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0.999999	For the following milk market scenario, identify the type and cause of change. Scenario 4: The economy sinks into a recession, causing incomes of many Americans to decrease (assume milk is a normal good). That's incorrect. A decrease in incomes would cause the demand for milk to decrease, shifting the demand curve to the left. That's correct. A decrease in incomes would cause the demand for milk to decrease, shifting the demand curve to the left. 2. Based on Scenario 4, which factor caused the change in demand for milk? That's incorrect. A decrease in incomes would cause the demand for milk to decrease. That's correct. A decrease in incomes would cause the demand for milk to decrease.
0.99968	The verb ᓂᐹᐦᐋᐤ᙮ nipaahaau. S/he puts him/her to sleep. is made from the stem of the VAI verb ᓂᐹᐤ᙮ nipaau S/he sleeps. and what is called a causative verb final -haau. There are two causative verb finals, -haau for an animate object or -htaau for an inanimate object.
0.999994	How do I clear my YouTube history on iPhone / iPad? You can clear your YouTube history on your iPod touch, iPhone or iPad by tapping the three bars in the top left hand corner of the YouTube app. From the Settings page tap the "History" panel to open your YouTube history. From here you can tap the trash can icon and select "Clear History" from the pop up box to clear all the videos you have viewed. This will also clear the history from all your devices if you're logged in to your YouTube account. You can clear your YouTube history from your computer by navigating to the History page on youtube.com (link located in the sidebar underneath "What to Watch") and clicking the "Clear all watch history" button. To stop YouTube from keeping track of your history just click the "Pause watch history" button. This will not clear the YouTube links you have visited on your browser.
0.999935	You are a self-starter who can handle multiple priorities simultaneously. You should provide a background in software development, agile practices, content management, software testing. You will collaborate with product management and your team while analyzing and decomposing complex software features into simpler stories for planning and execution. You will collaborate with your team to manage and estimate the size and complexity of the features/stories and commit to what can be accomplished in an iteration.
0.954259	Hegelianism is a tradition of philosophy which takes its defining characteristics from a philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, which can be summed up by a favorite motto by Hegel (1770 – 1831), "the rational alone is real," meaning that all reality is capable of being expressed in rational categories. All of Hegel’s work was an effort to synthesize the conflicting religious and cultural elements of Christian tradition, Greek classicism, the Enlightenment and the Romantic movement into a meaningful, coherent unity. He did this by replacing Aristotle’s concept of static and constant being with the idea that all being is constantly in motion and constantly developing through a three-stage process popularly known as thesis, antithesis, and synthesis (Fichte and Schelling's formulation; Hegel's own formulation is: "in itself " (An-sich), "out of itself" (Anderssein), and "in and for itself" (An-und-für-sich)). These three stages were found throughout the whole realm of thought and being, from the most abstract logical process up to the most complicated and organized human activity, the historical succession of political and philosophical systems. Shortly after Hegel’s death, his school diverged into three currents of thought: the conservative Rightist Hegelians who developed his philosophy along lines compatible with Christian teachings and conservative politics; the “Young Hegelians,” or leftists who took up the theory of dialectic and historical progression and developed schools of materialism, socialism, rationalism, and pantheism; and the centrists who concentrated on logic and the philosophical system itself, which they diffused throughout the Western world. In Britain, Hegelianism strongly influenced the rise of British idealism. Hegel was born in Stuttgart, Germany in 1770 and died in Berlin, Germany in 1831. After studying theology at Tübingen he devoted himself successively to the study of contemporary philosophy and to the cultivation of the Greek classics. After about seven years spent as a private tutor in various places, he began his career as a university professor in 1801 at Jena. After an intermission of a year in which he spent as newspaper editor at Bamberg, and a short term as rector of a gymnasium at Nuremberg, he was made professor of philosophy at Heidelberg in 1816, and at the University of Berlin in 1818. Hegel's principle works are "Logic" (Wissenschaft der Logik, 1816), his "Phenomenology of Spirit" (Phänomenologie des Geistes, 1807), "Encyclopedia" (Encyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften, 1817), and Philosophy of History (Vorlesungen uber die Philosophie der Geschichte, 1820). His works were collected and published by Rosenkranz in 19 vols., 1832-1842, second edition 1840-1854. All of Hegel’s thinking was concerned with the apparent conflicts he observed in religion and politics. As a seminary student, Hegel found the souls of students of theology and philosophy disrupted by the contradictions between rationalism and supernatural religion, skepticism and faith. The political situation generated by the French revolution was in sharp contrast to the tyranny of the German princes, and the democratic beginnings of the British constitution. Hegel was also witness to the conflict between the tradition of orthodox Protestantism and its rationalist critics in Enlightenment Europe. He began his work when classicism predominated in the intellectual world of Europe, and his early political writings described the ideal of a Greek “polis” where politics and religion were combined and individuals participated democratically in both. European culture soon entered into the period of Romanticism, and this too was embraced by Hegel. All of Hegel’s work was an effort to synthesize these conflicting religious and cultural elements of Christian tradition, Greek classicism, the Enlightenment and the Romantic movement into a meaningful, coherent unity. He did this with the radical concept that, contrary to Aristotle’s portrayal of the nature of being as static and constant, all being is constantly in motion and constantly developing through a three-stage process of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. This theory of triadic development (Entwicklung) was applied to every aspect of existence, with the hope that philosophy would not contradict experience, but provide an ultimately true explanation for all the data collected through experience. For example, in order to know what liberty is, we take that concept where we first find it, in the unrestrained action of the savage, who does not feel the need to repress any thought, feeling, or tendency to act. Next, we find that, in order to co-exist with other people, the savage has given up this freedom in exchange for its opposite, the restraint of civilization and law, which he now regards as tyranny. Finally, in the citizen under the rule of law, we find the third stage of development, liberty in a higher and a fuller sense than that in which the savage possessed it, the liberty to do and to say and to think many things which were beyond the power of the savage. In this triadic process, the second stage is the direct opposite, the annihilation, or at least the sublation, of the first; and the third stage is the first returned to itself in a higher, truer, richer, and fuller form. These three stages are found succeeding one another throughout the whole realm of thought and being, from the most abstract logical process up to the most complicated concrete activity of organized mind, the historical succession of political systems or the development of systems of philosophy. In logic, which Hegel claimed was really metaphysics, the three-stage process of development is applied to reality in its most abstract form. According to Hegel, logic deals with concepts robbed of their empirical content; logic is simply an examination of the process without the contents. Hegel's study of reality begins with the logical concept of being. Hegel declared that being is essentially dynamic, tending by its very nature to pass over into nothing, and then to return to itself in the higher concept of becoming. Aristotle had supposed that there is nothing more certain than that being is identical with itself, that everything is what it is. Hegel added that it is equally certain that being tends to become its opposite, nothing, and that both are united in the concept of becoming. Aristotle saw a table as a table. Hegel saw as the whole truth that the table was once a tree, it is now a table, and one day it "will be" ashes. Thus becoming, not being, is the highest expression of reality. It is also the highest expression of thought, because we attain the fullest knowledge of a thing only when we know what it was, what it is, and what it will be, the history of its development. At the most basic level "being" and "nothing" develop into the higher concept “becoming;” farther up the scale of development, “life” and “mind” appear as the third steps of the process and are in turn developed into higher forms of themselves. All of these are stages of “becoming.” The only thing always present is the process itself (das Werden). We may call the process by the name of "spirit" (Geist) or "idea" (Begriff). We may even call it God, because at least in the third term of