are unfortunately lacking in hand-eye coordination.
Some outliers have excellent hand-eye coordination compared to other "normal" humans due to sheer genetics, however, this skill can be easily picked up with practice. The most common and popular way is by playing super-action-packed-fast-paced video games!
First-player shooters (FPS) such as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS: GO) not only help with your hand-eye coordination but also with strategizing. But what if you're not keen on playing video games?
Here are 5 simple suggestions that may help you improve your hand-eye coordination skills without having to play video games.
Piano Tiles is a fairly popular game that requires the player to tap on only the black tiles and not on the white.
The game is helpful in coordinating your eye movement and fingers in tapping the right keys at the right time.
As the levels increase, the faster the tiles will go. Although there are other apps that are similar, this is one of the few that I have managed to enjoy and practice at my own leisure.
Athletes that play a sport that use balls have good hand-eye coordination. Simply throwing a tennis ball at a wall or with a friend and catching it with your hands can help you practice your hand-eye coordination.
The other alternative is to learn to juggle. Start off with only 2-3 balls first, and once you're comfortable with juggling, you can add more balls into the mix.
Don't worry if it doesn't work out so well at first. Practice makes perfect!
Getting lots of practice isn't the only factor in increasing hand-eye coordination. The key action in getting a successful practice is concentration.
By concentrating, you slow down time and make more calculated decisions. Some ways to increase concentration are by working on a jigsaw puzzle, meditating, or learning to concentrate on your breathing.
Detailed activities increase your patience, your hand skills, and speed up your thinking skills in making quick decisions on the fly.
You can get a model kit of a ship or submarine or even a structure of some kind, and build it from scratch. Plus, you can challenge yourself by timing how quickly you can assemble things after you get familiar.
So the next time you perform an athletic ability that requires hand-eye coordination, you can concentrate better before moving.
Just like when video gaming, practice your eye movement by looking at near objects and objects that are further away.
This exercises your eyes and conditions them to be more accustomed to moving faster. It also helps you anticipate the moving object better so you know exactly where to position your hands.
Hand-eye coordination might appear to be easier for some people compared to others but with enough practice, anyone can achieve supreme skills.
Edith is a nomadic freelancer and loves all things tech. She's a musician, animal lover, and naturally sorted into Slytherin.
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Are you in Egypt? Share your protest images with CNN iReport.
Cairo, Egypt (CNN) -- Protesters taking to the streets in Egypt on Wednesday felt the wrath of security forces, a day after an unparalleled display of public rage at the government and full-throated cries for the ouster of the longtime president.
Police turned water cannons and tear gas on protesters in the early hours of Wednesday morning to try to break up anti-government demonstrations as the Interior Ministry warned it "will not allow any provocative movement or a protest or rallies or demonstrations."
In the heart of Cairo, people were being beaten with sticks and fists and demonstrators were being dragged away amid tear gas. Witnesses saw security forces harassing journalists and photographers. Demonstrations continued into the nighttime hours.
Egypt's official MENA news agency reported that at least 90 people were detained Wednesday while trying to demonstrate in downtown Cairo's Tahrir Square.
The country's main opposition party, the Muslim Brotherhood, said Wednesday that 149 of its members were arrested during the protests.
The state-run Nile News TV reported violent clashes Wednesday night between security forces and protesters in Suez, a port city east of Cairo on the Gulf of Suez. At least 27 people were wounded, Nile News said, most of them police officers. Quoting provincial officials, the station said most of the clashes took place in the Alarbeen neighborhood and that looters attacked some shops.
The Muslim Brotherhood said 35 people were injured in Suez and that security forces in the city had implemented a curfew there Wednesday night.
Egypt's Interior Ministry denied claims of curfews in parts of the country, MENA reported.
Dozens of Bedouins, meanwhile, gathered Wednesday in the Sheikh Zwayd area near Rafah -- close to Egypt's border with Gaza -- and tried to stop traffic on the international road by setting tires on fire and throwing rocks at cars, MENA reported.
The Interior Ministry urged "citizens to renounce attempts to bid and trade their problems and not lose sight of the consequences of provocation for those who attempt to try to open the door to a state of chaos or portray the situation in the country this way."
At least 10 journalists have been beaten by Egyptian security personnel during the demonstrations, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday.
Lina Attalah, the managing editor of the English-language edition of the newspaper Al-Masry al-Youm, was attacked in downtown Cairo, CPJ reported.
"I started running, but four policemen pulled me by my hair and kicked me in my face and back," Attalah told CPJ by phone. "I tried telling them that I'm a journalist but they were too busy kicking me."
Her glasses were broken and police confiscated two cell phones, the journalists group said in a Wednesday statement.
The Committee to Protect Journalists also said Wednesday that Egyptian authorities have shut down the websites of two popular independent newspapers, Al-Dustour and El-Badil.
The clampdown comes after thousands of protesters spilled into the streets of Egypt on Tuesday in an unprecedented display of anti-government rage inspired in part by the tumult in another North African nation, Tunisia.
At least four people died in the Tuesday clashes, the Interior Ministry reported -- three protesters in Suez and one police officer in Cairo. It also said at least 102 security personnel were injured.
The Interior Ministry put the size of the Tuesday demonstration in Cairo's Tahrir Square at 10,000 at its peak, falling to 5,000. CNN estimated that demonstration peaked at 15,000 to 20,000.
But Wednesday is a work day in Egypt, so the numbers on the streets of Cairo were lower than they were on Tuesday, a holiday known as Police Day.
Protesters had been expressing their anger over the rising cost of living, failed economic policies and corruption, but all those concerns were distilled into one overriding demand -- the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, a reliable American ally who has been in power for three decades.
Egyptian authorities have been aware of complaints, but protesters widely believe the government has simply paid lip service to their grievances.
There is talk among protesters about staging a big demonstration on Friday, after Muslim prayers.
Twitter said it was blocked for the second day on Wednesday but added that "some users are using apps/proxies to successfully tweet."
Magdi Radi, spokesman for Egypt's prime minister, told CNN that the government "didn't block Facebook, Twitter or any other website. He said that "the websites may have been slow because of the heavy usage."
The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, a human rights group, on Wednesday underscored a "national demand" -- the dismissal of Interior Minister Habib Al-Adli.
"Yesterday, disengagement of peaceful gatherings by using excessive force was added to his crimes as well as arbitrary arrests of hundreds of citizens and detaining them in illegal locations, such as security camps of Darrasa in Cairo and Madinet el Salam at the outskirts of Cairo, two locations completely controlled by the Interior Ministry."
The group said police "turned into monsters attacking demonstrators, especially small clusters in side streets, without distinction between an elderly man or a woman or youth."
Organizers said they hope to capture the regional momentum for political change set by Tunisians, who forced the collapse of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's 23-year rule.
But Mubarak, unlike Ben Ali, remains in his country. Stories that Mubarak or any other member of his family left Egypt are "categorically false," said Karim Haggag, Egyptian Embassy spokesman in Washington.
Calling its relationship with Egypt "strong and friendly," the U.S. State Department regards Mubarak's help in maintaining security in the Mideast as critical.
The government, which has diplomatic relations with Israel, has helped forge peace between Israel and the Palestinians and has helped in efforts to stabilize Iraq, the State Department said.
It contributes to U.N. peacekeeping missions, "played a key role during the 1990-1991 Gulf crisis," and is a "key supporter of U.S. efforts against terrorists and terrorist organizations such as Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, the department said in a background note about Egypt.
U.S. military aid to Egypt totals over $1.3 billion annually, and the U.S. Agency for International Development has passed along more than $28 billion in economic and development assistance to the country since 1975.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Wednesday that the Obama administration continues to monitor the situation. He called on all parties to refrain from violence and said authorities should lift bans on protests.
Asked at Wednesday's briefing whether the U.S. continues to back Mubarak, Gibbs said that "Egypt is a strong ally."
On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh spoke to reporters about the ferment in the Arab world.
Clinton urged freedom for people and called on Egyptian authorities not to block social media. She urged the countries in the region to enact reforms and expressed optimism that the leaders there can do so.
"It is something that everyone knows must be on the agenda of the government as they -- not just respond to the protests -- but as they look beyond to what needs to be done economically, socially, politically. And there are a lot of very well-informed, active, civil society leaders in Egypt who have put forward specific ideas for reform and we are encouraging and urging the Egyptian government to be responsive to that."
Jordan has experienced demonstrations over economic issues, and the foreign minister was asked whether the protests that raged in Tunisia and Egypt will spread.
Judeh said Jordan doesn't exist in an economic bubble and faces hardships that other lands endure. But he said the country is tackling a political and economic reform agenda and its system promotes freedom of expression.
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Matthew Chalk, Aaron R. Seitz, Peggy Seriès; Rapidly learned stimulus expectations alter perception of motion. Journal of Vision 2010;10(8):2. doi: 10.1167/10.8.2.
Expectations broadly influence our experience of the world. However, the process by which they are acquired and then shape our sensory experiences is not well understood. Here, we examined whether expectations of simple stimulus features can be developed implicitly through a fast statistical learning procedure. We found that participants quickly and automatically developed expectations for the most frequently presented directions of motion and that this altered their perception of new motion directions, inducing attractive biases in the perceived direction as well as visual hallucinations in the absence of a stimulus. Further, the biases in motion direction estimation that we observed were well explained by a model that accounted for participants' behavior using a Bayesian strategy, combining a learned prior of the stimulus statistics (the expectation) with their sensory evidence (the actual stimulus) in a probabilistically optimal manner. Our results demonstrate that stimulus expectations are rapidly learned and can powerfully influence perception of simple visual features.
As well as depending on the sensory input that we receive, our perception of the world is shaped by our expectations. These expectations can be manipulated quickly through sensory cues or experimentalists' instructions (Posner, Snyder, & Davidson, 1980; Sterzer, Frith, & Petrovic, 2008) or, more slowly, based on the statistics of previous sensory inputs. For example, in complex scenes, objects are recognized faster and more accurately when they are contextually appropriate to the visual scene as a whole: when presented with an image of a kitchen, people are better at recognizing a loaf of bread than a drum (Bar, 2004). In other words, we learn from past experience, which objects are expected within the context of a particular visual scene, and our perceptual sensitivity for these objects is increased accordingly.
Indeed, it has been shown extensively that expectations modulate perceptual performance. When visual cues are used to inform participants the location that a stimulus is most likely to appear, their perceptual sensitivity for stimuli presented at this location is increased. This results in decreased reaction times, decreased detection thresholds, and increased sensitivity for discrimination of features such as orientation, form, or brightness for stimuli presented at the expected location (Doherty, Rao, Mesulam, & Nobre, 2005; Downing, 1988; Posner et al., 1980; Yu & Dayan, 2005b). More recently, it has been shown that, in complex tasks, participants implicitly learn which visual signals provide task-relevant information, such as predicting which stimuli are likely to be presented, and that this information can be used to optimize performance in the task (Chun, 2000; Eckstein, Abbey, Pham, & Shimozaki, 2004).
As well as enhancing perceptual performance, expectations can also influence “what” is perceived. Specifically, recent studies have shown that rapidly learned expectations can help determine the perception of bistable stimuli (Haijiang, Saunders, Stone, & Backus, 2006; Sterzer et al., 2008). Perception of such bistable stimuli is unstable, undergoing frequent reversals (van Ee, 2005) whose dynamics can be altered voluntarily by the observer (van Ee, van Dam, & Brouwer, 2005), In contrast, perception of simple stimuli is typically unambiguous and, seemingly, not so easily changed. Therefore, whether expectations can also alter the perception of simple stimuli that are not bistable is unclear.
A growing body of work suggests that perception is akin to Bayesian Inference (Knill & Pouget, 2004; Weiss, Simoncelli, & Adelson, 2002), where the brain represents sensory information probabilistically in the form of probability distributions. Here it is assumed that in situations of uncertainty, sensory information is combined with prior knowledge about the statistics of the world, serving to bias perception toward what is expected. This framework has been used to understand a great number of perceptual phenomena, such as why moving images appear to be moving slower when they are presented at low contrast (Stocker & Simoncelli, 2006), and the illusory “filling-in” of discontinuous contours (Komatsu, 2006; Lee & Mumford, 2003), adding support to the idea that expectations can alter the appearance of simple unambiguous visual stimuli. However, in these studies, participants' expectations (i.e., priors) are usually assumed to be acquired over long periods of time, through development and life experience. On the other hand, in the field of sensorimotor learning, it has been shown that participants can learn priors about novel statistics introduced during a psychophysical task and that they combine this with information about their sensorimotor uncertainty in a manner that is consistent with a Bayes optimal process (Faisal & Wolpert, 2009; Körding & Wolpert, 2004). In the visual domain, how new sensory priors are learned is an open question.
Here we sought to understand whether stimulus expectations can be implicitly acquired through fast statistical learning, and if so, how such expectations are combined with visual signals to modulate perception of simple unambiguous stimuli. We examined this in the context of motion perception in a design where some motion directions were more likely to appear than others. Our hypothesis was that participants would automatically learn which directions were most likely to be presented and that these learned expectations would bias their perception of motion direction. A secondary hypothesis was that participants would solve the task using a Bayesian strategy, combining a learned prior of the stimulus statistics (the expectation) with their sensory evidence (the actual stimulus) in a probabilistic way.
Twenty naive observers with normal or corrected-to-normal vision participated in this experiment. All participants in the study gave informed written consent, received compensation for their participation and were recruited from the Riverside, CA area. The University of California, Riverside Institutional Review Board approved the methods used in the study, which was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.
Visual stimuli were generated using the Matlab programming language and displayed using Psychophysics Toolbox (Brainard, 1997; Pelli, 1997) on Viewsonic P95f monitor running at 1024 × 768 at 100 Hz. The display luminance of the CRT monitor was made linear by means of an 8-bit lookup table. Participants viewed the display in a darkened room at a viewing distance of 100 cm with their motion constrained by a chin rest. Motion stimuli consisted of a field of dots (density: 2 dots/deg2 at 100 Hz refresh rate) moving coherently at a speed of 9°/sec within a circular annulus, with minimum and maximum diameter of 2.2° and 7°, respectively. The background luminance of the display was set to 5.2 cd/m2.
At the beginning of each trial, a central fixation point (0.5° diameter, 12.2 cd/m2) was presented for 400 ms. With the fixation point still onscreen, the motion stimulus was then presented, along with a red bar which projected out (initial angle of bar randomized for each trial) from the fixation point (Figure 1). The bar was located entirely within the center of the annulus containing the moving dots (length 1.1°, width 0.03°, luminance 3.4 cd/m2). Participants indicated the direction of motion by orienting the red bar with a mouse, clicking the mouse button when they had made their estimate (estimation task). The display cleared when either the participant had clicked on the mouse, or a period of 3000 ms had elapsed. On trials where no motion stimulus was presented, the red bar still appeared and participants were required to estimate the perceived direction of motion as normal. Participants were instructed to fixate on the central point throughout this period. Participants' reaction time in the estimation task determined how long the stimulus was presented for. On average this was equal to 1978 ± 85 ms (standard error on the mean; see Supplementary Figure 7 for a plot of reaction time versus presented motion direction). After the estimation task had finished, there was a 200-ms delay before a vertical white line was presented at the center of the screen, with text to either side (reading “NO DOTS” and “DOTS,” respectively). Participants moved a cursor to the right or left of this line to indicate whether they had or had not seen a motion stimulus (detection) and clicked the mouse button to indicate their choice. The cursor flashed green or red for a correct or incorrect detection response, respectively. The screen was then cleared and there was a 400-ms blank period before the beginning of the next trial.
Sequence of events in a single trial. Each trial began with a fixation point, followed by the appearance of a motion stimulus. A central bar projecting from the fixation point was presented simultaneously with the motion stimulus and allowed participants to estimate the direction of motion. After either participants had made an estimation, or a period of 3000 ms had elapsed, the stimulus disappeared and was replaced by a vertical line, with text to either side. Participants moved a cursor to either side of the line to indicate whether they had perceived the motion stimulus.
Every 20 trials, participants were presented block feedback on the estimation task, with text displayed on screen telling participants what their average estimation error was in the previous 20 trials (e.g., “In the last 20 trials, your average estimation error was: 20°”). Block feedback rather than trial-by-trial feedback was given because we wanted to encourage participants to do their best at the estimation task, without interfering with their estimation behavior (and biases) on each trial.
Participants took part in two experimental sessions lasting around 1 hour each, taken over successive days. Each session was divided into 5 blocks of 170 trials, where all stimulus configurations were presented, making 1700 trials in total (850 trials per session).
Participants were presented stimuli at four different randomly interleaved contrast levels. The highest contrast level was at 1.7 cd/m2 above the 5.2 cd/m2 background. For each session, there were 250 trials at zero contrast and 100 trials at high contrast. Contrasts of other stimuli were determined using 4/1 and 2/1 staircases on detection performance (García-Pérez, 1998). For each session, there were 135 trials with the 2/1 staircase and 365 trials with the 4/1 staircase.
For the two staircased contrast levels, on a given trial the direction of motion could be 0° ± 16°, ±32°, ±48°, or ±64°, with respect to a central reference angle. To reduce potential biases in the population, we averaged results due to reference repulsion from cardinal motion directions (Rauber & Treue, 1998); this central motion direction was randomized across participants. We manipulated participants' expectations about which motion directions were most likely to occur by presenting stimuli moving at ±32° more frequently than the others (Figure 2). Therefore, at the 4/1 staircased contrast level, there were 130 trials per session with motion at −32° and +32° and 15 trials per session for each of the other directions of motion. At the 2/1 staircased contrast level, there were an equal number of stimuli moving in each of the predetermined directions: 15 trials per session for each motion direction. At the highest contrast level, there were 25 trials per session with motion at −32° and +32° and 50 trials per session at completely random directions (among all possible directions, not just the predetermined directions used in the rest of the experiment).
Probability distribution of presented motion directions. Two directions, 64° apart from each other, were presented in a larger number of trials than other directions. Motion direction is plotted relative to a reference direction at 0°, which was different for each subject.
In the analysis of the estimation task, we looked only at trials where participants both reported seeing a stimulus and clicked on the mouse during stimulus presentation to indicate their estimate of motion direction. The first 100 trials from each session (∼25 trials from each contrast staircase) were excluded from the analysis to allow the staircases to converge on stable contrast levels (Supplementary Figure 2a). Data were analyzed for the 12 (of 20) participants who could adequately perform both tasks according to our predetermined performance criteria of detection greater than 80% (quantified as the fraction of trials where participants both detect the stimulus and click on the mouse during stimulus presentation to estimate its direction) and mean absolute estimation error less than 30° with the highest contrast stimuli in both experimental sessions (Supplementary Figure 1; see Supplementary materials for details of different participants' performance). Importantly, our analysis of participants' performance in the estimation task looked only at their responses to staircased contrast levels, and not their responses to the highest contrast stimuli, which we used to determine which participants should be included.
In the estimation task, the variance of participants' motion direction estimates tended to be quite large and varied greatly across different participants and motion directions. We hypothesized that this was due to the fact that in some trials participants made completely random estimates. Thus, data were fitted to the distribution: (1 − a) · V(μ, κ) + a/2π, where a is the proportion of trials where the participant make random estimates, and V(μ, κ) is a von Mises (circular normal) distribution with mean μ and width determined by 1/κ, given by: V(μ, κ) = exp(κ cos(θ − μ)/(2πI 0(κ))). Parameters were chosen by maximizing the likelihood of generating the data from the distribution. Participants' estimation mean and standard deviation were taken as the circular mean and standard deviation of the von Mises distribution, V(μ, κ). The average biases obtained using this method were qualitatively similar to those obtained through calculating the estimated direction by simply averaging over trials, while the variances were significantly smaller and with more consistency across participants and motion directions when the parametric fits were used. Therefore, in all of the following analysis, we used this parametric method to quantify performance in the estimation task.
There was no significant interaction between experimental session and motion direction on the estimation bias or standard deviation (p = 0.11 and p = 0.41, respectively, four-way within-subjects ANOVA). Therefore, we collapsed data across the two experimental sessions.
There was a considerable degree of overlap between the luminance levels achieved using both staircases. After discounting the first 100 trials from each session, the population averaged standard deviation in the luminance of the 2/1 and the 4/1 staircased levels over the course of one experimental session was 0.051 ± 0.001 cd/m2 and 0.054 ± 0.001 cd/m2, respectively; similar to the average luminance difference between the two levels (0.052 ± 0.004 cd/m2). Further, there was no significant difference between the luminance levels achieved for both staircases (p = 0.23, three-way within-subjects ANOVA). This was reflected in the estimation data: there was no significant difference between participants' estimation standard deviations for both staircased contrast levels (p = 0.12, four-way within-subjects ANOVA). Therefore, we collapsed data across these contrast levels for all of the analysis described in the main text. Later, we looked at the effect of contrast level on participants' behavior by separating participants' responses at different luminance levels, depending on their detection performance at different luminance levels. Details of this procedure are described in the Supplementary materials.
To analyze the distribution of estimations when no stimulus was present, we constructed histograms of participants' responses, binned into 16° windows. We converted these response histograms into probability distributions by normalizing them over all motion directions for each participant individually. There was no significant interaction between experimental session and motion direction on the response histograms (p = 0.87, four-way within-subjects ANOVA). There was also no significant three-way interaction between motion direction, experimental session, and detection response (p = 0.81, four-way within-subjects ANOVA). Therefore, we collapsed data across experimental sessions for analysis of the participants' responses when no stimulus was present.
In this study, we were interested in how the uneven distribution of presented motion directions influenced participants' perception of the motion stimuli. By design, the probability distribution of presented motion stimuli was symmetrical around a central motion angle (Figure 2). Therefore, we figured that any asymmetry in participants' estimation and detection behavior for stimuli moving to either side of the central motion direction was likely due to factors other than the distribution of presented stimuli that was used, such as participants' implicit biases, or “reference biases” away from caudal motion directions (Rauber & Treue, 1998). To reduce the effect of such asymmetries from our analysis and to increase the number of data points that were available for each experimental condition, we averaged data from points corresponding to when the presented motion stimuli was moving to either side of the central motion direction. For the estimation task, this also required reversing the sign of the estimation biases for stimuli moving anticlockwise from the central motion direction before averaging (for “unfolded” versions of Figures 3a, 4a, and 5 see Supplementary Figures 4 and 5).
Estimation responses in the absence of a stimulus. (a) Probability distribution of participants' estimates of motion direction when no stimulus was present. Response distributions are plotted for all trials (blue) as well as the subset of trials where participants reported detecting a stimulus (gray) and trials where they did not (red). Data points from either side of the central motion direction have been averaged together in this plot so that the furthest left data point corresponds to the central motion direction, and the vertical dashed line corresponds to the most frequently presented motion directions (±32°). Results are averaged over all participants and error bars represent within-subject standard error. (b) Probability ratio (p rel) that individual participants estimated within 8° from the most frequently presented motion directions (±32°) relative to other 16° bins, plotted for trials where the stimulus was undetected versus trials where the stimulus was detected. p rel was significantly greater than 1 for trials where participants reported detecting stimuli (p = 0.005, signed rank test) but was only marginally so when subjects failed to detect the stimulus (p = 0.13). Participants were also significantly more likely to estimate in the direction of the frequently presented motion directions on trials where they reported detecting stimuli versus trials where they did not (p = 0.012).
Effect of expectations on estimation biases. (a) Participants' mean estimation bias is plotted against presented motion direction. Data points from either side of the central motion direction have been averaged together so that the furthest left point corresponds to the central motion direction, and the vertical dashed line corresponds to data taken from the two most frequently presented motion directions (±32°). Results are averaged over all participants and error bars represent within-subject standard error. (b) The estimation bias for stimuli moving at ±48° (black) and ±16° (red) from the central motion direction, plotted against the estimation bias at ±32°, for each participant. Again, data from stimuli moving to both sides of the central motion direction have been averaged together, with the sign of the bias for stimuli moving anticlockwise from the central motion direction (i.e., −48°, −32°, and −16°) reversed before averaging. The red and black crosses mark the population mean of both distributions, with the length of the lines on the crosses equal to the standard error.
Effect of expectations on the standard deviation of estimations. The standard deviation in participants' estimation distributions is plotted against presented motion direction. Data points from either side of the central motion direction have been averaged together so that the furthest left point corresponds to the central motion direction, and the vertical dashed line corresponds to data taken from the two most frequently presented motion directions (±32°). Results are averaged over all participants and error bars represent within-subject standard error.
First, we investigated whether participants learned to expect the most frequently presented motion directions. To assess this, we examined participants' estimation performance on trials where no stimulus was presented but where they reported seeing a stimulus in the detection task as well as clicking on the mouse to estimate its direction. On average, this occurred on 46 ± 3 trials for each participant (10.8 ± 2% of the total number of trials where no stimulus was presented). For this subset of trials, participants' estimation response probability varied significantly with motion direction, with a clear peak close to the most frequently presented motion directions (±32°; p < 0.001, three-way within-subjects ANOVA; Figure 3a, gray). We quantified the probability ratio that participants made estimates that were close to the most frequently presented motion directions, relative to other directions, by multiplying the probability that they estimated within 8° of these motion directions by the total number of 16° bins (p rel = p(θ est = ±32(8)°)). This probability ratio would be equal to 1 if participants were equally likely to estimate within 8° of ±32° as they were to estimate within other 16° bins. We found that the median value of p rel was significantly greater than 1, indicating that participants were strongly biased to report motion in the most frequently presented directions when no stimulus was presented (median(p rel) = 2.7; p = 0.005, signed rank test, comparing p rel to 1; Figure 3b).
As on a large proportion of trials, the presented motion stimuli were moving in one of two directions, it is possible that participants could have habituated to automatically move the estimation bar toward one of these two directions, irrespective of their response in the detection task (note that the initial bar position was randomized on each trial and thus biases cannot arise from just leaving the mouse in its initial location). In this case, we would also expect their “no-stimulus” estimation distributions to be biased toward the two most frequently presented directions for trials where they did not detect a stimulus. However, on trials where participants did not report seeing a stimulus in the detection task (but where they did click the mouse while the stimulus was present to estimate its motion direction; on average, this occurred on 134 ± 9 trials for each participant; 32 ± 7% of the total number of trials where no stimulus was presented), there was no significant variation in the estimation response probability with motion direction (p = 0.12, three-way within-subjects ANOVA; Figure 3a, red). Further, for these trials, participants were not significantly more likely to estimate close to the most frequently presented motion directions than other motion directions (median(p rel) = 1.28; p = 0.13, signed rank test, comparing p rel to 1; Figure 3b). Indeed they were significantly more likely to report motion in the most frequently presented motion directions when they also reported detecting a stimulus compared to when they did not (p = 0.012, signed rank test, comparing the values of p rel obtained for trials where participants either did or did not report seeing a stimulus in the detection task; Figure 3b).
It could be argued that we would observe similar results if participants' expectations influenced their behavior in the detection task, but not in the estimation task. Thus, in the absence of a presented stimulus, they would be more likely to report detecting a stimulus when they mistakenly perceived motion in one of the two most frequently presented motion directions, although their estimation responses would be unaltered by their expectations. In this case, participants' estimation responses would be distributed uniformly when we looked at data from all trials where no stimulus was presented (regardless of their response in the detection task). This was not what we found: when we looked at data from all zero-stimulus trials, participants estimation response probability varied significantly with motion direction (p < 0.001, three-way within-subjects ANOVA; Figure 3a, blue), and they were biased to report motion in the two most frequently presented directions (median(p rel) = 1.71; p < 0.001, signed rank test comparing p rel to 1). However, the size of this bias was reduced compared to the case when we looked only at trials where participants detected stimuli (p = 0.027, signed rank test comparing the values of p rel obtained for all trials with trials where participants reported seeing a stimulus in the detection task).
Another response strategy that could have produced similar results is if, when participants were uncertain about the stimulus motion direction, they made estimations that were influenced by the stimulus presented immediately beforehand. In this case, we would expect the observed biases in participants' no-stimulus estimation distributions to disappear when we excluded trials that were immediately preceded by stimuli moving in the most frequently presented directions (±32°). However, when we excluded these trials from our analysis, participants' zero-stimulus estimations (for trials where they reported detecting a stimulus) were still strongly biased toward the two most frequently presented directions (median(p rel) = 2.11; p = 0.026, signed rank test, comparing p rel to 1).
Taken together, our results indicate that the zero-stimulus biases we observed were not due to “response strategies” but rather were perceptual in origin: participants “hallucinated” motion in the most frequently presented directions when no stimulus was displayed. Further, these hallucinations developed extremely quickly. On trials where no stimulus was presented but where participants reported detecting a stimulus, they were significantly more likely to estimate within 8° of ±32° than other directions after a period of only 200 trials (p = 0.008, signed rank test, comparing p rel to 1 after 200 trials; see Supplementary Figure 3), indicating rapid learning of motion direction expectations.
We next asked whether these learned expectations would bias participants' perceptions of real motion stimuli. Figure 4a shows the population averaged estimation bias, plotted against motion direction. In this plot, data points corresponding to presented stimuli moving to either side of the central motion direction have been averaged together (making sure to reverse the sign of the estimation bias when the presented stimuli was anticlockwise from the central motion direction before averaging; see Supplementary Figure 4 for an alternative version of this plot without averaging across the central motion direction). In this plot, the curve has a negative slope around +32°, which itself was unbiased. This indicates that estimations were attractively biased toward stimuli moving at +32° (and by symmetry, also to motion at −32°). Estimates of the central motion direction were unbiased, while estimates at +16° were positively biased, away from the center and toward stimuli moving at +32° (again, by symmetry, stimuli moving at −16° were biased away from the center, toward stimuli moving at −32°). Note that the apparent asymmetry in Figure 4a is expected and is due to the fact that the data points at 0° and 64° are not equivalent: 0° lies midway between the two most frequently presented directions, while +64° is on the edge of the distribution of presented motion directions (see Figure 2). Overall, there was a significant effect of motion direction on the estimation bias (p < 0.001, three-way within-subjects ANOVA).
We wanted to quantify the extent to which individual participants' estimates were biased toward the most frequently presented motion directions. For participants whose estimates were attractively biased toward stimuli moving at +32°, we would expect their estimates of stimuli moving at +48° and +16° to be positively and negatively biased, respectively, compared to their estimation bias for stimuli moving at +32° (and by symmetry, we would also expect the converse to hold for stimuli moving anticlockwise from the central direction: for a participant whose estimates were attractively biased toward stimuli moving at −32°, we would expect the bias at −48° and −16° to be negatively biased and positively biased, respectively, compared to their estimation bias for stimuli moving at −32°). Figure 4b plots individual participants' estimation bias for stimuli moving at ±48° and ±16° versus their estimation bias at ±32° (plotted in black and red, respectively). Note that, similarly to Figure 4a, we averaged data from motion directions moving to either side of the central motion directions in this plot, making sure to reverse the sign of the bias for stimuli moving anticlockwise from the central motion direction. After doing this, the computed estimation biases at ±48° and ±16° were significantly smaller and larger, respectively, than the bias at ±32° (p = 0.005 and p = 0.001, respectively, signed rank test). This indicates that on average, participants were biased to estimate stimuli as moving in directions that were closer to the most frequently presented motion directions (±32°) than they actually were.
Stimuli in between ±32° were expected to be biased by both frequently presented directions, and thus we expected that these directions should yield larger standard deviations in estimated angles than those outside of this range. Figure 5 plots the population-averaged standard deviation of estimations against motion direction. Again, for this plot, data points from either side of the central motion direction have been averaged together. The estimation standard deviation was greatest for the central motion direction at 0° and smallest for motion directions that were closer to the most frequently presented directions (±16°, ±32°, and ±48°). As with the estimation biases, there was a significant effect of motion direction on the estimation standard deviation (p < 0.001, three-way within-subjects ANOVA).
One of our interests was the extent to which stimulus expectations influenced participants' performance in the detection task. To test this, we measured the fraction of trials where participants both detected stimuli and clicked on the mouse during stimulus presentation as a function of motion direction (Figure 6a). Participants were significantly more likely to detect stimuli moving in the most frequently presented motion directions (71.5 ± 2.5% detected at ± 32° versus 64.2 ± 2.5% detected over all other motion directions; p < 0.001 signed rank test; Figure 6b). Overall, there was a significant effect of motion direction on the fraction detected (p = 0.002, three-way within-subjects ANOVA).
Effect of expectations on detection performance. (a) The fraction of trials where participants correctly detected a motion stimulus is plotted against presented motion direction. Data points from either side of the central motion direction have been averaged together so that the furthest left point corresponds to the central motion direction, and the vertical dashed line corresponds to data taken from the two most frequently presented motion directions (±32°). Results are averaged over all participants and error bars represent within-subject standard error. (b) The fraction of trials where participants correctly detected a stimulus, averaged over all presented motion directions except for ±32°, plotted against the fraction of trials where participants correctly detected a stimulus moving at ±32°, for each participant. The black cross marks the population mean, with the length of the lines on the cross equal to the standard error.
Another measure that could reflect how easily participants detected stimuli was their reaction time in clicking the mouse during stimulus presentation. For trials where they detected a stimulus, participants' reaction time was significantly reduced for the most frequently presented motion directions, relative to other motion directions (1924 ± 86 ms at ±32° versus 1991 ± 85 ms over all other motion directions; p < 0.001, signed rank test; Supplementary Figure 7). Overall, there was a significant effect of motion direction on participants' reaction time (p = 0.003, three-way within-subjects ANOVA).
To understand the nature of the biases in motion direction estimation that we observed, we tested among alternative models of how participants' expectations may be combined with the presented stimulus to produce the observed response distributions. Two classes of models were considered. The first class of model assumed that participants developed response strategies unrelated to perceptual changes. The second class of model assumed that participants solved the task using a Bayesian strategy, combining a learned prior of the stimulus statistics (the expectation) with their sensory evidence (the actual stimulus) in a probabilistic way. These models simulate the estimation distributions in the case where participants judged the stimulus to be present.
The first two models looked at whether participants' behavior could be attributed to a “response bias.” The key assumption in both of these models was that participants followed different strategies on different trials: for example, by making an unbiased estimate of motion direction on a fraction of the trials and by estimating one of the most frequently presented motion directions on other trials.
The first model (“ADD1”) assumed that when participants were unsure about which motion direction they had perceived, they made an estimate that was close to one of the two most frequently presented motion directions.
p l ( θ o b s | θ ) = V ( θ , κ l ) .
p exp ( θ ) = 1 2 [ V ( − θ exp , κ exp ) + V ( θ exp , κ exp ) ] .
p ( θ e s t | θ p e r c ) = ( 1 − α ) · V ( θ p e r c , κ m ) + α .
where the asterisk denotes a convolution and a(θ) determines the proportion of trials that participants sampled from the “expected” distribution, p exp(θ). For this model, free parameters that were fitted to the estimation data for each participant were the center and width of participants' “expected” distributions (determined by θ exp and 1/κ exp, respectively), the width of their sensory likelihood (determined by 1/κ l ), the fraction of trials where they made estimates by sampling from their “expected” distribution (a(θ)), the magnitude of the “motor” noise in their responses (determined by 1/κ m ), and the fraction of trials where they made estimations that were completely random (α).
The second “response bias” model (ADD2) assumed a more complex strategy, such that when participants were unsure of stimulus direction, they made estimates that were preferentially sampled from different proportions of their “expected” distribution. Crucially, the portion of this “expected” distribution that was sampled from depended on the actual stimulus motion direction.
p c l o c k w i s e ( θ ) = V ( θ exp , κ exp ) .
As before, on a single trial, participants made estimates that were either equal to their sensory observation θ obs or sampled from a learned distribution of expected motion directions. However, instead of sampling from a single distribution of expected motion directions, p exp(θ), participants could now make estimates that were sampled either from the distributions p anticlockwise(θ) or p clockwise(θ), with a probability that was dependent on the actual stimulus motion direction. For example, on a single trial, a participant might be aware that the stimulus was moving “anticlockwise from center” and thus would be more likely to make an estimate that was sampled from the distribution, p antilockwise(θ), than from p clockwise(θ).
where a(θ) and b(θ) were additional free parameters that determined the proportion of trials where participants sampled from each distribution.
Finally, we considered variations to the ADD1 and ADD2 models (denoted “ADD1_mode” and “ADD2_mode,” respectively) where, on trials where participants were unsure of the stimulus motion direction, they made perceptual estimates that were equal to the mode of the “expected” distribution. These models are equivalent to the ADD1 and ADD2 models, with “1/κ exp” set to zero.
The second class of models assumed that participants combined a learned prior of the stimulus directions with their sensory evidence in a probabilistic manner. Specifically, unlike the previous models, where on individual trials participants either rely entirely on their sensory observations or on their expectations, in the Bayesian model participants make estimations based on a combination of both their sensory observation and expectations. A schematic of this model class is shown in Figure 7.
Bayesian model. The posterior distribution of possible stimulus motion directions is constructed by combining prior knowledge about likely motion directions (the expectation) with the available sensory evidence (based on a noisy observation, θ obs) probabilistically. A perceptual estimate is made by taking the mean of the posterior distribution. This posterior distribution is used to make a perceptual estimate (θ perc). Additional “motor noise” is added to this perceptual estimate to produce the final estimation response (θ est).
p ( θ | θ o b s ) ∝ p p r i o r ( θ ) · p l ( θ o b s | θ ) .
While participants cannot access the “true” prior, p prior(θ), directly, we hypothesized that they learned an approximation of this distribution, denoted p exp(θ). In our model, this “learned prior” was parameterized similarly to p prior(θ) in ADD1 (see Equation 2).
where Z is a normalization constant. An alternative choice would be for the perceptual estimate to be given by the maximum of the posterior distribution. For our work, both methods gave qualitatively identical results.
We accounted for the “motor noise” associated with making the estimation response in a similar way to the previous models. For this model, the free parameters that were fitted to the estimation data for each participant were the center and width of participants' “expected” distribution (determined by θ exp and 1/κ exp, respectively), the width of their sensory likelihood (determined by 1/κ l), the magnitude of the “motor” noise in their responses (determined by 1/κ m), and the fraction of trials where they made estimations that were completely random (α). We included two variants of the Bayesian model: “BAYES_var,” where the width of the likelihood function was allowed to vary with the stimulus motion direction, and “BAYES,” where it was held constant.