every triadic development the process is God. In considering the process of spirit, God, or the idea, it becomes clear that the idea must be studied (1) in itself, the subject of logic or metaphysics; (2) out of itself, in nature, the subject of the philosophy of nature; and (3) in and for itself, as mind, the subject of the philosophy of mind (Geistesphilosophie). Philosophy of nature takes up the study of the “process” or “idea” at the point where its development enters into “otherness” in nature, the point where it enters into the substantial, material world. Hegel referred to nature as “estranged spirit” and saw the whole world process as a process of divine self-estrangement. By “estranged” Hegel did not mean “annihilated” or “altered.” In nature the “idea” has lost itself, because it has lost its unity and is splintered into a thousand material fragments. But the loss of unity is only apparent, because in reality the “idea” has merely concealed its unity. Examined philosophically, nature reveals itself to us in a myriad of successful attempts of the idea to emerge out of the state of otherness, and present itself as a better, fuller, richer idea, namely, “spirit,” or “mind.” Mind is, therefore, the goal of nature and also the truth of nature. Whatever is in nature is realized in a higher form in the mind which emerges from nature. Hegel expressed the synthesis of the divine and the human in the doctrine of the absolute and the relative “Geist” (“mind” or “spirit”). “Geist” translates to “esprit” in French, “ruach” in Hebrew, “spiritus” in Latin, and “pneuma” in Greek, but in English this word has been more or less lost, partly due to British empiricism and partly to Descartes’ division of man into intellect and body. In English Hegel’s phenomenology of “Geist” has been translated as phenomenology of “mind,” but in this case the word “mind” implies an element of spiritual power, and not simply intellectual movement. The philosophy of mind begins with the consideration of the individual, or subjective, mind. It is soon perceived, however, that individual, or subjective, mind is only the first stage, the "in-itself" stage, of mind. The next stage is objective mind, or mind objectified in law, morality, and the State. This is mind in the condition of "out-of-itself." There follows the condition of absolute mind, the state in which mind rises above all the limitations of nature and institutions, and is subjected to itself alone in art, religion, and philosophy. The essence of mind is freedom, and its development must consist in breaking away from the restrictions imposed on it in its “otherness” by nature and human institutions. Hegel's philosophy of the State, his theory of history, and his account of absolute mind are the most interesting portions of his philosophy and the most easily understood. The State, he says, is mind objectified. The individual mind, which, on account of its passions, its prejudices, and its blind impulses, is only partly free, subjects itself to the yoke of necessity, the opposite of freedom, in order to attain a fuller realization of itself in the freedom of the citizen. This yoke of necessity is first met with in the recognition of the rights of others, next in morality, and finally in social morality, of which the primal institution is the family. Aggregates of families form civil society, which, however, is but an imperfect form of organization compared with the State. The State is the perfect social embodiment of the idea, and stands, in this stage of development, for God Himself. The State, studied in itself, furnishes for our consideration constitutional law. In relation to other States it develops international law; and in its general course through historical vicissitudes it passes through what Hegel calls the "Dialectics of History." Hegel teaches that the constitution is the collective spirit of the nation and that the government is the embodiment of that spirit. Each nation has its own individual spirit, and the greatest of crimes is the act by which the tyrant or the conqueror stifles the spirit of a nation. War, according to Hegel, is an indispensable means of political progress, a crisis in the development of the idea which is embodied in the different States; out of this crisis the better State is certain to emerge victorious. Historical development is, therefore, a rational process, since the State is the embodiment of reason as spirit. All the apparently contingent events of history are, in reality, stages in the logical unfolding of the sovereign reason which is embodied in the State. Passions, impulse, interest, character, personality are all either the expression of reason or the instruments which reason molds for its own use. Historical events should therefore be understood as the stern, reluctant working of reason towards the full realization of itself in perfect freedom. Consequently, we must interpret history in purely rational terms, and sort the succession of events into logical categories. The widest view of history reveals three important stages of development: Oriental monarchy (the stage of oneness, of suppression of freedom); Greek democracy (the stage of expansion, in which freedom was lost in unstable demagogy); and Christian constitutional monarchy (which represents the reintegration of freedom in constitutional government). Even in the State, mind is limited by subjection to other minds. There remains the final step in the process of the acquisition of freedom, namely, that by which absolute mind in art, religion, and philosophy subjects itself to itself alone. Art is the mind’s intuitive contemplation of itself as realized in the art material; and the development of the arts has been conditioned by the ever-increasing "docility" with which the art material lends itself to the actualization of mind or the idea. In religion, mind feels the superiority of itself to the particularizing limitations of finite things. In the philosophy of religion, as in the philosophy of history, there are three great moments: Oriental religion, which exaggerated the idea of the infinite; Greek religion, which gave undue importance to the finite; and Christianity, which represents the union of the infinite and the finite. Last of all, absolute mind, as philosophy, transcends the limitations imposed on it even in religious feeling, and, discarding representative intuition, attains all truth under the form of reason. Whatever truth there is in art and in religion is contained in philosophy, in a higher form, and free from all limitations. Philosophy is, therefore, "the highest, freest and wisest phase of the union of subjective and objective mind," and the ultimate goal of all development. No other philosophical school could compete with Hegel’s system in its rigorous formulation, its richness of content and its attempt to explain the totality of culture. For more than thirty years, it brought together the best minds of German philosophy. As its influence spread, Hegel’s thought provoked increasingly lively reactions, and was re-articulated numerous times as it mingled with contrasting philosophical positions. There are four distinct stages in the historical development of Hegelianism. The first was the immediate crisis of the Hegelian school in Germany from 1827 through 1850, when the school was always involved in polemics against its adversaries, and divided into three currents: the Hegelian Rightists, the Young Hegelians, and the centrists. During the second phase, usually referred to as Neo-Hegelianism, from 1850 to 1904, when Hegelianism diffused into other countries, the ideas of the centrists were predominant and the primary interest was in logic and a reform of the dialectic. The third stage, a renaissance of Hegelianism, began in Germany during the first decade of the twentieth century, after Wilhelm Dilthey discovered unpublished papers from Hegel’s youth. It stressed a critical reconstruction of the genesis of Hegel’s thought, with special attention to the Enlightenment and Romanticist influences and to possible irrationalistic attitudes. This phase was characterized by the publication of original texts and historical studies, and by an interest in philology. After World War II, the revival of Marxist studies in Europe revived many of the polemical themes of the school’s early years, and brought about renewed interest in Hegel’s influence on Marx’s interpretations of political and social problems. Early Hegelianism passed through three periods; the polemics during the life of Hegel (1816-1831), religious controversies (1831-1839) and political debates (1840-1844). While Hegel was alive, the polemics stemmed from various objections to Hegelian thought and not from disagreements within the school. The history of Hegelianism began from the period when Hegel taught in Berlin and the publication of Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im Grundrisse (1821; Eng. trans., The Philosophy of Right, 1942). This book was criticized by Johann Herbart for mixing the monism of Spinoza with the transcendentalism of Kant, and the liberal press criticized Hegel for attacking Jakob Fries, a psychologizing Neo-Kantian, in the Introduction. Hegel was also criticized by disciples of Friedrich Schelling, an objective and aesthetic idealist, and of Friedrich Schleiermacher, a seminal thinker of modern theology; and by speculative theists such as Christian Weisse of Leipzig and Immanuel Fichte, the son of Johann Fichte. Some of Hegel’s responses to these criticisms made a considerable impact, particularly eight articles in the Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik (founded 1827; “Yearbooks for Scientific Critique”), a journal of the Hegelian right. Among Hegel’s most loyal disciples