At the highest contrast, the stimulus was clearly visible, so we assumed that the perceptual uncertainty was close to zero (1/κ l ∼ 0). Therefore, for all models, the distribution of estimations should be given by Equation 3, with the substitution, θ exp = θ. We used this equation to fit participants' estimation distributions at high contrast (by maximizing the log probability of getting the observed the data; see later), thus allowing us to approximate the “motor noise” (determined by 1/κ m) for each participant.
As with the rest of our data analysis, we modeled participants' responses to stimuli at both staircased contrast levels (although see Supplementary materials). Also, as all three models looked only at the estimation task, effectively ignoring the detection response, we initially looked only at data where participants detected the motion stimulus (see Supplementary materials for a version of the Bayesian model which incorporates the detection task).
where the summation was taken over all trials, and θ i and θ i,data represent the presented motion direction and the estimation response on the ith trial, respectively. We found the maximum of the likelihood function using a simplex algorithm (the Matlab function “fminsearch”). We were concerned that for some participants our model fits might converge to local rather than local maxima. To reduce this possibility, we ran the model fits with a range of initial values for κ l and κ exp (κ l −1/2 and κ exp −1/2 were varied independently in 2° increments, between 1° and 21°), selecting the model fit that produced the highest value for the log-likelihood. The results obtained were also found to be robust to changes in all of the other initial parameter values.
The models varied greatly with respect to the number of parameters that they required to fit the data. Excluding κ m (as this was obtained from the high contrast responses, not the low contrast responses that were the principle area of investigation), ADD1 and ADD2 required 9 and 14 free parameters, respectively: κ l , θ exp, κ exp, and α, plus 5 values for a(θ), and for ADD2, another 5 values for b(θ) (one for each presented motion direction). ADD1_mode and ADD2_mode required 8 and 13 free parameters, respectively (one less parameter than ADD1 and ADD2 respectively, as κ exp was no longer a free parameter). BAYES required only four free parameters (κ l , θ exp, κ exp, and α). BAYES_var required eight free parameters (including a value for κ l for each presented motion direction).
where L is the likelihood of generating the experimental data from the model, k is the number of parameters in the model, and n is the number of data points available. In general, given two estimated models, the model with the lower value of BIC is the one to be preferred (Schwarz, 1978). The first term of this expression accounts for the error between the data and the model predictions, while the second term represents a penalty for including too much complexity in the model.
Figure 8 plots, for each participant, the BIC obtained with each model, subtracted by the BIC obtained with the BAYES model. From this plot, we can see that the BIC values obtained with the ADD1, ADD2, ADD1_mode, ADD2_mode, and BAYES_var models were significantly greater than the BIC values obtained with the BAYES model (p = 0.002, p < 0.001, p = 0.003, p = 0.005, and p < 0.001, respectively; signed rank test). Thus, while a small minority of participants were not best fitted by the BAYES model (two participants exhibited a lower BIC value with the ADD1 model, two participants exhibited a lower BIC value with the ADD1_mode model, and two participants exhibited a lower BIC value with the ADD2_mode model), this model provided the best description of the data for the majority of participants.
Model comparison. The Bayesian information criterion (BIC) evaluated with each model, subtracted by the BIC evaluated with the BAYES model, is plotted separately for each participant. Median values are indicated by horizontal red lines, 25th and 75th percentiles by horizontal blue lines. Values greater than zero indicate that the BAYES model provided the best description of the data. p-values indicate whether the median “BIC-BICBAYES” was significantly different form zero for each model (signed rank test).
Each of the models described attempted to fit the estimation distributions for each participant. To achieve a qualitative understanding of how the estimation distributions predicted by each of the models compared to the experimental data, we analyzed the predicted estimation biases and standard deviations. As the ADD1_mode and the ADD2_mode and the BAYES models provided better fits to the data than the other models, we only analyze here the predicted estimation biases and standard deviations for these three models. In our previous analysis of the experimental data, we parameterized participants' estimation distributions as the sum of a circular normal distribution and a “flat” background probability (to account for the proportion of trials where they made random estimations). Participants' estimation means and standard deviations were then taken as the center and width of the fitted circular normal distribution, respectively. To be consistent with this, we computed biases and standard deviations from the estimation distributions predicted by each model in an identical way.
Figure 9 shows the estimation biases and standard deviations predicted by each of the models, plotted alongside the experimental data. Both the BAYES and ADD2_mode models provided a good fit for the population averaged estimation biases (mean absolute error of 0.75° and 0.62° for the BAYES and ADD2_mode models, respectively). The ADD1_mode model, however, was unable to reproduce the repulsive biases away from the central motion direction (at ±16°) that were observed experimentally (mean absolute error of 2.14°; Figure 9a). This was also reflected in the fits of individual participants' estimation biases (quantified by calculating the mean absolute error for the fits of the estimation biases separately for each participant, averaged over motion directions). The error in the fits of the individual participants' estimation biases was significantly smaller for the BAYES model than for the ADD1_mode model (p < 0.001, signed rank test), while there was no significant difference between the BAYES and ADD2_mode models.
Predicted biases (a) and standard deviations (b) for each model. Predictions for the ADD1_mode model (green), the ADD2_mode model (blue), and the BAYES model (black) are plotted alongside the experimental data (red). In both plots, data points from either side of the central motion direction have been averaged together so that the furthest left point corresponds to the central motion direction, and the vertical dashed line corresponds to the most frequently presented motion directions. In all plots, results are averaged over all participants and error bars represent within-subject standard error.
The fact that the ADD1_mode model was unable to fit the experimentally observed repulsive biases away from the central motion direction can be explained by the fact that for this model we parameterized the “expected” distribution of motion directions, p exp(θ), to be symmetrical around 0°. Thus, even in the extreme case where all responses are sampled from this distribution, there would only be an attractive bias toward the central motion direction.
The BAYES model produced estimation standard deviations that varied with motion direction in a qualitatively similar way to the experimental data (with a maximum at 0°, decreasing for stimuli moving further from the central motion direction), although in general, the model predicted values that were slightly larger than what was observed experimentally (Figure 9b). The fits for the estimation standard deviation produced by the ADD1_mode and ADD2_mode were worse than the BAYES model (mean absolute error of 5.11° and 2.74° for the ADD1_mode and ADD2_mode models , respectively, compared to 2.17° for the BAYES model) and did not vary with motion in a way that was similar to the experimental data. However, the error in the fits of the individual participants estimation standard deviations (quantified by calculating the mean absolute error for the fits of the estimation standard deviation separately for each participant, averaged over motion directions) was not significantly different between the models (p = 0.91 and p = 0.34, respectively, for comparisons of the ADD1_mode and ADD2_mode models with the BAYES model; signed rank test).
While all the free parameters in the BAYES model (κ l , θ exp, κ exp, and α) were held constant across presented motion directions, in order for the “response bias” models (ADD1, ADD2, ADD1_mode, and ADD2_mode) to fit the data, additional free parameters were required (a(θ) and b(θ)), which had to be varied between different presented motion directions. Thus, for the ADD1 and ADD2 models to be valid, participants would have had to alter their response strategy, varying the proportion of trials where they sampled from their “expected” probability distributions, depending on the direction of the presented stimulus. In addition, the ADD1_mode and ADD2_mode models assumed that when participants were unsure about the presented motion direction, they made a perceptual estimate of motion direction that was exactly the same on each trial. This seems unrealistic: in reality there would be some trial-to-trial variation in the expected motion direction.
In summary, BAYES exhibited significantly smaller BIC values than all of the other models, as well as producing fits for the estimation biases and standard deviation that were at least as good as the response bias models, despite the fact that it had fewer free parameters (4 parameters as opposed to 9, 14, 8, and 13 parameters for ADD1 and ADD2, ADD1_mode, and ADD2_mode, respectively), leading us to conclude that it provided the best description of participants' behavior. Overall, our results argue against the hypothesis that the observed estimation biases were produced by “response strategies” unrelated to perceptual changes but rather support the hypothesis that participants performed the task using a Bayesian strategy, where a learned a prior of expected stimulus directions was combined with their sensory evidence in a probabilistic way.
We were interested to see whether the prior and likelihood distribution that we derived to fit participants' response distributions when a stimulus was present were sufficient to explain their estimation performance in the absence of any stimulus.
While the original BAYES model ignored the detection task, in order to analyze participants “no-stimulus” behavior, it was important to incorporate this into our model. The full model, BAYES_dual, which is of the same form as the original Bayesian model, with the exception that it simulates the detection task, is described in the Supplementary materials. The BAYES_dual model required 3 additional parameters: participants' prior expectation that a stimulus would be presented on each trial, the probability that participants made sensory observations of the stimulus as being present, on trials where a stimulus was presented, and on trials where no stimulus was presented (see Supplementary materials). Importantly, these parameters were fitted using only data from trials where the stimulus was presented, and not zero-stimulus trials, which was what we were aiming to predict.
Figure 10 shows the estimation distributions predicted by this model for trials where there was no stimulus present but where participants detected a stimulus (black), plotted alongside the experimentally measured distribution (red). The average “zero-stimulus” estimation distribution predicted by the model provided a good fit for the population averaged estimation distributions, with an R 2 value of 0.71. The behavior of individual participants was also well predicted by the model: the fits for participants' zero stimulus estimation distributions had a positive R 2 value for 8 out of 12 of them. For these participants, the median R 2 value was 0.65 (0.46, 0.83; 25th and 75th percentiles). The fact that the majority of participants' behavior in the absence of a stimulus could be predicted, based solely on their estimation responses in the presence of a stimulus, provides strong evidence in favor of the Bayesian model put forward here.
Predicted estimation response probability distributions for trials where no stimulus is presented but where participants reported detecting a stimulus. Model predictions (gray; BAYES_dual model; see Supplementary materials for details) are plotted alongside the experimental results (red). Data points from either side of the central motion direction have been averaged together in this plot so that the furthest left data point corresponds to the central motion direction, and the vertical dashed line corresponds to the most frequently presented motion directions (±32°). Results are averaged over all participants and shaded error bars represent within-subject standard error.
We found that participants quickly and automatically developed expectations for the most frequently presented directions of motion. On trials where no stimulus was presented, but where participants reported seeing a stimulus, they were strongly biased to report motion in the two most frequently presented motion directions (Figure 3). This bias could not be explained as due to any particular “response-strategy.” Participants' perception of real motion stimuli was also influenced by their learned expectations: they showed increased detection performance for the most frequently presented motion directions and estimated stimuli to be moving in directions that were more similar to the most frequently presented motion directions than they really were (Figures 4–6). Participants' estimation behavior was well described by a model which assumed that they solved the task using a Bayesian strategy, combining a learned prior of the stimulus statistics with their sensory evidence in a probabilistic way (Figures 7–9). Further, our model of participants' behavior in the presence of a stimulus was able to accurately predict their estimation responses when no stimulus was presented (Figure 10).
Participants rapidly learned to expect the likely stimuli; within just a few minutes of task performance. One by-product of such rapid learning was that because participants learned which motion directions were expected within a very few number of trials, it was difficult for us to measure the short-term time course and dynamics of learning (Supplementary Figure 3). Future work could investigate this using a more complicated distribution of presented stimuli or statistical learning paradigm that produces slower learning of stimulus expectations (Eckstein et al., 2004; Orbán, Fiser, Aslin, & Lengyel, 2008).
Recent studies have shown that rapidly learned expectations influence perception of bistable stimuli (Haijiang et al., 2006; Sterzer et al., 2008). In common with our results, these studies found attractive perceptual biases toward participants' expectations. However, while these studies looked at perception of relatively complex visual features, such as whether a stimulus was rotating (Sterzer et al., 2008), our experiment looked at perception of simple unambiguous features, which are likely to be processed at a lower level in the visual hierarchy, such as cortical area MT (Newsome, Britten, & Movshon, 1989). Whether similar neural changes are responsible for the effects of expectations on perception of both simple and more complicated stimulus features is an open question.
Our finding, that participants perceived motion in expected directions when nothing was presented, is similar to what has been found in perceptual learning, where after learning participants report seeing dots moving in the trained direction when no stimulus is displayed (Seitz, Nanez, Holloway, Koyama, & Watanabe, 2005). However, an important difference between our results and what has been reported previously was the time taken for these hallucinations to develop: in the study of Seitz et al., it took around eight 1-hour sessions for participants to perceive motion in the trained direction when there was nothing there, while we observed this effect within the first 250 trials. It is interesting to consider whether these visual hallucinations were caused by the same underlying phenomena in both cases. Indeed, elucidating the similarities and differences between the physiological and the behavioral effects of different types of learning is an important goal for future research (Seitz & Watanabe, 2005).
In our experiment, participants were implicitly asked to learn the statistics of the stimulus directions. In Bayesian terms, this corresponds to learning a prior distribution of the motion stimuli. Bayesian theory (MacKay, 2004) tells us how such knowledge should then be combined with sensory inputs to lead to optimal estimates. Our results can thus be interpreted in the context of two questions: (1) are participants able to learn a prior about motion stimuli in the course of our experiment; (2) is this prior combined optimally with participants' sensory observations to lead to motion estimates?
We constructed a simple model of participants' estimation behavior, which assumed that on each trial they combined their sensory evidence (based on a noisy sensory measurement of motion direction) with a learned prior distribution of “expected” motion directions, in a probabilistically optimal manner (Figure 7). For each participant, we chose the width of the likelihood function and shape of the learned prior to maximize the probability of their estimation data being generated by the model. The model provided a good fit of participants' estimation biases and standard deviations (Figure 9). Interestingly, the quality of the fit to the data did not decrease when the width of the likelihood was held constant with presented motion direction (Figure 8). On average, the shape of participants' learned prior (Supplementary Figure 10) was found to be qualitatively similar to the actual distribution of presented stimuli (Figure 2), indicating that they were able to rapidly learn a multi-modal prior distribution of stimulus directions.
In our experiment, the luminances of the two staircased contrast levels (determined by running staircases on the detection performance) were very similar to each other, with a large degree of overlap between them. Therefore, we combined data from both contrast levels for the majority of our analysis. Later, we looked at how participants' estimation behavior varied with the stimulus contrast by dividing participants' estimation responses into “low” and “high” contrast trials, determined by the contrast level of each individual trial rather than the staircased contrast level that it was a part of (see Supplementary materials for details). We found that the average magnitude of participants' estimation standard deviations increased for lower contrast levels, along with the magnitude of estimation biases toward the central motion direction (Supplementary Figure 6).
This is consistent with what we would expect if participants behaved as Bayesian observers. At lower contrast levels, participants' sensory uncertainty should increase, causing an increase in the standard deviation of estimations. As a result of this, the learned prior would begin to dominate over sensory evidence, causing the magnitude of the estimation biases to increase (Stocker & Simoncelli, 2006). While we were not able fit participants' estimation behavior at varying contrast well using our Bayesian model (as there were too few data points per experimental conditions to well constrain the model), this will be an interesting question for future work.
We reasoned that if our participants were indeed behaving as Bayesian observers, then the prior and likelihood derived from their estimation responses when a stimulus was present should also predict their estimation behavior when no stimulus was present. This is indeed what we found: the majority of participants' zero-stimulus estimation distributions were well fitted by the model (Figure 10). Therefore, while “hallucinating” motion when none is there will clearly be disadvantageous in most everyday situations (Seitz et al., 2005), in the context of our experiment, it is just what we would expect for an ideal Bayesian observer who sought to minimize their estimation error in the face of perceptual uncertainty.
We compared the Bayesian model with various “response bias” models, which assumed that participants responded according to different strategies on different trials: either relying entirely on their sensory observations or on their expectations. These models were worse at describing the estimation data than the Bayesian model (larger BIC values; Figure 8), leading us to rule them out as an explanation for participants' behavior in the estimation task.
We were interested to see whether participants' performance in the detection task was improved for stimuli moving in “expected” directions. We found that there was a significant increase in participants' detection performance as well as a significant decrease in reaction time for clicking the mouse during stimulus presentation for stimuli moving in the most frequently presented motion directions (Figure 6 and Supplementary Figure 7). Although somewhat smaller in magnitude, these effects are similar to what has been reported previously by Sekuler and Ball (1977), who found large improvements in both detection performance and reaction time when participants knew which direction stimuli would be moving in. Such an increase in perceptual sensitivity toward expected stimuli is similar to the effects of selective attention (Downing, 1988; Posner et al., 1980), suggesting that the learned expectations led participants to direct selective attention toward the expected stimuli.
In the experiment of Sekuler and Ball (1977), participants reported that they experienced their eye movements being involuntarily “pulled” in the direction of the stimulus. It was suggested by the authors that mechanisms controlling eye movements might be capable of responding to very low luminance motion stimuli and thus that the resulting eye movements could be used by participants to help them correctly detect stimuli that were otherwise imperceptible.
If this is the case, then it could have also contributed to changes in detection performance and reaction time with motion direction in our experiment. For example, if participants were biased to move their eyes in “expected” motion directions, then this could result in decreased detection thresholds for these motion directions. However, how such eye movements would influence estimation of motion direction is not so clear. Naively, if participants were biased to move their eyes in expected motion directions, then we might expect this to produce estimation biases away from these directions (as the motion component in this direction would be reduced, relative to the motion of the eye), which is not what we observed. A proper understanding of how extra-retinal eye-movement signals are combined with sensory signals to produce perceptual estimates is an important area for future work.
We considered how participants' behavior in one task could have influenced their behavior in the other (Jazayeri & Movshon, 2007). Specifically, we asked whether biases in the estimation task could have come about as a result of participants optimizing their behavior in the detection task. To illustrate how this could happen, consider the case where participants' expectations influenced their detection performance, but not their perception of motion direction. Here, if participants were more likely to detect a stimulus when they perceived it to be moving in “expected” directions, then this would also cause the estimation distributions to be biased toward these directions when we looked just at trials where a stimulus was detected. However, this bias would disappear when we looked at estimation responses from all trials, regardless of participants' detection responses, which is not what we find experimentally (there was no significant difference between the estimation biases calculated from trials where participants detected stimuli, and from all trials; p = 0.71, five-way within-subjects ANOVA).
On the other hand, if, on trials where participants did not detect a stimulus, they treated the estimation task as meaningless and provided random estimation responses, then on average we would still observe a bias toward the expected directions. This could allow participants to respond in a “self-consistent” way in both tasks (Stocker & Simoncelli, 2008): when they have settled on the hypothesis that there is no stimulus present, it makes little sense for them to scrutinize which direction it is moving in. However, as discussed earlier, participants' detection performance varied relatively weakly with motion direction, with a population averaged difference in detection performance of only 5.9 ± 1.0% between the two most frequently presented motion directions and other directions (Figure 6). Thus, it seems unlikely that the highly significant variation in estimation biases observed experimentally (varying by 14.6 ± 2.9° between stimuli moving at ±16° and ±64°; Figure 4a) could be brought about by such small changes in detection performance.
The behavioral effects of sensory expectations have been often linked to those of attention, as both phenomena result in increased perceptual quality for attended or expected stimuli (Doherty et al., 2005; Downing, 1988; Posner et al., 1980; Summerfield & Egner, 2009). In the context of this experiment, it is possible that participants learned to direct feature-based attention toward the most frequently presented motion directions. Therefore, it is worthwhile comparing our results to previous experiments looking at the effects of feature-based attention on motion perception.
Previous studies using transparent motion stimuli have shown that feature-based attention can modulate how different motion components are perceptually combined, thus altering the perceived directions (Chen, Meng, Matthews, & Qian, 2005; Tzvetanov, Womelsdorf, Niebergall, & Treue, 2006). For example, Chen et al. (2005) found that attending toward one of two overlapping motion signals reduced the degree of repulsion between the two motion signals so that the non-attended motion direction was perceived as being closer to the attended motion direction than it would be otherwise. This is consistent with our results, where attending to a particular motion direction resulted in an attractive bias in estimation-responses toward the attended direction. However, in these previous studies, attention acted to select one of two competing motion stimuli and thus modified the interaction between processing of these different motion signals. Here, we find that when participants “expect” stimuli to be moving in a particular motion direction, this alters the perceived direction of motion, even in the absence of any competing stimuli.
It is interesting to consider how the perceptual effects that we observed here could be produced by changes at the neural level in the visual cortex. Much modeling work has looked at how visual neurons could encode information about sensory stimuli in the form of probability distributions, both at the single neuron (Deneve, 2008) and at the population level (Knill & Pouget, 2004; Ma, Beck, Latham, & Pouget, 2006; Pouget, Dayan, & Zemel, 2003). However, at present the evidence for neural encoding of the prior is minimal (Basso & Wurtz, 1997; Platt & Glimcher, 1999; Summerfield & Koechlin, 2008).
On the other hand, recent experiments have shown that expectations of when and where motion stimuli are likely to be presented can result in increased reliability of neurons in visual area MT (Ghose & Bearl, 2009). In the context of visual attention, numerous studies have shown that selective attention increases the sensitivity of neurons that are tuned toward attended spatial (Spitzer, Desimone, & Moran, 1988; Treue & Maunsell, 1996) or feature (McAdams & Maunsell, 2000; Treue & Martínez Trujillo, 1999) dimensions. Looking specifically at visual motion, electrophysiological studies in macaque MT show that the firing rate of neurons that are tuned toward an attended motion direction are increased relative to neurons that are tuned toward other directions (Treue & Martínez Trujillo, 1999). Therefore, if, in our experiment, participants learned to direct feature-based attention toward expected motion directions, then it is likely that the gain of neurons that were tuned toward these directions was increased. When considered together with our results, this leads to the following questions. First, are the learned priors that seem to be involved in our task encoded directly by gain changes of sensory neurons such as are observed with attention (Dayan & Zemel, 1999; Rao, 2005; Yu & Dayan, 2005a)? Secondly, how are these changes interpreted, or “decoded,” by upstream cortical areas to produce the perceptual biases that we observed (Jazayeri, 2007, 2008; Jazayeri & Movshon, 2006, 2007; Seriès, Stocker, & Simoncelli, 2009)? Finally, an interesting goal for future research is to understand how priors that are learned over a short period of time are incorporated with and used to update long-term priors about the statistical structure of the world (Knill & Pouget, 2004; Weiss et al., 2002).
We asked whether the statistics of past motion stimuli can modulate perception of new motion directions. This was indeed what we found: participants quickly developed expectations for the most frequently presented directions of motion, and this strongly influenced their perception of simple, unambiguous, visual stimuli, inducing a shift in the perceived direction of stimuli toward expected motion directions as well as hallucinations to see motion when none was presented.
In our work, expectations can be directly interpreted and modeled as Bayesian priors. In a situation like ours where stimuli are presented to only one sensory modality, without conflict or ambiguity, expectations or Bayesian priors are often thought to develop slowly over a lifetime of sensory inputs. In contrast, we found that they can be learned rapidly, in a period of a few minutes. Moreover, we showed they are combined with sensory inputs in a way that is compatible with optimal Bayesian inference.
In conclusion, our findings support the idea of a very plastic perceptual system in which prior knowledge is rapidly acquired and constantly used to shape our perceptions toward what we expect to see. Though useful for the system in the face of uncertainty, this plasticity comes at the cost of unconscious illusions and hallucinations.
We would like to thank Dr. M. Oram and Prof. A. Thiele for their helpful comments and suggestions. We would also like to acknowledge the helpful and insightful comments provided by two anonymous reviewers on earlier versions of this manuscript. This research was supported by funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Medical Research Council of Great Britain.
Author contributions: M. Chalk and A. R. Seitz contributed equally to this work.
Address: IANC, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, Room 2.49, 10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9QS, UK.
Dayan P. Zemel R. (1999). Statistical models and sensory attention. Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks (vol. 2, pp. 1017–1022).
MacKay D. J. C. (2004). Information theory, inference, and learning algorithms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Stocker A. Simoncelli E. (2008). A Bayesian Model of Conditioned Perception. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 20, 1409–1416.
Yu A. Dayan P. (2005a). Inference, attention, and decision in a Bayesian neural architecture. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 17, 1577–1584.
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This article is about songs McCartney recorded with Wings. For songs he recorded with the Beatles, see List of songs recorded by the Beatles. For songs he recorded as a solo artist, see List of songs recorded by Paul McCartney.
Paul McCartney and Linda McCartney performing in 1976.
Paul McCartney and Wings, also known simply as Wings, were an English rock band that recorded many songs during their career. Between 1971 and 1981, they released seven studio albums, one live album, one compilation album, and twenty-seven singles. After their break-up, three more singles, another compilation album, as well as reissues of their original studio albums with added bonus tracks have been released. Formed by former Beatle Paul McCartney and his wife Linda McCartney, Wings enjoyed major commercial success during their time as a band, releasing several number one albums and many hit singles.
Founded in 1971 by the McCartney's, Laine, and Denny Seiwell after the release of the McCartney's album Ram, the band made their debut with Wild Life, released in December that year. The album garnered minimal commercial success and received generally poor reviews. In 1972, the band would add Henry McCullough to the lineup and release several non-album singles, including "Give Ireland Back to the Irish", "Mary Had a Little Lamb", and "Hi, Hi, Hi", before releasing their second album, Red Rose Speedway, in 1973. While receiving mixed reviews, the album and its lead single, "My Love" were huge commercial successes, both reaching number one in the US charts. Wings' continued their commercial success with the title track to the James Bond film Live and Let Die. At the beginning of the recording sessions for their next album, McCullough and Seiwell left the band forcing the McCartney's and Laine to record their next album as a trio. Backed by the successful singles, "Jet" and the title track, the album, Band on the Run, became Wings' most successful album, reaching number one in both the US and the UK. The album also garnered highly positive reviews from critics and significantly restored McCartney's tarnished post-Beatles reputation.
Following Band on the Run, Scottish musician Jimmy McCulloch and English drummer Geoff Britton joined the band and recorded their next single, "Junior's Farm". During the sessions for their follow-up album, Britton left the band and was replaced by American musician Joe English. Backed by the number one single "Listen to What the Man Said", the album, Venus and Mars, wasn't as well-received as Band on the Run, but was nevertheless a commercial success, reaching number one. After Venus and Mars, the band embarked on a highly successful world tour in 1975. Their fifth album, Wings at the Speed of Sound, was recorded and released in between legs of the tour. The album saw the first time a Wings' album featured every member on lead vocals at least once. While the album received lukewarm reviews, it was a commercial success, supported by the number one singles, "Silly Love Songs" and "Let 'Em In". The live album Wings over America was released after the tour's end and was a huge commercial success, becoming the band's fifth number one album.
In late 1977, Wings' released "Mull of Kintyre" as a double A-side with "Girls' School". The single reached number one in the UK and remains one of the best selling UK singles of all time. After "Mull of Kintyre", the band released their next studio album, London Town, in 1978. Preceded by the successful hit, "With a Little Luck", the album was another commercial success for the group, and received positive reviews from critics. Despite strong album sales, the post-album singles, "I've Had Enough" and "London Town", were not as successful. After the album's release, McCulloch and English both left the group. The band followed London Town with the successful single "Goodnight Tonight" in 1979. The band's next album, Back to the Egg, saw the addition of Laurence Juber and Steve Holley to the lineup. Released in 1979, Back to the Egg was a major failure, received very negative reviews from critics and failed to produce any hits. After the band toured the UK, McCartney was arrested in Japan for possession of marijuana, cancelling a planned tour in 1980. After McCartney released his second solo album, McCartney II, Wings officially disbanded in 1981.
English musician Denny Laine, with the McCartney's, formed the core trio of Wings' career.
Scottish musician Jimmy McCulloch played lead guitar and bass with Wings from 1974 to 1977.
American musician Joe English played drums for Wings from 1975 to 1977.
English musician Steve Holley played drums for Wings from 1978 to 1981.
"After the Ball / Million Miles"
"Hold Me Tight/Lazy Dynamite/Hands of Love/Power Cut"
"The Note You Never Wrote"
"So Glad to See You Here"
"Treat Her Gently/Lonely Old People"
^ a b c d e Originally recorded with the Beatles.
^ a b c d Unreleased song recorded during the Back to the Egg sessions.
^ An instrumental version of the song, titled "Give Ireland Back to the Irish (Version)", was the B-side to "Give Ireland Back to the Irish".
^ Originally recorded during the Ram sessions in 1970, the song received further overdubs by Wings in 1974. The original non-Wings version first appeared on the 2012 reissue of Ram. The Wings version would be officially released two years later on the 2014 reissue of Venus and Mars.
^ "A Love for You" was recorded during the Ram sessions in 1970 and received additional overdubs during the Back to the Egg sessions in 1979. The song remained unreleased until it was included in the 2012 remastered edition of Ram.
^ Unreleased song recorded during the Back to the Egg sessions.
^ "Seaside Woman" was released under the pseudonym "Suzy and the Red Stripes".
^ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Wild Life – Wings / Paul McCartney". AllMusic. Retrieved 14 October 2017.
^ a b c d e f g h i j k Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Wings – Biography & History". AllMusic. Retrieved 14 October 2017.
^ a b c d e f Miles, Badman 2001.
^ Mulligan 2010, p. 150.
^ "Red Rose Speedway – Paul McCartney, Wings: Awards". AllMusic. Retrieved 14 October 2017.
^ Emerick 2006, p. 337.
^ Perone 2012, p. 585.
^ Rodriguez 2010, pp. 262–263.
^ Madinger, Easter 2000, p. 186.
^ "Official Charts: Paul McCartney". The Official UK Charts Company. Retrieved 14 October 2017.
^ Ghosh, Palash (16 July 2013). "Band On The Run: 40 Years Ago, Paul McCartney Saved His Career With An Album Made Under Duress In Nigeria". International Business Times. Retrieved 14 October 2017.
^ Frontani 2009, pp. 166–167.
^ Bronson 2003, p. 418.
^ a b Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Wings, Paul McCartney – Wings at the Speed of Sound". AllMusic. Retrieved 20 October 2017.
^ McGee 2003, p. 232.
^ Whitburn 2002, p. 163.
^ "Wings Over America". paulmccartney.com. Retrieved 20 October 2017.
^ ""Mull of Kintyre"/"Girls' School"". Official Charts. Official Charts Company. Retrieved 20 October 2017.
^ "UK Top 10 Best Selling Singles". UK Charts. Retrieved 20 October 2017.
^ a b c "Wings – Full Official Chart History". Official Charts. The Official UK Charts Company 2017. Retrieved 25 October 2017.
^ a b Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "London Town – Wings / Paul McCartney". AllMusic. Retrieved 25 October 2017.
^ McGee 2003, p. 120.
^ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Back to the Egg – Wings / Paul McCartney". AllMusic. Retrieved 25 October 2017.
^ Rodriguez 2010, p. 269.
^ "The Wings Japanese Tour That Wasn't (Wings' 1980 Japan Tour) (by James Bjorkman)". paulmccartney.filminspector.com. 20 May 2013. Retrieved 25 October 2017.
^ a b c "Sir Paul McCartney 'RAM' tracklisting, reissue details revealed". paulmccartney.com. 18 April 2012. Archived from the original on 22 July 2012. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
^ a b "Wings Reissue 'Venus and Mars' and 'At The Speed Of Sound'". paulmccartney.com. MPL Communications. 28 July 2014. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
^ McGee 2003, p. 72, 123, 146.
^ a b McGee 2003, p. 123.
^ a b McGee 2003, p. 226.
Bronson, Fred (1 October 2003). The Billboard book of number 1 hits. Billboard Books. ISBN 978-0-8230-7677-2. Retrieved 14 October 2017.
Emerick, Geoff (2006). Massey, Howard (ed.). Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles. Gotham. ISBN 978-1-59240-269-4.
Frontani, Michael (2009). "The Solo Years". In Womack, Kenneth (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to the Beatles. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-68976-2.
McGee, Garry (2003). Band on the Run: A History of Paul McCartney and Wings. New York: Taylor Trade Publishing. ISBN 0-87833-304-5.
Miles, Barry; Badman, Keith, eds. (2001). The Beatles Diary After the Break-Up: 1970–2001 (reprint ed.). London: Music Sales Group. ISBN 9780711983076.
Mulligan, Kate Siobhan (2010). The Beatles: A Musical Biography. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Greenwood. ISBN 978-0-313-37686-3.
Perone, James E. (17 Oct 2012). The Album: A Guide to Pop Music's Most Provocative, Influential, and Important Creations. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-0-313-37907-9.
Whitburn, Joel (2002). Top Adult Contemporary: 1961-2001. Record Research. ISBN 978-0-8982-0149-9.
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Describing ways of identifying and meeting development needs In this task I am going to show how an employee can identify skills or attributes within themselves that they may wish to develop, this may be because a particular skill is lacking. Ways of identifying these skills and developing them are as follows; Self - assessment Self assessment is an attribute that allows an employee to take ownership of a particular area of their personal, academic or work based life. Self assessment means an employee will have to review their actions, skills, strengths, weaknesses, key activities etc. and be able to provide themselves with a summary evaluation. This can then be used as part of an appraisal to give the employee their own opportunity to identify their strengths and weaknesses. This will then be incorporated into the formal appraisal process. Self assessment should also be used by an employee to determine different faults in others. This will allow different employees to interact as it will help each other to improve if they discuss each other's faults and how they could improve. It is up to an employee to choose what they wish to reveal about themselves. These qualities tend to be revealed through body language, and so it is important that when assessing other employees that they only be showing you what they want you to see. ...read more.
Performance Data Some organisations can collect information about a certain employee over a period of time and review this performance information with the employee. Performance such as how quick an employee performs their work or how many items they sold etc. An example of this could be a checkout worker in a supermarket. The rate of performance could be recorded by how many items they scan, how many customers they serve during their shift, what profit they made etc. These measures however when taken in isolation might not always be accurate or fair as; one customer may buy a lot of cheap items but in a large proportion of products. This would therefore result in a slower scanning process. If a product has been known as being damaged this would also slow the process of a transaction as an employee would have to leave their workstation to retrieve the same undamaged product. For this type of method to improve skills it has to be recorded in large sample. This is so the sample can be classified as the entire population. This means over a long period of time one checkout employee can be compared against another. Appraisal Records This type of method is used to identify an employee's performance of work throughout a month, year etc. ...read more.
When addressing a particular need there are specific mechanisms that will be used to help identify and develop these needs. Sometimes there are numerous methods that will be used over a period of time to help develop these needs; many of these needs will only require attending one training session or joining a single team in a meeting. After a specific need has been undergoing training it will then be monitored to ensure that it is meeting various stages and has been addressed properly. This will then help to recognise more needs that will eventually be developed with mechanism to support them. Informal Training Informal training is less effective as formal training, as not much effort is being put into what is supposed to be learned. It can then be harder to tell whether that training had even occurred or not. Examples of these informal discussions are; among different employees about a certain topic etc. This training is sometimes referred to as the deepest and richest learning because it focuses on tasks that are naturally occurring in everyday life. Reading Books/ Magazines Many of times it is easier to find specific data in a book rather than searching the World Wide Web. This is because the internet contains thousands of sources and makes it more difficult to search for an accurate piece of data. Reading books and magazines links with informal training as it helps users to have discussions to help develop needs and skills. ?? ?? ?? ?? Jody Mc Laughlin ...read more.
Make it slightly smaller and the title more obvious, perhaps by emboldening it. * Make the address, contact phone and fax numbers in the left text box more obvious by emboldening and creating a new paragraph for the phone and fax options.
I want our website to be available to use for people with disabilities, so we would hope you consider them when designing your website Pass "As I do not have disabilities, so what I say is not important. But I feel that I found the website so easy to use!!
showing the results of a query or a report. * Printed on paper (a hard copy) showing the contents of a query, report, or mail merged letter. Quantitative Objectives - The system should be able to add new records within one minute.
By being hardworking, an employee can achieve their targets fast, and therefore being able to intake more tasks should it be necessary. A company will value an employee like this because they are very efficient, and allows the company to take more workload, because they know that their employees' will meet their deadlines.
NEHTA's initiative to create secure messaging between patient and medical practitioners would allow equity for all Australians, as a result from allowing better access to health care services in remote, rural and disadvantaged communities. (Anonymous3 2010) 8. A GP will be simply able to send prescriptions to a secure e-health repository which the patient's pharmacist will access electronically.
Making a sale is very much down to determination. Universal Self Motivation If an employee was self motivated, they wouldn't need any one else to push them to do the job faster or more effectively. The job could be boring or difficult but people who are self motivated naturally work hard and deliver results.
Therefore I believe that my solution meets the user's needs very well and ensures a user friendly product. Are there any improvements that could be made? Like any finished product there is always scope for improvement no matter how stringent measures were adopted.
This may be valued to an employer as it cuts down on people that may not be suitable for this position and that do not have the skills to perform the job. This will then allow the employer to search for more specific prospective employees for the job.
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PORTLAND, Oregon (CNN)– The Tea Party Express rolled into Portland, Oregon, Friday and took aim at the city's left-leaning image.
"It's great to be in a capital of liberalism," Tea Party Vice Chairman Mark Williams told a crowd of several hundred supporters who milled around the organization¹s two large tour buses. The event was held in a parking lot owned by a local Italian sausage sandwich shop.
Before the invitation to host the rally there, organizers had spent several days trying to find a venue who would have them. Almost everyone they contacted, organizers said, voiced concerns that holding an event on their property would be bad for business.
But the crowd that showed up nearly filled the small parking lot, cheering on criticisms of Democratic health care proposals and calling for a more conservative Republican Party.
Holding a cardboard sign that read "No Obama Care," retiree Jack Millay said, "The Democrats don't support my positions, the Republicans don't support my positions so here I am."
Millay said huge deficits run up under the past two administrations infuriated him.
"Somehow we need to reform the Republican party so they return to conservative values instead of being how they are which is not that different from Democrats," Millay said.
Across the street from the rally, Noah Heller and four other protesters held a counter rally calling for higher taxes on large corporations in Oregon. "People there are being fooled," Heller said of the tea party. "There's a lot of anger but it's misdirected."
He blamed the low turnout for the anti-Tea Party rally on the lack of publicity about the event.
The Tea Party Express is a third of the way through a 19-day tour of the country with stops in 38 cities.
...several hundred? I fully support the Tea Party gang's right to gather, but, several hundred? I'm sure local high school football games get more. Of coure, talk radio guys will have the figure closer to 20 million.
Watch out Oregon, the wackos are coming !
TEA-BAGGERS ON TOUR ....oh goody ...!
I think it's a shame that these so-called "tea parties" are being used as a cover for people who can't stand the fact that we elected an African America to the White House.
These people claim not to be republicans, but they are just patsy's for fox news and the republican party. Hilarious that they can't see that.
Try reading for a change. Liberals aren't objecting to their right to protest – they're characterizing them as a loony fringe group with extreme views.
Sadly, I think they're wrong in that characterization – they definitely have extreme views but they're more than a simple fringe group.
As far as them or the people wanting to elect only 'true Democrats', we don't need extremists from *either* end of the spectrum. There are many people in this country who want the best for the country and who disagree sincerely over the best way forward. Stop denigrating those who happen to hold a different opinion. Try talking with and listening to someone who disagrees – *actually* listening and trying to understand them. You will find that they are real people with good motives and in all likelihood what they want for the country is 90% the same as what you want.
1. Some admit now that all this spending is not just the Democrats but the Republicans as well.
2. That this spending did not start under Obama but began with Bush.
3. Some counter protesters though small numbered did show up to say how some of these folks have been misdirected and mislead by falsehoods.
If this trend continues the ones who start the groups and protest might become discouraged because they are not as rowdy as the past ones and give it up all together.
Teabaggers give back your government benefits.
Tea Party = Wealthy Americans with time and money to spare and who don't want to pay their share for the services they receive.
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Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain. Independence Day is commonly associated with fireworks, parades, barbecues, carnivals, fairs, picnics, concerts, baseball games, family reunions, and political speeches and ceremonies, in addition to various other public and private events celebrating the history, government, and traditions of the United States. Independence Day is the national day of the United States.
During the American Revolution, the legal separation of the Thirteen Colonies from Great Britain occurred on July 2, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress voted to approve a resolution of independence that had been proposed in June by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia declaring the United States independent from Great Britain. After voting for independence, Congress turned its attention to the Declaration of Independence, a statement explaining this decision, which had been prepared by a Committee of Five, with Thomas Jefferson as its principal author. Congress debated and revised the Declaration, finally approving it on July 4.
There is no question that July 4, 1776 is the date that the Congress approved the final official document, having voted to declare independence two days earlier. Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin all later wrote that they had also signed it on that day. However, most historians have concluded that the Declaration was signed nearly a month after its adoption, on August 2, 1776, and not on July 4 as is commonly believed.
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A mother-of-two has revealed how suffering a miscarriage inspired her to transform her life and lose a whopping 155lbs.
Francesca Lara, 31, from Texas, weighed 368lbs when she suffered a miscarriage in November 2016.
'After that, I felt an extreme sense of guilt. I couldn't help but think that the miscarriage was related to my size or health,' she told Popsugar.
The mother-of-two explained that she was hospitalized during most of her second pregnancy, and she thought her third pregnancy was bound to be worse because she was larger and older.
After her miscarriage, she started to think about all the ways her weight was causing her to fail as a mother, and she made a New Year's resolution to get healthy once and for all.
Francesca told her family on New Year's Eve 2016 that she was going to embark on a weight loss journey and would need their help and encouragement to see her transformation through.
''I'll never forget that night my dad asked me what was my goal weight,' she recalled. 'I told him 199lbs. 'He laughed! That hurt — not because he didn't believe me, but because of how many times I failed at weight loss.
After consulting her doctor, who informed her that she was borderline diabetic and had high blood pressure, Francesca started a high-protein, low-carb diet.
This consisted of three meals and two snacks per day, with sugar-free Jello for dessert.
For the first three months, she had protein shakes for breakfast and lunch to help with portion control and a regular dinner. Her daily snacks included cheese, Greek yogurt, nuts, apples, oranges or a Pure Protein bar.
After this period, she transitioned to eating three regular meals and a couple of snacks, usually made up of five ounces of protein and one cup of vegetables.
She combined her healthy diet with walking three to five miles per day and working out with weights at the gym. She also used MyFitnessPal to track her calories and progress in the beginning, but she doesn't rely on the app anymore.
Francesca steadily lost between 15 to 20lbs per month, and after six months she had hit her goal of losing 100lbs.
When her weight started to plateau, she began intermittent fasting, waiting until lunch to have her first meal of the day. Any time her weight stalls, she does this for two weeks at a time.
Now 155lbs lighter, Francesca credits her monthly goals and progress pictures as the keys to her success.
Francesca's seven-year-old daughter was usually the one to take the pictures, and she promised her eldest child when she started that she would one day be able to hug her all the way around.
She noted that the day her daughter was able to do it was an 'amazing day,' and eventually her five-year-old daughter was able to wrap her arms entirely around her as well.
Francesca also tracks her progress on Instagram, and on New Year's Day, she shared a collage of all of her progress pictures.
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What do we know about Rakuten?
Rakuten is an electronic commerce company that was founded a little over twenty years ago (1997). It is often referred to as a Japanese Amazon, but that is a bit misleading, because there is also Amazon Japan (and I have a friend who worked there). Rakuten’s headquarters are located right here in Setagaya ward (I didn’t know that). In addition to running a large e-commerce site (Rakuten Ichiba (Market)) (apparently the largest e-commerce site in Japan), Rakuten also handles credit card companies, digital communication services, professional sports endeavors, sports reservations (notably, reservations for tee times for golf), media services, and many other business ventures. After its founding, Rakuten expanded its operations to other countries including the United States, England, France, Taiwan, China, and Brazil. Rakuten has over 70 subsidiaries and other related companies. Since its founding, Rakuten has made a very concerted and deliberate effort to expand its operations to other countries, and I remember several years ago, Rakuten made news when it announced English would be its official, in-house language (see the below explanation concerning this “Englishization” policy). This means that all communication at Rakuten, even between Japanese people (and even including the company cafeteria menus) is in English. According to WIKI, some 40 percent of engineers at Rakuten are foreigners. In my field of patent translations, a quick search reveals that Rakuten has a formidable intellectual property portfolio, with thousands of registered patents, mostly in Japan, but also in the United States, Europe, China, and other countries. Also worth noting is that Rakuten has been successful in securing patents for business methods, which are difficult to get in Japan. Intellectual property is a pretty dry field, but the number of patents is a good indication of how innovative a company is, and from this number patent applications and granted patents, I think it is safe to say that Rakuten is a very innovative company. My impression is that Rakuten is a household name here in Japan, based on the anecdotal evidence that everyone I know here uses it (also based on its ubiquity in the field of sports and e-commerce).
This section of Rakuten provides a variety of financial services, including Rakuten Card, Rakuten Bank, Rakuten Securities, Rakuten EDY (electronic money), Rakuten Life Insurance, Rakuten Insurance, and R Points (Rakuten Point Card). Concerning Rakuten Card, you can get cash back of 6%, 10%, 5%, 8%, 10% 5%, 10%, 6% 8%, 10%, 9%, and 5%, respectively, for Groupon, Cheaptickets, Alamo, Elemis, Naiman Marcus, Naturalizer, Marriott, Groupon Coupons, Sunglass Hut, Orbitz, Moosejaw, and Expedia. Concerning Rakuten Bank, its main website lists interest rates corresponding to each type of card it issues. These services are apparently used in over 30 countries with over 1.2 billion users. Concerning Rakuten Bank, some of its merits, according to its website, include 24/7, 365 day access to ATM services, zero handling feeds for ATM services, zero handling fees for wiring money to other banks, the accumulation and use of Rakuten points, the ability to access services with one’s smart phone without having to actually visit a brick and mortar store, and good interest rates only available at Rakuten Bank (by the way, interest rates in Japanese banks are essentially zero, meaning saving money doesn’t accrue interest (though Japanese money doesn’t seem to inflate as much); also, being able to utilize ATM services at any time is a huge benefit, as my bank, Mizuho, regularly closes all ATM services for days at a time for service maintenance). Rakuten Securities offers a variety of services, such as buying and selling stocks domestically (in Japan) and abroad, buying domestic (Japan) and foreign government bonds, currency trading, and precious metals (and a lot of other services). Rakuten EDY, as mentioned above, is electronic money. The name EDY represents the Euro, the Dollar, and Yen. This service can be used on Osaifu-keitai (portable wallet), which is the main means for using electronic money in Japan (this in turn can be accessed on all major cellphones and from all major cellphone providers in Japan (AU, Softbank, and Docomo)). Concerning Rakuten Life Insurance and Rakuten Insurance, a brief google search reveals that both are widely used in Japan and that many expatriates in Japan make use of both. Finally, concerning R points, according to WIKI, these are actually called Rakuten Super Points. These can be used on Rakuten Ichiba, Rakuten Books, Rakuten Travel, etc.
As one subsidiary or section of the behemoth that is Rakuten, in recent years, Rakuten has gotten heavily involved in sports. To begin with, domestically, Rakuten owns the baseball team Rakuten Eagles. This is a relatively new professional baseball team in Japan, based in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture. This team actually won the Japan series in 2013. Rakuten also owns Vissel Kobe, a professional soccer team based in Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture. In addition, Rakuten hosts an annual tennis tournament, called the Rakuten Open, and according to its website, this is the largest tennis tournament in Japan. In the men’s singles, Kei Nishikori won in 2012 and 2014, and other notable victors include Pete Sampras in 1993, 1994, and 1996 and John McEnroe in 1988 (I don’t play or follow tennis, so I’m only listing the athletes even I know by name recognition). Also, in 2017, Rakuten became the main sponsor for the Golden State Warriors, a professional basketball team in the NBA in the United States. Finally, Rakuten has also established a partnership with the soccer team FC Barcelona. Both teams have Rakuten emblazoned on their jerseys.
Allow me to say a few words about the CEO of Rakuten. I have a friend here in Japan who, several years ago, asked me what I thought about this man. At the time, I didn’t know who he was, and I told him so. My friend, having been told this, was disappointed. He said to me, more or less, “this guy is the Japanese Steve Jobs, but no one outside of Japan knows who he is.” Any article about Rakuten would be remiss in not discussing this man at least a little. Born in 1965 in Kobe, Hyougo Prefecture, Mikitani, at the age of 53, has quite an impressive resume. He is the CEO of Rakuten, in addition to being the head of the Crimson Group, the head of Vissel Kobe (the soccer team previously mentioned), and the chairman of the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra (on a personal note, I often run right past this place, Tokyo Opera City in Hatsudai, on my way to my company in Shinjuku). His personal wealth is estimated to be 7.1 billion USD!! He graduated in 1988, but then took a few years off to get a master’s degree from the Harvard Business School. In 1995, there was a massive earthquake in the Kansai region of Japan, with his hometown of Kobe especially bearing the brunt. This was a major turning point for Mikitani: he decided that Japan’s economy had to be revitalized, having seen the destruction in his home town and the country’s impotence in dealing with it. In 1997, along with several co-founders, he launched Rakuten Ichiba at the cost of 250,000 USD. He intended this to be a mix of e-BAY and Amazon. From 2010, Mikitani started actively expanding Rakuten overseas, and from this time, his company also became heavily involved in the sports endeavors detailed above. Also in 2010, he started what is called “Englishization,” implementing the in-house reforms detailed above wherein English is the official in-house language at Rakuten. This policy was something of a controversy at the time, and the president of Honda Motor Company called it “stupid.” Mikitani disagreed, and opinioned that speaking English is no longer an advantage, but rather it is an absolute necessity. I have to admit that at the time, I shared the same opinion as the president of Honda Motor Company, but it seems Mikitani has proven us both wrong, as Rakuten has been quite successful with its expansion activities abroad. Mikitani and many of his people have lived and studiesd abroad, and I think these experiences have shown them the benefits of being proficient in the English language. On a personal note, his sister is a doctor, his brother is a biology professor at Tokyo University (the most prestigious university in Japan), and his grandfather cofounded the camera company Minolta.
As mentioned in my previous article concerning a cashless society, Japan is notoriously slow to change. This is a conservative country, and generally, people here are hesitant to change things. Having said that, Rakuten really stood on the spearhead of innovation in this country, introducing e-commerce, e-money, many financial services, and truly innovative business methods, as evidenced not only by their number of patents, but also by their increasing expansion into foreign markets. In addition, Rakuten has not limited itself to such fields, and has expanded into the field of sponsoring sports teams, such as baseball teams in Japan, soccer teams in Europe, and basketball teams in America.
What do you think about Rakuten?
Rakuten is a force to be reckoned with. There is no question about this. This company, as detailed in this article, is massive, it has dozens of subsidiaries and related companies and operates in as many countries. The size and influence of this company cannot be slept on, and I think, with the progression of AI, cashless payments, and the like, I think this company’s influence will only become stronger.
Would you like to work in Japan?
Well, let Guidable Jobs help you! Just click here and apply for job!
I came to Japan in the mid-2000s after graduating from college. I wanted to teach English for a year or so, and then beat feet back to America to become an adult. One year became two, and then three, I learned the language enough to translate patents, I really fell in love with the country, and now I've lived here for more than a third of my life. Funny how fast time flies.
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How does an investigation management system that is utilized by over 50 insurance carriers worldwide deploy self-service data analysis for its clients? With carriers located across the world and each processing thousands of claims every day, they required an analysis platform that would enable their clients to customize KPIs and reports to each of their needs. Understanding that data-driven analysis can enhance their clients’ ability to communicate with their customers, management teams, and employees, they sought a self-service and collaborative analysis platform designed for non-technical users.
DrivenBI’s cloud-based analysis engine, SRK, is purpose-built to enable business users to customize and share dynamic KPI analyses and reports, offering enterprise-grade analytics coupled with consumer-grade ease of use and delivered in a fraction of the time and cost required by other solutions.
SRK is designed from the ground-up as a centralized, cloud-based solution, allowing the investigation management system to deploy SRK to their clients worldwide without additional hardware or software. Distinct from other standard reporting solutions that proved to be too programming intensive, SRK was easily implemented alongside their investigation management platform with no IT involvement. With SRK, each of their clients are now able to produce analyses and reports conveniently through the cloud.
With each carrier utilizing differing KPIs, SRK’s highly flexible and user-friendly analysis tools allowed each carrier to customize their own KPIs without any programming. By utilizing SRK’s customizable dashboards, automated features, and collaboration tools, their clients are now able to implement custom KPIs such as “Video Impact %” and set automatic notification to monitor for problems, allowing them to automate more processes and reduce cycle times. Management teams can now gather data updates and collaborate in real-time to make faster and better decisions.
Lastly, SRK’s Shareable Reports and Task Assignment System transforms analyses into a collaborative hub, helping insurance branches and their agents achieve actionable sharing across multiple locations, seamlessly and securely.
SRK enables business users to customize their own analyses, reports, and dashboards without requiring any programming or dependency on IT.
SRK dashboards monitor investigation performance to yield just-in-time analytical insights.
SRK reports and task assignments ensure that analyses and insights can easily be transformed into actionable solutions.
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A．Go to a place he has visited.
D．Join in a package tour.
When we talk about Americans barely into adulthood who are saddled with uttbearable levels of debt, the conversation is almost always about student loan debt. But there's a growing body of evidence suggesting that today's young adults are also drowning in credit-card debt-and that many of them will take this debt to their graves.
More than 20% overspent their income by more than $100 every single month. Since they haven't built up their credit histories yet, it's a safe bet that theae young adults are paying relatively high interest rates on the resulting credit card debt.
Although many young people blame "Socializing" a~ a barrier to saving money, most of them aren't knocking back $ 20 drinks in trendy ( 时尚的) lounges. They're struggling with much more daily financial demands.
on that bottle Of orange juice or box of spaghetti (意式面条) they bOUght a decade earlier.
faced with a financial crisis among elderly ,people who can't pay off their credit cards, "
Dunn says a lot of these young people are never going to get out from under their credit card debt."Many people are borrowing on credit cards so heavily that payoff rates at these levels are not sufficient to recover their credit card debt by the end of their life, which could have loss implications for the credit card issuing banks. "
Wilt is the main idea of the first paragraph?
A．Many young Americans will never be able to pay off their debts.
B．Credit cards play an increasingly important role in college life.
C．Credit cards are doing more harm than student loans.
D．The American credit card system is under criticism.
3、 Questionsare based on the following passage.
A recent global survey of 2,000 high-net-worth individUalS found that 60% were not planning on a traditional retirement. Among US participants, 75% expected to continue working in some capacity even after stepping away from full-time jobs. "Manyof these people made their wealth by doing sometting they're passionate (有激情的) about,”.says Daniel Egan, head of behavioral finance for Barclays Wealth Americas. " Given the.. choice, they prefer to continue workirtg, " Barclays calls these people"nevertirees."
Unlike many Americans compelled into early retirement by company restrictiolls, the average nevertiree often has no one forcing his hand. tf 106-year-old investor Irving Kahn, head of his own family firm, wants to keep coming to work every day, who's going to stop him? Seventy-eight-year-old Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's job security is guaranteed in the Constitution.
It may seem that these elderly people are trying to cheat death. In fact, they are. And it's working. Howard Friedman, a professor at UC Riverside, found in his research that those who work hardest and are successful in their careers often live the longest lives. "People are generally being given bad advice to slow down, take it easy, stop worrying, and retire to Florida,, he says. He described one study participant, still working at the age of 100, who was. recently disappointed to see his son retire.
"We're beginning to see a change in how people view retirement," says George LeeSon, codirector of the Institute of Population Ageing at Oxford. Where once ret~rement was seen as a brief reward after a long struggle through some miserable job, it is now akin (近似) to being cast aside, What Leeson terms "the Warren Buffett effect" is becoming more broadly appealing as individuals come to "view retirement as not simply being linked to economic productivity but also about contribution, "
firms can benefit from the wisdom of a resilient ( 坚韧的 ) chief, On the other, the new generation can find it more difficult to advance--an argument that typically holds little sway to a nevertiree.
What do we learn about the so-called "nevertiree$" ?
A．They are passionate about making a fortune.
B．They have no choice but to continue working.
C．They love what they do and choose not to retire.
D．They will not retire unless they are compelled to.
A．Whether or not snowflakes can be analyzed.
D．Where the largest snowflakes can be found.
6、The northern Italian city of Milan banned all traffic from its streets for 10 hours on Sunday (26)reduce smog.
The measure which was first imposed on a trial basis in the'year 2007 is (27)__________whenever pollution exceeds the statutory limit for 12 (28)__________ days.
Satellite imagery shows Milan to be one of the most polluted cities in Europe. An estimated 120,000 (29) will be affected by the move, according to the major daily newspaper in the city.
The most polluting vehicles have (30) __________ driving through the city center since Thursday. But on Sunday, there was supposed to be no traffic between 8:00 and 18:00.
The ban is imposed when pollution (31)__________50 micrograms of particulates per cubic meter of air over 12 days. The last time the full ban was (32) __________ was in February.
The move is not popular with all environmentalists, who argue that the city's public transport system should be improved to (33)__________people from using their cars. Local Green Party councilor Enrico Fedrighini said cars with three or four people inside should be offered free parking, for example. "One or two car-free Sundays each month will not do anything to (34)__________ the smog crisis," he told the daily newspaper in the city.
Public transport was to be bolstered during the day, with an (35)__________ metro trains and buses operating.
I’ve won two dollars in this lottery! Who says we don’t live in an opportunity society?
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0.862677 |
Millennials, or Generation Y, are enjoying their adulthood at a time when credit is ubiquitous. Credit cards were once reserved for the wealthy and considered a sign of prestige. Nowadays, it is common for people to carry around more than one credit card.
Despite this broader knowledge of credit and its importance on their future financial health, millennials have lower collective credit scores than any of the other three adult generations (greatest, boomers, generation X). According to statistics released by credit information firm Experian, millennials have an average credit rating of just 634. In addition, they have more than twice as much debt as Generation Z, averaging $32,698 a person.
Why are millennials failing to maximize their credit potential? It appears they are not paying attention to at least one key element in how their credit scores are calculated. What is that element? First, let's see what goes into generating a credit score.
Payment History (35%) – Late payments make up this category. The credit bureaus look at how much you owe and when the last payment was made.
Amounts Owed (30%) – This category looks at how much money you owe, and how much of your credit you are using.
Length of Credit History (15%) – This is precisely how it sounds. Generally, a longer credit history is rewarded with higher scores, as it gives creditors more information about you.
Types of Credit Used (10%) – This considers the various types of credit accounts you have had, and your history with each.
New Credit (10%) – This represents how many new credit accounts you’ve opened or tried to open within the past two years. Attempting to open too many accounts in a short period of time can signify desperation, and generally lowers your score.
There is one important caveat to these guidelines though. Credit scores are calculated slightly differently depending on the length of the individual’s credit history. In comparison to baby boomers, millennials would be weighted differently because of their shorter credit histories .
There is one key category where millennials are likely going wrong with their credit scores, the amounts owed category. There are 2 key components to keep in mind here. The overall amount of money owed and the amount of money owed in relation to the level of credit available.
The thinking is this: if one person owes $9,000 on a $10,000 line of credit, they’re likely struggling to stay afloat. Conversely, a person owing $9,000 on a $50,000 line of credit would be seen as more stable. They don't appear to be at the mercy of their credit maximum.
This then appears to be the main area where millennials are failing to properly utilize credit. According to a survey commissioned by Bankrate, just 8% of millennials have more than one credit card. This is keeping their credit limit overly low in relation to how much of that credit they’re likely using. That is well below the two card ownership rates of the other generations.
It’s possible millennials falsely believe that having less available credit is good for their credit score. Because of this, they’re limiting their exposure to lines of credit. It’s more likely, however, that they’re simply cautious of the perils of credit debt.
The fact that a whopping 63% of millennials don’t have a single credit card shows that many are trying to stay away from credit entirely. Yet it’s a reality that many millennials will eventually need credit in some form or another. The time will come when they will need it to purchase a car, secure a mortgage, or tackle an unforeseen financial dilemma.
For this reason, millennials should begin establishing a credit history now. Just a small line of credit being utilized now and then, while keeping its balance low, will have a great impact on your credit score.
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Describe the characteristics of friends，use specific examples to support your statement. Well I think that Good friends should bear several qualities. First of all， a friend in need is a friend indeed. A good friend should be willing to help you when you are in trouble，comfort you when you are frustrated.
Furthermore， good friends should also be honest people， who can open heart to others and never refuse to acknowledge their shortcomings. I feel comfortable and safe to get along with these types of friends， and they can always offer their opinions for your own good. So I think friends like this deserve to be credited as the good ones.
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Add Facebook events to iPhone calendar. To add and sync a Facebook Calendar to your iPhone or iPad, you must first log into your Facebook account from the web and then follow these directions. Note that this cannot be done from the mobile version of Facebook. 1) Click Events on the left side of the main Facebook screen. 2) On the Facebook Events page, scroll down until you see the following... 7/12/2017�� Question: Q: Add Facebook events to iPhone Calendar I got the iPhone 8 and with it iOS 11 (11.0.1) and I noticed that I do not have my Facebook events like birthdays etc. in my calendar like before. On High Sierra I got it working again by going to settings and subscribing to facebook again, but the events don't carry over to my iPhones calendar.
7/12/2017�� Question: Q: Add Facebook events to iPhone Calendar I got the iPhone 8 and with it iOS 11 (11.0.1) and I noticed that I do not have my Facebook events like birthdays etc. in my calendar like before. On High Sierra I got it working again by going to settings and subscribing to facebook again, but the events don't carry over to my iPhones calendar.
Facebook Timeline lets you set a cover photo, along with a profile photo. Creating a perfect photo can be a chore, but this iPhone app sets out to make it as easy as possible.
And I'm creating the ENTIRE BLOG using just an iPhone. The best part of the deal is I've learned a lot about what an iPhone can and cannot do. Along the The best part of the deal is I've learned a lot about what an iPhone can and cannot do.
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0.968787 |
How can I protect my Facebook from hackers?
Did you follow the suggestions above?
Make sure you have a strong unique password.
Update your contact information, including telephone number and alternative email address, so that you can recover your account if you have to.
Remove any Facebook apps that you are not using or that seem dodgy.
Go over your privacy settings and close your account to strangers as much as possible.
Go over your security settings and enable security code login if you have a mobile device.
Turning on the sms validation for login and turning on https in your facebook settings is a good measure.
this is a very general, but yet a good question.
First of all I would suggest to pick a strong password for your Facebook login, one you don't use anywhere else.
Secondly, always remember to log out of your account when you're done using it or when you're leaving a computer set up in a public place.
Then watch out where you use Facebook to sign into a different website, it may be a fake.
Finally, don't trust any of those spam emails that want to make you believe that you received a message on Facebook, but really they are just luring you into logging into a fake Facebook to steal your ID.
I'd like to add onto that!
1.) Enable SSL. SSL will encrypt your traffic from your computer to Facebook, therefor effectively preventing "man in the middle" attacks. To enable SSL, go to Account -> Account Settings -> Security (left) -> Edit secure browsing and enable "Browse Facebook on a secure connection (https) when possible". You should also enable "login notifications". If you have a mobile device, enable "login approvals". What "login approvals" will do, is if Facebook finds that you're attempting to login from an unknown (unregistered) device, it will send you a code. You will only be able to login with this randomly generated code.
2.) Keep your anti-virus and firewall up-to-date. Obviously, if you don't have one, go get one. If malware is able to infect your system, they can simply record your keystrokes when you log into Facebook. If you're willing to pay for an anti-virus, Kaspersky is very good. If not, Microsoft Security Essentials will do. I would drop Windows firewall and install Comodo's firewall which is way better. However, simply having an anti-virus and firewall is not enough, you will have to configure them as well.
3.) Hide your email. If a hacker doesn't even know your email, it makes it x2 harder to hack you. By default, your email is publicly available in your profile. Obviously there are other methods to find your email, such as other social networks or even social engineering, but this is a good precaution.
4.) As Tina said, make sure you're on facebook. You should always be at https://www.facebook.com/ when you login, nothing else! Even if it looks exactly like facebook, don't login if it's not that URL.Being part of a few underground hacking websites and IRC's, I'll tell you that social engineering and malware is the most viable option for a hacker. If you seem secure against both, I could hack your friend and coerce you into revealing certain information (since you don't know your friend has been hacked).
Very seldom does a hacker actually bruteforce (basically guess) the password, since Facebook implements turing, which will force them to enter a captcha after a few failed attempts, this would take literally millions of years, even on a super computer.
You should (to be safe) run your password through a password strength test, such as Password Meter and GRC Haystack. For the record, your password should be at least 9 characters and shouldn't contain obtainable information, such as birthdays, pet's name, because remember - This is publicly available right on your profile. Hope it helps!
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Soon after the enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA), or Obamacare, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that qualifying health insurance plans under the law would have to cover contraceptives and "morning after" pills. Many religious institutions most notably the Catholic Church objected to being forced to fund products and procedures that offend their religious beliefs. This particular mandate may be among the less costly parts of the Affordable Care Act as we learned from the Sandra Fluke imbroglio, birth control isn't that expensive but it certainly struck a nerve and is the subject of much of the "second wave" of Obamacare litigation.
In August 2011, HHS bowed to political pressure and provided exemptions to certain religious organizations, those that only serve people of their own faith and are engaged only in religious activities. That is, the exemption covers churches presumably only churches that don't provide social services but not the panoply of religious institutions, such as schools and hospitals, that aren't purely worship institutions. And it certainly doesn't exempt businesses run by religious people, whose objections are identical: being forced by the government to do something against their religion as a condition of continuing in operation.
Accordingly, more than 40 cases challenging the challenging the contraceptive mandate are now active across the country by various individuals, religious institutions, nonprofit organizations and small businesses. District courts have split on the lawsuits, though many have dismissed them as being premature because final regulation have not yet been promulgated and the mandate only went into effect this past New Year's Day.
Two of those suits were consolidated late last year for the first appellate argument on the issue: one brought by Wheaton College, a Christian liberal arts college in Illinois, and another brought by Belmont Abbey College, a North Carolina college based around a Benedictine abbey. The legal point here is somewhat technical, but incredibly important for anyone who thinks his freedom of conscience may be violated by the government in the future (a category that includes essentially everyone).
As noted above, the contraception mandate came to include a narrow exemption for religious institutions, one that wasn't available to religiously affiliated colleges. After the strong backlash against even that "narrowed" mandate, HHS issued a "safe harbor statement," saying that the government wouldn't enforce the mandate for a year (until August 2013) against certain nonprofit organizations religiously opposed to covering contraception. In other words, the contraception mandate is still in place but just won't be enforced but only for a year and individuals are still free to sue to enforce it against their religiously opposed employers.
HHS also issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) that announced the department's consideration of more permanent methods of accommodating religious institutions. Because of the safe harbor notice and the ANPRM, the district court dismissed the colleges' lawsuits for lack of standing and ripeness, holding that the colleges weren't suffering any injury and it was too early to challenge the proposed rule. The case thus went to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, where the colleges argued at a December 14 hearing that they are in fact suffering a current injury having to plan for a Hobson's choice and that the mere possibility of a future accommodation is too remote to terminate their case.
The Cato Institue filed an amicus brief [PDF] supporting the colleges in that technical argument, joining the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence and the American Civil Rights Union. We argued that the trial court misapplied the constitutional test for standing by not focusing on the facts that existed at the outset of the case; subsequent government actions, such as the ANPRM, are irrelevant to the preliminary question of standing. We also argued that the district court's ruling compromises the principle of separation of powers by allowing the executive branch to strip a court of jurisdiction merely by issuing a safe harbor pronouncement and an ANPRM (which doesn't legally bind an agency to act in any way). It was thus entirely speculative whether the agency would alleviate the harms that the colleges are suffering.
Without intervention from the courts, therefore, the colleges would be left in legal limbo while facing immediate and undeniable harms to their religious freedom: On one hand, they can't challenge the constitutionality of a final regulation. On the other, they can't very well rely on a proposed regulatory amendment that may be offered at some unknown point in the future. The trial court rulings in the Wheaton College and Belmont Abbey College cases were thus frightening examples of judicial abdication that permit the expansion of executive power far beyond its constitutional limits.
Fortunately, the circuit court agreed. In a brisk three-page opinion [PDF] released December 18 (four days after argument), the per curiam court held as follows: (1) the colleges have standing because that's assessed at the time lawsuits are filed (here, before the ANPRM); (2) the government's representation that the rule would never be enforced in its current form is "binding"; and (3) the government must update the court every 60 days. Accordingly, the lawsuits shouldn't have been dismissed and are instead to be held "in abeyance" pending "the new rule that the government has promised will be issued soon."
Assuming that the government doesn't act in contempt of court, religiously affiliated nonprofits or service organizations, or whatever the final wording will be will thus join religious-worship institutions as exempt from the mandate.
But that's not the end of the matter. Employers engaged in for-profit activity, including those who have the exact same objections as Wheaton and Belmont Abbey, will still be forced to choose between continuing their business and maintaining their religious principles. Most notable among these companies is Oklahoma-based Hobby Lobby, Inc., the art-and-crafts chain that employs 21,000 people and has well over $2 billion in annual revenues.
Hobby Lobby lost its motion for a preliminary injunction against the mandate, the Tenth Circuit declined to issue an injunction pending appeal, and, on December 26 coincidentally St. Stephen's Day, honoring Christianity's first martyr Justice Sotomayor (as circuit justice) declined to provide such an injunction as well. Thus, when the mandate went into effect last week, Hobby Lobby became potentially subject more than $1 million in daily fines.
That's a shame. If we're to respect religious belief, why does the motive of those espousing them matter for whether the government gets to trample them? The owners of Hobby Lobby donate plenty to charity out of the profits they make, possibly having greater impact than many of the nonprofits that are (or will be) exempt. Dven if they didn't, however, this country was founded on ideals of religious liberty that went on to be enshrined in the First Amendment, so why would we just ignore them?
Indeed, when one of these lawsuits finally reaches the Supreme Court which it will unless at least this part of Obamacare is repealed the plaintiffs should win without even getting to the constitutional claims. That's because the Religious Freedom Restoration Act prohibits the government from placing a "substantial burden" on the exercise of religion unless it has a "compelling interest" and uses the "least restrictive means" to achieve it.
Americans understand that the essence of religious freedom is that government can't force people to do things that violate their religious beliefs. Some may argue that there's a conflict here between religious freedom and women's rights, but that's a "false choice" as the president himself like to call such things. If the HHS rule is repealed, women will still be perfectly free to obtain contraceptives, abortions and whatever else isn't against the law. They just won't be able to force others to pay for them.
But there's an even bigger issue here. This is just the latest example of the difficulties in turning health care or increasing parts of our economy more broadly over to the government. As my colleague Roger Pilon has written, when health care (or anything) is socialized or treated as a public utility, we're forced to fight for every "carve-out" of liberty. Those progressive Catholics who supported Obamacare, or the pro-life Democrats who voted for it, who are now appalled by certain HHS rules should have thought of that before they used the government to make us our brother's keeper.
The more government controls whether health care, education, or even marriage the greater the battles over conflicting values. With certain things, such as national defense, basic infrastructure, clean air and water and other "public goods," we largely agree, at least inside reasonable margins. But we have vast disagreements about social programs, economic regulation and so much else that government now dominates at the expense of at the expense of individual liberty. Those supporting Wheaton and Belmont Abbey Colleges and Hobby Lobby are rightly concerned that people are being forced to do what their religious beliefs prohibit. But that all comes with the collectivized territory.
Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute and is editor-in-chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review. He is often an expert commentator for CNN, Fox News, Univision and other various nationally and internationally syndicated radio and television programs. He has no objection religious or otherwise to birth control, the "morning-after pill" or any other "FDA-approved contraceptive" at the heart of the mandate described in this article.
Suggested citation: Ilya Shapiro, Contraceptives and the ACA: Going Over the Mandate Cliff, JURIST - Hotline, Jan. 14, 2012, http://jurist.org/hotline/2013/01/ilya-shapiro-aca-contraceptives.php .
This article was prepared for publication by Stephen Krug, an associate editor for JURIST's professional commentary service. Please direct any questions or comments to him at [email protected].
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0.946673 |
Traditional authentication methods that rely on usernames and password integrity are widely considered to be broken. In fact, “Broken Authentication” sits at #2 in the OWASP Top 10 for application security risks. As organizations begin to move more sensitive data to cloud apps to take advantage of the productivity gains, the traditional perimeter expands to wherever the user is logging in from.
In other words, the identity becomes the perimeter.
Threat agents have recognized this as a security gap and are exploiting the natural proclivity for your employees to trust an inbound email from a familiar source, or their tendency to reuse passwords across personal and professional accounts.
Let’s discuss the identity attacks that are most likely to impact your organization.
Why are phishing campaigns such a popular method of attack? Simply put, the numbers are in the attacker’s favor.
A broad-based phishing campaign recognizes that threat agents have to gain access to only a few accounts or one admin account to compromise the organization. Yet with just a light touch of social engineering and a list of email addresses, phishing attacks can successfully compromise 1 out of 20 employees from even a well-trained organization.
Credential theft from phishing is often the first stage of the cyber kill chain. According to the Verizon 2017 Data Breach Investigations Report, 81% of breaches used stolen and/or weak credentials.
Attacker acquires a list of emails or phone numbers and designs a generic call to action that’s relevant for that list (such as a fake Google login page).
The phishing message is broadly distributed, and the attacker waits to see which credentials are collected.
The attacker uses stolen credentials to access the data they are after or adopts that identity for a more targeted attack on a high-value employee.
Spear phishing is a targeted form of phishing that often involves more research designing the target list and phishing message. As opposed to broad-based campaigns, spear phishing typically focuses on a small number of employees to evade automated filters.
The level of social engineering is also more sophisticated, with messages being more personal and the malicious call-to-action playing on emotions such as curiosity, fear, or rewards.
Attacker picks targets carefully, doing extensive research across available resources such as social media or web presence.
Attacker crafts a phishing message designed to appear legitimate, such as pretending to be a colleague and referencing a topical situation, such as a recent company party that the attacker learned of online.
The victim is compelled to enter credentials by appealing to his or her emotions, such as a curiosity to see photos from the party behind a fake login page.
The attacker uses the credentials from the high-value target to access sensitive data or execute the next stage of their attack.
Credential stuffing is a form of brute force attack that takes advantage of our struggle to select unique passwords across our various accounts. This is hardly surprising when you consider that the average American internet user has 150 online accounts requiring a password. Yet many of us have had account credentials compromised as part of a data breach (have you checked yours recently?).
Attackers leveraging credential stuffing will use these compromised credentials on several other websites to test if the login details are re-used. And they often are: 73% of passwords are duplicates, according to the TeleSign 2016 Consumer Account Security Report.
These types of attacks can be done at scale by bots, leading to a higher likelihood of these attacks affecting your organization. According to a recent report from Akamai, “more than 40% of global log-in attempts are malicious thanks to bot-driven credential stuffing attacks”.
Attacker acquires credentials from a website breach or password dump site.
Automated tools are used to test credentials across a variety of different sites.
When a successful login occurs, attacker harvests the sensitive data or executes the next stage of their breach.
Password spraying is another form of brute force attack whereby an attacker takes advantage of our tendency to rely on common passwords such as “password1” (which according to Pwned Passwords has appeared in a data breach over 2.3 million times!).
Attacker uses a small list of commonly-used passwords that match the complexity policy of the domain.
Instead of trying multiple passwords for one user, the attacker uses the same common password across many different accounts which helps avoid detection.
Once the attacker encounters a successful login, the attacker harvests the sensitive data or executes the next stage of their breach.
A MitM attack on an organization is a highly targeted attack that can result in a full take of credentials and data-in-transit if executed correctly. After intercepting a network connection, an attacker can take also advantage of “session hijacking” that compromises the web session by stealing the session token.