and defenders were Hermann Hinrichs, his collaborator, and Karl Rosenkranz. Soon after Hegel’s death, the school divided into three currents of thought. The “Hegelian Rightists,” in which Hegel’s direct disciples participated, defended Hegel against charges that his philosophy was liberal and pantheistic. They developed his philosophy along lines which they considered to be in accordance with Christian teaching, and sought to uphold its compatibility with the conservative political politics of the Restoration which followed the defeat of Napoleon. They included Karl Friedrich Göschel, Johann Philipp Gabler, Johann Karl Friedrich Rosenkranz, and Johann Eduard Erdmann. Until Feuerbach’s “Thoughts regarding Death and Immortality” (1830), Hegelianism was primarily represented by the “Old Hegelians” who emphasized the Christian and conservative elements in his writings. After Feuerbach and the “Life of Jesus” (1835) of D.F. Strauss, the denial of personal religion became more prominent. The “Hegelian Leftists" (also referred to as "Young Hegelians") were mostly indirect disciples of Hegel who interpreted Hegelianism in a revolutionary sense, at first pantheistic and later atheistic. They emphasized the dialectic as a “principle of movement” and attempted to develop a rational political and cultural reality, finding in Hegel’s dialectic the ammunition to attack the existing bourgeois, religious, monarchical social order, now regarded as only a moment in the forward development of history. The Leftists accentuated the anti-Christian tendencies of Hegel's system and developed schools of materialism, socialism, rationalism, and pantheism. They included Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach, Richter, Karl Marx, Brüno Bauer, and Otto Strauss. Max Stirner socialized with the left Hegelians but built his own philosophical system largely opposing that of these thinkers. The centrist Hegelians were more concerned with the philosophical significance of Hegel’s system, its genesis and problems of logic. This current of thought was predominant in Neo-Hegelianism, as Hegelian thought diffused throughout Europe and the United States. The diffusion of Hegelianism outside of Germany took two directions: Europeans were concerned with addressing political and cultural problems, while those in the United States were more interested in the philosophy of history and in political theory. The publication of The Secret of Hegel by James Hutchinson Stirling in 1865 introduced Hegelianism to Britain where, transmuted into absolute idealism, it became part of the dominant academic philosophy in Britain until challenged by Russell and Moore in Cambridge, and writers such as J. Cook-Wilson and H.H. Prichard at Oxford, at the beginning of the twentieth century. In Britain, Hegelianism was represented during the nineteenth century by the British Idealist school of James Hutchison Stirling, Thomas Hill Green, William Wallace, John Caird, Edward Caird, Richard Lewis Nettleship, J. M. E. McTaggart, and Baillie. British interest in Hegel was largely powered by political thought. In Denmark, Hegelianism was represented by Johan Ludvig Heiberg and Hans Lassen Martensen from the 1820s to the 1850s. Benedetto Croce and Étienne Vacherot were the leading Hegelians towards the end of the nineteenth century in Italy and France, respectively. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was a French Hegelian Socialist. Among Catholic philosophers who were influenced by Hegel the most prominent were Georg Hermes and Anton Gunther. In eastern European, Hegelianism was represented by philosophers and critics such as the Polish count Augustus Cieszkowski, a religious thinker whose philosophy of action was initially influenced by the left; the theistic metaphysician Bronislaw Trentowski; in Russia by literary critic Vissarion Belinsky, the democratic revolutionary writers Aleksandr Herzen and Nikolay Chernyshevsky, and certain anarchists such as the Russian exile and revolutionist Mikhail Bakunin. Hegelianism in North America was represented by Thomas Watson and William T. Harris. In its most recent form it seems to take its inspiration from Thomas Hill Green, and whatever influence it exerts is opposed to the prevalent pragmatic tendency. Its two centers, the schools in St. Louis and Cincinnati, seemed to duplicate the German division into a conservative and a revolutionary current. The conservative Hegelians of the St. Louis school included the German Henry Brokmeyer, and William Harris, founders of the St. Louis Philosophical Society, which published an influential organ, The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. They sought a dialectical and speculative foundation for American democracy and a dialectical interpretation of the history of the United States. The Cincinnati group centered around August Willich, a former Prussian officer, and John Bernard Stallo, an organizer of the Republican Party. Willich founded the Cincinnati Republikaner, in which he reviewed Marx's Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie (1859) and sought to base the principles of social democracy on Feuerbach’s humanism. Stallo interpreted the democratic community as the realization of the dialectic rationality of the Spirit, with a rigorous separation of church and state. The far-reaching influence of Hegel is partially due to the vastness of the scheme of philosophical synthesis which he conceived and partly realized. A philosophy which undertook to organize every department of knowledge, from abstract logic up to the philosophy of history, under the single formula of triadic development, had a great deal of attractiveness. But Hegel's influence is due in a still larger measure to two extrinsic circumstances. His philosophy is the highest expression of that spirit of collectivism which characterized the nineteenth century. Hegel especially revolutionized the methods of inquiry in theology. The application of his notion of development to biblical criticism and to historical investigation is obvious when the spirit and purpose of the theological literature of the first half of the nineteenth century is compared to that of contemporary theology. In science, too, and in literature, the substitution of the category of “becoming” for the category of “being” is due to the influence of Hegel's method. In political economy and political science the effect of Hegel's collectivistic conception of the State supplanted to a large extent the individualistic conception which had been handed down from the eighteenth century to the nineteenth. Hegel, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Hegel: Social and Political Thought, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. This page was last modified on 12 December 2017, at 17:41.
0.942734	What do New Zealand, South Korea, China, Japan and a good chunk of the United States have in common? They all convert leftover waste food into delicious meat, via the pig. In the UK, we used to recycle our food waste in the same way: pigs and humans have lived in perfect harmony for more than 5,000 years precisely because pigs are such good converters of waste. It was only after the outbreak of foot and mouth in 2001 that a temporary ban was imposed on the swill industry, a ban that then spread across Europe and suddenly had a distinctly permanent feel to it. Many thought the ban justified; foot and mouth saw the slaughter of millions of livestock and countless farmers were driven out of business. Some scientists supported the theory that the outbreak of the disease was due to a negligent farmer failing to "cook" his swill properly, but there remains doubt as to whether foot and mouth actually came from his farm. He was breaking all the rules, but the UK serotype of foot and mouth bore an uncanny resemblance to the South African serotype that had been running rampant and we know that rules were being broken on the importing of contaminated meat. Unfortunately, the investigations were inadequate and the consequence was that scores of farmers who had invested in machinery to treat their swill safely were put out of business. The crucial point here is that the cooking of swill is essential to its use; failure to do so is dangerous. Robust systems to heat-treat food waste effectively have been established in many countries. But in the UK, we have the dangerous situation where food waste is being dumped in landfill up and down the country, creating a potentially huge health hazard from the possible spread of disease from gulls, rodents and other vermin that feast on it. The ban is also having a negative impact on the business of rearing pigs. Prevented from feeding swill to their pigs, farmers are now left to buy soy, maize and wheat on the global market. As food prices soar, so does the cost of their feed. Unfortunately for the planet, the majority of this feed is grown halfway across the world in places as precious as the Amazon basin and the Cerrado grasslands. Thus the pressure to destroy ecosystems is exponentially increased while in the UK we throw out about 15m tonnes of waste a year. Meanwhile, we are worrying about how to grow enough food for the world's population and simultaneously using almost 40% of the grain we grow to feed animals instead of humans. If we diverted all the food waste that is being ditched to be treated and fed to animals, we would save enough grain to feed about 3 billion people. This is the argument of The Pig Idea. Stop wasting food; instead, fund research into regulated processing plants. In this way, we can safely cook food waste and convert it into nutritious animal feed. Not only would we be lowering the cost of feed for pig farmers, but we would also be saving the planet's precious resources.