Attacker intercepts a network connection, often by leveraging tools to mimic a legitimate wifi access point (such as Starbucks Wifi).
If data is encrypted, attacker may attempt to decrypt data by tricking the user into installing a malicious certificate or other technique.
If attack is successful before the initial authentication, the credentials may be stolen as the attacker is monitoring all the user inputs.
Alternatively, the attacker steals the session token and is able to authenticate into the account and execute the next stage of their breach.
As the identity becomes the new security perimeter, organizations that take an identity-driven approach to security are finding that these attacks are able to be prevented without impacting user experience.
While it’s certainly important to educate employees of these identity attacks and implement best security practices like data encryption and certificate pinning, implementing MFA across your apps will significantly reduce the risk of successful attacks.
MFA prevents phishing attacks by requiring a second factor to access sensitive corporate data, such as a lightweight push to the user’s mobile device for authentication. This means that even if an attacker has your credentials, they still will not be able to be authenticated into the app. MFA therefore also prevents credential stuffing and password spraying since stolen or weak credentials are not sufficient to gain access. If MFA is paired with modern identity solutions, organizations can also set policies against the use of compromised or common passwords that leave employees vulnerable to these attacks.
Minimizing MFA prompts should also be a key consideration, and by implementing modern Adaptive MFA, the second factor challenges are only surfaced under more risky scenarios, such as when the login occurs off the corporate network.
Moreover, organizations can apply especially strict MFA policies for business-critical apps or privileged users, providing an effective layer of defense against spear-phishing attacks.
Finally, MFA can prevent man-in-the-middle attacks by ensuring that if credentials are stolen in transit, a second factor is still required to access the account. Even more sophisticated attacks that attempt to steal a one-time password as part of the attack can be prevented by leveraging more secure authenticators like a U2F security key.
In light of these identity risks, NIST has recommended organizations implement MFA as part of their Digital Identity Guidelines.
Check out our product page to learn more about implementing Adaptive Multi-factor Authentication with Okta and how we can help prevent identity attacks on your organization.
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0.999999 |
Canada is not a landlocked country: the country touches at least one ocean (in fact, it touches three).
There are 46 countries (including Bolivia and Mongolia, for example) which are landlocked. That is, they do not touch an ocean, but by going through one other country, an ocean can be reached. For example, a person in Mongolia can get to an ocean by passing through Russia.
Liechtenstein and Uzbekistan are the only two countries in the world which are land-landlocked. That is, not only are they land-locked, but all countries which surround these two countries are land-locked countries. Thus, one would have to pass through at least two different countries when leaving Uzbekistan before arriving at an ocean.
Your task is to determine how landlocked each country is on a given map. We say that a country is not landlocked (recorded as 0) if it touches water in any adjacent cell in either a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal direction. If a country is landlocked, you must calculate the minimum number of borders that one must cross in order to travel from the country to water. Each step of such a journey must be to a cell that is adjacent in either a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal direction. Crossing a border is defined as taking a step from a cell in one country to an adjacent cell in a different country.
Note that countries may not be connected to themselves (as in a country formed of islands). In this case, the landlocked value for the country is the minimal of each connected region of the country.
The first line contains N and M (1 ≤ N, M ≤ 1000).
On each of the next N lines, there are M capital letters. Each country will be represented by a unique letter, with the exception that the letter W is reserved to indicate the water in the oceans or seas that will be used to determine the how landlocked each country is.
The output consists of the country letter followed by a space, followed by the landlockedness for that particular country. Output should be in alphabetical order.
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0.999929 |
Barbie is very excited about March because she is planning a trip to Ireland where she will celebrate St Patrick's Day! This is a very fun Irish celebration that everyone enjoys. Help Barbie dress up in a cute outfit. She could wear an asymmetric top created out of green ruffles and tied together with some pink flowers with golden leaves and match it with a similar skirt shorter on one side, in gold and lime green. She can accessorize this look with a green top hat with clovers and a flower, a pair of sandals with pink flowers on the side and a golden clutch. She could also try a red and yellow crop top paired up with an orange and yellow skirt with peacock feathers, which can also be found on her shoes and a red top hat with a green bow tied around it. And in her hand she definitely needs a pot of gold. Have a blast!
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0.9986 |
Compulsory acquisition—can an increase in value of remaining land affect compensation?
The appellants owned two lots with an area of some 24.4 hectares. Of that, approximately 2.4 hectares (or 10% of the total area) was acquired for a raised roadway, the Hawkesbury Valley Way. The roadway cut across the appellants' land diagonally, leaving the bulk of the land to the south-west unaffected, but cutting off direct access to the north-eastern corner of the land. Despite the detriment caused by the loss of part of the land and the lack of ready access to another part, the Court at first instance accepted the evidence of the respondent's valuer that the overall value of the appellants' retained land after the acquisition exceeded the value of the whole (or "parent parcel"), assessed without regard to the public purpose. That was because the carrying out of the public purpose had resulted in a change in the use to which parts of the land could be put (by allowing a larger area to be filled and the level thus raised above the surrounding flood plain) and the appellants were able to obtain consent to increase the industrial use of their land beyond the boundaries of the industrial zoning maintained by the local council.
The appellants claimed compensation under the Land Acquisition (Just Terms Compensation) Act 1991 (NSW) ("the LAA"). The respondent, Roads and Maritime Services ("RMS"), offered payment of approximately $30,000 on account of "disturbance" caused by putting into effect the purpose of the acquisition, namely the construction of the roadway. Dissatisfied with the offer, the appellants commenced proceedings in the Land and Environment Court, seeking compensation in the order of $3.2 million. They were unsuccessful in obtaining any amount in excess of the amounts for disturbance, which were assessed at some $36,000.
Despite its initial offer, the RMS cross-appealed on the basis that no amount should have been allowed, even for disturbance.
The relevant issues for the appeal were related to whether the trial judge erred in determining the amount of compensation, either by offsetting the improved value of the remaining land against the market value of the acquired land or (on cross-appeal) by failing to offset the cost of disturbance against the improved value of the land.
Section 54 of the LAA provides an entitlement to an amount of compensation that will, having regard to all relevant matters, justly compensate a person whose land has been acquired. Those matters are listed exhaustively in s. 55 and relevantly include: "the market value of the land at the time of acquisition", "any special value of the land to the person on the date of its acquisition", "any loss attributable to disturbance" and "any increase or decrease in the value" of the remaining land.
The Court (per Beazley P, Basten JA, and Preston CJ of LEC), dismissed the appeal and cross-appeal.
"[a]n owner of an interest in land which is divested, extinguished or diminished by an acquisition notice is entitled to be paid compensation in accordance with this Part by the authority of the State which acquired the land".
"[t]he amount of compensation to which a person is entitled under this Part is such amount as, having regard to all relevant matters under this Part, will justly compensate the person for the acquisition of the land."
The manner in which regard is to be had to the relevant matters in s. 55 is also influenced by the requirement in s. 54 of the LAA that the amount of compensation be such as will "justly compensate" the person for the acquisition. To have regard to the relevant matters in s. 55 concerning the value of land (paragraphs (a), (b), (c) and (f)), which are all of a like nature, by aggregating their quantified monetary amounts (either individually or in a combined way) in determining the amount of compensation to which the person is entitled, would be to "justly compensate" the person. The gain of the increased value of the other land is able to be set off against the market value or special value of the acquired land and any loss attributable to severance to derive the net change in value of all land of the person so as to determine the amount of compensation to which the person is entitled. Such a manner of having regard to these matters concerning the value of land does result in an amount of compensation that would justly compensate the person.
The appellant's argument that the matter in paragraph (a) of the market value of the land falls into a special category that is immune from being offset by the amount of any increase in the value of other land in paragraph (f) is not supported in the language of s. 54 or s. 55 of the LAA. Sections 54 and 55 require that regard is to be had to all of the relevant matters in s. 55. The matter in s. 55 (a) is not specified as being immune from having set off against it any increase in the value of other land of the person under paragraph (f).
The particular question in issue on the cross-appeal was whether losses attributable to disturbance should be offset against the increase in value of other land in the same way as s. 55 (f) may be offset against the market value of the acquired land where there has been an increase in the value of other land referred to in that paragraph. The terms of ss. 54 and 55, their interrelationship and the interrelationship between the various paragraphs of s. 55 are critical to this issue.
The Court accepted that the meaning of the term "compensation" in the LAA is, prima facie, "compensation ... for loss": Nelungaloo Pty Ltd v Commonwealth HCA 58; 75 CLR 495 [at 571].
The question for the court in any particular case is, therefore, to determine the amount that will justly compensate a land owner for the compulsory acquisition of their land by having regard to the matters specified in s. 55 and only those matters. The answer to that question will depend upon the interrelationship of the various factors in s. 55 and the determination of the just compensation to be paid having regard to those matters.
Basten JA observed that disturbance costs are separate and distinct from the value of the acquired or the retained land and that "[i]t is consistent with the legislative purpose ... that they be allowed or disallowed in accordance with the specific statutory entitlements, without regard to the value of any land involved", which follows from the interaction of ss. 54 and 55, having regard to their proper construction. Section 54 requires that the outcome of the compensation process as prescribed is the payment of "just compensation".
Section 55 (d) recognises the likelihood that a person whose land is subject to compulsory acquisition will need, or at least should be entitled, to obtain appropriate advice or to incur other actual costs as a result of the acquisition. The Court of Appeal explained that the matters included in s. 55 (d) as specified or defined in s. 59, are of a different nature from the valuation outcome to which s. 55 (a) and s. 55 (c) and (f) if applicable, are directed.
In this case, the disturbance costs that had been allowed were relatively modest. Nonetheless, they involved actual outgoings which the Court determined were reasonably incurred. Expenses identified in s. 55 (d) are of a different nature from changes in the value of the land itself, and if they are reasonably incurred they will be recoverable as just compensation.
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0.947466 |
Why waste time being shocked? Fear comes from unfamiliarity. We may choose to reject certain actions of others, but we should not be surprised at the extent of human action.
Anything that has been imagined has been done, and everything that will be imagined will be done. It is impossible to stop the march of progress. We should devote our energy not to dismay but to civilization, the project of bending progress to good.
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0.998563 |
We went to the Muir Woods a while back - longer than I care to admit - and I have been meaning to share some photos from it forever. It was quite chilly when we went but I imagine that it must be nice now that it's starting to warm up in the Bay Area! The setting was so peaceful and serene although there were a ton of tourists there. It's truly a wonder that we were able to get photos without any people in them.
We didn't stay long because it was so cold, but I would love to go back and explore deeper into the forest, maybe on a warm weekday when it's less crowded. The redwoods are incredibly stunning and photos do them no justice. Being surrounded by trees that have been around for centuries is a good reminder of just how small and insignificant we are in the continuum of life on planet Earth - not necessarily in a bad way, but just in a reflective way.
If you're planning a trip to San Francisco and would like to get some fresh air, I definitely recommend seeing Muir Woods. I think it's better to get up early and go in the morning. Plus, you get to cross the Golden Gate Bridge, so it's a two-birds-in-one-stone type of thing. A perfect San Francisco outdoorsy day for me would be to visit the woods in the morning, and then head back into San Francisco and have lunch at the Cliffhouse, followed by exploring of Land's End Lookout, Sutro Baths, and Ocean Beach!
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0.944142 |
The first year of university study is often accompanied by marked changes in responsibility, identity, lifestyle, social milieus, and sometimes living arrangements (Gall, Evans, & Bellerose, 2000; Terry, Leary, & Mehta, 2013). Coinciding with these changes, first year university students often experience a rapid decline in psychological and social wellbeing as well a rapid increase in psychological distress and cognitive-affective vulnerabilities (Conley, Kirsch, Dickson, & Bryant, 2014). Although these negative setbacks in psychological health tend to plateau over time, they do not return to baseline levels over the course of the first year of university (Conley et al., 2014). Consequently, there is a clear need for research that helps to identify key mechanisms that can be used to mitigate declines in well-being during the first year of postsecondary study. Self-compassion is one approach with potential to assist students in managing the challenges that often accompany the first year of university (Fong & Loi, 2016; Hope, Koestner, & Milyavskaya, 2014; Terry et al., 2013). Self-compassion is relevant during times of suffering or setbacks and involves offering support and understanding to the self (Neff, 2003a). It is comprised of three components: (1) self-kindness, which represents the ability to be caring and kind to ourselves rather than excessively critical, (2) common humanity, which represents an understanding that everyone makes mistakes and fails and our experience is part of a larger common experience, and (3) mindfulness, which represents being present and aware while keeping thoughts in balance rather than overidentifying (Neff, 2003a, 2003b). Researchers have demonstrated the favourable effects of first year university students having higher self-compassion. For example, when controlling for baseline levels of self-compassion, first year undergraduate students who had higher self-compassion experienced less homesickness and depression at the end of the first semester (Terry et al., 2013). Others have shown that across the first year of university, students with higher self-compassion had favourable changes in life satisfaction, identity development, and negative affect (Hope et al., 2014). To date, however, researchers have yet to examine mediators that might be transmitting the positive effects of self-compassion to well-being. One theory that can be used to understand the relationship between self-compassion and well-being is self-determination theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 2000). In SDT, Deci and Ryan contend that all humans have innate psychological needs that when fulfilled contribute to greater wellbeing. The three psychological needs are competence (i.e., the perception that one can complete personally challenging tasks), autonomy (i.e., the perception that one is in control of his/her behaviours and acting volitionally) and relatedness (i.e., the perception that one connects and belongs with important others; Deci & Ryan, 2000). Investigators have supported Deci and Ryan’s (2011) assertions that psychological need satisfaction (PNS) serves as one mechanism linking self-related constructs to well-being outcomes (see Sheldon, Cheng, & Hilpert, 2011).
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0.91341 |
What is the Position of the Catholic Church on Organ Donation?
Pope Pius XII and Pope John Paul II both agree that it is the responsibility of doctors and scientists to determine the exact moment of death. In addition, the United States Catholic Bishops Conference asserted that the determination of death should be made by the physician or competent medical authority in accordance with responsible and commonly accepted scientific criteria (Ethical and Religious Directive, no. 62). To this end, a working group of doctors and scientists assembled by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences gave this clinical definition of death: “a person is dead when there has been total and irreversible loss of all capacity for integrating and coordinating physical and mental functions of the body as a unit” (1989, p. 81). The Church teaches that when an indisputable pronouncement of death has been made, donation of organs can commence. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that Organ transplants are in conformity with the moral law if the physical and psychological dangers and risks to the donor are proportionate to the good sought for the recipient. Organ donation after death is a noble and meritorious act and is to be encouraged as an expression of generous solidarity. It is not morally acceptable if the donor or his proxy has not given explicit consent (no. 2296). Pope John Paul II vigorously affirmed that a beautiful act expressing the culture of life “is the donation of organs, performed in an ethically acceptable manner, with a view to offering a chance of health and even of life itself to the sick who sometimes have no other hope” (“Evangelium Vitae,” No. 86).
The Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services (ERDs) based on the principle of totality (body parts are ordered for the good of the whole, and may be disposed of, if necessary, for the good of the whole) affirm that organ donations from the living is a noble and charitable act, while specifying at the same time that the donation will not sacrifice or seriously impair and essential functioning of the donor. It added that to avoid conflicts of interest the physician determining death ought not be a member of the transplant team (Directives, 64). May (2011) observed that the morality of the self-giving of vital organs depends on how the acting person relates himself in his freely chosen act to the great goods of healthy functioning and life itself. If the harm (including the mutilation) suffered by the donor — but in no way intended either by him or those involved in the transplant — does not impair his functional integrity, the evil suffered is an unintended side-effect of an act of self-giving, a morally good act. However, were the donor’s own functional integrity and hence his own health and life to be impaired, it would be wrong for him to choose to give it because the means he would choose, endangering his own health and life, is bad although intended for a good end, but one can never intend or choose evil for the sake of good to come. In all, the Catholic Church applauds and encourages organ donation as a morally good act of self-giving.
Previous Previous post: How does the Magisterium of the Catholic Church view research on embryos obtained through In Vitro Fertilization?
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0.997908 |
A while ago I had a couple people ask about a pattern for this baby bib. I decided just to go ahead and do a tutorial along with the pattern - hope you can use it!
Here is a list of things you will need - These are instructions for making two bibs.
Organize your fabric so you have five strips of fabric across and 6 down.
Step two- Taking a row at a time sew your pieces of fabric together - making sure to keep the fabric in the order you have them organized in step 1. Use a 1/4" seam allowance for entire bib. Iron.
Step three - Cut each row of fabric in half so that they are now 2 1/2" long.
Step four - Sew each row of fabric together pinning at the seams. You should have two pieces that look like this. Iron.
Step five - (my favorite part) Quilt your fabric with a piece of flannel on the back. I just did cross hatch quilting. A little hint. Always go the same direction. I start in the middle at the top and sew down to the bottom. Then starting at the top again - sew down to the bottom, repeat this until all your vertical lines are quilted. Then start on the side in the middle and do the exact same thing.
Step six - Trace pattern onto the quilted fabric. It will be a tight fit, but it will fit. If for some reason it doesn't just adjust the length of your bib pattern a little. Sometimes on these bibs I sew a row of ric rac on just for a little extra. This would be the perfect time to do that. I attach the ric rac on the seam that connects the 4th and 5th row, just sewing right down the middle of the ric rac.
Step eight - Pin bib onto your minky fabric with right sides together. Start on the right side and be sure to back stitch at the beginning and end. Leave about 2 - 3 inches un-stitched so that you can turn the fabric, inside out.
Step nine - cut around the edges and turn. Sew the opening closed.
Step ten - Attach the snap - here is a picture of the snaps I used. These are pretty heavy duty, you could of course use something different. I just have a hard time when my babies turn into toddlers getting them to keep their bibs on.
A little note - I just used the tip of my scissors to make a hole to fit the snap through. Directions for attaching the snaps are on the back of the package.
These bibs make the perfect baby gift. I like to put it with a couple matching burp cloths. By the way, the fabric I used is called Hometown by Sweetwater for Moda. They don't make it anymore, but you may be able to find it on etsy or something. A charm pack works perfect for this project.
Just adorable! Thanks for the tutorial.
Love, love, love this. Thanks for sharing. I like to make things to go into gift baskets that are given to women that deliver babies while their husband is off at war. Through the Operation Homefront program a group of quilters fill such baskets with bibs, onesies, quilts, baby toys & food, etc. These will be fun to make and include in these baskets.
Thank you for sharing your expertise! I love looking at all the things you've made--you're an inspiration to me.
Hope you're doing well and are just busy with summer, family, and sewing for Moda! Miss you and your posts.
He's local and I bought a 7 foot quilt ladder from him and a miniature quilt rack too. I plan on buying the wall hangers (two of them) for my sewing room later this fall. I thought the prices were so reasonable and I like the idea of not having to dust a shelf above the quilts.
P.S. I'm not affiliated with him in any way other than being a satisfied customer!
Thank you for this tutorial. I started to follow her!
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In order to study this further, we used an approach developed by Peeters and Vlaeyen to create a credible threatening social context. Here, a participant comes to the lab with another student, whom they believe to be a second participant in the same study….but in truth, are a confederate to the study. Using a bogus randomization procedure, the confederate is chosen to administer painful electrical stimuli to the participant. The confederate is instructed to administer either a set number of 10 electrical stimuli to the participant (control group) OR to choose to deliver between 1 to 10 electrical stimuli, all-the-while planning to deliver the full 10 (social threat group). So, while all participants received 10 stimuli in both groups, one group was led to believe that it was the intentional choice of the confederate to administer the maximum amount of stimuli, thereby creating a threatening social interaction. For every participant we assessed (1) painful facial expression, and (2) self-reported pain ratings. After participants received the electrical stimuli they were given a chance to administer painful stimuli to the confederate, and were assessed regarding their feelings at this opportunity. These two measures served as indications of (3) aggression and (4) empathy towards the confederate. Luckily for our confederate, we did not actually administer these electrical stimuli.
So what did we find? We recruited a total of 72 female participants from the general population in Leuven, Belgium. Unlike previous research, pain expression (1) and (2) pain intensity did not differ between groups. However, participants in the social threat group did demonstrate more aggression (3) to the confederate but there was no difference in empathy (4). So how can we make sense of this? One of the most likely reasons for this might be that participants perceived the confederate as threatening in both groups. After all, a total stranger administering painful stimuli to you might be threatening no matter what. As such, participants might show less pain expression in general, independent of group. This would be problematic, as it would point to the fact that individuals truly need an environment of safety and trust to express their pain. This is especially relevant for health-care settings, which often involve painful procedures administered by strangers. Even though health-care professionals might have the patients’ best interest at heart, we do know that especially individuals with chronic pain can often perceive treatment to be inadequate, invalidating or dismissive and their pain is frequently underestimated . Social threat did have an interpersonal cost though, as participants returned more painful stimuli to the confederate in the social threat group. There was also preliminary evidence, based on a responder analysis, that perceiving someone else as threatening, also affects how threatening pain itself is perceived and how much empathy is felt towards the threatening other. In other words, perceived social threat was positively correlated with the threat value of pain and negatively correlated with empathy.
In conclusion, this line of research highlights the importance of taking interpersonal context and relationships into account when assessing pain in others. In light of recent research demonstrating that stigmatization and invalidation in pain patients are all too common [5,6], it should be our primary goal to create an environment of support, safety and trust, which ultimately facilitates assessment of pain and consequently, treatment itself.
For the full story, please check out the recently published article here .
Kai Karos finished his bachelor and research master degree at Maastricht University, the Netherlands. He is currently a doctoral researcher in the Research Group on Health Psychology at the University of Leuven (Belgium) under the supervision of Johan Vlaeyen, Ann Meulders and Liesbet Goubert. His PhD research concerns the effects of a threatening social context on pain perception and pain expression. These processes are mainly investigated using experimental laboratory research with healthy participants. For more information see here.
Gray K, Wegner DM. The sting of intentional pain. Psychol. Sci. 2008;19:1260–2. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02208.x.
Kappesser J, Williams ACDC, Prkachin KM. Testing two accounts of pain underestimation. Pain 2006;124:109–116.
Karos K, Meulders A, Goubert L, Vlaeyen JWS. The Influence of Social Threat on Pain, Aggression, and Empathy in Women. J. Pain 2018;19:291–300. doi:10.1016/j.jpain.2017.11.003.
Peeters P a M, Vlaeyen JWS. Feeling more pain, yet showing less: the influence of social threat on pain. J. Pain 2011;12:1255–61. doi:10.1016/j.jpain.2011.07.007.
De Ruddere L, Craig KD. Understanding stigma and chronic pain. Pain 2016;157:1. doi:10.1097/j.pain.0000000000000512.
Williams AC de C. Defeating the stigma of chronic pain. Pain 2016;157:1. doi:10.1097/j.pain.0000000000000530.
Williams ACDC. Facial expression of pain: an evolutionary account. Behav. Brain Sci. 2002;25:439-55-88. Available: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12879700.
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Why everyone should watch Darren Aronofsky’s Mother!
If you’re looking for a movie so intense it’ll stop you from touching a piece of plastic ever again, I’ve got a recommendation for you! Warning, extreme spoilers ahead, but nevertheless I strongly recommend you watch the movie anyway.
Mother! by Darren Aronofsky is a jarring, surreal, amazingly intense film that at first glance, has nothing to do with the environment. You’re left at the end of the movie wondering what you just watched, why you watched it, and what it all means.
The film stars Jennifer Lawrence as the Mother herself, and presents her as a quiet, tame, and loving wife to a famous poet. At the beginning of the film Lawrence is seen to be rebuilding their house, which had been burnt in a fire. The movie goes through a bizarre series of events involving the couple and some unexpected visitors, and quickly becomes a story far removed from reality but based deeply in our own ancient history. The plot supports this by showing the husband gaining popularity for his poetry, to the point where fans begin to invade the house — and he welcomes them into his home with open arms.
What makes this movie so impactful is the symbolism and allegory behind it. Aronofsky creates a fever dream ripe with Biblical imagery, with references to the beginnings of man, using Jennifer Lawrence as an ever-present representation of Mother Nature and the husband (arguably) as a representation of God. The dialogue is rife with demonstrations of our recklessness, the purity of nature, and points endlessly at our arrogance toward the Earth. We see the House, which represents Earth, begin to get populated, destroyed, and disrespected — essentially calling out humanity as the worst houseguests ever.
There aren’t enough words to describe this film for all that it is. Aronofsky, as he demonstrated with Black Swan, is talented in creating disturbing and visually elaborate movies that are more psychological thrillers than anything else. Mother! is all these things, with a strong and frankly frightening message that brings our attention to the state of the planet we live on. Coming away from it, I was deeply confused and a little disturbed, but after doing some research about what the film could possibly mean, I was enlightened; the film is intentionally shocking to highlight the flaws of mankind, and I think it’s fair to say we deserve that. Sometimes something this shocking is needed to get people to listen, to realize that the nonchalance with which we destroy the planet should not be tolerated. This movie does a startlingly good job of making the watcher feel guilty just for existing and demonstrates a completely novel perspective on our place in the world. You’re left wondering what you can possibly do to help, but that doesn’t seem to be a concern of Aronofsky; he is simply telling a story, not calling for righteous action.
All in all, the film teaches the lesson that whether we’re around or not, the Earth can mend itself. Mother Nature will get to work again and fix the house we’ve broken as she has done countless times before. All we can take away from this film is that it’s important to be good houseguests, and even more important to respect your Mother!
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Los Angeles native Archie Wilson was a 1942 graduate of the city's Franklin High School (where he also starred in football and was a first-team halfback in the city's All-Northern League) and spent three years at the University of Southern California. In 1951 and 1952, he played outfield for three different teams in the major leagues: the New York Yankees, Washington Senators, and Boston Red Sox.
Before he could begin to consider professional baseball, there was the matter of the Second World War to address. Wilson served in the United States Navy 1943-45.
His first year in professional baseball was 1947, when he played for the Ventura Yankees in the Class-C California League. Wilson was signed out of U.S.C. by veteran New York Yankees scout Bill Essick,2 whose son, Doug, was a pitcher on the same Trojans team. Wilson appeared in 90 games and hit for a .325 batting average. His best day was probably a five-hit game on July 3, the last hit being a 10th-inning double that gave Ventura a 10-9 win over Fresno.
Wilson was right-handed, stood 5-foot-11, and was listed at 175 pounds.
In 1948 he played in British Columbia for the Victoria Athletics and appeared in 159 games, homering 24 times and batting .369. He was named to the league All-Star team and led the Class-B Western International League in several categories: batting average, RBIs (132), base hits (244), triples (26), runs scored (137), and total bases (408).
In both 1949 and 1950, he played winter ball in Cuba for Marianao, managed by Dolf Luque.
Wilson started the 1951 season playing in the Pacific Coast League for the San Francisco Seals and hit .381 in nine games, but on April 12 he was reassigned to the Buffalo Bisons (International League). In 151 games for Buffalo, he adopted a new batting stance suggested to him by Lefty O'Doul during his brief time with the Seals.4 He hit .316, homered 28 times, and drove in a league-leading 112 runs. His 191 base hits also led the I.L. He was voted league MVP, and also an all-star. On September 16, his contract was sold to the New York Yankees.
On September 18 the Associated Press announced that Wilson had become engaged to Sybil Ann Volk of Niagara Falls, "a former ice follies skater."5 On that same day, Wilson had his major-league debut at Yankee Stadium. Manager Casey Stengel inserted him as a pinch-hitter to lead off the bottom of the eighth. What had been a 1-1 game had turned into a rout as the visiting Chicago White Sox had scored six times in the top of the inning. Wilson grounded out, 6-3.
In Boston on the 22nd, Wilson pinch-hit in the eighth. Again he hit the ball to the shortstop, this time a fly ball. He got into two more games, both when the Red Sox were visiting New York. On the 29th, he pinch-hit in the eighth again, and was hit by a Mickey McDermott pitch. A few moments later, he was erased on a double play. In the fourth inning on September 30, the last game of the season, he replaced Joe DiMaggio in the lineup, taking over for Mickey Mantle in right field as Mantle moved to take DiMaggio’s place in center. He hit into a double play his first time up, when a baserunner didn't get back to first base on time following his fly ball to right field. He grounded into a double play his only other time up.
Seven months later to the day, he finally got his first major-league base hit. He had hit exceptionally well in spring training and made the Yankees. In the top of the 10th during the April 24 game in Boston, he stepped into the batter's box for the first time in 1952, and flied out to right field. The Red Sox won on a bases-loaded walk in the bottom of the 11th. Back at Yankee Stadium on April 30, the St. Louis Browns leapt out to a 4-0 lead, and they added a fifth run in the second. In the bottom of the second, Mickey Mantle was on second when pitcher Vic Raschi was due up. Sitting on the bench, Wilson heard Stengel yell, "Get the kid from Utah up." Living in Nevada at the time, he stayed put until Tommy Henrich poked him. "I'm from Nevada," Wilson told Henrich. "It doesn't make any difference to Casey," Henrich replied.6 Wilson singled to left field scoring Mantle.
Three days later, he was traded to the Washington Senators. The May 3 trade sent Jackie Jensen, Spec Shea, Jerry Snyder, and Wilson to Washington for Irv Noren and Tom Upton.
The Senators put him to work, both in center field and left field. He appeared in 26 games over the next month, but only batted .208. He did drive in 14 runs.
On June 9 he was traded to his third team of the season in less than two months, this time to the Boston Red Sox for another right-handed outfielder, Ken Wood. He played some right field, and a couple of games each in left and center, but only got into 18 games in all. When he did, he finally showed a better bat, hitting .263, but only drive in two runs. One was on a game-winning hit on July 12 against the Tigers.
He trained with the Boston ball club in the spring of 1953 but pulled a muscle when his spikes caught as a baserunner while working on pickoffs. A month later, still not healed, he was optioned to Baltimore and spent the year playing for the minor-league Baltimore Orioles. He played well, batting .301 with 79 RBIs. In December 1953, the Red Sox sold his contract to Toronto (International League).
Wilson spent most of his next six seasons playing for the Toronto Maple Leafs, his average more or less hovering around .300 until 1960, when he only got into 52 games, hitting .223. He worked as a player/coach for manager Mel McGaha. There was a time in 1957 when he spent most of the season with the Charleston Senators (American Association) before returning to Toronto in mid-August.
Wilson managed in the Washington organization 1961-63. In 1961 he worked in the Class-D Alabama-Florida League as skipper for the Pensacola Senators. He put himself into 16 games, playing first base in 12 of them, and batted .350. They were his last professional baseball games as a player.
In 1962 he managed the Raleigh Capitals in the Class-B Carolina League and in 1963, the league now a Class-A league, he managed the Peninsula Senators in Hampton, Virginia.
After 1963 he went on to other things, working as a traffic manager and purchasing manager with the Fruehauf Corp. He retired from there after many years. He attended Westminster Presbyterian Church, and was both a Rotarian and President of the Decatur Country Club in 1972 and 1973.
In 2001, Wilson was inducted into the Morgan County Sports Hall of Fame.
Archie Wilson died at Decatur General Hospital on April 28, 2007. He had been in the hospital for open heart surgery and one of the nurses mistakenly pierced his lung.8 He was survived by his wife, Sybil, two daughters, Whitney and Heidi, and a son, Wade.
In addition to the sources noted in this biography, the author also accessed Wilson's player file and player questionnaire from the National Baseball Hall of Fame, the Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball, Retrosheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com, Rod Nelson of SABR's Scouts Committee, Bill Lee's Baseball Necrology website, and the SABR Minor Leagues Database, accessed online at Baseball-Reference.com.
1 Archie Wilson player questionnaire at the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
2 Al Wolf, "Bill Essick, Famed Yankee Scout, Dies," Los Angeles Times, October 13, 1951: B1.
3 Ernest Mehl, "Joe Kuhel and Clark Griffith Eye Archie Wilson in Warm-Up," Kansas City Star, April 10, 1949: 23.
4 Cy Kritzer, "Hurry Call to Yanks Caps Big Year for Bisons' Surprise Star, Wilson," The Sporting News, September 26, 1951: 26.
5 Associated Press, "Archie Wilson To Wed," Boston Herald, September 19, 1951: 16.
6 Mark Edwards, "Wilson Had Deep Love for Baseball," Decatur Daily, May 1, 2007.
8 Author interview with Sybil Wilson on October 20, 2016.
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As seems the norm around here, friendly and unpretentious country pub. Beer was interesting and OK but really visit for the great countryside walk.
Very nice pub, three ales I've never heard of before on: Healey Silverstone & Wicked hound, both from Cottage brewing & St.Andrew's Ale from Belhaven. I tried the Silverstone which was excellent. The Sunday roast was very nice and cheap too, others had bagettes & soup and all were pronounced good.
Always at least 3 real ales on, all very well kept. Food tasty and reasonably priced. Kids & Dogs welcome.
I went to this pub with a group of 11 people doing the TimeOut country walk from Snodland to Sole Street. Based on the reviews below I was prepared for the worst but I have to say this pub has not got a fair shake. I called ahead to let the pub know we'd be there in a large group to order food, and they were very accommodating. Once we arrived, the staff (and regulars) were friendly, the ales good, and the food perfectly serviceable if not brilliant. It took a little while for everyone to be served but not bad considering there were 11 of us. We sat outside next to the cricket pitch, which was lovely. Altogether, a positive experience.
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Public cloud usage for large-scale data processing is rapidly increasing, and running data engineering workloads in the cloud is becoming easier and more cost effective. Compute engines have adapted to leverage cloud infrastructure, including object storage and elastic compute. For example, Hive, Spark, and Impala compute engines are able to read input from and write output directly to AWS S3 storage. Moreover, these read and write paths have been optimized for fast processing speeds, lowering the overall cost of running a job. In addition, platform-as-a-service offerings for data processing in the cloud have evolved to minimize the operational overhead of clusters, instead allowing the end user to focus on workloads: developing, running, and troubleshooting jobs.
Data engineering, a workload that transforms raw data at scale into clean structured data, is a foundational workload run prior to most analytic and operational database use cases. It’s important for end users to be able to implement data pipeline workflows that seamlessly transition from one stage of the data pipeline to the next. Jennifer Wu, Paul George, Fahd Siddiqui, and Eugene Fratkin lead a deep dive into running data engineering workloads in a managed service capacity in the public cloud. Along the way, they share AWS infrastructure best practices and explain how data engineering workloads interoperate with data analytic workloads.
Paul George is a software engineer at Cloudera, working on cloud products such as Cloudera Altus. Previously, Paul worked at Palantir Technologies and cofounded a company focused on building data systems for genomics. He holds a PhD in electrical and computer engineering from Cornell University.
Eugene Fratkin is a director of engineering at Cloudera, heading Cloud R&D. He was one of the founding members of the Apache MADlib project (scalable in-database algorithms for machine learning). Previously, Eugene was a cofounder of a Sequoia Capital-backed company focusing on applications of data analytics to problems of genomics. He holds PhD in computer science from Stanford University’s AI lab.
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We are in the heat of summer here in the Pacific Northwest. This is the perfect time of year to take cooking outside to the grill for social gatherings and delicious food. Here are five tips to keep in mind for healthy, safe, and tasty grilled food.
1: Keep raw away from cooked food and utensils.
o Cross-contamination is a major concern during food preparation. Always reserve some marinade for cooked foods at the end if desired and never reuse marinades raw foods have touched. Reusing marinades introduces possible foodborne illness-causing microorganisms to cooked foods.
o Have plenty of plates and utensils ready and do not reuse plates or utensils that touched raw food. A helpful idea is to have a certain color dish for raw food and another color for cooked foods. It is easy to forget what foods each utensil and dish has touched with the conversations and fun going on around us while grilling. When in doubt, swap it out for a clean version.
2: Keep it cold and watch the time.
o Keeping cold foods below 40°F prevents the growth of foodborne illness causing bacteria that grow rapidly between 40°F and 140°F. If food is above 40°F for more than 2 hours or 1 hour when outside temperatures are above 90°F, it is a high risk for causing foodborne illness.
o The same guidelines as above apply for hot foods: keep them at or above 140°F. Also, be aware of time in the "danger zone" (40°F to 140°F) to keep yourself and guests safe at outdoor eating events.
o Use coolers, ice, and ice packs to keep cold foods below 40°F. Use insulated containers and wrap food well to keep it above 140°F until serving.
3. Use these tricks to reduce carcinogens when grilling.
o Grilling meat low and slow, flipping meat frequently, cutting the fat, and marinating meat are ways to reduce carcinogen formation.
o Carcinogens are more likely to form on your food when flare-ups occur from fat dripping on the flame. Choose lean cuts and keep meats on the side of the grill to prevent flares.
o When charring or overheating occurs on meat, cancer-causing compounds form, which is why grilling low and slow and flipping frequently are great tips.
o Marinating meat in acidic liquids like vinegar, lemon juice, orange juice, beer, wine, and green tea for 30 minutes or longer before grilling can reduce carcinogen formation (1,2). Also try using herb combinations with rosemary, thyme, sage, savory, oregano, basil, garlic, and mint that are high in antioxidants and may reduce carcinogen formation in meats (3).
4. Make your grill and plate colorful.
o Grilling fruits and vegetables and adding them to your plate is an important way to provide vitamins and antioxidants, while reducing carcinogen intake. Carcinogen formation is minimal when grilling fruits and vegetables in comparison to meats. They will add visual appeal to your plate and benefit your health! Certainly a win-win worth celebrating!
5. Be careful with grill cleaning tools.
o Metal bristles on grill brushes can break off and stick to your grill grates and attach to your next batch of grilled food. This is a major hazard that can harm you and your guests. There are wooden tools available that allow you to scrape down your grill, while the wood falls on the heat source. Another option is to use a scouring pad type utensil. If you use bristle brushes, make sure to inspect your grill closely for any broken pieces that you or your guests might end up accidentally consuming.
These are a few tips we covered in our Summer Grilling cooking class at Verdant for a healthy and safe grilling experience!
Ready for recipes that are full of flavor and nutritious? See below for a few we tried.
1Gibis, M. Effect of oil marinades with garlic, onion, and lemon juice on the formation of heterocyclic aromatic amines in fried beef patties. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. 2007 55(25):10240-10247.
2Melo, A.; Viegas, O.; Petisca, C, Pinho, O, Ferreira, I. Effect of beer/red wine marinades on the formation of heterocyclic aromatic amines in pan-fried beef. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. 2008 56(22):10625-10632.
3University of Arkansas, Food Safety Consortium. Brush on the marinade, hold off the cancerous compounds. ScienceDaily. 28 June 2007. Accessed 21 July 2017.
Turn grill to high heat. Brush peach halves with maple syrup all over. Place fruits on grill flesh side down. Cook 5-10min each side until soft and colored. Remove from heat. Squeeze lemon all over. Scatter thyme on peaches, mint on watermelon.
Wash bok choy and separate into individual leaves (the middle tiny leaves can be kept together). Spin or pat dry. Mix all marinade ingredients together in a large bowl and add bok choy. Toss to coat. Grill over medium-high heat for a couple minutes each side or until desired doneness. Brush or drizzle remaining marinade on bok choy during grilling. You can use an aluminum foil sheet for a grilling base if you prefer and then set the bok choy directly on the grate just at the end for some grill marks.
Combine all ingredients, stirring until well-blended.
Allow ~1/4cup per lb of product (meat, fish, poultry, vegetable). Marinate for at least 30 minutes.
Mix ingredients together and store in a glass jar in the refrigerator. Rub a light coating onto meats, poultry or fish with a drizzle of oil prior to cooking. This pairs especially well with salmon.
Mix ingredients together and store in a glass jar in the pantry. Rub a light coating onto meats, poultry or fish with a drizzle of oil prior to cooking.
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What are some common causes of sinus pain?
Sinusitis is one of the chief causes of sinus pain and is symptomatic of an infection in the four cavities, or sinuses, located around the eyes and nose. Acute and chronic infections can result in facial pressure, headaches, persisting coughing, breathing difficulties, and nasal congestion.
What are some technical advances that have helped relieve sinus pain?
The nasal endoscope has arguably been one of the most important advances in relieving sinus pain through examination and surgery. Endoscopes are used not only to remove blocked and infected tissue, they are also used to improve breathing and clear ventilation. Endoscopic sinus surgery can help relieve symptoms for a variety of sinus issues, such as persistent allergies, chronic bronchitis and sinus infections, frequent headaches and sinus pain, and chronic nasal discharge.
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"This is big, real big. Astronomers have dedicated a lifetime to discover 500 dead planets in outer space and for the first time in history, now we have hit the jackpot."
As humanity races headlong towards a rapid evolutionary shift, astounding events continue to unfold that are more frequently finding their way into mainstream news reports.
As if right on cue, nearly all of the major news outlets jumped on an amazing story recently of a revolutionary new scientific discovery out in the cosmos.
Mainstream scientists now are saying they have discovered a planet they are officially labeling as the new Earth! This major announcement would appear to be yet another astonishing admission signaling great changes on our own planet are imminent.
While some have described this planet as a new Earth, others are categorizing it as a planet similar to Earth's biosphere with all the same atmospheric and environmental conditions that would make it habitable by human beings. Astronomers are categorizing this planet as lying within a so-called "Goldilocks Zone," meaning it is not too hot and not to cold to support life.
For the time being, this planet has been simply named, "Gliese 581g", and is found in a galaxy about twenty light years, or about six trillion miles away from our home planet.
Scientists are speculating that this planet has region surface temperatures which potentially would allow the presence of liquid water.
Discovered by researchers from the University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC) and the Carnegie Institution of Washington scientists have even gone so far to speculate that "many" Earth-like planets could exist in the universe!
–– First and foremost, the very fact that traditional scientists are saying this remote planet could sustain life now obliterates the utterly false notion that humanity is and always has been alone in the universe!
This kind of information, now officially endorsed by both mainstream science and media, indicates that a number of long held institutions are poised for impending revolutionary changes. The admission that life could exist on other planets could turn religion, science, social, political, technological, military, energy and economic structures completely upside down within the very near future.
–– This news could be yet another clear indication that the truth embargo locked down around the history of the Earth and the human race is about to be shattered into a million pieces.
For decades, the scientific community has lied about nearly everything of great importance to the people of the Earth. Yet, as we sit on the threshold of 2012 and with many big changes predicted for the year 2011, we can clearly see the paradigm is beginning to rapidly shift.
The universe is a vast and endless collection of galaxies, stars and planets. To even put forth the notion that we are alone in the entire universe has to be one of the most absurd ideas human beings have ever come up with and still believe in. Yet that has been the official word from our scientific community –– until now.
One person who wholeheartedly believes that the discovery of a new Earth is really important news is renowned astrophysicist, Professor Michio Kaku.
"This is big, real big. Astronomers have dedicated a lifetime to discover 500 dead planets in outer space and for the first time in history, now we have hit the jackpot," Dr. Kaku said in a recent interview on MSNBC.
"It would have theological, philosophical, biological implications, this discovery is a game changer. It could mean perhaps there could be billions of planets also out there with maybe microbial life or maybe intelligent life," Professor Kaku added.
–– The third point to consider is that we are now deep within the process of a total revision of our entire spiritual heritage and the stranglehold that religious institutions have held over humanity's metaphysical history is about to be permanently broken.
Four hundred years ago in 1592, the Dominican friar, Giordano Bruno, was burned at the stake by the Catholic Church for merely suggesting there could be intelligent life out in the universe.
After the persecution of Father Bruno, there was the deplorable case of Galileo Galilei, who in 1633 was convicted of heresy and placed under house arrest for life for theorizing that the Earth was not the center of the universe.
An apology to Galileo was issued centuries later during Pope John Paul II"s reign. But none has been forthcoming for Father Bruno, at least not publicly.
The Vatican has an absolutely shocking and horrific track record when it comes to embracing any kind of progressive thinking for humanity, specifically regarding the history of the human race. And their numerous attempts to cover up the truth has been duly recorded in the mainstream historical record.
These are just two examples of the long, long list of crimes by the Vatican that clearly show an institution hell bent upon enslaving humanity's evolution. In the early 1500's, the Catholic Church, along with the full participation of the King of Spain, (head of the Holy Roman Empire) and his Conquistador assassins (led by Hérnåndo Cortés), were the driving force behind the genocide of the Mayan race and the eradication of all their sacred calendars and culture.
After the Mayan race was nearly wiped off the face of the Earth, the Vatican and Pope Gregory XIII followed up with the brute force introduction of the Gregorian calendar in 1582. This act resulted in the further deaths hundreds of millions of indigenous people vehemently opposed to a new calendar system away from their own sacred calendars.
The Gregorian calendar has had catastrophic ramifications for the entire human race and significantly altered the evolution of human consciousness. We hardly ever consider our calendar system yet it has enslaved us within a prison of time and commerce in a life altering fashion.
Needless to say, it simply boggles the mind how the Catholic Church is able to this day, harbor any shred of respectability given their blatant and well documented crimes against humanity. And that is without mentioning the alleged vast treasure trove of sacred documents, technology, inventions, medicines and other benefits to mankind that lie beneath Vatican City in the over 60 miles of catacombs that make of the secret Vatican archives.
Yet, recent signs are indicating that the Vatican has begun the process of preparing their remaining followers for the unveiling of the existence of extra-terrestrial life. Over the last two years, various members in the Vatican establishment have been openly talking about aliens and the need to eventually accept them.
Are they to be trusted on the ET issue? Hardly, but their pronouncements are certainly worth monitoring carefully.
At the same time, we now know from numerous whistleblower testimonies, leaked documents, and the official release of UFO files from countries such as Denmark, England, Russia, France, Belgium, Ireland, Turkey, Brazil, Spain, South Africa, etc., that our own government has known about ET's since at least the 1940's. Perhaps even longer.
The other questions that immediately arise with this new Earth discovery is the curious timing of it all. Although it was first reported back in 2007, the scientific community seems almost insistent on making it even more relevant than ever before.
Improbable as it may sound, could this somehow be the new Earth forming in a 5th dimensional reality that many have foreseen? Obviously, as we live now within a 3rd dimensional existence, it would be impossible to even see a 5th dimensional Earth from our current vantage point.
But nonetheless, some reports oddly enough have stated that this planet is five times the size of our present Earth. That coincidence is worth noting too.
Therefore, is this discovery and subsequent announcement of this planet the long rumored new Earth as foretold in the Bible and by many other modern prophets and researchers such as David Wilcock, Dolores Cannon, Drunvalo Melchizedek, and Eckhart Tolle?
Or does it signal a paradigm shift away from the tried and true cover up of the existence of other life in the universe?
Those questions will be answered in due time but until then we can revel in the realization that the cracks in our false reality are rupturing and the truth is spilling out everywhere.
It is only a matter of time until we will finally possess a clear understanding that the universe is teeming with life. And always has been.
On the flip side of the coin, yet another possibility that absolutely must be considered with all this discussion about ET's coming out of the Vatican hierarchy, the new Earth discovery and the numerous other synchronistic events occurring, is that are we being set up for "playing the alien card."
This is a long planned scenario that has been lying in wait when the world's controllers are backed so far into a corner they will feel the need to rally the world in one last ditch effort to sustain their false paradigm.
And many insider reports are indicating we have arrived at that time.
This plan, rumored to be code named Project Blue Beam, involves staging a fake alien invasion of planet Earth with satellite hologram projections, or actual military/black ops craft, that would give the appearance that a real unilateral attack by some kind of hostile ET race is underway.
In theory, this event would unite the human race under one common cause to save the Earth from annihilation. President Ronald Reagan hinted at this possibility during a historic speech he gave first in 1985, and then again at the United Nations in 1987.
Before the United Nations General Assembly Reagan pronounced: ”In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond.
Those were quite shocking statements made back in 1980's yet evidence has emerged since then that during that period of his Presidency, Ronald Reagan had become obsessed with the idea of aliens after seeing Steven Spielberg's seminal film, "ET: The Extraterrestrial".
As for Project Blue Beam, it has likely gone under another deep cover name at this point in time. Either way, this highly elaborate plan also involves using giant holograms of major religious figures such as Jesus, Buddha, Krishna and Mohammed to introduce a so-called new age religion. This will ultimately pave the way for a one world religion under the New World Order.
Naturally, years of groundwork has been laid in preparation for an event of such magnitude. And if indeed it eventually occurs, you can bet it will be bigger than World War II and 9-11 rolled into one.
World renowned actor and radio personality, Orson Welles, proved that a scenario as this could easily be done with his fictional, "War of the Worlds" radio program back on October 30, 1938. In that historic radio broadcast, Welles and his group of play actors, portrayed a seemingly real account of a Martian invasion of the Earth that ultimately served as a brilliant test run to gauge public reaction.
Years later in 1953, "The War of the Worlds" was turned into a movie during a decade when the American public was inundated with a slew of sci-fi alien invasion films. Later, it was remade yet again in 2005, this time starring uber-conspiracy movie star, Tom Cruise and directed by, (you guessed it), Stephen Spielberg.
Others movies like, "Independence Day," "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and "Signs", as well as TV shows like "V" have raised the ante that such a scenario will unfold sooner, rather than later.
So the American public is well primed for such an overwhelming spectacle to unfold but there are also much more positive chain of events on the way that will be even more spectacular to behold.
The famous Nazi/NASA scientist, Werner Von Braun, accurately predicted there would be several stages leading up to a faked alien invasion. These included a cold war with the Russians/Eastern Bloc, a terrorism menace (Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, etc.), a rogue nation threat (Iran, North Korea, Venezuela), and an asteroid attack. Von Braun has been eerily correct thus far on most accounts.
Ronald Reagan was also in office when the so-called Star Wars Defense System or SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) was announced. The cover story that was laid before the American public was that SDI would shoot down any nuclear missiles fired at the US from Russia. They even had the audacity to label this system as a "Peace Shield".
Yet many whistleblowers have stepped forward and have revealed that SDI was a sophisticated weapon system aimed away from Earth to shoot down incoming alien craft from above. And in fact, it was nothing short of an all out plan to weaponize space.
The 2006 film, "UFO: The Greatest Story Ever Denied" offers a lot of insider testimony on the insane plans to both create a fake alien invasion and to weaponize space.
And speaking of Steven Spielberg, the iconic director of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" is behind numerous other alien film and television projects. These include the newly released film "Skyline" as well as the upcoming TNT network show entitled, "Falling Skies" in the summer of 2011. Also worth noting is the sardonic film titled, "Cowboys & Aliens", starring none other than Hans Solo himself, actor Harrison Ford of Star Wars fame.
In fact, there are as many as eleven further new film and television projects to be released beginning this month and into 2011 about aliens invading Earth.
Other alien themed films planned beginning in 2011 and into 2012 will feature: "Battle: Los Angeles"; "Iron Sky"; "Battleship"; "Monsters"; "Paul"; "Alien 5"; "Area 51"; "Predators 2"; "The Darkest Hour" and "The Thing"
And on top of those, already airing on the NBC network is "The Event" and "V" on the ABC Network (new season premieres January 4th).
As you can see from the list above, it seems abundantly clear we have been spoon fed the hostile alien program through a series of strategic media educational programs disguised as entertainment for decades now. And it is about to get a whole lot more serious.
It seems inevitable that the alien card will be played as one of the last straws for this old paradigm of reality.
In an ironic twist to the story, on Monday, November 8, 2010, a mysterious missile was shot thirty-five miles off the coast of the Southern California. The event was covered first by Bay Area news station, KCBS, and then picked up by mainstream news outlets like CNN, Fox News and the Christian Science Monitor.
Many wild theories have emerged as to what may have happened including the launching of a nuclear missile towards Iran, the show of force by the Chinese or the intervention of extra-terrestrials, as seen in the video by Russia Today below.
Initially, no one within the government, military or FAA claimed to know anything about this missile. But two days later, the Pentagon sheepishly claimed it was actually a plane that was in the sky that day. Yet reports and video have now surfaced that a UFO was edited out of subsequent news footage.
Raw Video: Mystery Missile Appears over Southern California. Helicopter CAM "no audio"
Apparently, various reports claimed that other missiles were fired in Arizona, New York and San Diego. All were left unexplained as well.
If our own military was attempting to shoot down extra-terrestrial crafts that are now appearing regularly over the United States and other countries, then this was as foolhardy as it gets.
This is an unfolding story that will likely reveal more clues in the days and weeks ahead.
Given the unfolding of the 2012 prophecies, the approaching end of the Mayan calendar, the numerous UFO sightings, the large number of significant crop circles, the appearance of the mysterious blue spirals, it seems readily apparent that all signs are pointing toward any number of amazing possibilities for the people of the Earth.
You can expect this acceleration to increase as we venture into the year 2011 and beyond when we are poised to enter the ninth and final level of consciousness.
Initially, this date was projected to be February 10, 2011 but has been recalculated by preeminent Mayan calendar researcher and author, Dr. Carl Johan Calleman to begin a month later, on March 9, 2011, and then conclude on October 28, 2011.
Regardless, it is clear from all the events outlined above that we are deep within the most incredible times ever in the history of the Earth. And it is about to get a whole lot more exciting. And very, very soon!
Here is more proof that people all over the world are waking up and deciding within themselves that ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! Each and every week that passes by means that another few 100,000 people have woken up and are not content with carrying on with business as usual.
This will continue to grow exponentially as we venture into the year 2011 and then it will explode into an avalanche of mass awakenings. Get ready to see more and more and more of this with each passing month.
The sleeping giant has arisen and all the kings horses and all the kings men will never be able to put him back to sleep again! These are the signs we have been waiting for and this as a huge development that signals consciousness is moving rapidly towards a tipping point.
And that tipping point is on the fast track now!
New Planet Discovered 2010, Gliese 581g, New Earth Like Planet?
On New Planet Gliese 581g, Have We Finally Found E.T.?
A Flood of Alien-Invasion Projects Is Approaching — But Why?
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The 62nd edition of the Eurovision Song Contest took place in the International Exhibition Centre in Kiev, Ukraine. The winner was Portugal with the song "Amar pelos dois", performed by Salvador Sobral and written by his sister Luísa Sobral. This was Portugal's first win – and first top five placing – in 53 years of participation.
Jim Parsons is an American actor known for playing Sheldon Cooper in the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory. He is married to art director Todd Spiewak and has called their relationship "an act of love, coffee in the morning, going to work, washing the clothes, taking the dogs out—a regular life, boring love".
Doom is a first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Bethesda Softworks. A reboot of the Doom franchise, it is the fourth title in the main series and the first major installment since Doom 3. It was released worldwide on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One and is powered by id Tech 6.
A fire broke out at the Kentex Manufacturing factory in Valenzuela, Philippines. Seventy-four people were killed in the fire, making the tragdy the third worst fire incident in Philippine history after the Ozone Disco Club fire in 1996 and the Manor Hotel fire in Quezon City in 2001 killed 162 and 75 people respectively.
In May 2014, an explosion at a coal mine in Soma, Manisa, Turkey, caused an underground mine fire which burned for three days. A total of 301 people were killed in what was the worst mine disaster in Turkey's history. The fire occurred at the mine's shift change, and 787 workers were underground at the time of the explosion.
Rihanna releases "California King Bed"
"California King Bed" is a song by Barbadian singer Rihanna from her fifth studio album, Loud. In the United States, it reached the top-forty on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and topped the Dance Club Songs. The accompanying music video for the track was directed by Rihanna's longtime collaborator and director Anthony Mandler.
The New Europe Bridge is a road and rail bridge between the cities of Vidin, Bulgaria and Calafat, Romania. It is the second bridge on the shared section of the Danube between the two countries. Construction officially began in Vidin in May 2007 with the bridge opening for traffic in June 2013.
"SOS" is a song by Barbadian singer Rihanna from her second studio album A Girl like Me. "SOS" became a commercial success and topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for three consecutive weeks in the United States, becoming Rihanna's first number one single on the chart.
Frasier is an American sitcom that was broadcast on NBC for 11 seasons. Critically acclaimed, the show and cast won thirty-seven Emmy Awards, a then-record for a scripted series. Throughout the show’s run, the cast remained unchanged and by the time it ended, Grammer had portrayed the character of Frasier Crane for a total of 20 years, his nine seasons on Cheers included.
The Treasury Department's Bureau of Engraving and Printing introduced the redesigned $20 bill, complete with new colors, a new number arrangement, and a new background. The design is aimed to prevent counterfeiting.
The 2001 IIHF World Championship was held in Nuremberg, Cologne and Hanover, Germany. It was the 65th annual event, and was run by the International Ice Hockey Federation. The Czech Republic won the tournament with a surprise 3-2 victory against Finland.
The 45th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest took place in Stockholm, Sweden. Favored to win this year's contest was Estonia, which was also a fan favorite and praised by the press. However, as the voting results came in, Denmark immediately took control of the scoreboard, beating Russia into second place and Latvia into third.
The contest was held in the Point Theatre in Dublin, Ireland. Two of Ireland's winners attended the contest; Dana and Johnny Logan. The winner was a Norwegian group called Secret Garden. The winning song, Nocturne, was mostly instrumental. Ironically the song was mostly performed by violinist Fionnuala Sherry, who is Irish.
Johnny Carson made his last TV appearance ever on The Late Show which was moderated by his friend David Letterman. Johnny retired from show business on May 22, 1992, at age 66 when he stepped down as host of The Tonight Show.
Astronauts from the Space Shuttle Endeavour conducted a spacewalk to catch the Intelsat VI satellite which had failed to leave low earth orbit two years earlier. It was the first three-person extra-vehicular activity in history. The mission was also Endeavor’s first flight and the first shuttle mission to feature four spacewalks.
Pernell-Karl Sylvester "P. K." Subban is a Canadian professional ice hockey defenceman for the NHL's Nashville Predators. Subban was drafted by the Montreal Canadiens in the 2nd round, 43rd overall. He won the Norris Trophy as the NHL's top defenceman, and tied with Kris Letang as the leading scorer among defencemen.
The students said that they were willing to risk their lives to gain the government's attention. Although the students gained a dialogue session with the government, no rewards materialized. The Chinese Communist Party did not heed the students' demands and moved the welcome ceremony to the airport.
Robert Douglas Thomas Pattinson is an English actor, producer, model, and musician. He started his film career by playing Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, a fantasy film, and later took the lead role of vampire Edward Cullen in the film adaptations of the Twilight novels by Stephenie Meyer.
Hendrik Johannes "Johan" Cruijff was a Dutch professional football player and coach. He ended his Eredivisie playing career with a goal against PEC Zwolle. Cruyff played his last game in Saudi Arabia against Al-Ahli, bringing Feyenoord back into the game with a goal and an assist.
Pope John Paul II was shot and wounded by Mehmet Ali Ağca while entering St. Peter's Square in Vatican City. Ağca was apprehended immediately and later sentenced to life in prison by an Italian court. The Pope later forgave Ağca for the assassination attempt. Ağca was deported to Turkey in June 2000.
Breakout is an arcade game developed and published by Atari, Inc. It was conceptualized by Nolan Bushnell and Steve Bristow, influenced by the Atari arcade game Pong, and built by Steve Wozniak aided by Steve Jobs. The game was ported to multiple platforms and upgraded to video games such as Super Breakout.
Cyrano is a musical with a book and lyrics by Anthony Burgess and music by Michael J. Lewis. Based on Edmond Rostand's classic play of the same name, it focuses on a love triangle involving the large-nosed poetic Cyrano de Bergerac, his beautiful cousin Roxana, and his classically handsome but inarticulate friend Christian de Neuvillette.
Let It Be is a British documentary film starring the Beatles and directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg. The film includes an unannounced rooftop concert by the group, their last public performance. Released just after the album, Let It Be is the final original Beatles release.
The events were broadcast on radio as they occurred and the aftermath was shown on television the following day. Allegations were made that the police had participated in the riots through agents provocateurs who burned cars and threw Molotov cocktails.
Dennis Keith Rodman is an American retired professional basketball player, who played for the Detroit Pistons, San Antonio Spurs, Chicago Bulls, Los Angeles Lakers, and Dallas Mavericks in the National Basketball Association. He was nicknamed “The Worm” famous for his fierce defensive and rebounding abilities.
American musician, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Stevie Wonder is best known for his keyboard skills and vocal ability. He won an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1984, the second African-American musician in history.
The phrase "blood, toil, tears and sweat" became famous in a speech given by Winston Churchill to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. This was Churchill's first speech to the House of Commons after having been offered to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the first year of World War II.
WDRC-FM is a radio station with a classic rock format licensed to Hartford, Connecticut. The station was the first commercial FM station in the Hartford radio market. Currently owned by Connoisseur Media with studios located at 869 Blue Hills Avenue in Bloomfield, Connecticut and transmitter site in Meriden, Connecticut.
Joseph Louis Barrow was an American professional boxer. Louis' championship reign lasted 140 consecutive months, during which he participated in 26 championship fights. The 27th fight, against Ezzard Charles, was a challenge for Charles' heavyweight title and so is not included in Louis' reign.
Lehmann discovered that the Earth has a solid inner core inside a molten outer core. Before that, seismologists believed Earth's core to be a single sphere. They were, however, unable to explain measurements of seismic waves from earthquakes, which were inconsistent with this idea. Lehmann’s theory solved the problem.
Georgios Nikolaou Papanikolaou was a Greek pioneer in cytopathology and early cancer detection, and inventor of the "Pap smear". In 1928, he first reported that uterine cancer could be diagnosed by means of a vaginal smear, but the importance of his work was not recognized until the publication.
Apollo et Hyacinthus is an opera written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at the age of 11. The opera is based on Greek mythology as told by the Roman poet Ovid in his masterwork, Metamorphoses. The opera was premiered at Benedictine University, Salzburg.
Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina was the only female ruler of the Habsburg dominions and the last of the House of Habsburg. She started her 40-year reign when her father, Emperor Charles VI, died. Charles VI paved the way for her accession with the Pragmatic Sanction and spent his entire reign securing it.
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Which song has been played more on Spotify?
This website is not endorsed or affiliated with the Spotify website, Spotify app or Spotify USA, Inc or Spotify AB. Additionally, this site is not endorsed by Spotify in any way. Spotify is a trademark of Spotify AB.
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What are fats and fatty acids?
Fats are a group of chemical compounds that contain fatty acids. Energy is stored in the body mostly in the form of fat. Fat is also needed in the diet to supply essential fatty acids that are substances essential for growth but not produced by the body itself. The terms fat and fatty acids are frequently used interchangeably.
What are the main types of fatty acids?
There are three main types of fatty acids: saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated. All fatty acids are chains of carbon atoms with hydrogen atoms attached to the carbon atoms.
A saturated fatty acid has the maximum possible number of hydrogen atoms attached to every carbon atom. It is therefore said to be "saturated" with hydrogen atoms, and all of the carbons are attached to each other with single bonds.
In some fatty acids, a pair of hydrogen atoms in the middle of a chain is missing, creating a gap that leaves two carbon atoms connected by a double bond rather than a single bond. Because the chain has fewer hydrogen atoms, it is said to be "unsaturated." A fatty acid with one double bond is called "monounsaturated" because it has one gap. Fatty acids having more than one gap are called "polyunsaturated."
The fat in foods contains a mixture of saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids. In foods of animal origin, a large proportion of fatty acids are saturated. In contrast, in foods of plant origin and some seafood, a large proportion of the fatty acids are monounsaturated and polyunsaturated. The structure of saturated and unsaturated chemical bonds looks like the diagram below.
Saturated fat is found mostly in foods from animals and some plants.Saturated fats are usually solid at room temperature.
Foods from animals — These include beef, beef fat, veal, lamb, pork, lard, poultry fat, butter, cream, milk, cheeses and other dairy products made from whole milk. These foods also contain dietary cholesterol.
Foods from plants — These include coconut oil, palm oil and palm kernel oil (often called tropical oils), and cocoa butter.
Polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats — Polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats are the two unsaturated fats. They're found primarily in oils from plants.
Polyunsaturated fats — These include safflower, sesame and sunflower seeds, corn and soybeans, many nuts and seeds, and their oils. These fats are usually liquid at room temperature and in the refrigerator.
Monounsaturated fats — These include canola, olive and peanut oils, and avocados. These fats remain liquid at room temperature but may start to solidify in the refrigerator.
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Can we change our itinerary while we are trekking?
Yes, you can change your itinerary while trekking as long as the changes work with your guide's schedule and the other members of your group. If you end up trekking longer than you have booked for, you are responsible for paying your guide and porter directly in cash for the extra days of work.
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Health is an essential component of human society, which is inseparable from the ultimate goal of human development. There exists an intricate relationship between man and his environment that forms the socio-ecological approach to health. Every nation, regions and community in this world striving to strike a balance in their natural environment should encourage health promotion.
The cardinal focus of Health promotion is to establish equity in health. The main goal of Health promotion is minimizing the disparity in current health status and ensuring commensurate opportunities and resources to all people so that they can attain their fullest health potential.
What is actually Health promotion?
What are the basic principles of health promotion?
In order to confirm the health promotion there are certain elementary principles to adopt: Prerequisites for health – The primary resources and condition for health are shelter, food, education, income, a stable ecosystem, sustainable resources, peace, social justice and equity. A strong foundation in these prerequisites will bring improvement in health. Advocate – An important dimension of good health is social, economic and personal development. The various factors social, cultural, economic, political, environmental, behavioral and biological favor health or can be harmful. Health promotion can be filliped by advocacy for health.
Mediate – The health sector alone cannot provide the basic prerequisites and scope for health promotion. Health promotion is only possible if there is a coordinated effort from all quarters - governments, health, nongovernmental, voluntary organizations, by local authorities, by industry and by the media, and other social and economic sectors.
Enable – Unless the people take control of those things that determine their health, they would not be able to achieve full health potential. This is equally applicable to both men and women.
Health promotion needs a comprehensive policy for implementation, which would merge different yet complementary approaches especially in legislation, fiscal measures, taxation and organizational change. Only a well-coordinated effort can assure greater equity in health. This joint action can lay the foundation for safer healthier public services as well as cleaner, more pleasurable environment.
For health promotion it is vital to identify the impediments obstructing the adoption of healthy public policies in non-health sectors, and chalk out plans to annihilate them. The policy-makers should plan to aim for a healthier society and better life.
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For other uses, see Ponta Delgada (disambiguation).
Ponta Delgada (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈpõtɐ ˌðɛɫˈɣaðɐ]) is the largest municipality (concelho) and economic capital of the Autonomous Region of the Azores in Portugal. It is located on São Miguel Island, the largest and most populous in the archipelago. The population in 2011 was 68,809, in an area of 232.99 square kilometres (89.96 square miles). There are 17,629 residents in the three central civil parishes that comprise the historical city: São Pedro, São Sebastião, and São José. Ponta Delgada became the region's administrative capital under the revised constitution of 1976; the judiciary and Catholic see remained in the historical capital of Angra do Heroísmo while the Legislative Assembly of the Azores was established in Horta.
In around 1450, Pêro de Teive, established a small fishing village that eventually grew into the urban agglomeration in Santa Clara.
Populated since 1444, the island of São Miguel was a vast territory, with small settlements scattered about, except for Vila Franca do Campo in the central-southern coast, and the smaller community of Ponta Delgada. Villa Franca had for many years been the center of the island economically and socially, and seat of the local government, but many nobles and landed gentry despised its subordinate status to the government in that town (originating many conflicts between these inhabitants and administrators in the southern coast). The nobles in Ponta Delgada sent a secret contingent, headed by Fernão Jorge Velho, to meet with King Manuel in Lisbon to petition that the community be emancipated. In Abrantes, King Manuel conferred a foral on 29 May 1507, elevating the settlement to the status of village (Portuguese: vila).
Then, in 1522 an earthquake and landslide devastated the provincial capital, destroying many of the buildings and killing several people. Ponta Delgada became the only centre with an infrastructure to support the Azorean bureaucracy and supplant its important economic links. Quickly, its role changed, and eventually, it was elevated to status of city, during the reign of King D. João III by decree, dated 2 April 1546.
The naval Battle of Ponta Delgada (also known as the Battle of São Miguel) took place on 26 July 1582, off the coast, as part of the 1580 Portuguese succession crisis. An Anglo-French corsair expedition sailed against Spain to preserve Portuguese control of the Azores, which had aligned itself with the pretender António, Prior of Crato, thereby preventing Spanish control (it was the largest French force sent overseas before the age of Louis XIV).
During the 19th century the municipality experienced its greatest boost of economic activity, with the funneling of citrus exports to United Kingdom and the growth of foreign-owned businesses in the historic center, many of them Jewish merchants after 1818. As with other centres across the archipelago, the town of Ponta Delgada experienced many of the trends common for the period, including the "greening" of the communities (with the construction of the gardens of António Borges, José do Canto, Jácome Correia and the Viscount of Porto Formoso, which would become part of the University of the Azores), the construction of many of the ornate homes/estates, the clearing of animals from urban spaces, the opening of newer, larger, roadways, the moving of cemeteries to the periphery, and relocation of markets for fish, meat and fruits. Due to these changes, and growth of the mercantile class, Ponta Delgada became the third largest town in Portugal, in economic riches and the number of residents. The poet Bulhão Pato, writing of Ponta Delgada, was surprised by the extraordinary riches of the plantation owners, the "gentlemen farmers" that lived within the urbanized core: exporters of oranges and corn, bankers, investors, industrialists and shippers, all contributing to a privileged class of economic and social thinkers and philanthropists.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Ponta Delgada's position was relatively high (eighth largest), although the changing importance of rural economies steadily chipped-away at its growth. But, it remained the central place in the economy and hierarchy of the Azorean archipelago. Consequently, it was at the forefront of political change following the Carnation Revolution. In one such event, property-owners and right-leaning farmers challenged the Civil Governor António Borges Coutinho, who was responsible, under the direction of the MFA government to implement land reforms. The Micalense Farmers' Protest, forced his resignation, and inspired a series of terrorist acts that plunged the Azores into political turmoil. After a clandestine round-up of arrests and detentions by the Military Governor, the Autonomous District of Ponta Delgada was extinguished, along with the other districts (Horta and Angra do Heroísmo) on 22 August 1975, with the establishment of the Junta Regional dos Açores (Regional Junta of the Azores), the provisional government that assumed the competencies of the administration during the region's transition to constitutional autonomy.
The municipality of Ponta Delgada is one of the larger administrative divisions in the archipelago, extending from the center of the island to the western coast. Ponta Delgada is bordered on the northeast by the municipality of Ribeira Grande, and southeast by relatively new municipality of Lagoa.
Geomorphologically, Ponta Delgada covers a volcanic area composed of two structures: the Picos Region and Sete Cidades Massif. The Picos Region extends from the shadow of the ancient volcano of the Água de Pau Massif (known locally for the lake that rests within its volcanic crater: Lagoa do Fogo) until the area around the Sete Cidades caldera. It is a volcanic axial zone oriented generally in a northwest-southeast direction, essentially defined by several spatter cones and lava flows and predominantly covered by dense vegetation and pasture-lands. Its relief is relatively planar, especially along the northern and southern coasts, where many of the urban communities are located.
The Sete Cidades Massif, the other geomorphological structure that makes up the municipality of Ponta Delgada, consists of a central volcanic caldera and lake-filled cones which surround the crater. It occupies the extreme western part of the island, oriented along a similar northwest-southwest orientation, with many regional radial fractures marked by lava domes and spatter cones. The Sete Cidades Volcano at the center of the Massif consists of a caldera and a polygenetic volcanic field within it, that includes four lakes (two of which Lagoa Azul, the Blue Lake, and Lagoa Verde, the Green Lake, are linked). The caldera is almost circular and has evolved over the course of three phases. The first occurred 36,000 years ago forming the collapsed principal structure. The second phase conforms to a period approximately 29,000 years ago, when volcanic eruptions collapsed the northwest part of the structure. Finally, the third phase (about 16,000 years ago) caused the collapse of the north and northeastern portions of the caldera. Geologically, within the last 5,000 years, the central cone has been active (17 eruptions) and responsible for causing most of the activity in the archipelago, during that period. These geological eruptions were essentially trachyte eruptions of the sub-Plinian or Plinian type, with hydro-magmatic characteristics. The last eruption, at about 500 years ago, gave rise to the Caldeira Seca cone. Although there has been no historical activity today, its active status continues to be debated by the scientific community.
Most recently, its diverse geography includes various types of basaltic volcanism, both effusive and less explosive (essentially Strombolian and Hawaiian) along its flanks, usually conditioned by local and radial faults. The Mosteiros Graben is also an important feature in this area, representing collapse of lands on the northwestern flank of the caldera. Although there are no active aerial volcanic characteristics (like the fumaroles of Furnas), submarine vents around the region of Ponta da Ferraria and the beach at Mosteiros have been identified.
Being on the south coast of São Miguel Island, the climate is hot Mediterranean (Köppen: Csa), although it has a certain proximity to the humid subtropical (Cfa) and oceanic (Cfb), due to high levels of precipitation throughout the year combined with less sunshine, and because only one warm month just reaches 22.1 °C (71.8 °F). Although it does not meet the criteria of the main climatic classification used, the last climatic type is described by the municipal government with cool to warm summers and extremely mild winters for a marine west coast climate. Its location is one of the limits for pressure measurement to verify the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). The municipality's climate, much like the rest of the Azores, is shaped by the Gulf Stream allowing a small variation in temperatures. Under the Trewartha system it is well within the subtropical range.
The Gulf Stream also contributes to an unstable weather that varies greatly during the autumn and spring, making weather forecasting on a daily basis difficult. Levels of humidity are significant enough (usually 90–100%) that temperatures fluctuations feel comparable to those experienced in locations on similar latitudes. Temperature differences between seasons are much smaller than those expected in continental Portugal, with milder winters and cooler summers than Lisbon.
Much like other communities in the archipelago of the Azores, the municipality is shaped by its geography; most homes are clustered along the regional road network that circles the island, with many ancillary or agricultural access roads bisecting the central portion of the island (primarily in the Picos Region) along a north-south axis.
Sete Cidades: located within the crater of the Sete Cidades Massif, the parish is bordered by twin lakes, and considered an ex-libris of the island of São Miguel.
Along the southern coast is the urbanized core of the historic village/town of Ponta Delgada, which includes the principal civic infrastructures, high-capacity motorways (Portuguese: Vias-rápidas), tourist and culture attractions, as well as the businesses and government services. This city of Ponta Delgada includes specifically the civil parishes of Santa Clara, São José, São Sebastião and São Pedro, which is divided by the motorways with the urbanized contour of Fajã de Cima and Fajã de Baixo. Not to be confused with a traditional city, the city of Ponta Delgada has no legal jurisdiction or mayor, but the municipality of Ponta Delgada has an elected official, the Presidente da Câmara Municipal who administers and Assembleia Municipal, which is the representative council, while dispersed parish councils (and elected presidents) govern the localities that circle the western edge of São Miguel.
The urban core includes the baixa or lower town, referring to the historic centre of buildings, shops and landmarks that gathered over the centuries around the square of São Sebastião and Praça Gonçalo Velho (dedicated to the island's discoverer). Immediately around this urban core are the municipal hall, the Gates to the City (Portuguese: Portas da Cidade) and old customhouse buildings in front of the main roadway that follows the coast (itself passing the Fort of São Brás and Campo do São Francisco in the west). Other important landmarks include the Portas do Mar (Gates of the Sea), main tower of the SolMar Avenida Center mall and Theatre Micalense.
The municipality of Ponta Delgada presents a glimpse into the divergent economic activities that exist in the Azores. With a strong concentration of service activities, the municipality is an important industrial and agricultural centre. The Arrifes-Covoada basin is the main bread-basket on the island of São Miguel, in addition to all the parishes located around the rim of the Sete Cidades Massif.
In 1999, 1039 companies had their operational seats within the borders of Ponta Delgada, roughly equal to 45.4% of the companies of the Azores. Of these companies, 4.4% were in the primary sector, 13.7% in secondary industries and 81.9% in the tertiary service sector. The volume of sales (in 2000) was equivalent to 1,458 million Euros, associated with the service industry, of which banking, computer programming/services, corporate and commercial services, as well as tourism, dominate.