0.969702	If the answer provided does not satisfy your curiosity, the USENET section goes a little bit more in detail. How and when did Freemasonry start ? It is not known. The earliest recorded ‘making ’ of a Freemason in England is that of Elias Ashmole in 1646. Organized Freemasonry began with the founding of the Grand Lodge of England on 24 June 1717, the first Grand Lodge in the world. Ireland followed in 1725 and Scotland in 1736. All the regular Grand Lodges in the world trace themselves back to one or more of the Grand Lodges in the British Isles. There are two main theories of origin. According to one, the operative stonemasons who built the great cathedrals and castles had lodges in which they discussed trade affairs. They had simple initiation ceremonies and, as there were no City and Guilds certificates, dues cards or trade union membership cards, they adopted secret signs and words to demonstrate that they were trained masons when they moved from site to site. In the 1600s, these operative lodges began to accept non-operatives as "gentlemen masons". Gradually these non-operatives took over the lodges and turned them from operative to ‘free and accepted ’ or ‘speculative ’ lodges. The other theory is that in the late 1500s and early 1600s, there was a group which was interested in the promotion of religious and political tolerance in an age of great intolerance when differences of opinion on matters of religion and politics were to lead to bloody civil war. In forming Freemasonry, they were trying to make better men and build a better world. As the means of teaching in those days was by allegory and symbolism, they took the idea of building as the central allegory on which to form their system. The main source of allegory was the Bible, the contents of which were known to everyone even if they could not read, and the only building described in detail in the Bible was King Solomon's Temple, which became the basis of the ritual. The old trade guilds provided them with their basis administration of a Master, Wardens, Treasurer and Secretary, and the operative mason's tools provided them with a wealth of symbols with which to illustrate the moral teachings of Freemasonry. Membership is open to men of all faiths who are law-abiding, of good character and who acknowledge a belief in God. Freemasonry is a multi-racial and multi-cultural organization. It has attracted men of goodwill from all sectors of the community into membership. There are similar Masonic organizations for women. How much does it cost to be a Freemason ? Why do people join and remain members ? People became Freemasons for a variety of reasons, some as the result of family tradition, others upon the introduction of a friend or out of a curiosity to know what it is all about. Is it true that Freemasons only look after each other ? No. From its earliest days, Freemasonry has been involved in charitable activities. Since its inception, Freemasonry has provided support not only for widows and orphans of Freemasons but also for many others within the community. Whilst some Masonic charities cater specifically but not exclusively for Masons or their dependents, others make significant grants to non-Masonic organizations. On a local level, lodges give substantial support to local causes. Are Freemasons expected to prefer fellow Masons at the expense of others ? Why don't you have women members ? Traditionally, Freemasonry under the United Grand Lodge of England has been restricted to men. The early stonemasons were all male, and when Freemasonry was organizing, the position of women in society was different from today. if women wish to join Freemasonry, there are two separate Grand Lodges in England restricted to women only. How many Freemasons are there ? What happens at lodge meetings ? Freemasons are encouraged to speak openly about their membership, while remembering that they undertake not to use it for their own or anyone else's advancement. As members are sometimes the subject of discrimination which may adversely affect their employment or other aspects of their lives, some Freemasons are understandably reticent about discussing their membership. In common with many other national organizations, Grand Lodge neither maintains nor publishes a list of members and will not disclose names or member's details without their permission. The meeting places and halls used by Freemasons are readily identifiable, are listed in telephone directories and in many areas are used by the local community for activities other than Freemasonry. Freemasons' Hall in London is open to the public and ‘open days’ are held in many provincial centers. Isn't ritual out of place in modern society ? How many degrees are there in Freemasonry ? Basic Freemasonry consists of the three ‘Craft ’ degrees (Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason) completed by the Royal Arch degree (Chapter). There are many other Masonic degrees and Orders which are called ‘additional ’ because they add to the basis of the Craft and Royal Arch. They are not basic to Freemasonry but add to it by further expounding and illustrating the principles stated in the Craft and Royal Arch. Some of these additional degrees are numerically superior to the third degree but this does not affect the fact that they are additional to and not in anyway superior to or higher than the Craft. The ranks that these additional degrees carry have no standing with the Craft or Royal Arch. Why do Freemasons take oaths ? What promises do Freemasons take ? New members make solemn promises concerning their conduct in the lodge and in society. These promises are similar to those taken in court or upon entering the armed services or many other organizations. Each member also promises to keep confidential the traditional methods of proving he is a Freemason which he would use when visiting a lodge where he is not known. The much publicized ‘traditional penalties ’ for failure to observe these undertakings were removed from the promises in 1986. They were always symbolic not literal and refer only to the pain any decent man should feel at the thought of violating his word. Why do your obligations contain hideous penalties ? Why do you call it the VSL and not the Bible ? To the majority of Freemasons the Volume of the Sacred Law is the Bible. There are many in Freemasonry, however, who are not Christian and to them the Bible is not their sacred book and they will make their promises on the book which is regarded as sacred to their religion. The Bible will always be present in an English lodge but as the organization welcomes men of many different faiths, it is called the Volume of the Sacred Law. Thus, when the Volume of the Sacred Law is referred to in ceremonies, to a non-Christian it will be the holy book of his religion and to a Christian it will be the Bible. Why do you call God the Great Architect ? Freemasonry embraces all men who believe in God. Its membership includes Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, Parsees and others. The use of descriptions such as the Great Architect prevents disharmony. The Great Architect is not a specific Masonic god or an attempt to combine all gods into one. Thus, men of differing religion pray together without offense being given to any of them. Why do you wear regalia ? Wearing regalia is historical and symbolic and, like a uniform, serves to indicate to members where they rank in the organization. Why do grown men run around with their trousers rolled up ? Freemasonry is not a religion, and Masons who treat it as such are mistaken. It has no theology and does not teach any route to salvation. A belief in God, however, is an essential requirement for membership, and Freemasonry encourages its members to be active in their own religions as well as in society at large, although that is not a requirement for membership. Masonry is a fraternal organization that encourages morality and charity and studies philosophy. It has no clergy and no sacraments. You said that Masonry was not a religion and had no priests, but I have heard the term the Grand High Priest"-- what gives? Similarly, anti-Masons like to quote (out of context, quite often) Manly Hall (who wrote many of his books before becoming a Freemason), Coil's Masonic Encyclopedia , Albert Mackey, and others. Many of these men did their writing a century or more ago and use an idiom not well understood by those living today who are not familiar with such writing styles. These books are useful reference sources for those who seek to improve their knowledge of Masonry and who wish to sharpen their wits against the whetstone of great thinkers, but they are not doctrine. For example, it is sometimes claimed that the letter "G" found in the Master Mason's jewel, along with the Square and Compasses, is a substitute for a phallic symbol. But there is nothing in Masonry to support such a statement; it is complete fiction. The letter "G" stands for God (it is used by Masons who speak other languages due to the modern origins of Masonry in English-speaking countries); in the Scottish Rite, the Hebrew letter "yodh", which is the first letter of the Tetragrammaton, or Ineffable Name, plays the same role. Isaiah 14 is a chapter with a prophecy against the kings of Babylon, specifically Nebuchadnezzar. The quoted verse is rendered, in my Bible, "Day-star, son of the morning, how hast thou fallen?" In this passage, the prophet alleges that the arrogant king of Babylon has thought himself as glorious as