Tourist activity in Ponta Delgada accounted for 34% of the hotel occupancy in the region, of which 46% were overnight trips (1997).
In addition, Ponta Delgada is the centre of administrative services in the region, with many of the governmental secretariats located in this municipal seat (including the Regional Presidency and several directorates).
Several newspapers are published in Ponta Delgada, including Açoriano Oriental (one of the oldest continuing daily newspapers in the country) and the Diário dos Açores.
Served by an international airport in the parish of Relva (Ponta Delgada-João Paulo II International Airport), the municipality is the principal port of entry for goods entering and people arriving in the Azores. SATA International and SATA Air Açores have their head offices in Ponta Delgada.
Near the harbour of Ponta Delgada a broad gauge railway was used several times to build and enlarge the harbor. The track used a seven-foot gauge, but it is unclear if this was Isambard Kingdom Brunel's 7 ft (2,134 mm) Brunel gauge.
Ponta Delgada is home to the central nucleus of the University of the Azores, a multi-disciplinary institution that ranges from courses in tourism, computer engineering, social sciences and business management. From its principal campus in São Pedro, the rectory manages three poles spread throughout the Azores, including Horta (with courses in Marine Biology, affiliated with the Department of Oceangraphy and Fishing) and Angra do Heroísmo (with a broad course calendar of courses in teaching, business and agricultural sciences).
The image of the Lord Holy Christ of the Miracles: this venerable celebration is the largest and oldest religious event in Portugal.
The front façade of the Convent of Our Lady of Hope, in Campo de São Francisco, during the events of The Lord Holy Christ of the Miracles.
Ponta Delgada is the traditional centre of the annual religious celebrations associated with the Feast of the Lord Holy Christ of the Miracles (Portuguese: Festa de Senhor Santo Cristo dos Milagres), from the square Campo de São Francisco (located opposite the Fort of São Brás). This venerable feast day and week-long celebrations, primarily focus on the fifth Sunday of Easter, attracting locals and Micaelense, in addition to peoples from neighbouring islands in the archipelago, the Portuguese diaspora and tourists on vacation. Associated with the Roman Catholic veneration of a Ecce Homo representing Jesus Christ following the Passion (retold in Luke 23:1–25 in the New Testament), a gift to the sisters of the Convent of Caloura in the mid-16th century, the event, as it paralyzes the streets of the city for a day. Following the images move to the Convent of Nossa Senhora da Esperança (Convent of Our Lady of Hope), under the inspiration of the Venerable Mother Teresa da Anunciada the figure was used in religious processions that snaked through the streets of the city, stopping at each convent (and former-convent) in the city. The cortege, which includes clergy, politicians and lay folk is a popular event, attracting both religious (to the procession, sanctuary and open-air mass) and secular participants (to view and see the procession, imagery and taste traditional foods from the barracas located along the main avenue).
Following Pentecosts, many of the parishes within the municipality participate in feasts dedicated to the Holy Spirit. A tradition across the islands of the Azores, the Cult of the Holy Spirit dates to medieval traditions, involving "promises" made to God (Portuguese: promessas), the processions of faith to and from the Church and feasts of meat-broth soup and bread donated to the poor. In comparison to other islands/parishes of the Azores, most neighbourhoods of São Miguel allow the free participation of visitors, seen as fulfilling the tenets of the tradition, rather than the narrow sub-community of the Brotherhoods of the Holy Spirit.
One of the more popular non-religious events is the Noites de Verão (Nights of Summer): a summer event, traditionally held in the square of Campo do São Francisco, but in recent years dispersed throughout the streets of the city. Attracting families, friends and tourists to the downtown, highlighted by nightly musical events, popular Azorean bands/singers, guest concert bands, folklore groups and some international stars, in addition to vendor concessions selling food, refreshments or small goods. Starting usually in late June, the "Summer Nights" run until late September (four months), and is sponsored/supported by the municipal government and local/regional businesses.
In addition to several parks providing green-spaces for multiple recreational activities, the city of Ponta Delgada is home to sporting associations and sites for racket sports, organized team and open-air activities. In addition to multiple water-sports, such as swimming, surf/board and canoeing/kayaking, there are cycling routes and spaces for running/walking. As centre of tourist activities, visitors to the region have access to tourist companies providing excursions to island trails, all-terrain paths and sea-oriented activities such as diving, sport-fishing and boat tours.
Home to the Ponta Delgada Football Association, the region has a storied history of football, that includes teams that have made it to the 1st and 2nd Divisions of the National Football League. Among them are Club Desportivo Santa Clara (Primeira Liga), Clube União Micaelense, (Portuguese Second Division) and Marítimo da Calheta (São Miguel Regional Championship League).
Fernance B. Perry (1921–2014) was a successful business entrepreneur, philanthropist and broadcast executive, recipient of the Order of the British Empire, who emigrated to Bermuda with his parents in 1926.
Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Ponta Delgada.
^ Ponta Delgada was once home to five Synagogues with the oldest surviving synagogue being the Sahar Hassamain Synagogue (Gates of Heaven) in downtown.
^ Bento, Carlos Melo (2 January 2008). "Roteiro do 6 de Junho de 1975 – A Vitória dum Povo" (in Portuguese). Ponta Delgada (Azores), Portugal.
^ Instituto Nacional de Meteorologia <Lisboa> Sonstige (2012). Atlas climatico de los Archipielagos de Canarias, Madeira y Azores temperatura del aire y precipitacion (1971 - 2000) = Atlas climatico dos Arquipelagos das Canarias, da Madeira e dos Acores : temperatura do ar e precipitacao (1971 - 2000) = Climate atlas of the Archipelagos of the Canary Islands, Madeira and the Azores : air temperature and precipitation (1971 - 2000). Inst. de Meteorologia. OCLC 1075426566.
^ "Clima Ponta Delgada: Temperatura, Tempo e Dados climatológicos Ponta Delgada - Climate-Data.org". pt.climate-data.org. Retrieved 17 April 2019.
^ "Prolongamento da Avenida Marginal de Ponta Delgada - 2ª Fase - Resumo" (PDF). Câmara Municipal de Ponta Delgada.
^ "PhD thesis - Andrew Harding 2006". crudata.uea.ac.uk. Retrieved 17 April 2019.
^ Sayers, David (2006). Azores: The Bradt Travel Guide. Bradt Travel Guides. ISBN 9781841621562.
^ "Normais Climatológicas – 1981–2010 (provisórias) – Ponta Delgada" (in Portuguese). Instituto de Meteorologia. Retrieved 18 March 2013.
^ "Weatherbase: Historical Weather for Ponta Delgade". Retrieved 18 March 2013.
^ "Ponta Delgada (08513) - WMO Weather Station". NOAA. Retrieved 17 April 2019.
^ "Geminações de Cidades e Vilas" (in Portuguese). Associação Nacional de Municípios Portugueses. Retrieved 13 February 2015.
^ a b c d e f g h i Câmara Municipal, ed. (2002). "Economia" (in Portuguese). São Sebastião (Ponta Delgada), Portugal: Câmara Municipal de Ponta Delgada. Archived from the original on 30 June 2011. Retrieved 19 June 2011.
^ "Customer Care Archived 8 June 2010 at the Wayback Machine." SATA. Retrieved on 7 July 2010.
^ "Press Kit 2010." SATA. Retrieved on 7 July 2010. "The SATA Group comprises air transport companies whose decision centre is located in the city of Ponta Delgada, on the island of São Miguel, in the archipelago of Azores."
^ Brady, Chris (30 March 2010). "The Broad Gauge Railway of the Azores". Retrieved 3 May 2011. Many harbour breakwaters were built using seven foot gauge railways. ... [The locomotives] were disposed of to places as diverse as Brixham and the Azores.
^ Churcher, Colin. "Broad Gauge Railway Relics in the Açores". Retrieved 3 May 2011. The story of the railway in Ponta Delgada, ... begins in Holyhead on the island of Anglesea in North Wales. ... the broad gauge of 7 feet 0¼ inches ... was that chosen by Isambard kingdom Brunel for the Great Western Railway.
^ Martins, Ana Maria Almeida (2006). "Figuras da Cultura Portuguesa: Antero do Quental" [Figures in Portuguese Culture: Antero de Quental] (in Portuguese). Lisbon, Portugal: Instituto Camões. Archived from the original on 16 January 2009. Retrieved 17 July 2010.
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The game of chess has many interesting moves and some that can only happen under certain circumstances. In order to play the best game you can, it is wise to know about all the moves so that you can best outwit your opponent. In order to effectively talk about chess a special method of notation has been devised. This helps identify the squares and positions without having to have a board and pieces always in front of you to illustrate. In this notation the columns (or files as they are called in chess) are identified with a letter and the rows (or ranks) are identified with a number. If you are looking at a chessboard from the perspective of the white player, the leftmost file is 'a', the one next to it 'b' and so on until the last file which is 'h'.
The back or closest rank for white is 'rank 1', the next one (the one the pawns are on) is 'rank 2' and so on until the last rank, which is the back row for black and is 'rank 8'. So the when using chess notation, the leftmost back square for white would be called 'a1', the square directly above 'a2' an so on. See how easy that is? Now that you know how chess notation works and you have a chess board visualized in your head, we can talk about some of the special chess moves.
En Passant If you have played even only 1 game of chess you know that pawns have some special rules. For example, they can only capture a piece that is placed diagonally in front of them. Also, on it's initial move, a pawn can move up two squares instead of just one. However, there is a special case for this - if an enemy pawn could have captured it had it only moved 1 square, the enemy is still able to capture.
This move is called 'en passant' and can only be used on the very next move after the pawn is advanced 2 spaces - if you do not capture then, you cannot do it at a later move. Here's an example - BLACK has a pawn at d4; WHITE moves his e2-pawn to e4; had WHITE moved to e3m the BLACK d4 pawn would have been able to capture so now he can capture en-passant on his next move. But if BLACK decides to make another move instead, he gives up his right to capture. Castling The King can make a special chess move called 'castling' and it is, in fact, recommended that you do this during the opening phase of the game. This is a defensive move which increase thesafety of the King.
Castling has two forms - 'short' and 'long'. Here's how it works: Say the white King is on e1 with the white Rook on h1 (this is the initial setup at the start of the game). You can make the move called short castling by moving the King to g1 and the Rook to f1. This move does have some restrictions - the squares in between the Rook and King must be empty, neither the Kind or Rook can have been moved before and the King cannot be in check.
Note that even though you move two pieces, this is considered to be one move. Long castling has the same rules and is a similar move but uses the Rook on the a file instead. In this scenario, the King ends on c1 and the Rook ends on d1. Promotion You might think the pawns are not very useful but if you can get your pawn to the other side of the board he can be promoted. This means the you can replace the pawn with any same colored piece you want with the exception of a king or pawn.
Needless to say most people choose to replace the pawn with a queen. There are some other situations in chess that novice players might not be aware of. For instance, a game can very easily end in a draw.
This can happen when neither side has enough material to checkmate the opponent. This would happen if one player had a Bishop and King while another had only a King - no matter how many times you try you cannot get the opponent into checkmate so the game ends in a draw. The chess game might also end in a draw if you have to repeat the same move 3 times as their are no other choices, if no advance or pawn capture has happened in the last 50 moves or stalemate. Stalemate can happen when a player who is not in check has no valid moves.
If a player can continuously checkmate another player any time he wishes then he can claim a draw by "continuous check".
Lee Dobbins writes for many online publications. Visit Chess Moves Info to learn more about the game of chess and see this article in more detail and with diagrams of the special moves.
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The Sun and other stars are powered by nuclear energy. Can we harness this type of energy here on Earth? Nuclear energy can be provided in two ways: nuclear fission or nuclear fusion. Fission is the process used in modern nuclear power stations. Fusion is the way that energy is provided by the Sun.
The fuels used in nuclear reactors are usually uranium and plutonium. The biggest problem with nuclear fission energy is that the atoms produced, the waste products, are very radioactive. This makes them very dangerous to living things and they have to be stored safely somewhere, in some cases for many thousands of years, until their radioactivity dies down.
In 1986, there was a major nuclear accident at Chernobyl, in the Ukraine. A large cloud of radioactive particles was blown across Europe. Many hundreds of people who lived near the accident site suffered illness because of this disaster.
The nuclear power plant in Civaux, France.
After this accident, people's attitude to nuclear power became rather negative and many countries cut back on their development of nuclear power. France, however, still relies on nuclear power stations for 75% of its energy needs.
Nuclear power was once thought to be an answer to the world's energy needs. It was thought to be relatively cheap and safe. Now many nations are not so sure. The UK has not opened any new nuclear power stations since 1994.
Nuclear fusion takes place in the core of the Sun and other stars. It is the process in which hydrogen atoms combine to form helium atoms. During that process some of the energy binding the atomic particles together is transferred to electromagnetic radiation energy. It is that radiation that makes the Sun shine. For many years, scientists have been trying to control this form of energy transfer here on Earth, but it is proving to be technically very challenging.
It requires very hot and dense conditions (just as is found in the centres of stars) if the hydrogen atoms are to fuse into helium and producing those conditions is very difficult. The main reason why it is worth trying hard to make this work is that nuclear fusion does not create any harmful by-products. It would therefore be the ultimate source of 'clean' energy.
ITER, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, is the latest International project to design and build a fusion reactor. ITER means 'The Way' to new energy.
In a couple of decades ITER could provide the solution to the World's energy problems.
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The words Amatsu Tatara are not well known. However, the knowledge of the secret scrolls and books of the Amatsu Tatara are well known to special Japanese scholars, martial artists and spiritual experts. It is very difficult to explain the Amatsu Tatara because it is traditionally intended for a special Grandmaster or special priest. For this reason it has been kept very secret.
Shoto Tanemura is the 58th Grandmaster of Amatsu Tatara Bumon (martial arts) and Shumon (spiritual). He feels the time for his true mission has come and that is to show the world what Amatsu Tatara is.
Amatsu means Heaven or Nature. Tatara means the highest secret teaching system of martial arts and original Shinto spirit.
The Amatsu Tatara Hibumi (secret scrolls) are special scrolls about all martial arts, spiritualism and humanism. These were written about 700 BC by the King of Mima as the history of Japan.
Grandmaster Takamatsu Toshitsugu Sensei had mastered the Amatsu Tatara Bumon Shumon and made better known the word of Amatsu Tatara by his explanations after World War II.
What is truely mysterious? If I use another word to explain the meaning of it, I would say it is "awareness". It's a true mystery. To explain what I mean by this, let us take the example of a deathly ill patient being examined by a Western medicine Doctor and an Oriental herbal Doctor. The former tells the patient he can't be helped, while the latter can treat him effectively. Another parallel is that of a person succeeding in doing something that he has been thought by others to be impossible to do.
Simply speaking: "Imagine a bicycle". Looking at it, we can clearly understand what it is for, and how to use it. Yet in the case of the human body, such clarity is non-existant. When seeing a model of it, we can't perceive the entirety of it. In the not so distant past, people thought that air machines were an impossibility. But now such things are common, discovered through the efforts of human ability. So I feel there is still unlimited items to be made through human ingenuity. I feel for example that the present aircraft which require so much space for landing and take off, in the future will be able to land and take off vertically with another option of being able to hover in mid air.
Taking into consideration the working of the conscious and subconscious, there is no limit to these abilities. Yet with the human body there are physical limits imposed. Take the case of a person having a strong subconscious, they are able by the control of it to lessen the pain and injuries of burns when fire is applied to certain parts of the anatomy. This amazes the average person who thinks such things are miracles. Yet understand that even with utmost patient training in this, still there is a point where the fire will overcome. But this kind of training is equal to that of training the spirit.
This is the true miracle event, the power of the human spirit, which is the combination of "the miraculous, the mysterious and faith" being akin to natural religion. From these 3 the true super sense can be developed. As an academic theory this is called "Amatsu Reiho" (special knowledge for the use of the spirit of Heaven).
We are not only the people of one nation or religion, indeed we are universal beings. So it is that we must all make effort to try and contemplate all things in a benevolent light. This is the very foundation of what it means to be human. Consciousness and subconsciousness are the 2 forms of awareness. If a person is cast totally in his subconscious mind, he can experience ghosts and is too vulnerable to physic influences. On the other hand, the person using only his conscious mind can catch nothing, even if he tries with all his might. Parents worried about their sons going to war, constantly think and pray for them, through which they make a link through which the spirit of their child can communicate with them. So it is that strong motivation, visualizations, prayers or desires when continously repeated with faith, are put in into the subconscious mind, so that they are likely to be realized on the material plane. In that point or focus the power of belief can be effective.
The relationship of the conscious and subconscious is the academic theory for "Shiryugaku" (study of religion and spirit). This theory applies to hypnotism, Kiaijutsu, Shingenjutsu (mental powers), prayers and fortune-telling. Having understanding of it, one can comprehend. This theory is interwoven through all levels of Shinto, Mikkyo, Buddhism, Shugendo and Ninpo.
Ninniku Seishin O Konpon To Suru.
Nintai Seishin O Yashinau Kotoni Hajimaru Mono De Aru.
Heiwa O Tanoshimu Mono De Aru.
Tai O Motte Shizen Ni Aite No Ken O Sake.
No Dai Shizen O Riyoshite.
Ninja No Konpon Gensoku De Aru.
"The essence of 'Ninniku Seishin' is the spirit of the Ninja who has the power to use patience together with the body, mind and subconscious. It is this power that one must develop by training hard. The result will lead to the ability to pocket any insult and later throw it away together with all traces of resentment (Nintai Seishin). The true meaning of 'Nin' is having a heart as peaceful, joyful and lovely as that of a flower (Kajo Waraku). One should never place the blade before the heart. It is also very important to acquire a good knowledge of diversionary tactics using both the heart and body, so that in emergencies one will be able to disappear. This is known as 'Kyojitsu Tenkan', and is for defeating evil with the powers of Earth, Water, Fire, Wind and Air for justice, in the defense of oneself, or one's country."
Following are some excerpts explaining the main ideas of "Hontai" (true body).
The "Hontai" means Shinrikyorei (the condition of nothingness). The purpose of this is "Shinkifudo" (or Fudoshin = immovable heart). When you meet the enemy and a feeling rises up that this is the enemy, then already the heart is moving. If the heart is already moving this is no good. If you can look at and meet with the enemy with "Fudoshin" (immovable heart) and keep completely relaxed then this is already the "Hontai". We can say that this is the "Fudochi" (wisdom of Fudoshin).
To get the "Fudoshin" like "God's spirit" we must effort in our daily lives. By having this spirit and an enemy stands before you, you can completely consume him. This we may say is the first timing. For example if something is begun by the enemy and I am in the state of "Shinkifudoshin", the enemy will be unable to do anything soon. "So I can surely promise victory".
Many different Ryu often refer to "Hontai". The meaning of "Hontai" is well explained in the Kito Ryu scroll. So I will make an explanation. This "Hontai" contains everything about the backbone of Taijutsu and the fundamentals of the spiritual part. This "Hontai" equals the heart condition. It is like a straight wave up peace that doesn't move up or down. The mind/spirit quality equates to the deepest state of the soul. This spirit is when you can look at anything - something can happen, but you are not surprised, never moved. This is the true "Fudoshin". The atmosphere can't be completely conveyed by words. It can't be understood only by reading.
Yet if the reader of this has a high grade spirit then upon reading these words he can readily and immediately understand. Such a grade of person has the state of a great Master or Grandmaster. And the scroll goes on to say that in meeting the enemy, have an immovable heart and stay peaceful as like the enemy and you are one.
The following essay is the teachings of Bu-Fu (warrior-wind) and an example of what one's heart, as a warrior, should be like. Please read it over and over, nurture and find its spirit within yourself.
As a warrior, one should constantly practice awareness. From the moment one awakes in the morning; one should keep a watchful eye on his own behaviour and manners, his conduct, never forgetting the meaning of humanism. These are all Bu-Fu. Never act violently nor be rough in nature, and at no time you should take life lightly. Try to build up a gentle lifestyle without hurrying through it. Consciously relax. Be not afraid of life; allow yours to be gentle and rich in love, in accord with the spirit of "Kajo Chikusei" or "Kajo Waraku", a flower's heart, the spirit contained within the growing bamboo.
If you are proud of the martial arts, do not tarnish their image by acting violently. People often say that we should bring relief to those who suffer, stand up against those who oppress others and knock them down. However, be also cautious of the weak, never relax in their presence for, at times, they themselves turn into oppressors. Be not one who seeks battles. If you wish to use this martial art, it should be for the good of those in need, who truly are both good and honest, never in the cause of the dishonest and evil. Those who follow these maxims may be termed true warriors.
If you are ridiculed or humiliated, do not allow it to move your heart; laught it off instead. It is this type of heart, which contains the truly strong spirit of Nin, patience and perseverance.
The true spirit of Nin lies also in the ability of not drawing one's "Katana", sword, too often, doing so rather, only at times of intense need. A warrior must never forget this type of heart. Let your heart be strong and your spirit be full of vigor, resembling the autumn sleet on fields shimmering in the sunlight, and with love as that murmured by the fresh wind of spring.
To attain this type of heart, a good command of both philosophy and the martial arts in true balance is of the utmost importance. Once obtained, the warrior is then a true servant of Bu-Fu.
To begin learning the Ninja warrior-way, the study and cultivation of culture and philosophy and a heart full of evil-dispelling light is essential. One must have a flower's heart and honesty, should be as clean-cut and straight, as a blade cuts through a bamboo stalk. Allow your heart to grow the power to solve all of life's problems. Do not rely on your head alone, learn through your body as well. If one is able to comprehend these essentials, he is sure to find his Bu-Fu flowing within his body and heart.
Finally, one must turn all the above into reality, strive to accomplish it all, so as to truly be a servant of Bu-Fu.
In statements from sacred books and scrolls we are told about the "Prologue Of Religion", how prior to present times (resembling World War II) there was the natural powers in existance and the succesful work of Heaven to bring all into harmony.
Over 1 million years ago, the step by step process of the implementation of Heaven's plan ... In the Christian Bible it's referred to as "Genesis" when eventually religion was planted by the seeds of necessity. From sacred Buddhist texts there is the telling how before "Miroku" came down from Heaven, he sent his messenger the "King of Tenrin" before him to prepare the way and bring under control the destructive forces. This being like a Christian Bible referring to a Golden Age of Paradise being close to Heaven. To reside in such, one must have a pure and clean heart. From the point of view of Heaven glancing down upon mankind it is said: "A thousand years is as a day, and a day is as a thousand years". From Heaven the passing of 3.000 - 5.000 years seems but a second.
Before the start of recorded history, in Japan the age previous to the ascension of the Imperial throne by Emperor Jinmu was called the "Age of the Gods". In Japan, Kami (Gods) were also seen as meaning "Mitama" (God's spiritual soul). This referring to how in those ancient days many pure person were infused by the powers of the Gods and elevated to a unique station in the eyes of their fellow humans. These people became peacemakers being as they had become "Shin Rei" (avators). The Gods and Shin Rei were not conceived of as just protecting Japan, this is a wrong thinking limited mind's idea. But that the blessings of the God's fall upon virtuous people anywhere, this is it's true wide and deep perspective.
Other countries with their exalted Gods and their hierarchy are the same as in the case of "Jehovah". Historically when talking about "Bonten Tentei" (The King of Heaven), for example, we can understand the many difficulties inherent in the deep underlying relationships of such. This referring to such "Shin Rei" cases as: Shaka, Koshi, Christ, Mohammed, ... . Going to the roots of the matter, the true point can be clearly seen as the same thing in all cases. So it was regarded in old Japan that the Kami not only beheld Japan but all places; and not only mankind but, all grasses, trees, animals, ... . The Gods having connections with all matter. So because of this, the present man can be gifted with true vision of light. He can throw off limited dogmatism and egoism. Always he takes steps to open out more, seeing the truth of the friendly "Shin Rei", and having at last to reach a correct belief.
So there is welcome for Brahmins, Christians, Moslems, Buddhists, Kaikyo sects, Kurenaimanji sects, Kotaikyo sects, Tenrikyo sects, Konkonkyo sects, followers of William Dowdrebere, Bahains, ... . On the true path of religion for the true believers truely the names of sects, cults or whatever doesn't matter; everyone is seen as a fellow traveller on the way. We see a lot of those two-faced ministers of whatever philosophy who speak eloquently of the truth and righteousness, but inside don't believe at all or practice what they preach. Any person who is a true believer, regardless if they are Christian, Buddhist or whatever and who has an open spirit, with a light surrounding their heart, is truly of another world!
On 23 August 1999 Grandmaster Tanemura Tsunehisa Shoto Sensei arrived in Ireland for a 3-day visit to the Hill of Tara, Newgrange, Loughcrew, Knowth and some other interesting places. He was accompanied by 10 other Genbukan/KJJR Dojo-Cho from Ireland, England and Belgium.
Ireland has a beautiful large green surface which is very hilly. When arriving at the Hill of Tara we could see a beautiful white horse that was all alone in the meadow. Sensei told us this was already a special sign of Heaven.
Tanemura Sensei first did special Kuji-Kiri to a stone, to break the curse done to destroy Tara. He could strongly feel the bad spirit in the stone placed there by a bad priest. Hereafter we could all suddenly see a white cat coming out of nowhere coming to us. She was very friendly and according to Tanemura Sensei a second good sign. Then we went to the Mound of the Hostages and we could clearly see in the cave the stones with the inscriptures of the 3 spirals. We went further to the main hill to visit the Stone of Destiny. Tanemura Sensei explained the stone is not the true Lia Fail (Stone of Destiny), but we could use it as a focal point because Tara is a sacred place. Here Tanemura Sensei did a very special Kuji-Kiri ceremony to repair the Stone which was already damaged by the curse, supported by all the other Dojo-Cho. It gave us all a deep emotionally feeling.
Tara is a very special place and very old place in Celtic Legend where the royal lines of the "Tuatha de Danann" stretch back into the mists of time and the crowned Kings of Ireland, until approximately 1022 AD.
Tara was the political and religious centre of Ireland where ceremonies were done by Kings and druids in relationship with the Gods. Japan and Ireland have the same legendary history about the Goddess (in Japan Amaterasu) who hid in a cave so the light disappeared of the world. The Gods would then have made music and danced to lure her out of the cave. As soon as she came to take a look what was happening, guards took away the large stone before the cave and the Goddess came back out, so the light came back.
Tanemura Sensei told us afterwards that this was "the most beautiful day of his life". He told us that he could get for the first time a direct contact with Heaven. We all could feel a strong shining light (even when our eyes were closed) appearing above us. Sensei told us that this was "the light of the King of Angels". There truly is a deep connection between Tara and Amatsu Tatara. Even the symbol of the 3 spirals can be found back on ancient Japanese Amatsu Tatara scrolls. This visit left a very deep spiritual impression on all of us.
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1/2 cup butter, room temp. 1 cup sugar 2 eggs 1/2 cup buttermilk 2 Tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice 2 teaspoons grated lemon rind 2 cups flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 2 cups fresh blueberries (I used 1 cup) Cream butter and sugar. Add one egg at a time, mixing well after each. Add buttermilk, lemon juice and lemon rind. Gently stir in dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in blueberries. Divide batter into 10 or 11 greased muffin tins. Each tin should be filled to the top edge of the muffin tin. Bake 400 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes until done. Cool 5 minutes and then remove to cooling rack. Lemon Icing 3/4 cup powdered sugar 1 tablespoon fresh squeezed lemon juice 1/2 teaspoon melted butter 1/8 teaspoon vanilla Mix until well blended. Drizzle over warm muffins. Once completely cooled store in the refrigerator until ready to serve. Warm slightly in microwave before serving.
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They stand on opposite ends of the spectrum one is the world famous author of The Name of the Rose and a self declared secularist the other is a senior member of the Catholic Church often mentioned as a possible successor to the pope In this amicable but adversarial exchange of letters and ideas, Eco and Martini debate abortion, women in the Catholic Church, ethics, aThey stand on opposite ends of the spectrum one is the world famous author of The Name of the Rose and a self declared secularist the other is a senior member of the Catholic Church often mentioned as a possible successor to the pope In this amicable but adversarial exchange of letters and ideas, Eco and Martini debate abortion, women in the Catholic Church, ethics, and the apocalypse They frame a debate that has begun to rage in this millennial year, aware of the gulf between belief and nonbelief that separates them The result is illuminating Where are the limits of belief What can a nonbeliever believe Some of America s most provocative writers and thinkers from across the spectrum of faiths and backgrounds offer their reaction to the subjects raised by Eco and Martini.
Pensavo di imparare qualcosa su questo argomento, ma mi sono reso conto che questo libro è al di sopra del mio background culturale, quindi non posso esprimere un giudizio. Abbandonato al 50%.
Es un diálogo epistolar entre Umberto Eco y el cardenal Carlo Maria Martini. Se puede leer de una sentada, es bastante corto y te incita a pensar sobre la ética de las acciones. Además, demuestra que discutir sobre religión puede ser entretenido. Trata de los temas que normalmente causan conflictos entre creyentes y no creyentes: el origen de la vida, el apocalipsis y la igualdad de género en las instituciones religiosas.
چیزی كه در نامه ها به چشم می آید احترامی است كه اكو و مارتینی به عنوان یك مذهبی و غیرمذهبی برای هم قائل هستند. این نشان می دهد كه حتی در این سطح هم می شود گفت و گو كرد؛ ولی از چارچوب ادب و احترام خارج نشد.
Definitely thought provoking. Very pleased with how respectful these gentlemen were towards each others beliefs, especially with the hot topics we are experiencing during this election time.
A tedious correspondence with no big surprises. The writers spend a quarter of the book with formalities and congratulating each other on rigour. It gets into some interesting territory, like questioning the church's stance on women, but doesn’t begin to feel honest and meaty until the final correspondence. Then the book ends.It's a reminder that discourse between believers and non-believers can be civil, and that’s about it.
ორი გენიოსის ტვინის გადამაბრუნებელი დიალოგები!
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0.999972 |
Can you named any important monuments ?
Which places would you recommend to visit to your friends from foreign country?
I want to go to Holland because I want to see tulips.
They went to the park because they wanted relax.
She went to the kitchen because she wanted to prepare some sandwiches.
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0.9559 |
When we talk about living with passion, what exactly do we mean?
I suppose that people who live with passion start out with an especially intense desire to complete themselves. We are the only animals who are naturally unfinished. We need to bring ourselves to fulfillment.
Some people are seized with this task with a fierce longing. They may be propelled by wounds that need urgent healing or by a fear of loneliness. They may be driven by some glorious fantasy to make a mark on the world.
People who live with passion construct themselves inwardly by expressing themselves outwardly, and in doing so they bring coherence to the scattered impulses we are all born with. By doing some outward activity they come to understand and define themselves. A life of passion happens when an emotional nature meets a consuming vocation.
They have high levels of both vulnerability and courage. To be emotional is to attach yourself to something you value supremely but don’t fully control. To be passionate is to put yourself in danger.
Firstly, people with passion have the courage to dig down and play with their issues. We all have certain core concerns and tender spots that preoccupy us through life. Passionate people often discover themselves through play, using their imagination to open up possibilities and understand their emotional histories.
Secondly, passionate people have the courage to be themselves with abandon. While we all care what others think about us, people with passion are just less willing to be ruled by the tyranny of public opinion.
They somehow get on the other side of fear. Once through it they have more freedom to navigate. There’s even sometimes a certain recklessness there, a willingness to throw their imperfect selves out into public view while not really thinking beforehand how people might react.
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0.999998 |
What is holding back your weight training?
Whats holding your weight training back?
Most people training in gyms work on their own or with a training partner. My observation over 60+ years of working out in gyms is that the vast majority of people working out make minimal improvement after the first few months.
Yet they continue to workout regularly and never get much, if any, improvement in their strength or their physique.
My strictly unscientific eyeball estimate is that most people training in gyms struggle to reach about 40% of their potential. A few may reach 70%.
This is a completely arbitrary figure, mainly intended to make the point that most people are getting a poor return on their investment of time, money and energy.
In the first few months of weight training, almost anything you do will produce some results. However, this effect diminishes rapidly, and anyone who wants to make progress needs to have a systematic program or plan.
For example, often I see people in the gym who are doing leg day which consists of an unplanned series of leg exercises that are not part of any set plan to develop strength, appearance, or endurance. It is just time to work on the legs.
Rule 1: Have a detailed plan or your plan is to fail.
Poor lifting technique is one of the big killers, particularly when it comes to building strength. Few people have any idea how to perform power exercises correctly to generate maximum force. Many have only the vaguest idea of how to correctly do the basic exercises such as squat, bench press or deadlift.
The result is that: 1) the lifter quickly hits a plateau; and 2) the prospect of getting injured is high when doing a lift with bad technique.
Proper technique is not for style points. Proper lifting technique is mandatory if a person wants to be able to generate maximum force and realize their full potential. Sloppy technique always means peaking out way below what could have been done.
The only way to correct bad technique is to know what good technique actually is.
When it comes to the power lifts vanishingly few trainers have a clue what to do. For this reason, it is imperative to either get an experienced powerlifter to teach you what to do or obtain a resource that will allow you to train yourself in proper technique.
This brings me to the third reason for trainees underperforming: perfecting mistakes.
Over time if you do something incorrectly, you learn to do something a certain way and it becomes very difficult to change. This applies to lifting technique, training methods, nutrition, supplementation, fat loss and so forth.
The main cause of no progress is often a treasured set of beliefs about how to train, what to eat, what supplements to take, etc. Turns out, a lot of this knowledge is what holds you back.
IMHO having been at this for well over a half century, it is essential that you adopt the idea that you must continually learn and refine your knowledge base.
By this I dont mean get sucked in by every new gimmick that comes down the pike. Instead I mean commit to constant improvement, and regularly seek out and study materials that are going to help you improve your performance in a specific way.
If you dont do that, you will continue to get a poor return on all the energy and effort you expend working out.
Learning and changing what you do could give you a big boost in the time and effort you are putting out.
With the idea that most people would rather get more out of their training than less, I wrote a book that contains hundreds of valuable secrets about how to get the most from your effort.
I include extremely detailed instruction on how to do each lift, how to do a training cycle, how to consistently build strength and resilience. In short, how to have the best chance to realize your full potential.
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I suppose what the author really means is the end of the dominance of the American upper class, since they are still there, just lower key. Nonetheless, Philips makes the claim that the transformation of American society into a meritocratic one was caused by the return of the officers from WWII. Unlike in other countries, you could be an officer in the US on the basis of ability, and when these men returned, they could go to college with the GI Bill, or go to work in the post-war boom.
I suspect that class is one of the universals of the human condition, and that it will eventually restore itself by means of natural feedback mechanisms. 50 years after the last Social Register was published, there is a mass upper-middle class defined by college attendance and professional work that was enabled by the events Philips mentions. But there is nonetheless a congealing caste of families that dominate the upper echelons of both business and government that is defined by attendance at elite universities, and often by subsequent residence in a few great cities.
The reasons for this are largely hereditary, in the fullest sense of the word. Both genetics and upbringing are required to give the ability and the willingness to spend one's twenties [and maybe thirties] in the credentialing institutions that grant access to the mass upper-middle class. The process that extended this opportunity down the socioeconomic ladder has ground to a halt. This process is self-limiting for several reasons. Economically, all the slots for professional work have been filled. Furthermore, you still need people to clean stuff, make stuff, transport stuff, and fix stuff. AI and robotics turned out to be a lot more difficult than originally imagined, so this will still be true for the foreseeable future. Educationally, college education is not appropriate for everyone, and so the object of a college education cannot be fulfilled if you extend college to everyone, because you will have to alter it. Finally, since we tend to marry people like ourselves [assortative mating], the ability and willingness to attend college are becoming concentrated in the children of those who have already gone to college.
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AI is revolutionizing cybersecurity for both defenders and attackers as hackers, armed with the same weaponized technology, create a seemingly never-ending arms race.
As artificial intelligence capabilities continue to grow at a rapid pace, AI technologies are becoming ubiquitous for both protecting against cyberattacks and also as an instrument for launching them. Last year, Gartner predicted that almost every new software product would implement AI by 2020. The advancements in AI and its ability to make automated decisions about cyber threats is revolutionizing the cybersecurity landscape as we know it, from both a defensive and an offensive perspective.
As a subdivision of AI, machine learning is already easing the burden of threat detection for many cyber defense teams. Its ability to analyze network traffic and establish a baseline for normal activity within a system can be used to flag suspicious activity, drawing from vast amounts of security data collected by businesses. Anomalies are then fed back to security teams, which make the final decision on how to react.
Machine learning is also able to classify malicious activity on different layers. For example, at the network layer, it can be applied to intrusion detection systems, in order to categorize classes of attacks like spoofing, denial of service, data modification, and so on. Machine learning can also be applied at the web application layer and at endpoints to pinpoint malware, spyware, and ransomware.
AI/machine learning is already here to stay as a key component in a security team’s toolbox, particularly given that attacks at every level are becoming more frequent and targeted.
Even though implementing machine learning technologies is an asset for defense teams, hackers are armed with the very same ammunition and capabilities, creating a seemingly never-ending arms race.
At the beginning of 2018, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s “The Malicious Use of Artificial Intelligence” report warned that AI can be exploited by hackers for malicious purposes, including the ability to target entire states and alter society as we know it. The authors of the report contend that globally we are at “a critical moment in the co-evolution of AI and cybersecurity and should proactively prepare for the next wave of attacks.” They point to the alleged attacks by Russian actors in manipulating social media in a highly targeted manner as a current example of this threat.
It’s no surprise that cyber experts are concerned. After all, for hackers, AI presents the ideal tool to enable scale and efficiency. Similar to the way machine learning can be used to monitor network traffic and analyze data for cyber defense, it can also be used to make automated decisions on who, what, and when to attack. There is potential for hackers to use AI in order to alter an organization’s data, as opposed to stealing it outright, causing serious damage to a brand’s reputation, profits, and share price. In fact, cybercriminals are already able to utilize AI to mold personalized phishing attacks by collecting information on targets from social media and other publicly available sources.