a celestial body, but that the destruction of the kingdom of Babylon shall surely bring him back to earth. The word here translated as "day-star" is, in Hebrew, "heyleyl," and refers to the planet Venus. The ancient Greeks and Romans both used different words for this planet when it appeared in the morning sky from its appearance in the evening sky. The Greeks called it Hesperus in the evening and Phosphorus in the morning; the Romans called it Venus in the evening and Lucifer in the morning. Hence, the translation of the Hebrew, via Greek, into Latin (i.e., from the Hebrew to the Septuagint to the Vulgate), naturally would introduce the word "Lucifer" as the correct Latin translation of the Hebrew. Assertions about "pagan" material in Masonry may stem from the study of material from the ancient world in some of the degrees. But this is not paganism (the worship of idols, natural objects, or polytheistic human-like deities). In fact, many of the early teachings of the Church depended heavily on the works of such "pagan" philosophers as Plato and Aristotle; Christianity has absorbed such pagan elements as the Christmas tree, the name Easter (from a pagan fertility goddess), and the actual date of Christmas (pre-empting the Roman's pagan winter solstice festival of the Saturnalia). Indeed, the mythos about the fall of Lucifer from heaven to the underworld is of pagan origin, derived from the Greco-Roman legend of Hephaestus (Vulcan) who fell from Mt. Olympus to the nether regions, where his forges were located, and in ancient art is depicted as lame from the fall. There have been many thinkers and learned men in cultures other than that of the West in the Judea-Christian era, and it is not "paganism" to study them. Why don't some Churches like Freemasons ? There are elements within certain churches who misunderstand Freemasonry and confuse secular rituals with religious liturgy. Although the Methodist Conference and the General Synod of the Anglican Church have occasionally criticized Freemasonry, in both Churches there are many Masons and indeed others who are dismayed that the Churches should attack Freemasonry, an organization which has always encouraged its members to be active in their own religion. Why will Freemasonry not except Roman Catholics as members ? Freemasonry naturally tends to attract those with a concern for people and a sense of social responsibility and purpose. There are members, therefore, who are involved in politics at local, national and international level. Equally there are members who take an active interest in non-Masonic charitable organizations and other community groups. Isn't Freemasonry just another political pressure group ? Are there not Masonic groups who are involved in politics ? There are groups in other countries who call themselves Freemasons and who involve themselves in political matters. They are not recognized or countenanced by the United Grand Lodge of England and other regular Grand Lodges who follow the basic principles of Freemasonry and ban the discussion of politics and religion at their meetings. Is Freemasonry involved in the Community ? throughout England and Wales each year. For the future, opportunities to obtain or provide matched funding are periodically examined with a view to enhancing the impact of the support Freemasonry can give to specific projects. The personal generosity of Freemasons and the collective fundraising efforts of almost 8,000 lodges, however, will continue to determine the contribution Freemasonry makes within the community. Is Freemasonry an International order ? Ever since George Bush (not a Freemason) publicized this term, it has been an obsession of certain groups. They point to the wording on the dollar bill (see above), which reads "novus ordo seclorum." The phrase on the bill means "a new order of the ages," and refers to the completely novel (and still unique) form of American government, a republic of separated powers, composed of a federal union of states, in which the central government is granted powers by the people, whose rights are supreme over the institutions of government. If the term were to mean "new world order," the third word would have to be "sæculorum" instead. Masons say one thing, anti-Masons say another--whom should I believe? All of this is a matter of public record; these facts do not depend on one's ability to determine who is telling the truth. Further, we have the experience of history to teach us what to believe of a group of "anti-" something, whether they are anti-Semites, anti-Catholics, or anti-Masons. That historical experience has shown that those who single out a group, especially one different from the majority in society, for opprobrium and hatred are generally not telling the truth about that group, but are seeking to benefit themselves from stirring up the passions of the mob.
0.943036	Whenever young athletes die from undetected heart problems, the deaths naturally generate considerable media attention and re-ignite the debate over the optimal approach to screening young competitive athletes for heart problems to minimize death from sudden cardiac arrest. ask the athlete (and, for middle school and high school athletes, his parents) to complete a detailed health questionnaire, including questions tailored to detection of cardiac abnormalities through the taking of both (1) the athlete's medical history (chest pain, heaviness or tightness, palpitations, fainting or near fainting or dizziness with or without exercise, etc.); and (2) the athlete's family history (premature death before age 50 from heart disease of one or more relatives, specific knowledge of certain cardiac conditions in family members). In its most recent science advisory (11), the American Heart Association reaffirmed the soundness of the position it took in a 2007 Statement (2), which emphasized the importance of risk assessment with questionnaires and physical examination, but concluded that recommending the routine use of tests such as 12-lead ECG (EKG) or echocardiography in the context of mass, universal screening was neither "prudent nor practical." Most recently, the National Athletic Trainers' Association in its 2014 position statement on preparticipation physicial exams (13) found that such noninvasive cardiac testing is not a routine aspect of the screening PPE unless warranted by findings from the personal and family history. The NATA said such testing is not "cost-effective in a population at relatively low risk for cardiac abnormalities, and it cannot consistently identify athletes at actual risk." A cornerstone of the argument in favor of pre-participation EKGs is a 25-year study from a region in Italy, where EKG screenings of all athletes in officially sanctioned sports has been mandatory since 1982. (3) A 2006 study (4) showed a nearly 90 percent drop in sudden cardiac deaths in Italy since the program began. No deaths were recorded from athletes disqualified from competition because of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), a thickening of the heart muscle that makes it work harder to pump blood, which is a common cause of sudden cardiac death among youth athletes. In its PPE position statement (13), the NATA listed several limitations of the study. The cost of adding EKGs to the screening program has been a central argument against its use, but two 2010 studies (3,5) suggest that lives could be saved if the test was routinely performed in addition to the taking of a thorough personal and family history and physical examination. In the first, researchers at Stanford University applied a theoretical model to project the costs and survival rates of U.S. high school and college athletes who had pre-participation screening, finding that adding ECG to history and physical examination could be expected to save about 2 years of life per 1,000 athletes at a cost of $89 per athlete. The authors found that the $42,000 per year of life saved was not prohibitive and a sum in line with other health care expenditures that society undertakes, such as kidney dialysis ($20,000-$80,000 per year of life saved) or public access to defibrillators ($55,000-$162,000). A 2007 British study of high school athletes (6) found that physical examination and screening using personal and family history questionnaires alone were inadequate in identifying individuals with diseases associated with sudden cardiac death and recommended use of EKG as "paramount when screening for cardiac pathology in the young." Those who argue against routine EKG screening suggest that it fails one of the most important criteria developed by the World Health Organization for appraising a screening program: that the condition being screened for is an important health problem, which depends not only on how serious the condition is but also how common it is. While concluding that its 2007 statement (2) on athletic pre-participation, which did not endorse mandatory screening with ECG and other non-invasive tests remained "sound," the American Heart Association neverthless reaffirmed in its 2012 science advisory (11) its "strong support" for novel approaches to screening and the need for further studies to evaluate these strategies. Assembling sound data and the support of other key stakeholders such as governmental agencies and the healthcare community will be required, the AHA concluded, before it can endorse universal screening programs. This is also the position of the National Athletic Trainers' Association which, in its 2011 position statement on preventing sudden death in sports (12) states that "further research is needed to understand whether additional tests such as electrocardiograms and echocardiograms improve sensitivity and can be performed with acceptable cost-effectiveness and an acceptable false-positive rate." In the absence of routine EKG screening, what, then, can parents do to minimize the chances of their child suffering sudden cardiac death from an undetected heart condition? 5. Work to make sure automated external defibrillators (AEDs) are available in schools and at school-sponsored athletic events. 1. Maron BJ, Douglas PS, Graham TP, Nishimura RA, Thompson PD. Task Force 1: preparticipation screening and diagnosis of cardiovascular disease in athletes. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2005;45:1322-6. 2. Maron BJ, Thompson PD, Ackerman MJ, Balady G, Berger S, Cohen D, et al. American Heart Association Council on Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism. Recommendations and considerations related to preparticipation screening for cardiovascular abnormalities in competitive athletes 2007 update: a scientific statement from the American Heart Association Council on Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Metabolism: endorsed by the American College of Cardiology Foundation. Circulation 2007;115(12):1643-1655. 3. Wheeler MT, Heidenreich PA, Froelicher V, Hlatky MA, Ashley EA. Cost-Effectiveness of Preparticipation Screening for Prevention of Sudden Cardiac Death in Young Athletes. Ann Intern Med. 2010;152:276-286. 4. Corrado D, Basso C, Pavel A, Michieli P, Schiavon M, Thiene G. Trends in sudden cardiovascular death in young competitive athletes after implementation of a preparticipation screening program. 2006;296:1593-1601. 5. Baggsi AL, Hutter AM Jr, Wang F, Yared K, Weiner RB, Kupperman E, Picard MH, Wood MJ. Cardiovascular Screening in College Atheltes With and Without Electrocardiography. Ann Intern Med. 2010;152:269-275. 7. Bahr R. Can electrocardiographic screening prevent sudden death in athletes? No. BMJ 2010; 341:c4914. 8. Maron BJ, Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and other causes of sudden cardiac death in young competitive athletes, with considerations for preparticipation screening and criteria for disqualification. Cardiol Clin 2007;25:399-414. 9. American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Sports Medicine, American Medical Society for Sports Medicine, American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine, and American Osteopathic Academy of Sports Medicine. 10. Parent Heart Watch (www.parentheartwatch.org). 11. Mahle W, et. al. Key Concepts in the Evaluation of Screening Approaches for Heart Disease in Children and Adolescents. Circulation 2012;125:00-00. DOI: 10.1161/CIR.0b013e3182579f25 (accessed April 30, 2012). 12. Casa D, Guskiewicz K, et al. National Athletic Trainers' Association Position Statement: Preventing Sudden Death in Sports. J Athl Tr 2011;47(1):1-24. 13. Conley KM, Bolin DJ, Carek PJ, Konin JG, Neal TL, Violette D. National Athletic Trainers' Association Position Statement: Preparticipation Physical Examination and Disqualifying Conditions. J Athl Tr. 2014;49(1):102-120. doi:10.4085/1062-6050-48.6.05.
0.949545	How to properly identify a vested deferred defined benefit pension in FIRECalc? Hi. I was wondering if you can give me your opinion as to how to properly identify a vested deferred defined benefit pension in FIRECalc. I will have a small defined benefit pension. I won't be able to collect on it for about 20 years from now. I know the monthly amount that I will receive from it (the amount will not increase based on a COLA between now and the 20 years from now when I will be able to collect). The amount will have a cost of living adjustment, but the cost of living adjustment will not start on the pension until I am eligible (based on age) to start collecting from it. So, do I select the check box in FIRECalc that would identify this pension as having an inflation adjustment? I was not sure, because the COLA does not start until the pension starts. So, do I select the check box in FIRECalc that would identify this pension as having an inflation adjustment? Yes, that is the correct way to enter your pension into FIRECalc. The inflation adjustment will be calculated beginning the year you start collecting your pension. Ok, thanks. Choosing the inflation adjustment gives me a better FIRECalc result, so this is good news for me! Of course, that is assuming the state pension fund does not go into default in the interim.
0.999716	Can you think of an example of an effective working group? I can: a disaster rescue and recovery team. These are groups of men and women who, in the aftermath of a catastrophe, work to rescue the victims and to prevent subsequent loss of life. They are composed of specialists, like engineers, medics, electricians, and dog handlers. In the case of major disasters, such teams are brought in from several different countries. Some of them might never have worked together before. Yet the operation runs effectively. If teamwork is possible in such a diverse group, under intense time and performance pressure, in inhospitable working conditions, and among people who might not even have met before, why can it sometimes seem so difficult in the typical corporate environment? One advantage rescue and recovery team members have over their corporate counterparts is their professional diversity. There is very little overlap in their individual domains of competence and, so, very few redundant skills. When the team encounters a problem, the person whose skill set most appropriately matches the task takes charge; the hierarchy is unimportant. Compare this with the corporate environment, where the level of skill redundancy is usually much higher. It is likely to be less obvious who should be charged with the task. Even when it is obvious, the hierarchy often plays a more important role than the skill set of any individual. Lives depend on the effectiveness of the rescue and recovery team, and they know it. They need to make the right decisions, immediately. Nobody thinks about the disaster site they might be working on next month, or in a year’s time. They seek to optimise outcomes only on the task at hand. In the corporate environment, the objectives are more opaque. There might be several, non-complementary objectives, meaning that not everyone in the team is seeking to optimise the same goal at the same time. Often team members might seek to optimise objectives that are unrelated to the task at hand. For example, they might make decisions that improve the chances of success in a subsequent endeavour, or act in a way that justifies decisions made in a previous task. Imagine a situation where a medic is treating an earthquake victim whose leg has been trapped by a fallen concrete beam. The medic fears that if circulation isn’t swiftly restored to the trapped limb, the victim might lose it altogether, and so recommends bringing in the heavy moving equipment. The structural engineer vetoes the decision: if the concrete beam is moved, the whole building might come down. In such a case, the medic won’t think the engineer is saying this because he doesn’t like her, or is trying to undermine her authority, or make her look bad in front of her boss. Yet, precisely such preoccupations bedevil exchanges in a corporate environment. Human beings are intensely social creatures. We constantly seek a sense of belonging to social groups, and crave the recognition and approval of those around us. This social motive exists whether we are in a domestic setting or in a professional one. The consequence is that before saying or doing anything in a group setting, people will first evaluate its likely impact on their group membership and status. Actions and comments considered likely to win widespread approval are preferred; those that might result in disapproval or, worse, in social rejection, are self-censored. These social preferences are not always congruent with the organisational objectives. The same social motive applies to rescue and recovery teams as it does to corporate decision makers, the only difference is how each perceives the path to social status. For the former, thanks to the limited skills overlap and the time-limited objectives, doing the best possible job is the only route to social recognition. The medic gives status to whichever engineer helps her to save lives, even the ones who over-rule her decisions. In rescue and recovery teams, there is an alignment between the social objective and the organisational objective, and this makes those teams effective. Such an alignment is often missing in a business setting. The corporate ‘engineer’, for instance, is sometimes willing to let the building collapse rather than risk any potential conflict with the corporate ‘medic’, and the ‘medic’ often thanks him for it. As the social motive cannot be turned off, the challenge for organisations is to align the social objectives with their own. This means clarifying goals and responsibilities, so that even in an environment of high skill redundancy, everyone knows who must be charged with which task, and the benchmarks for success. Corporate leaders must also become more adept at rewarding people socially for doing things the organisation wants. People desire a sense of belonging, recognition, approval and social status. These rewards are within the power of all organisations to grant.