Step 1: Understand what AI is protecting.
Identify the specific attacks that are you protecting against and what AI or machine learning technologies you have in place to guard against these attacks. Once teams lay this out clearly, they can implement appropriate solutions for patch management and threat vulnerability management to ensure that important data is encrypted and there is sufficient visibility into the whole environment. It is vital that an option exists to rapidly change course when it comes to defense because the target is always moving.
Step 2: Have clearly defined processes in place.
Organizations that have the best technology in the world are only as effective as the process they model. The key here is to make sure both security teams and the wider organization understand procedures that are in place. It is the responsibility of the security teams to educate employees on cybersecurity best practices.
Step 3: Know exactly what is normal for the security environment.
Having context around attacks is crucial but this is often where companies fail. By possessing a clear understanding of assets and how they communicate will allow organizations to correctly isolate events that aren’t normal and investigate them. Ironically, machine learning is an extremely effective tool for providing this context. To safeguard against the weaponization of AI, organizations must build a robust architecture on which the technology operates and be mindful that the right education internally is key to staying a step ahead of attackers.
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I am interested in obtaining a flexible work schedule. Can you please help me understand what to consider?
Some flex work schedules include reduced or compressed work week, working remotely or alternative shifts. Some employers recognize that many workers prefer schedules that allow greater flexibility in choosing the times they begin and end their workday. For some workers, however, the nature of their jobs requires a set schedule, such as in the medical profession or plant manufacturing.
A reduced work week is the option to work fewer hours than the standard work week. A compressed work week is working the full workweek schedule in less days (i.e. four 10-hour days or three 12-hour shifts), which is classic in hospitals for nurses. Many corporations offer professionals in certain positions the option to work remotely with the proper equipment and set up.
Most flexible work schedules are created or designed based on a need typically due to the company’s budget, start-up demand and/or project based with a known or referred individual.
Many flexible schedules are offered to employees who have worked for a company and due to budget restraints may need to reduce their expenses while still needing the individual’s knowledge and skills. This is a classic example of a flex schedule created based on the relationship between the boss and the individual.
To enter a company on a flex schedule is becoming more common as many start-up companies are in need of your skills but cannot afford a full time person yet. Another common example of a flex hire is for a merger and acquisition or divesture phase of a business deal. This is more often for a contracted time period and may be as a temporary employee or as a consultant.
As the relationship status changes from employee to consultant it is important to outline expectations and determine how you will be compensated. You may be offered compensation on an hourly rate or on project completion. If you are working for a temporary agency, many agencies now offer benefits after working for them for a designated time period. As an independent consultant you may need to buy your own benefits. As a consultant, you may be asked to sign certain agreements, such as a non- compete, confidentiality and inventions. Review these carefully and consider reviewing them with an attorney to understand the legal jargon.
As an employee or as a consultant, you may want to consider what certifications will enable you to stand out from the crowd. Determine the benefits of these certifications and who requires them. Speak with hiring managers, recruiters (corporate, contingency, temporary or retainer) who will understand what skills are in demand currently. Plan your approach to obtaining your certifications if you determine you want to pursue certifications. To pitch the certification, place it on your resume under “Professional Development & Education” listing the certification title followed by either “in progress” or “anticipated in (date)”—this will show your commitment to your profession.
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0.940278 |
if Is it normal for people to talk to their friends about food EVERY SINGLE DAY? It seems that lately, I'm having more and more food related conversations. Not sure if that's just a habit of home cooks or more of a mom trait or people all over the world are sharing recipes with their friends around the water cooler.
What's even more ironic than the fact that not a day goes by that I don't discuss food with my friends, is the fact that I talk about food while I'm EXERCISING with friends. (Seems somewhat counterproductive, doesn't it?) The topic of food is often brought up during morning walks with my friend Tracy. (Probably because we're both hungry and ready for breakfast when we walk.) On one of our recent walks, Tracy shared her salmon recipe with me and it's quickly become my new favorite. I affectionately refer to it as "Tracy's salmon" in our house but for the purposes of the blog, I've named it Honey Mustard Salmon.
Whisk together honey, mustard, soy and wine in a shallow baking dish. Add salmon and refrigerate up to 1 hour.
Place fish skin side up in a baking dish with marinade, cover with foil and bake 20 minutes at 375.
I'm so thankful for foodie friends who share my love for food and pretend not to mind my incessant discussions about food related topics. And I'm also super thankful for friends who share their favorite recipes with me.
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0.999933 |
50150-RB is rated 4.6 out of 5 by 16.
Hello Ashley, Thank you for your question. Here are the "Cleaning and Care" instructions from the Delta maintenance and installation guides: "Care should be given to the cleaning of this product. Although the finish is extremely durable, it can be damaged by harsh abrasives or polish. To clean, simply wipe gently with a damp cloth and blot dry with a soft towel. Warning: Dow Bathroom Cleaner with Scrubbing Bubbles and Lysol Foaming Basin Tub and Tile Cleaner must not be used on the clear knob handles and levers. Use of these cleaners can result in cracked or severely damaged handles. If over-spray gets onto the handles, immediately wipe them dry with a soft cotton cloth." To elaborate on these instructions, we do not recommend using any commercially available cleaning products or cleansers on our faucets. Many of these products contain bleach, ammonia, or acids that could harm the finish. If necessary, a small amount of mild dish detergent may be used to remove stubborn stains or hard water deposits. If water spots are a problem, you can use a 50/50 mixture of tap water and white vinegar to remove them. Vinegar is strong enough to dissolve mineral deposits, but not harsh enough to damage any of our finishes. Be aware that vinegar can stain porous material like marble and granite, which are now being used as countertops.
our builder is installing dual control showers and i'm trying to find a matching shower head in oil rubbed bronze. I prefer a hand-held model .
Thank you for your question. We manufacture several styles of handheld showerheads in the Venetian Bronze finish. For instance, In2ition showerhead which give you a stationary showerhead and a handheld showerhead are available in model numbers 58045-RB, 58469-RB-PK, 58065-RB, 58468-RB, 58470-RB, 58471-RB-PK, and 58472-RB. We also have handheld showerhead with slide bars-51308-RB, 51105-RB, 51205-RB, 51405-RB, and 57530-RB. If you are looking for a square jet in the Venetian Bronze, we recommend the 50150-RB.
So this body spray has no side to side adjustment? The description talks only about up and down adjustment.
can you tell me model number for sink faucet, and claw foot tub faucet that will cordinate with this?
Thank you for your question. Delta Faucet model # 50150-SS is different from the older model in the spray pattern and also the gpm. The new model has a gpm of 2.0 and the old one is 1.8 gpm.
Does 50150SS require a separate rough-in and if so what is the model number?
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0.999996 |
A reminder and a correction: The Metropolitan Opera's broadcast of Die Zauberflöte (e.g., The Magic Flute) will be at 12:55 p.m. Saturday at a movie theater near you, unless you live in the middle of nowhere. See this link to figure out how to find a theater, etc.
As I wrote earlier, The Magic Flute has Freemasonic elements (note the "eye in the pyramid" motif above.) It was Beethoven's favorite Mozart opera.
In that earlier post, I wrote, "Isis and Osiris are invoked in the course of the plot, and the main characters have to undergo an initiation. Given Robert Anton Wilson's interest in Mozart, I'm surprised that he never talked about this opera (as far as I know)."
The first sentence is true (as far as I know), but I now know that RAW did talk about the opera, at least once. RAW stated that the Magic Flute is a Masonic initiation turned into an opera and that the opera has Illuminati ideas.
I can't guarantee a good experience at the theater, but the New York Times seems to like the new production. And here is a positive review.
An adult ticket costs about $25. For those who like this sort of thing, it's a good experience.
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I hear so much talk about meditation from so many different perspectives that I’ve become confused. Can you explain what meditation is?
Meditation is an advanced state of concentration in which one single object of concentration flows without interruption. In this state the mind becomes fully one-pointed, and this one-pointedness starts expanding into a superconscious state. Ultimately there comes a state of samadhi—complete spiritual absorption. This is a spontaneous expression of the unbroken flow of supreme consciousness. The process of withdrawal of the senses, concentration, and meditation can be compared to a river that originates when many small streams gather and merge into one large flow. The river then flows through hills and valleys without being stopped by bushes and rocks, and then it finds the plains, where it flows smoothly and harmoniously, passing through forests and villages until it reaches its final destination and merges with the sea. So it is with the process of meditation. At the initial stage, the senses and mind are withdrawn and made one-pointed. That one-pointed mind flows constantly toward one object without being distracted by petty emotions, thoughts, memories, and anxieties. Then it enters into the smooth, uninterrupted flow of the meditative state. At last the mind enters samadhi and merges with the ocean of supreme consciousness.
When I meditate on my mantra, thoughts still come into my mind. Does this mean that I’m not doing my practice correctly?
No. It is the nature of the mind to think. Therefore if the mind starts wandering during meditation, do not criticize it or force it to focus on your mantra. Simply remind yourself gently that you have put aside this particular period of time for meditation and bring your mind back to your mantra. Keep your mind engaged with the business at hand—the object of your meditation—and it will have no reason to attend to any other business.
Even when my mind is engaged with my mantra, I’m still aware of other thoughts.
It is natural for the mind to be aware of background chatter while you are focusing on your mantra. If you analyze it, you will find that most of this chatter is related to trivial thoughts. When you notice that your thoughts are running to trivial matters, let them run—simply maintain your focus on the mantra and do not give them your attention. The more attention you give these trivial thoughts, the stronger they become and the farther they will pull you from your mantra.
Form a habit of living in the present by focusing on your mantra; the more you focus on your mantra, the less you will be distracted by memories of the past and anxiety for the future. Thoughts are associated either with the past or with the future, and in most cases they are meaningless—fleeting images, snatches of remembered or anticipated conversation—and are simply an expression of the mind’s wandering habit. Don’t worry about them; the more you worry about them, the more life you breathe into them. Instead, steady the mind by focusing it on the mantra. That is the only way to overcome this ever-wandering habit. You will find that with practice the mind is able to focus on the mantra for longer and longer intervals and you will no longer notice the background noise.
Form a habit of living in the present by focusing on your mantra.
Most of these intruding thoughts that I experience are trivial, but some of them are significant and are powerful enough to force me to pay attention to them. What can I do?
When you cannot let certain thoughts and emotions recede into the background, you must learn to witness them. This means acknowledging these thoughts and emotions without elaborating on them or interpreting them. Don’t try to deny them or pretend to be indifferent. Instead, try to understand what they are, what is causing them, and how meaningful they are in the present moment.
As you cultivate this skill, you will discover that it is your attachment to these thoughts and feelings that gives them life and allows them to influence you here, in the present. By witnessing these powerful thoughts and emotions in a detached manner, you will nullify the influence they have over you.
For this technique to be effective, you must remember that witnessing does not mean involving yourself in a mental debate. Rather, it means letting the facts present themselves objectively. When done skillfully, this practice induces a sense of non-attachment and non-involvement. And when this feeling mingles with the stream of meditation, then thoughts, emotions, memories, and anxieties will lose their power to entangle your mind.
Are there any other ways of dealing with deeper issues?
The scriptures describe many methods of dissolving deeper issues. Prayer, selfless service, making a fire offering, studying the scriptures, visiting holy places, practicing austerity, and simply surrendering to divine providence are a few of them. These techniques work when you decide they will work. Miracles do happen, but only when you make them happen. That is why cultivating sankalpa, the power of will and determination, is the key to any successful practice. Without this determination, even God’s grace will go in vain.
I’ve heard that the gayatri mantra is helpful in cleansing the mind of negative thinking and resolving deeper issues. Why is that, and how can I use it as a means for overcoming mental pollution?
The gayatri mantra works with the subtle impressions in our mind that are the source of negative thinking. It calms mental noise, washes off karmic impurities, purifies the ego, sharpens the intellect, and illuminates our inner being. It connects us with the inner teacher so that we become receptive to guidance. This mantra is particularly helpful to those who are struggling with confusion, doubt, skepticism, and lack of direction.
The formal name of this mantra is savitri, which is the feminine form of savita, meaning “source,” “origin,” “sun.” Savitri, or the sun, is the source of our existence. This is the force from which the entire world evolves. When that divine force manifested in the form of sound, it was revealed in the meter known as gayatri. That is how it came to be known as the gayatri mantra.
Everything in the solar system is sustained by the sun and controlled by the sun’s energy. All the planets and their moons are held in place by the gravitational force of the sun. Even at the microcosmic level, everything is sustained by the sun. All forms of energy on the earth are different manifestations of solar energy.
The same is true of the gayatri mantra. This mantra is related to the sun, to solar energy—not to energy as an unconscious, blind force, but to conscious, intelligent, divine energy. Just as everything in the solar system is dependent on the sun, so does all knowledge have its source in the gayatri mantra. That is why it is called the mother of knowledge (Veda Mata). The thinking process itself begins from the gayatri mantra. The energy, the shakti, the force that gives direction to our force of intelligence, is the gayatri mantra.
Gayatri creates a link between the practitioner and the sun, between the physical body and the subtle body (of which the solar plexus and the navel center is the hub). The gayatri mantra introduces us to our own solar plexus. It forges the link between our first and third chakras, our second and third chakras, our third and fourth chakras, our third and fifth chakras, and our third and sixth chakras. Gayatri is also the link between mind and ego, mind and intellect, mind and intuition, mind and revelation; it is the link between the physical level and the subtle energy levels of our reality. The gayatri mantra is a self-conscious, self-illumined force. I say this with conviction because of my own personal experience. The gayatri mantra not only works in dissolving negative thinking, it transforms even the toughest and most complicated issues of life.
To answer the second part of your question: practicing the gayatri mantra cleanses the mind of mental pollution because this mantra works directly with the force of intelligence. For example, it is negative thinking, or mental pollution, that has caused us to create an endless number of objects and to spend our time and energy accumulating these objects. Analyze the world economy and you will see how greed and insatiable desire are damaging the planet and creating conflict among people. Behind this whole process is our mind. Then study the meaning of the gayatri mantra; it clearly says, “Dhiyo yo nah prachodayat—I pay my homage to that which is the guide, the supervisor, the light of my mind.” Thus, in practicing this mantra you are going into the root of the mother of all mothers, the force of all forces, the intelligence of all intelligences. That is the way to banish pollution from the mind once and for all.
The gayatri mantra is our mother.
The gayatri mantra does not need to be received from a teacher through a formal process of initiation, because it is the mother of any spiritual aspirant. It is available to anyone who is motivated to practice it. Just as a child does not need to be introduced to her own mother, we do not need an intermediary to introduce us to the gayatri mantra. We are children of the sun, and the gayatri mantra is our mother. Anyone in any circumstance can practice this mantra: lovingly, or without love; with faith, or without faith. What respect or understanding does a child have for his mother when he dirties his diaper? Yet while changing the diaper, how lovingly the mother kisses the child. This is exactly the relationship between the gayatri mantra and any spiritual seeker.
The gayatri mantra is a living mother. And just as there is unspoken understanding between mother and child, so there is an unbreakable link between the practitioner and gayatri. A good mother always does whatever is good for the child, with full understanding that it is natural for a child to get into trouble. For his part, the child understands that his mother loves him and so he runs to her even when he is upset with her. This understanding is called bhakti—love laced with trust. When you practice the gayatri mantra with bhakti it will resolve all your unresolved issues.
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0.999074 |
Why Prenups Aren't Just for the Rich and Famous How can the ordinary person benefit from a pre-nup?
Marriage is one of the most serious contracts you will enter into during your lifetime, but unlike other contracts - think mortgages, car loans, and employment agreements- the terms aren’t in writing. That’s why we encourage every married couple to enter into a pre- or post-nuptial agreement.
Marital agreements get a bad rap because the only time most people hear about them is when a celebrity or ultra-wealthy couple is getting divorced. However, being rich and famous is not a prerequisite for entering into a marital contract. Nor do you need to be getting divorced to find a pre- or post-nuptial agreement useful.
Here are a few examples of situations normal people may find themselves in where a marital agreement would be useful: • Business owners and partners should always get a prenuptial agreement. If not, his or her new spouse could become liable for business debts. In addition, if the business owner were to die without an estate plan in place, the spouse could be forced to take on the role of business owner or partner.
• If one or both partners have children from a prior relationship, a marital agreement can help ensure that commitments made to those children are known and honored by the soon-to-be-step-parent.
• If either partner is bringing a large amount of money, or a large amount of debt, to the relationship, a pre-marital agreement can shield that asset or liability from the other spouse. Nearly everyone today has some debt before marriage - be it a credit card or college loans - so this is a real issue that needs to be dealt with that older generations just didn’t have to think about.
• Other assets can also be mentioned in prenuptial agreements. For example, a woman might have inherited a share in a family-owned vacation home at the shore. The house was to be shared by the woman and her sisters and then passed down to the woman’s future children and her nieces and nephews. By putting information about the cabin in her prenuptial agreement, she can ensure that the wishes of her family are carried out. Having an open conversation about assets, including businesses and property, debts, and children is something all couples should be doing. Writing a prenuptial agreement just takes that conversation one step further by putting it into writing. If you aren’t discussing these serious topics with you future partner you are doing more to damage your relationship than the supposed “curse” that comes with creating a prenuptial agreement ever will.
If you would like to learn more about the benefits of prenuptial agreements, call our Austin family law and matrimonial attorneys today at (512) 948-3688 to set up a confidential consultation.
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One of the principal architects of the disco sound, producer and composer Giorgio Moroder was born in Ortisei, Italy, on April 26, 1940. Upon relocating to Munich, Germany, he established his own studio, Musicland, and recorded his debut single "Looky, Looky" in 1969; his first LP, Son of My Father, was released in early 1972. Around that time Moroder was introduced to fellow aspiring musician Pete Bellotte, with whom he formed a production partnership; in collaboration with singer Donna Summer, the duo was to become one of the most powerful forces in '70s-era dance music, their success beginning with the release of 1974's Lady of the Night. Summer's Love to Love You Baby followed in 1975; the title track, clocking in at close to 17 minutes in length, was an international smash, its shimmering sound and sensual attitude much copied in the years to follow.A Love Trilogy At their mid-'70s peak, Moroder, Bellotte, and Summer were extraordinarily prolific, releasing new albums about once every six months. Concept records like 1976's A Love Trilogy and Four Seasons of Love culminated with the release of 1977's I Remember Yesterday, a trip through time which climaxed with the smash "I Feel Love." With its galloping bass line and futuristic, computerized sheen, the single was among the watershed hits of the disco era, and helped propel Summer to new prominence as the reigning diva of the dancefloor.Bad Girls In 1978, Moroder made his initial foray into film music, winning an Academy Award for his score to Alan Parker's Midnight Express. Summer's double-LP Bad Girls followed in 1979, becoming a massive hit and spawning such chart-topping singles as "Hot Stuff" and the title cut. After one final studio LP, 1980's The Wanderer, the Moroder/Bellotte/Summer team disbanded, and the disco era began drawing to a close.Flaunt It In the early '80s, Moroder focused primarily on films; after producing the soundtracks for pictures including American Gigolo and Cat People, he turned to 1983's Flashdance, earning his second Oscar for the hit "Flashdance...What a Feeling," performed by Irene Cara. In 1984, Moroder courted controversy from film purists for his contemporary electro-pop score to the restored release of Fritz Lang's silent-era masterpiece Metropolis. After contributing to the soundtrack of the 1986 hit Top Gun, he turned increasingly away from dance music to focus on rock, producing the album Flaunt It, the debut from the heavily hyped British flash-in-the-pan Sigue Sigue Sputnik. In the years to follow, Moroder kept a low profile on the pop charts, although he remained a fixture on film soundtracks. In the 1990s, he also turned to remixing, debuting with a reworking of Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" and going on to tackle material from Heaven 17 and others.
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Period of Transition in Italy.
Modern Hebrew literature (1743-1904), in distinction to that form of Neo-Hebraic literature known as rabbinical literature (see Literature, Hebrew), which is distinctly religious in character, presents itself under a twofold aspect: (1) humanistic, relating to the emancipation of the language by a return to the classical models of the Bible, leading to the subsequent development of modern Hebrew; (2) humanitarian, dealing with the secularization of the language with a view to the religious and social emancipation of the Jews of the ghetto. These two tendencies are expressed by the word Haskalah, a term denoting the movement which predominated in Hebrew literature from the second half of the eighteenth century down to the death of Smolenskin in 1885.
Beginning with the seventeenth century, many attempts were made to emancipate Hebrew from the forms and ideas of the Middle Ages. Italy, with critics and poets like Azariah dei Rossi, Leon of Modena, Francis, etc., who were inspired by the Italian Renaissance, led in this period of transition in Hebrew literature. But it was not until the appearance of Moses Ḥayyim Luzzatto that Hebrew poetry shook off the medieval fetters which hindered its free development. His allegorical drama "La-Yesharim Tehillah" (1743), which may be regarded as the first product of modern Hebrew literature, is a poem that in its classic perfection of style is second only to the Bible. In the less advanced countries especially it has contributed to the regeneration of Hebrew and has stimulated a host of imitators among writers removed from modern literary centers.
At Amsterdam, Luzzatto's pupil, David Franco Mendes (1713-92), in his imitations of Racine ("Gemul 'Atalyah") and of Metastasio ("Yehudit"), continued his master's work, without, however, equaling Luzzatto's poetic inspiration and originality. In Germany, where, in consequence of the ideas promulgated by the encyclopedists, the Jews developed more normally, and where, moreover, in the middle of the eighteenth century, Hebrew was still almost the only literary language accessible to the masses, another successor of Luzzatto, Naphtali Hartwig Wessely (1725-1805), inaugurated the haskalah movement. His "Shire Tif'eret," or "Mosiade," which, though falling short of poetic inspiration, is written in a pure, oratorical style and is marked by a lofty, moral tone, made him, so to speak, poet laureate of the period.
Under the stimulus of Mendelssohn, literary societies were formed by the Maskilim in the large communities, which undertook to propagate modern ideas among the Jews and to familiarize them with modern secular life. Two schools or parties, which were more or less distinct, undertook this work: (1) the Biurists, a group of commentators and translators of the Bible who, under the leadership of Mendelssohn, desired to replace the Judæo-German dialect with pure German and to provide a more rational interpretation of the sacred text; (2) the Me'assefim, scholars connected with the first literary collection in Hebrew, "Ha-Me'assef," which was established in 1785 at Breslau by Isaac Eichel and B. Lindau, and which became the organ of the haskalah and a bond of union among the Hebraists.
Wessely may be regarded as the spiritual leader of the Me'assefim. Although a devout believer himself, he did not hesitate to meet the objections which the Orthodox rabbis of Austria and Germany opposed to all educational and civic reforms advocated by the government of Joseph II. In his eight messages (1784), "Dibre Shalom we-Emet," he emphasized the necessity, even from the standpoint of the Talmud, of these reforms as well as of secular studies, especially the study of modern languages and classical Hebrew and of manual training. Despite the opposition of the Orthodox rabbis of Germany and Austria, the aid of the liberal Italian rabbis enabled him to arouse public opinion in favor of the haskalah, and thus to prepare the way for the Me'assefim. "Ha-Me'assef" was discontinued after an existence of seven years, the French Revolution and the downfall of the old order of things destroying the interest in the Hebrew language, which was the only relic left to the emancipated Maskilim. The literary and scientific value of "Ha-Me'assef" is very doubtful. In their instinctive aversion to everything medieval and rabbinic, the Me'assefim went to the other extreme and adopted the affected style of the "meliẓah," which was cultivated by their successors, and which often ended in mere artificial juggling with words. As regards their content most of the pieces in the collection have only a slight interest, being merely puerile imitations of German pseudo-romanticism. Having broken with the Messianic ideal of traditional Judaism, and being unable to replace it with another ideal more in conformity with modern ideas, the Me'assefim ended in advocating assimilation with the surrounding people. But the importance of this first secular periodical in Hebrew was such that it imposed its name upon the entire literary movement of the second half of the eighteenth century, which is called "the period of the Me'assefim."
Among the Me'assefim, I. Eichel is noteworthy for his uncompromising attitude, unusual at that time, toward rabbinism, and Baruch Lindau is known for his works on the subject of natural science and written in Hebrew. The most influential, however, was the rabbi Solomon Pappenheim (1776-1814), an eminent philologist, whose sentimental elegy, "Arba' Kosot," was the book of the day and contributed much to the dissemination of the meliẓah. The most valuable contributors to "Ha-Me'assef" were, perhaps, the Me'assefim of Polish origin, especially the grammarian and stylist S. Dubno; S. Maimon, the commentator of Maimonides; the eccentric but gifted Isaac Satanow, author of the maxims "Mishle Asaf"; and the grammarian Judah Ben-Zeeb (Bensew) of Cracow.
In short, although the Me'assefim lacked originality, they accomplished the double task which they had set themselves. Hebrew, which had been almost entirely neglected in the Slavic countries, was again studied, giving rise to a literature more or less worthy the name and producing the Maskilim, a class of secular scholars who were active during the following century in awakening the masses from their medieval slumbers and in disputing, in the name of science and modern life, the authority of the Rabbis over the people (see Haskalah).
The nineteenth century did not open auspiciously for Hebrew literature, especially in western Europe. Hebrew disappeared more and more as a living language among the emancipated Jews, who had broken with their national ideals and were ambitious of assimilating themselves entirely with their neighbors. It is true that the Napoleonic wars gave birth to a whole literature of odes and hymns, many of which were sung in the synagogue, the most poetical and characteristic being Elie Ḥalfan Halévy's "Ha-Shalom" (Paris, 1804); but the few rabbis who continued to use Hebrew did not influence the masses. In Italy, however, there was still an ardent band of Hebrew scholars, among them the poet E. Luzzatto. About this time the center of literary activity was definitively transferred to the Slavic countries, where was witnessed a remarkable revival of Hebrew letters. The lead which Austria, followed by Italy, took in the movement at the beginning of the nineteenth century was later yielded to Russia; and that country has maintained its leadership down to the present time.
At the close of the eighteenth century Polish Judaism, which for a long time had been politically isolated and had devoted itself entirely to pious observance and to the study of the Talmudic law, came in contact with modern ideas, and awakened from its centuries of slumber. Galicia became a center for the haskalah. The "Me'assef,"which had been edited in a new series in Germany by Solomon ha-Kohen (Dessau, 1809-11), but without much success, was revived at Vienna and later in Galicia, and succeeded, first under the title of "Bikkure ha-'Ittim" (1820-31), and then under that of "Kerem Ḥemed" (1833-42), in gathering together many writers, the larger proportion of whom were Polish. In Poland, however, where the Jewish population lived apart, and could not even aspire to the dreams of equality and liberty of the German writers, the Maskilim were confronted with very complicated problems. On the one hand, political upheavals, modern instruction, and military service had paved the way for the mysticism of the Ḥasidim, which seized the masses despite the efforts of the liberal rabbis aided by writers like D. Samoscz and Tobias Feder.
On the other hand, light literature and romantic imitations could not satisfy scholars saturated with Talmudic study. In order to meet these needs Hebrew literature descended from its heights to devote its attention to the necessities of daily life. Joseph Perl, a Mæcenas and himself a scholar, encouraged this movement, and published the parody "Megalleh Ṭemirin," directed against the superstitions and the cult of the Ḥasidic ẓaddiḳim. Solomon Judah Rapoport (1790-1867), who began by translating Racine and Schiller, now turned to the critical study of the past. By his able reconstruction of the lives and the scientific work of the masters of the Middle Ages, by his careful critical method, and by his devotion to the Law and the Jewish spirit, Rapoport created the Science of Judaism.
But this science, which was warmly received especially by the cultivated minds of western Europe, could not satisfy the poor Polish scholars, living in entirely Jewish surroundings, and, no longer contented with the reasons advanced by the medieval masters, anxiously questioning the wherefore of the present and future existence of Israel. Then a master mind arose, to give an answer at once ingenious and adapted to the time. Nachman Krochmal, teaching gratuitously in his obscure corner of Poland, succeeded in uniting the propositions of modern critics with the principles of Judaism by the bond of nationalism, as it were, thus creating a Jewish philosophy in conformity with modern thought. Starting with Hegel's axiom of real and of absolute reason, Krochmal sets forth in his essays and in his ingenious Biblical and philosophic studies that the Jewish people is a concrete national organism, a separate unity, whose existence is justified, as the existence of all other nationalities is justified. But, at the same time, as the people of the Prophets, it has in addition a spiritual reason for its existence, which transcends national boundaries, and will join the entire human race in one bond.
Many poets, scholars, and popular writers besides Rapoport and Krochmal contributed to the dissemination of Hebrew and to the emancipation of the Jews of Galicia. The satirical poet Isaac Erter (1792-1841), whose collection of essays, "Ha-Ẓofeh le-Bet Yisrael," is one of the purest works of modern Hebrew literature, attacked Ḥasidic superstitions and prejudices in a vigorous and classical style, marked by bright fancy and a cutting sarcasm which heaped ridicule upon the rabbi and satire upon the ẓaddiḳ.
Meïr Halevy Letteris acquired merited renown and was for a long time considered poet laureate of the period by reason of his numerous translations, both in prose and in poetry, including "Faust" and works by Racine and Byron, and also on account of original lyric poetry, his song "Yonah Homiyyah" being a masterpiece. The popularizer of Galician history and geography, Samson Bloch, also won a reputation, although his insipid and prolix style does not warrant the success achieved by his works. The Galician scholar Judah Mises is noted especially for his violent attacks on rabbinical tradition and for his extreme radicalism, his work being continued by I. A. Schorr, the daring editor of "HeḤaluẓ."
Outside of Galicia, where the scholars issued their works, and where periodicals multiplied, some of which were published at Vienna, as "Kokebe Yiẓḥaḳ" (ed. Stern), "Oẓar Neḥmad" (ed. Blumenfeld), Kerem Ḥemed, etc., groups of Maskilim or individual scholars were to be found toward the middle of the century in all the countries of Europe. In Germany the campaign for and against religious reform gave opportunity to certain scholars and rabbis to conduct their polemics in Hebrew. Zunz, Geiger, Z. Frankel, Jellinek, Carmoly, Fürst, J. Schwarz, and others, also published part of their works in Hebrew. Moses Mendelssohn of Hamburg, a pupil of Wessely and author of the maḳamat "Pene Tebel" (Amsterdam, 1872), may be considered as the epigone of the Me'assefim. In the Netherlands, especially at Amsterdam, there was also a circle of epigones, including the poet Samuel Molder (1789-1862). In Austria, Vienna was the depot for publishing Hebrew books and periodicals, and Prague became an active center for the haskalah. The best known among the Maskilim here is J. L. Jeiteles (1773-1838), author of witty epigrams ("Bene ha-Ne'urim") and of works directed against the Ḥasidim and against superstition, and director of the "Bikkure ha-'Ittim." There were scholars in Hungary also, the most gifted among them being Solomon Lewison of Moor (1789-1822), a remarkable stylist, whose classical "Meliẓat Yeshurun" places him above all the poets of the period. Gabriel Südfeld, father of Max Nordau, and Simon Bacher, may also be mentioned. The reflex of this movement was felt even in Rumania (J. Barasch, etc.). Galicia, however, the center of the haskalah, finally succumbed to Ḥasidism, while the moderns gave up Hebrew, and ended by more or less openly advocating assimilation. A few circles of Maskilim barely succeeded in perpetuating the Hebrew tradition, but had no influence on the masses.
The Italian school exercised a more pronounced influence. I. S. Reggio (1784-1854) endeavored in his "Ha-Torah weha-Filosofiah" to reconcile modern thought with the Jewish law, while in his numerous writings and publications he openly sided with the German religious reformers. Joseph Almanzi,Ḥayyim Salomon, S. Lolli, and others wrote poems on the grandeur of the Law and the glory of Israel; these contained, however, not a spark of originality. More interesting perhaps is the only poetess of the period, Rachel Morpurgo (1790-1860), whose poems evince religious piety and a mystic faith in Israel's future. The most original and gifted Italian writer of the period is Samuel David Luzzatto (SHeDaL, 1800-65), whose influence reached beyond Italy and beyond his time. Gifted with an encyclopedic mind, Luzzatto did good work alike in poetry ("Kinnor Na'im"), in philology ("Bet ha-Oẓar" and "Betulat Bat Yehudah"), in philosophy, and in general literature. At the same time Luzzatto was the first modern writer to introduce religious romanticism into Hebrew and to attack northern rationalism in the name of religious and national feeling. "True Jewish science is founded on faith. . . . Faith is the only arbiter of supreme morality which gives us true happiness. The happiness of the Jewish people, the people of morality, does not depend on its political emancipation, but on faith and on morality. . . ." These ideas led Luzzatto into polemics with his northern friends, but they also helped to familiarize the believers in Russia with modern literature. Luzzatto thus found the key to the heart of the masses; and it was due to him that the work of the Maskilim, which had failed of permanent results in the West, in the East led to the development of a national literature. But in Italy also Hebrew declined more and more, even among scholars; and by the second half of the century it was almost entirely forgotten in the civilized countries of Europe.
The large bodies of Jews in the Polish districts annexed to Russia were entirely removed from all political and social life, and vegetated in a kind of profound resignation or in mystical piety. At the Europeanized city of Odessa, however, Galician Jews formed a circle of Maskilim, which, though active, was restricted in its influence. Here in the middle of the century were the scholars S. Pinsker and S. Stern, who were soon joined by the Karaite Firkovich and by the poet Jacob Eichenbaum. The acknowledged leader of these Maskilim of southern Russia was Isaac Bär Levinsohn, the apostle of humanism in Russia, whose influence penetrated even into government circles, but whose literary work has been overestimated. His personal endeavors, as well as his books ("Te'udah be-Yisrael" and "Bet Yehudah"), in which he recommends to the Orthodox the study of the sciences and the pursuit of manual employments, contributed to general emancipation rather than to that of Hebrew literature in particular. Lithuania, an eminently Jewish country, was more favored by circumstances; and here the haskalah was destined to lead to the unfolding of a literature. At Shklov, the first city to come in contact with the outside world, a group of humanists arose as early as the beginning of the century. But it was at Wilna, the capital of the country, abandoned by its native population and entirely removed from outside influence, that the Hebrew language flourished to an extraordinary degree. It was due to the enlightened tolerance of the gaon Elijah Wilna and the zeal of his pupils that Wilna became, toward the end of the eighteenth century, the home of excellent grammarians and stylists. About 1820 or 1830 a circle of Maskilim, called "Berliner," and evidently inspired by the writers of Germany, was formed, which assiduously cultivated modern Hebrew literature. Two eminent scholars lent special luster to this new literary movement. M. A. Günzburg well deserves his title "the father of prose," which he won for himself through his numerous translations, histories, and scientific compilations, his picturesque narration of the ritual murder at Damascus, his realistic autobiography "Abi'ezer" (a glowing criticism of customs of the past), and especially through his style, which is at once temperate, realistic, and modern.
At the same time Abraham Bär Lebensohn, called "the father of poetry," lent new radiance and vigor to Hebrew verse. The touching lyric quality of some of his poems, the profound pessimism, the plaint over life, and the fear of death, which betray the feelings of the Jew tried by the ordeal of ghetto life, all stamp him as the veritable poet of the ghetto. The simplicity of his ideas, his rabbinical dialectic and even his frequent prolixity only added to his popularity. His poems "Shire Sefat Ḳodesh" were extraordinarily successful; and his elegant, limpid, and often energetic style is still justly admired.
It was due to these two masters that modern Hebrew literature was widely disseminated throughout Lithuania, circles devoted to the haskalah being formed nearly everywhere. Hebrew became the language of daily life, the literary language, and, what is still more characteristic, the language of folk-lore. In fact, the list of popular Hebrew poems by known or unknown authors is too long to be noted here. The unhappy political situation of the Russian Jews under Nicholas I.—a period of persecutions of all kinds and of terror—had particularly contributed to produce this state of mind in the harassed people; and while Ḥasidism completed its work of producing intellectual obscurantism and hopeless resignation in the province of Poland and in southern Russia, mysticism found in Lithuania a redoubtable enemy in the sentimentality of the unfolding Hebrew literature.
The diffusion of the affected style of the meliẓah and the return to the language of the past awakened among this unhappy people a regret for the glorious Biblical times and a romanticism that was to bear rich fruit. Popular Hebrew poetry had become fundamentally Zionistic, as is evident from the anonymous poems then written ("Shoshannah, Ẓiyyon, Ẓiyyon," etc.). Literary romanticism soon followed upon this romantic tendency. The Lithuanian writers, sharing the life and patriotic thoughts of the people, and encouraged by the example of S. D. Luzzatto, who united modern culture with ardent patriotism, turned to romanticism. The prolific popularizer Kalman Schulman (1826-1900) inaugurated romantic fiction and introduced the romantic form into Hebrew through his Hebrew version of "Les Mystèresde Paris" ("Mistere Paris"); and he became one of the civilizers of the ghetto through his numerous popular scientific works and especially through his studies of the Jewish past. His pure, flowing, meliẓah style, his extreme sentimentalism as well as his naive romanticism in all matters touching Judaism, won for him great influence. For fully half a century he, in spite of his lack of originality, ranked as a master. The young and gifted writer Micah Joseph Lebensohn (1828-52), the first true artist and romantic poet in Hebrew, has left poems that are perfect in style, including an admirable translation of the "Æneid," lyrics of love, of nature, and of sorrow. But his masterpieces are romantic poems ("Moses," "Judah ha-Levi") dealing with Israel's glorious past.
The creator of the Hebrew novel was Abraham Mapu (1808-67), whose historical romance "Ahabat Ẓiyyon" exercised an important influence on the development of Hebrew. This novel, which deals with the golden age of Judah, that of Isaiah, and is couched in the very language of that prophet, is rather a succession of poetic pictures reconstructing the civilization of ancient Judea than a connected story. Simple and primitive in his thoughts, Mapu was so imbued with the spirit of the Bible that, although unconsciously, he was translated to ancient times, and, guided by a marvelous intuition, he succeeded in reconstructing the free, agricultural life of ancient Judah, in the land of the prophets, of justice, and of truth, the land of love and of the joy of life. This past, to renew which was the ambition of scholars and people, superimposed itself upon the present, and it was due to Mapu's novel that an entire people came forth from its long lethargy, to be reborn. Another novel ("Ashmat Shomeron") by Mapu served to increase his popularity.