0.962617	What does this thyroid test report indicate? Question: hi and I've had my period 3 times in 1 1/2 months i know i have hypothyroidism with hishimots disease my tosh level is 98 but I'm not understanding why i am having that much bleeding and being bloated with sever cramps. Thanks for consulting at my virtual clinic. I have carefully gone through your case, and I think I have understood your concern. I will try to address your medical concerns and would suggest you the best of the available treatment options. 1] You need to correct TSH levels with proper dose of thyroid tablets. TSH should get down below 5.5. Your endocrinologist is the best doctor to handle thyroid and Hashimoto condition. 2]I will suggest you to start with low dose oral contraceptive pills - usually 21 days pills and 7 days off the pills is routine regimen, continue at least for 3 cycles. 3]Restrict junk foods, preservative added foods. 4] Avoid deep fried foods,bakery products and refined sugars. Include plenty of fruits,salads, vegetables in diet. Have regular exercise schedule.
0.999998	If you've hit a roadblock in your landscape photography and need some inspiration. I have five tips that are essential to landscape photography and will help take your photos to the next level. Tip 1. Shoot during the golden hour. The golden hour is a term coined by photographers, referencing the time of day shortly after sunrise and right before sunset. When the sun is low on the horizon, the light needs to travel through more atmosphere physically changing the color temperature to a yellow forecast. Hence the name golden. The warm soft diffused light gives subjects more perceived edge definition, clarity, separation, and character making the picture look better. The Sun at lower angles is also more directional, producing longer shadows which can add drama to a photo. And, of course, waiting until sunset may result in a fiery explosion in the sky. While not all landscape shots need to be made during the golden hour or at sunset. The kind of light emitted during the golden hour will improve the perceived quality of your photos and could add interest to an otherwise boring landscape. Polarizing and neutral density filters are essential items in any landscape photographers kit. The effect of a polarizing filter increases blue hues in the sky, cut through the reflection in the water and makes green foliage more vibrant. Neutral Density filters act like sunglasses for your camera purposely reducing the light that can enter the lens. This will allow you to use longer shutter speeds capturing silky smooth water or blurring moving subjects like people or cars in the daytime. Polarizing neutral density filters can be found for relatively cheap and they can open the door to so many opportunities. Tip 3. Always Consider Composition. The Composition is a key part of any photograph whether it be architectural, portraiture or landscape. So many artistic elements like foreground interest, negative space, balance, and movement need to be considered when determining what composition will work best in a scene. Landscape photography is a very deliberate process so take the time to find a composition you think is striking. Tip 4. Use longer focal lengths. While you may have heard that you need a wide angle lens for landscape photography. Telephoto lenses are a unique way to capture the beauty of individual features in a scene. Longer focal lengths will allow you to isolate small distant portions of a landscape, providing a clear focal point to viewers and eliminating distracting elements. Using a telephoto in the field may even make you a better photographer. Forcing you to think hard about subject and composition and the drastically different perspective created by longer focal lengths is refreshing in a genre dominated by the same boring Wide Angle field of view. Tip 5. Just Go Outside. This may seem pointless but too often I have seen photographers refuse to take photos in bad weather. Because they didn't have the right gear or because they don't think they will get a good photo. My advice is to do it anyway and even if you don't like the photo. Regret is the landscape photographers worst enemy. Weather can discourage landscape photography but embracing bad weather will train your eye to find striking compositions and make the best of a bad situation. Good gear is not necessary either because if you produce an amazing image no one is going to scoff. If it came from a phone rather than a DSLR. A good photo is a good photo. And, finally, confidence is key. Even if you think your photos are bad, each photo you take will add to your pool of experience that is vital in photography. You can only really learn how to use good photos by actually taking them so don't give up. Now that you know these five tips. You should be on your way to taking amazing landscape photos. Subscribe to Apple apps for more photography videos. Make sure to rate the video and leave a comment. I now have a patriot. So if you're feeling generous drop a tip and I will display your user name in the credits. I also have affiliate links in the description and by using them I will get a small kickback as always thank you for watching. Hi! I'm Ray Salibury from hot pixels. You are about to learn ten hot tips to take your landscapes to the next level. I cannot emphasize how crucial this is. Failing to plan is planning to fail. Much of your success depends on how organized you are. Your emotional response to a scene will motivate you to capture it on camera but you've got to use your head, not just your heart. Get a local weather forecast, check the tide charts and find out when the sun rises and see it. You really need to get to your location about one hour early. You don't want to be on a rush or put you on the back foot and you could make some stupid mistakes. Right here, we are on location. Grab your camera. And your tripod and this hit off down to the beach. Once you're on location. Scout around for likely compositions use your legs, shoot handheld or even use your smartphone if you need to. If you're on the coast an outgoing tide is best because the beach will be washed clean of footprints. Rocks will have a wet season. And you are less likely to be knocked over by an incoming wave. 3. Composition While you are scouting your location think about composition. Don't just place your subject in the middle. Try the rule of fit. Same with the horizon. If the land or ocean is interesting, it should fill about two-thirds of the frame. Conversely, if the sky is more interesting, it should focus see this off the frame. Look for leading lines that will direct the viewer's eye to the focal point. And try out a portrait orientation. Once you have chosen the best location set up your tripod. Using a tripod will slow you down and make you more intentional. Your hands are free and you can make fine adjustments to your composition. Always use the lower leg sections and push them firmly into the ground. Avoid giving salt water and sand into the joints. Now attach your camera to the tripod. Make sure your memory card is formatted. And your batteries are fresh. If you need to swap lenses, point the camera downwards so it can't get into the sensor. If it's windy, you could do this inside a plastic bag. Use the live view seating so you don't have to crouch down. If your camera doesn't have one place the spirit level on the camera's hot shoe. Without explaining the math behind this concept, you need to focus your camera about a third of the way into the frame. It's called the hyperfocal distance. You can also zoom in 10 times on the LCD screen to focus on an exact spot before you even press the shutter. So you don't accidentally change the focus seating. You can lock it down manually. Check the histogram graph. See if the highlights are clipped or if the shadows have food in. Add or subtract the bits of light using exposure compensation. If in doubt you could bracket exposures. That as, click off a series of frames using varied exposure settings. One of them will be correct. You want to get all the elements of your sane pin shop from foreground to background. Therefore you'll need a very wide depth of field. So dial in an aperture ceasing between if 8 and if 22. When you press the shutter you don't want to bump the camera. So we attach a cable release. Or you can activate the camera's self-timer. Activate all the lights so regarding make the location as intense as feasible. Utilize a greater ISO so your video camera requires much less light to take the