Many imitators of these leaders of Hebrew romanticism appeared, and at a time when the political outlook checked all hopes of a better life: the Maskilim demanded, in the name of the prophetic past, the rights of civilization and progress. Many persons, also, were won over to the reading of secular literature. When in 1856 Silbermann founded at Lyck the first political journal in Hebrew, "Ha-Maggid," he met with unexpected success and had many imitators. In Austria, Russia, and even in Palestine, periodicals, more or less successful, appeared, furthering the cause both of Hebrew and of emancipation. Among these journals were "Ha-Karmel," founded by the scholar Samuel Joseph Fuenn; "Ha-Ẓefirah," founded by the popularizer of science C. Z. Slonimsky; and "Ha-Meliẓ," founded by A. Zederbaum.
The accession of Alexander II. radically changed the condition of the Russian Jews. A wave of liberty and radicalism swept through the empire, and for the first time the Russian Jews could hope for a lot similar to that of their western coreligionists. Awakened from their century-long sleep, the backward people of the ghetto began to shake off religious and other fetters, becoming imbued with modern ideas and adopting modern modes of life. In the large centers there was no serious opposition to emancipation, and the Jews flocked in masses to the schools and sought secular employments. The scholars themselves, encouraged by the government and by the notables of the great cities, decided to attack all the "domains of darkness" of the past, and to occupy themselves with the affairs of the day; and when the small provinces, less disturbed by the economic and moral upheavals, bitterly opposed this social emancipation—which led to forgetfulness of the Law and endangered the faith—the Maskilim knew no limits to their fury against the fanatics of the ghetto. Hebrew literature, at first realistic, attacking customs and superstitions in the name of utility and the reality of things, became more and more anti-rabbinical as it opposed religious tradition. Mapu led the way in his novel "'Ayiṭ Ẓabua'," which, though a failure from a literary point of view, depicts the backward types of the ghetto, the Tartuffes, and the enemies to progress, with a realism intentionally exaggerated. Abramowitsch, then a young man, described in his novel "Ha-Abot we-ha-Banim" the customs of the Ḥasidim and the struggles of their progressive sons. The aged poet Abraham Bär Lebensohn published his drama, "Emet we-Emunah" (written twenty-five years previously), in which he satirized cabalistic hypocrisy and mysticism. The number of popularizers of science, critics of belated customs, and belittlers of the religious past became legion.
The most distinguished among these writers was the poet Leon Gordon, an implacable enemy of the Rabbis, who personified in himself this realistic epoch. He began by writing romantic poems in imitation of the two Lebensohns. But when the horizon widened for the Russian Jews, he was filled with pity for the deplorable state of the Orthodox masses, to whom he addressed his "Haḳiẓah 'Ammi"—"Awake, my people, to a better life," i. e., "to the life of those about you." Of a mettlesome spirit, he unmercifully attacked the rabbinical law, the dead letter, the religious yoke weighing upon the masses. He regarded rabbinism as the greatest misfortune of the Jewish people, which killed the nation by delivering it up to the more secular Romans, and which hindered its participation in the realities of modern life. Gordon's activity covered all branches of literature. He ranks foremost in Hebrew literature as a satirical poet and critic of manners; and as a writer of fables he has no equal. But in spite of his apparent severity and his extreme skepticism, he remained at heart a patriot; and when he criticizes he does so in order to elevate the social life of the Jews, while grieving for the misery of the Messianic nation. Even in his historical poems, "Ẓidḳiyahu be-Bet ha-Peḳudot" and "Bi-Meẓulot Yam," he displays all his love for his people, which became more pronounced during the years of persecution and misery in Russia. But even then he believed that rabbinism was the enemy which prevented a national renascence. Gordon was among the first successfully to introduce Talmudisms into poetry.
The hopes of the Maskilim were not realized: Russia did not continue its radical reforms; and areaction began between 1865 and 1870. Disappointed in their dreams of equality, writers now bent all their energies to the work of the emancipation of individuals from among the masses, by disseminating instruction and by advocating the pursuit of trades as being necessary to fit the Jews to deal with the exigencies of life and to take part in the battle for subsistence incident to the economic changes of the time.
In Galicia a circle of scholars, under the leadership of Schorr, director of "He-Ḥaluẓ," and A. Krochmal, advocated religious reforms, boldly attacking tradition and even the law of Moses. But in Russia, especially in Lithuania, the scholars did not go so far. The ideology of the Maskilim was not accepted by the scholars who came in closer contact with the masses; and instead of attacking principles, they advocated practical reforms and changes in conformity with the needs of daily life. Utilitarianism succeeded to the ideology of the earlier scholars. Abraham Kowner in his pamphlet "Ḥeḳer Dabar," etc. (1867) attacked the masters of Hebrew for being idealists, and the press because it ministered neither to the strict necessities of daily life nor to the material well-being of the masses. Paperna and others were also pronounced realists. Moses Lilienblum inaugurated a campaign in favor of the union of life and faith—an endeavor perilous to its author and his emulators, but noteworthy as being the last attempt of rabbinic Judaism to adapt itself to the needs of modern life without giving up its minute observances. In his instructive volume "Ḥaṭṭot Ne'urim," Lilienblum has left a curious document describing the inner conflicts of a young Talmudist of the ghetto who has passed through all the stages between the simple life of an Orthodox believer and that of a skeptical freethinker. Viewing the life of the modern Jew, emancipated and indifferent to all that is Jewish, he is shaken in his highest convictions and cries out, "The Law will never go hand in hand with life." Lilienblum himself at last became a utilitarian, seeking in Jewish life nothing but individual material well-being, and testifying regretfully to the downfall of the haskalah by reason of an excess of ideology. "Young men must think and work for their own lives only." This became the watchword of the last Maskilim toward 1870.
The ghetto, however, had not yet spoken its final word. Within the confines of traditional Judaism itself the modernization of Hebrew and of the religious spirit was accentuated, leading to a compromise between faith and life. Orthodox journals were beginning to be the mouthpieces of a conservative party more in touch with modern ideas. Side by side with the realistic press—"Ha-Meliẓ," the organ of the realists; "Ha-Ẓefirah," a popular scientific journal; "He-Ḥaluẓ," an antireligious paper; and others—there were "Ha-Maggid" and "Ha-Lebanon," in which Orthodox rabbis enthusiastically advocated the cultivation of Hebrew and boldly offered plans for its rejuvenation as well as for the colonization of Palestine. Michel Pines, the antagonist of Lilienblum, published in 1872 his "Yalde Ruḥi," a treatise displaying deep faith, and in which he bravely defends traditional Judaism, insisting that ritual and religious observances are necessary to a maintenance of the harmony of faith, which influences the mind as well as the morals. Reforms are unnecessary, because believers do not feel the need of them, and freethinkers no longer cherish any beliefs. Like the mass of believers, Pines does not share the pessimism of the realists, but he firmly believes in the national renascence of Judaism. Any understanding between the two parties seemed impossible, the realists no longer believing in the future of Judaism, and the conservatives refusing all attempts at religious reform. Even skeptics like Gordon were alarmed to see "the young people leave without returning." Then, once again, a man arose to undertake the work of mingling the humanistic and the romantic currents and of leading the haskalah back to the living sources of national Judaism.
This was Perez Smolenskin, the initiator of the progressive national movement. He, also, began his career, in 1867, with a critical article of pronounced realism, "Biḳḳoret Teḥiyyah." But, disheartened by the fanaticism of the ancients and by the indifference and narrowness of the moderns, he left Russia and traveled first through Austria and later through the other western countries, sorrowfully noting the decadence of Judaism and of his patriotic ideal. At Vienna he issued in 1868 "Ha-Shaḥar," whose object it was to attack medieval obscurantism and modern indifference. For eighteen years Smolenskin continued this laborious campaign. In his "'Am 'Olam" (1872) he appears as the champion of the national preservation of Israel and of the realization of the rabbinical ideal freed from all mysticism. This secularization of an ideal which had constituted Israel's power of resistance had important results. In the first place it restored to Judaism and to Hebrew the best among the young men, who, while still profoundly attached to Judaism and to the life of the masses, had no longer any faith. This prepared the way for Zionism. But this was not all. Smolenskin recognized that one of the chief factors in the process of assimilation was the idea set forth by Mendelssohn and especially by his disciples (Geiger and others) that Judaism does not constitute a nation but a religious confession, an idea which would naturally induce the assimilation of the freethinkers. Smolenskin attacked this idea in a series of articles, which, though violent and often unjust, were yet needed to point out the priority of the national factor over the religious factor in the conservation of Judaism.
For eighteen years "Ha-Shaḥar" was the rallying-point for daring ideas and campaigns against the obscurantists and the moderns. It was especially noted for the realistic novels of Smolenskin, which, despite their technical shortcomings, take a high place in Hebrew literature. Side by side with character sketches of the ghetto and violent attacks on obscurantism appear a profound love for the masses and an ardent faith in Israel's future and in the apotheosis of young scholars endowed with the soul of prophecy, veritable dreamers of theghetto. For the first time the Hebrew language, as modernized by Smolenskin, took immense strides. "Ha-Shaḥar" published only original work; and through the support and influence of its editor there arose a whole school of realists who wrote in Hebrew. In addition to Gordon and Lilienblum, there were Brandstädter (the clever creator of the short story in Hebrew), S. Mandelkern, J. L. Levin, Ben Ẓebi, M. Cohn, Silberbusch, Mandelstam, and others. Science was represented by S. Rubin, D. Kohan, Heller, D. Müller, etc.
The influence of "Ha-Shaḥar" was felt throughout Hebrew literature. The popular poet and scholar of the south, A. B. Gottlober, founded his review "Ha-Boḳer Or" (1876) for the purpose of defending Mendelssohn and the haskalah. Gottlober himself contributed character sketches of the Ḥasidim, while the gifted writer R. A. Braudes began in its pages his novel "Ha-Dat weha-Ḥayyim," in which he depicts with masterly hand the struggle for the union of life and faith. Even America boasted a Hebrew journal, "Ha-Ẓofeh be-Ereẓ Nod," published by Sobel. A converted Jew, Salkinson, produced an admirable Hebrew translation of Shakespeare and of Milton, and the socialist Freiman published a review in Hebrew entitled "Ha-Emet" (1878). More important, however, was the great work by I. H. Weiss, "Dor Dor we-Dorshaw," dealing with the evolution of religious tradition. The sciences were taken up by H. Rabbinowitz, Pories, S. Sachs, Reifman, Harkavy, Gurland, J. Halevy, A. Epstein, Zweifel, Popirna, Buber, etc. Even the style was modernized, although the meliẓah did not disappear, as is seen by the writings of Schulman, Friedberg, and others.
Smolenskin's ideas bore fruit. With the return of the national ideal, Hebrew as the national language was again revived. Leon Gordon's literary jubilee was enthusiastically celebrated in St. Petersburg, and after his return from a journey through Russia in 1880, he was everywhere received as the national author, even by the students of the capitals. The appearance of anti-Semitism, the renewed persecutions, and the terrible years 1881 and 1882 finally destroyed the ideals of the haskalah, whose last Hebrew followers were forced to admit that Smolenskin was right.
When the first colonies in Palestine had been founded, and there existed no longer a belief in the possibility of religious reform without an upheaval of Judaism as a whole, it was commonly admitted that the work of Israel's national rebirth should be encouraged. The Hebrew press undertook especially to support the "Ḥobebe Ẓiyyon" (Chovevei Zion), as the Zionists were then called. Hebrew modern literature, which for a century had been progressive and secularizing, now became the instrument of patriotic propaganda. Often those who had formerly advocated reforms now urged the abandonment of modern ideas in order to conciliate the masses. Smolenskin alone did not abandon his civilizing mission, and remained a progressive realist. He finally succumbed to overwork and died in 1885. On his death "Ha-Shaḥar" ceased publication, just one century after the appearance of "Ha-Me'assef" (1785). This was the end of the haskalah. It now gave place to Zionism, which was at first hesitating, but gradually arose to the realization and assertion of its full strength.
The changing attitude in the profession of faith among Hebrew scholars and the young men who had returned to the national ideal and to the prophetic dreams was of advantage to Hebrew, which now came to be considered as the national language of the Jewish people and the tie uniting the Jews of all countries. While E. Ben-Judah at Jerusalem, through personal example and through propaganda in his journal "Ha-Ẓebi," restored Hebrew as a living language in Palestine, there was an increasing demand for Hebrew books in Russia, and the modernized Jews became ambitious to cultivate the national language. The success of the great literary collection "Ha-Asif" (edited by the writer N. Sokolow), which succeeded "Ha-Shaḥar," soon called forth other publications, noteworthy among which was the Zionistic work "Keneset Yisrael" by the historian S. P. Rabbinowitz, and the more scientific "Oẓar ha-Sifrut."
In 1886 L. Kantor began the publication of "Ha-Yom," the first Hebrew daily paper; and soon after "Ha-Meliẓ" and "Ha-Ẓefirah" were changed into dailies. A political press, also, was established, and contributed largely to the propagation of Zionism and to the modernization of Hebrew style. The founding of two large publishing-houses (the "Aḥiasaf" and "Tushiyyah"), through the efforts of Ben-Avigdor, finally regulated the conditions for the progress of Hebrew, and created a class of paid writers. Journals, more than other forms of literature, are multiplying, and there are a number even in America.
Literary activity was resumed after a short interval, now on an entirely national basis and in agreement with the many needs of a nationalist group. All the branches of letters, science, and art were assiduously cultivated, without neglecting the renascence of the Jewish people in the land of their fathers. In the field of poetry, besides Mandelkern and Gottlober, both converted to Zionism, are to be found Dolitzky, author of Zionistic songs describing the miseries of the Russian Jews; the two Zionist poets Isaac Rabinowitz and Sarah Shapira, and the gifted lyric poet M. H. Mané, who died at an early age. Perhaps the most noteworthy was C. A. Shapira, an eminent lyric poet, who, embittered by indignation, introduced a new note into Hebrew poetry—hatred of persecution. There is, finally, N. H. Imber, the poet of renascent Palestine and the author of popular songs. Bialik is a lyric poet of much vigor, an incomparable stylist, and a romanticist of note, while his younger contemporary Saul Tschernichowsky is proceeding along new lines, introducing pure estheticism, the cult of beauty and of love, in the language of the Prophets. The most gifted among the younger poets are S. L. Gordon, N. Pinés, A. Lubochitzky, Kaplan, Lipschütz, and A. Cohan.
In the field of belles-lettres Ben-Avigdor is the creator of the new realistic movement; this he expoundsin his psychologic stories and especially in his "Menaḥem ha-Sofer," in which he attacks, in the name of modern life, national chauvinism. Braudes became prominent as a romanticist. The aged A. J. Abramowitsch, who has returned to Hebrew, delights his readers by his artistic satires. I. L. Perez has in his songs, as in his poetry, a tendency toward symbolism. M. J. Berdyczewski attempts to introduce Nietzschian individualism into his stories and articles. Feierberg expresses the sufferings of a young scholar seeking truth. Goldin is a pleasing but sentimental writer of stories. Bershadsky is an outspoken realist and close observer. Others deserving mention are: J. Rabinovitz; Turov; A. S. Rabinovitz; Epstein; Asch; J. Steinberg; Goldberg; Brener; the Galicians Silberbusch and Samueli; the poet and prose-writer David Frischman, the translator of "Cain"; J. Ch. Tawjew, who is a distinguished feuilletonist and writer on pedagogics; A. L. Levinsky, the story-teller, author of a Zionist Utopia ("Travels in Palestine in 5800"); and J. L. Landau, the only dramatic poet. As Landau is a poet rather than a psychologist, his "Herod" and other plays are not intended for the theater. The Orientalist Joseph Halévy has published a volume of patriotic poems.
The reaction of 1890 in the work of colonizing Palestine and the evident necessity of taking some steps to meet such a reaction produced the work of "Aḥad ha-'Am" (Asher Ginzberg). He is notably a critic of manners; and in the name of pure ideology he attacked first actual colonization and then political Zionism. Judaism before everything, and not the Jews; a moral and spiritual, not an economic and a political center; a national ideal taking the place of faith—such, in the rough, is the idea of this acute and paradoxical publicist. A number of young men, influenced by his collection "Ha-Pardes" and the review "Ha-Shiloaḥ," founded by him and continued by Klausner, have followed in his lead. Quite opposite in tendencies is Zeeb Ya'beẓ, the editor of "Ha-Mizraḥ," a remarkable stylist and religious romanticist. L. Rabinovitz, the director of "Ha-Meliẓ," in his articles "Ha-Yerushshah weha-Ḥinnuk" also shows himself to be a defender of Jewish tradition, while Ben-Judah, the author of "Hashḳafah" (Jerusalem), constantly opposes obscurantism. N. Sokolow, by the power of his genius, forces Hebrew and modern ideas even upon the Ḥasidim. The critic Reuben Brainin is a close observer, an admirable stylist, and a charming story-teller. The historian S. Bernfeld is a scholarly popularizer of Jewish science.
Pedagogics and juvenile literature also have their periodicals and worthy representatives. Among these are: Lerner, S. L. Gordon, Madame Ben-Judah, Yellin, Grosovsky, and Berman. Many scholars have devoted themselves to science, as the late philosopher F. Misés; the grammarian J. Steinberg, who is an admirable writer; the anatomist, archeologist, and author of popular stories Katzenelenson; Neimark; and Hurvitz. There are, in addition, many translators and compilers who have rendered into Hebrew Longfellow, Mark Twain, Zola, and even De Maupassant; and this work is being actively carried forward. There is a steady increase in the number of daily and weekly journals, all of which, though Zionistic, are none the less progressive. With the emigration of the Russian Jews to foreign countries, Hebrew is finding new centers. In 1904 a course in modern Hebrew literature was instituted at the Sorbonne. Palestine is in a fair way to become the home of Hebrew as a living language, and in America and in England there are numerous publications in Hebrew. Even in the Far East, Hebrew books and periodicals are to be found in increasing numbers, stimulating national and social regeneration. But it must be remembered that the future of Hebrew is intimately connected with Zionism, which is accepted by the masses only by reason of the ideal of national renascence. Faithful to its Biblical mission, the Hebrew language alone is able to revive moral vigor and prophetic idealism, which have never failed where the sacred language has been preserved.
M. Mendelssohn, Pene Tebel, Amsterdam, 1872.
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Having access to important company data is an essential function of most businesses. Employees need to be able to download company files in order to work on daily activities, as well as upload information for others to use. The most traditional file transfer service that is still used by many companies today is FTP. While many people might have heard of FTP, or might even use it at work frequently, they still may be wondering: What is FTP?
FTP, which stands for File Transfer Protocol, is a network protocol that allows various users to transfer files over a server. The FTP server is able to store a large number of files that users can access and download onto their own computers. They are also able to upload files to the server to make them available to other people who have access to the network.
As was said before, FTP is the traditional method for transferring files over a network, and a number of different features have allowed it to still be relevant today. Perhaps the greatest advantage of FTP is that it creates a way to share large files back and forth between a group of people. For example, a manager can upload information to the server that they want to share with employees, and each employee can then go on the FTP server and access the file. FTP also allows a person to quickly download large files. Multiple files from a folder can all be downloaded at once, eliminating the need to individually download each file.
One of the major disadvantages of FTP is that it does not protect the files that are sent back and forth over the server. This means that all file transfers are susceptible to a security breach and could result in the loss of private company or customer information. Businesses that frequently handle private information typically use an SFTP server instead, which is a secure file transfer service that encrypts files before they go anywhere over the network.
FTP is a great way for a company to share large files with big group of people, and it is a great file transfer method for companies that don’t store private information. As one of the oldest methods of data delivery that is still used today, FTP has continued to be a flexible and relevant function for many businesses around the world.
Mobile security is an important asset to anyone using any form of computer or mobile device capable of internet access. Unfortunately, to some, such security is overlooked. It is easy to believe that personal and even business computers and phones will not be hacked because hacking seems like a difficult thing to do. However, around 9,500 malicious websites have been detected by Google on a daily basis. These sites include actual websites that were hacked into as well as sites that are specifically created to spread malware to unsuspecting visitors. Firewall systems, such as enterprise firewall, help guarantee mobile security for phones and other transportable computers. The six basic firewalls include embedded firewalls, enterprise software based firewalls, enterprise hardware based firewalls, SOHO software firewalls, SOHO hardware firewalls and specialty firewalls. Enterprise firewall software can support the security of multiple users, which is perfect for companies requiring more than basic IT security. Many security systems such as that provided by SourceFire include features such as an intrusion detection system and an intrusion prevention system that can identify and prevent any malicious sites or programs. Many businesses have begun to utilize such software for mobile security as well as in office security, but most still do not completely understand what security breaches can do. As a result, 76 percent of organizations have reported reputation damage due to online security breaches. Fortunately, antimalware and next generation network security programs have been set up for such businesses. Antimalware is used to fill the holes missed by other security providers, while next gen network security ensures that companies will continue to work toward and design new products that will help now, and in the future, against malicious software, keeping mobile security a major priority in business and everyday life. Mobile security does not have to be difficult, and with companies like this, it won’t be. Check out this website for more.
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How can I split a route or concatenate fragments?
Select a route and also select a range in the elevation chart. Then choose the command to trim the route to the selection in the chart.
Select a route and also select a location in the elevation chart. Then choose the command to split the route at the selection into two route fragments.
Select a route and choose the command to reverse the course direction. In other words to make the end point the new start.
Select two route fragments and choose the command to join the two fragments into one concatenated route.
Select a route, preferably a round trip, and select a location in the chart. Then choose the command to set the starting point of the round trip to the select position making the old start point a simple transit location on the course of the resulting route.
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On 19 October 2013, Kent Cooper at Roll Call published "Mary Matalin Contributes to Ted Cruz Campaign," reporting that Ms. Matalin donated $1,000 to the Ted Cruz for Senate Campaign Committee, on August 8th. "This was the same week that Sen. Cruz was at Matalin's house in New Orleans."
That's also the house of Matalin's husband, James Carville, who was Bill Clinton's top political strategist, and who was also one of Hillary Clinton's top strategists, as well as her chief spokesperson during her 2008 Democratic primary campaign against Barack Obama. Among the other donors who were listed for Cruz during his latest financial report, the largest individual donation was "$5,000 from Alvin Dworman." The largest PAC donation was "$5,000 from American Legacy PAC." At opensecrets.org, the top sources of contributions to Mr. Cruz's political career were listed as the Club For Growth, and Senate Conservatives Fund, which together donated over a million dollars; no other entity donated even $100,000. However, as Open Secrets also explained, the #5 contributor, Goldman Sachs, also managed his money and provided his health care, and his wife is a vice president of GS. Moreover, the #17 contributor, Berkshire Hathaway (headed by a "Democrat," Warren Buffett), hired Baker Botts as their law firm, and BB was the #8 donor. So, Cruz, who led the government-shutdown and the push for a default, had bipartisan support.
Who is Alvin Dworman? He is shown as having made in 2012 many multi-thousand-dollar donations to "Josh Mandel Senate Victory Committee," Mr. Mandel being the Koch-backed Republican candidate for U.S. Senate from Ohio, running against the incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator, Ohio's Sherrod Brown, who is perhaps the most progressive member of the U.S. Senate, and who is certainly the most powerful progressive Senator, because he heads the Senate Banking Committee. Dworman also made many multi-thousand-dollar donations to the "Scott Brown for US Senate Committee," because that Republican incumbent U.S. Senator from Massachusetts was running against Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren, who is the fastest-rising progressive in U.S. politics and even a presidential threat to the Republican Party and to Wall Street in general. Dworman also donated many times to Romney for President Inc., and made a single $25,000 donation to Romney Victory Inc. on 31 July 2012.
Dworman is the man who is widely alleged to have run Superior Bank FSB [Federal Savings Bank] when it failed and a settlement was reached with the FDIC entailing "$460 million and other consideration," so as to be able to pay the first $100,000 of each depositor's money; anything above that was not covered. As The New York Times reported on 7 August 2001, "Mr. Dworman operated the Illinois bank from New York." However, the bank was co-owned by Dworman along with Jay Pritzker. "Mr. Pritzker and Mr. Dworman each put up half the money to buy the institution they renamed Superior in 1989 for $42 million, as part of the federal government's bailout of failed savings and loans." So: it failed yet again, this time under Dworman's management. But this wasn't the pair's first bank-mess. "In the mid-1980's, Jay Pritzker invested with Mr. Dworman in River Bank, a Manhattan savings and loan that banking regulators later threatened to seize because of what they termed mismanagement." Jay's neice, Penny Pritzker, was a board member of Superior Bank, and a member of its Audit Committee, when the bank collapsed. Also, according to the Wall Street Journal, "Ms. Pritzker served as Superior chairman [from 1991] until 1994. During that period, Superior 'embarked on a business strategy of significant growth into subprime mortgages,' which were then packaged into securities and sold to investors." So, although Dworman ran the bank, Penny Pritzker oversaw his operation of it, and the two of them agreed on what type of bank it should be, and what business model it should pursue: soliciting sub-prime mortgages from unwitting poor people to be then packaged and sold off to unwitting rich people.
On 19 May 2013, Daily Kos headlined "Penny Pritzker as an Example of the Criminality of Our Elites," and "NBBooks" reported there that, "President Obama is nominating his top fund raiser, Penny Pritzker, to be Secretary of Commerce. Incredibly - perhaps I should write, sadly - the announcement is causing hardly a stir among the liberal and progressive blogosphere. At the very least, Greg Palast's May 4, 2013 post at Smirking Chimp, 'Billionaire Bankster Breaks into Obama's Cabinet,' should be going viral." NBBooks quoted extensively from "Gus Russo's 2006 tome Supermob: How Sidney Korshak and His Criminal Associates Became America's Hidden Power Brokers." The gist of this was that Jay Pritzker got the money from the Mafia to buy Hyatt. As NBBooks summarized: "The origins of the Pritzker family fortune was [sic: 'were'] her grandfather's mob connections when he was a tax attorney for a lot of people in 'The Outfit,' the Chicago mob, beginning under Al Capone, and continuing through the 1980s. This connection to organized crime was reportedly what financed the creation of Hyatt Hotels by Penny's father." Supposedly, one Frank Buccieri happened to be the president of a company called "Frontier Finance," loan-sharks. However, Buccieri only provided the "juice": He murdered the people who couldn't pay back their loans. Jay Pritzker, the mob's tax-attorney, "controlled Frontier Finance." And, supposedly, this was how he and his friend Alvin Dworman came to buy a failed S&L and rename it Superior Bank FSB, and how Penny and Alvin ended up running it as the prototype for the type of operations that JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, CitiGroup, Wells Fargo, and Goldman Sachs, later copied.
Subsequently, on 21 February 2011, the San Francisco Bay Citizen headlined "City Is Now Offering Social Media Giant a Tax Freeze to Move into Historic SF Mart Building," and reported that, "Alvin Dworman, the owner of a Market Street building proposed as the new headquarters for Twitter, gave sharply discounted office space in the same building to former Mayor Gavin Newsom's campaign for lieutenant governor." This wasn't Dworman's only involvement with Democrats (besides Penny Pritzker); city-data.com reports his "1989 / 1990Contributions Part 8" as including "$1000 to CRANSTON FOR SENATE '92 INC," where others donating the same amount to Alan Cranston's campaign included Robert E. Rubin, Roger C. Altman, and David Rockefeller - other banksters.
At the top, it's like an extended family, like any criminal organization actually, riven by disagreements, but united in their greed and psychopathy. It's a sort of club, but not all members of it are always friends of each other: they squabble with one-another. However, they are united in their joint effort to undermine democracy and to replace it with their own plutocratic if not kleptocratic rule.
So, that's how Senator Cruz's biggest individual contributor (and a major contributor to the Presidential campaign of Mitt Romney) was a family friend and business-partner of President Obama's U.S. Secretary of Commerce.
Senator Cruz's financial backers can virtually all be traced back to a network that was created by the Koch brothers. The two top contributors to Senator Cruz - the Club for Growth and the Senate Conservatives Fund - were both started by people who had been hired and promoted by the "charitable," "nonprofit" tax-exempt firms that had been founded, and that are controlled, by David and Charles Koch: two people who have turned lobbying and propaganda into tax-write-offs, so that you end up paying the taxes that they don't, for a government that does their bidding, even when (as with the shutdown) the opinion polls show that the public don't want the government to do that.
Welcome to post-Citizens-United U.S.A. The Republican Supreme Court has given the Kochs what they wanted; and now we are living with it - a government by a tiny elite, in which everybody knows everybody, delivering yet more privileges to themselves, while they strip the rights of everybody else, and call this the U.S.A. that the nation's Founders wanted, when those Founders actually went to war against and defeated Britain's aristocrats in a Revolution that has now been turned on its head.
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Islam arrived in Egypt and the entire continent of Africa in 640 AD with General Amr Ibn Al-Aas of the Rashidun Islamic Caliphate. The religion was only a couple of decades old at the time and expanding quickly with the influence of the Rashidun Caliphate, which had been formed following the death of the Prophet Mohammed in 632 AD. At the time, Coptic Christianity had recently surpassed the religion of Ancient Egypt to become the dominant religion.
In 640 AD, the Muslim army laid siege to the Roman fort of Babylon, the ruins of which still stand in Coptic Cairo. After conquering the fort, Amr Ibn Al-Aas marched to Alexandria in 641 AD, eventually forcing the city to surrender after a long siege and leaving Egypt in the hands of the Muslim conquerors.
How was the Islamic rule under Amr Ibn Al-Aas?
On orders from Caliph Umar back in the Muslim capital of Medina, Egyptian Christians were treated well under their new rulers. They were required to pay a poll tax in exchange for exemption from military service and the right to practice their religion, a system that had been common practice under the Persian, Roman, and Byzantine empires that ruled Egypt before.
In fact, Egyptian Coptic Christians had suffered persecution under Byzantine rule because of theological differences with the Byzantine Orthodox Church and it is thought that a significant number of Egyptian Copts welcomed the Muslims conquest.
Amr Ibn Al-Aas is regarded as one of the most important figures in the history of Egypt because he introduced Islam to the country. He founded a new city just north of the Roman fort of Babylon called Fustat. Today, the Mosque of Amr Ibn Al-Aas still marks the site of this city. The structure has been renovated several times and none of the original structure remains today, but it is still the site of the oldest mosque in Egypt and the entire continent of Africa.
The Muslim army captured Alexandria, establishing control over Egypt, but word came from the Caliph Umar in Medina that they should establish a new capital closer to Medina. Heeding the omen of the dove, Amr Ibn Al-Aas built a mosque at the site where his tent had stood and it became the center of the new Muslim capital of Egypt, Fustat. This mosque, founded in 642 AD and named after the general, was the first mosque on the continent of Africa.
The mosque of Amr Ibn Al-Aas was originally constructed using palm trunks, mud-brick, and palm leaves for a roof so none of the original structure remains and it has been rebuilt many times since the 7th century. The first arcades of columns were erected in 827, giving it a permanent form that has since been expanded. Only a small number of these original architraves remain today and can be viewed along the mosque’s southern wall. The building was most recently rebuilt in 1875.
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What's the maximum supported baud rate for the Adafruit Metro Mini 328 over the Serial interface for communication with a computer?
…and reading posts on the maximum Arduino baud rate suggests people have gotten close to this speed with the Arduino Uno, as per a StackExchange post, a post on the Arduino Uno forums, etc.
However, in testing, baud rates of 115200 seems consistent, 230400 seems hit-or-miss, losing bytes occasionally, and anything higher fails.
I realize the Adafruit Metro Mini is merely Arduino-compatible, not an Arduino exactly.
I want to control 300 DotStar LEDs via a USB interface (e.g. via Arduino) to the computer as fast as inexpensively possible, in a cross-platform (Windows/Linux) way. From what I've read, the .NET and Mono runtime can handle higher than normal baud rates, and indeed with 230400 it's able to read the Metro's announcement message, it's just not able to send the data without seemingly missing bytes.
I have an existing C# desktop project that currently controls 50 GE ColorEffects LEDs, and I'm reworking it to support any number of LEDs.
…resulting in 901 bytes total.
However, at 115200 baud rate, it's taking around 80 ms to send this data. Simply reading and discarding the data as fast as possible on the Metro results in 77 ms. I'd hope to get at least something four times as fast, if not as close to the update rate of the DotStars as possible.
From research, the Teensy appears to be capable of much faster USB serial communication and there's a shield for DotStars on Adafruit, but I don't know if that impacts the speed at which the computer can send to the Teensy, and/or if this would work.
// Hue, intensity, or both?
There are three things needed to run a particular bit rate on the serial (UART) interface of an Arduino.
The AVR UART and the USB/Serial device both have to support that bitrate. In theory, the AVR supports speeds "up to" 2Mbps (F_CPU/8) - in reality, the higher bitrates are very quantized - you can get exactly 250k, 500k, 1M, and 2M, but 230400bps would have a pretty high error (actually running at 250k) I don't know if the cp2104 has similar limitations.
The AVR UART and USB/Serial device have to agree within less than 5% on the bitrate. When you set the AVR to 115200bps, it actually generates a rate that's about 2.1% off (because of the "quantization.") That's usually OK, unless the CP2104 is off by 3% in the other direction.
The AVR has to have enough cycles to process the data. At 1Mbps, you have 160 clock cycles for each byte. That's not very much. In your case, you're also blasting out dotstar serial, which is similarly "costly", so I suspect you'll hit a CPU limit.
That seems about right. 115k is about 10k bytes/s, so 1k bytes takes about 0.1s.
in testing, baud rates of 115200 seems consistent, 230400 seems hit-or-miss, losing bytes occasionally, and anything higher fails.
I am surprised that you can't get 500k to work, at least in a test program. It might be worth additional effort to figure out why it's not working.
Yes, anything with "native" USB communications will be "much faster", both because USB is inherently faster, but also because the USB hardware will receive entire blocks worth of data without CPU intervention. This should include numerous 32u4 boards (feather and itsybitsy 32u4 boards, since this is the Adafruit forum!) as well as most of the SAMDxx boards. I've gotten in excess of 6Mbps throwing away data over a USB port on a SAMD21 board.
That makes sense! Given the 48 MHz rate of the CP2104, and the formula from the datasheet 6.1. Baud Rate Generation, it appears the USB/Serial device should also be able to perfectly align with 250k, 500k, 1M, and 2M. Specifically, 48 MHz÷(2×1×1 MHz) = 24, and with clock divider of 24, baud rate = 48 MHz÷(2×1×24) = 1 MHz, assuming bps and Hz are interchangeable in this situation.
Also makes sense. According to the CP2104 datasheet, its own error for e.g. 1Mbps should be within 0.25%.
I suspect this will be my limiting factor when I move into ludicrous refresh rates. Going by the 77 ms (discarding) vs. 81 ms (with LEDs) time to acknowledge differences, there's about a 4 ms performance hit to send to the LEDs via SPI. Still pretty fast.
Referencing your rough estimate (given 8 bits, 1 stop bit, no parity but add a bit anyways), 1 Mbps results in about 1 sec ÷ (1000000 bps × (1 byte ÷ 10 bit) × (1 cmd ÷ 1000 byte)) = 0.01 sec per cmd. With the above determined 4 ms for processing and .show(), 10 ms for raw receiving, that still offers 2 ms of overhead to fall within a 16 ms target for 60 FPS.
I'll put more effort into this, including experimenting with other test programs and different serial console methods (so far: "screen", Putty, C#'s SerialPort), etc. It's likely I overlooked something, whether in the serial terminal, Ubuntu 16.04's configuration, the Arduino sketch, etc.
I recall reading on USB blocks elsewhere, too, and that I should make sure to send as much data over serial at once, to let the drivers attempt to group writes (which I do - the entire 901 byte array is sent from the computer in a single write call).
It's probably excessive, but given the price difference of ~$5 for a one-off purchase, the room for expanding on-board capabilities is nice.
You might want to look into some method of compressing the communications protocol, as well.
Good advice, and I am considering this… though as a later resort. If I can get raw streams to work, I'll stick with that to avoid the unpredictability of compression ratios. I'm still developing LED patterns for e.g. music reaction, and it'd be rather unfortunate to devise some fancy new arrangement that breaks the compression setup.
One start bit, 8 data bits, one stop bit.
different serial console methods (so far: "screen", Putty, C#'s SerialPort), etc. It's likely I overlooked something, whether in the serial terminal, Ubuntu 16.04's configuration, the Arduino sketch, etc.
And if your Arduino or compatible processor has native USB support, then the 'baud-rate' is essentially meaningless, since everything will move at USB speeds regardless of the rate selected.
Thank you for the constructive feedback and detailed explanations!
Good advice! Unfortunately, I don't have a native Windows system around, and despite following a guide for VirtualBox Arduino passthrough, it wasn't properly detected and configured despite installing the drivers as per the Adafruit guide. The various methods mentioned for Linux/Unix didn't seem to unlock higher speeds, either, or at best, only twice, not near the 1 mbps to approach a smooth frame rate.
So.. ultimately, I opted for plan B as both of you noted, and got an ItsyBitsy M4 Express + a 74AHCT125 - Quad Level-Shifter.
I haven't yet connected the level shifter, but I can at least confirm that without optimization, 300 × 4 = 1200 bytes of data get received via USB and pushed out to the (not yet connected) DotStar strip within 4 ms, a significant improvement. The extra byte is for brightness; I may try to make use of the SK9822's constant current driver.
The only thing left hardware-wise is connecting the level shifter, which hopefully is hard to mess up - and I got two spares, just in case :) I'll probably repurpose the Metro Mini 328 to slim down an older Arduino Uno project.
Thanks again for your guidance! For now, I'll consider this resolved/worked around.
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