image. lot more light as you zoom points more detailed. Jump the flash if you are utilizing an exterior digital flash. Relocate the flash further away from the lens. The flash ought to be a minimum of 6 inches far from the lens. The method to preventing red eye in your pictures is to do as much of the suggestions as feasible. You will certainly get rid of red eye from a lot of your pictures. The remainder you can repair with your software application.Digital photography pie charts are simply what you require to evaluate the direct exposure of your electronic pictures. In situation you have not seen, the LCD display on the back of your electronic video camera is not really exact. It's excellent for checking out structure, however you require something much better to show you if you have actually revealed your shots properly. The device you are searching for is a pie chart and also a growing number of electronic cams are including it in their attribute collection. Frightening initially, however if you recognize just how to make use of the pie chart, it will certainly become your friend. The electronic photography pie chart is simply a visual depiction of the pixels in your picture. The left side of the chart is the darkest black your cam can recreate, as well as the right-hand man reveals the brightest white. Backwards and forwards demonstrate how several pixels there are of that illumination. This very first example picture as well as it's pie chart reveals a well subjected photo with absolutely nothing escaping either end of the range. Over and also Under Exposed Images The overexposed photo reveals the pie chart with all the pixels bunched to the right-hand man side as well as show up to run the side. In this instance there are great deals of pixels brighter than your electronic camera can replicate as well as are presented as pure white. This image is REALLY worn out, without info in the brilliant locations. We would certainly not have the ability to do anything to conserve this photo as the brilliant pixels have no details, they are 'clipped'. The reverse holds true too. In an underexposed photo, all the pixels are bunched as well as run the left side of the pie chart, clipping the blacks. Once again there is absolutely nothing we can do to conserve this picture as there is inadequate info to make it show up properly. Suit The Histogram to What You See There are times when you actually do desire your pie charts to look unbalanced. When I picture individuals on a white history, I purposely over subject the history so it will certainly end up white. The pie chart is after that weighted to the right. And also the reverse holds true for a photo with lots of darkness and also blacks. The pie chart can be uneven if your picture is intense or dark. You need to check out your scene, see the highlights and also darkness, after that make use of the pie chart to make certain you are catching what you are seeing. If you are clipping a location of your picture, see to it you are doing it intentionally. You can not conserve and also location without any details. Usage Your Digital Camera's Sensor Efficiently Another point to bear in mind;The sensing unit inside your cam functions extra successfully, with the least sound, at the top (best) 25% of the pie chart. If you have the alternative of bumping your direct exposure to be a little bit so the pie chart reveals even more to the right, without clipping the highlights, your pictures will certainly be the most effective your electronic camera can create. It takes some method to see what your electronic photography pie chart is revealing you, as well as even more time yet to be able to have confidence and also count on it's outcomes. Eventually you will not stress exactly how the picture views on the electronic camera display, as long as the pie chart states it's ALRIGHT. You will certainly discover it is time well invested. I am an indigenous birthed South Floridian having actually invested a huge component of my life around the sea and also the all-natural charm of Florida. I was lucky to have actually fished off the piers, drift watercraft, snorkeled off the shore of Florida, checked out the Everglades as well as surfed from Miami Beach as much as Cocoa Beach. Being outdoors appreciating life was the most effective maturing down right here. Larry Niven © 2019 All Rights Reserved.
0.964706	When the European Union and China agreed to cooperate to develop the E.U. Galileo Satellite System in 2003, the United States reacted with strong skepticism since Washington was against the sharing of sensitive dual-use technology (with civilian and military applications) with China. In the past, the United States had tried unsuccessfully to impede the European Union's ability to set up Galileo, which is an alternative to the U.S.-established Global Positioning System (G.P.S.). At the time, U.S. analysts questioned why Brussels was spending money (3.6 billion euros) to duplicate an existing system that was available "for free," and why it was eager to accept Chinese participation in the program. Four years later, the E.U.-China "maturing partnership" has evolved toward a more complex network of common and contradictory interests, as the transatlantic links have slowly recovered since the U.S.-led intervention in Iraq. Moreover, China has begun to develop its own Global Navigation Satellite System (G.N.S.S.) -- the Beidou-2. At the same time, the Galileo deployment has suffered a crisis due to disagreements among the industries that were awarded the concession to build and deploy the first four satellites of the Galileo system. Public funding may save Galileo, but the best case scenario for a successful program is for the actors involved to pursue a more realistic approach. In addition to China's announcement of upgrading Beidou to mass market applications, Russia has also decided to complete its own G.N.S.S., called Glonass. In the face of these developments, what will be the impact of developing the Chinese G.N.S.S. for E.U.-China cooperation and to the commercial feasibility of Galileo? The European Union and the European Space Agency (E.S.A.) made the decision to create its own G.N.S.S. due to a combination of factors that imply political, economic, technological, social and military gains. Politically, Galileo has been portrayed as a guarantee of independence and autonomy from the U.S.-established G.P.S. This perspective became more evident in the aftermath of the Kosovo War when European forces were fully dependent on the U.S. system, a limitation that has worried the actors involved in the development of a European Security and Defense Policy (E.S.D.P.), especially the member states that stand for the modernization of autonomous E.U. military capabilities. Since the beginning of the definition phase of Galileo, the European Community (E.C.) papers have noted the importance of Galileo for its Rapid Reaction Force, the E.U. peacekeeping missions and, separately, the realm of activities related to the "Petersburg Tasks," the latter of which are a set of security and military tasks in the field of peacekeeping and stability operations, agreed upon in 1992 among the E.U. members. It is noteworthy to underscore that the defense-related justifications for Galileo have been downplayed by the E.U. institutions. The E.U. institutions have highlighted the economic benefits of a G.N.S.S. Requested by the E.C., the consultancy company Price Waterhouse Coopers drew a business plan for the Galileo project, which was submitted to the European Council of Ministers. According to this study, by involving private sector actors, Galileo "should generate revenues for the operator rising from some 66 [million euros] in 2010 to over 500 [million euros] in 2020." Definitively, Galileo would create a "virtuous cycle" through a spin-off effect in several sectors of the European economy. Moreover, Galileo has been portrayed as an instrument to create thousands of jobs and as a way to avoid the brain drain in the realm of aerospace, aeronautics and satellite industries. The claim: Galileo’s new technology will revolutionise our transport systems, increasing safety and improving efficiency; this will make for better quality of life and less pollution in our cities. Galileo will also bring benefits in other aspects of everyday life, with precision farming raising yields, improved information for emergency services speeding up response times, and more reliable and accurate time signals underpinning our most vital computer and communications networks. Undoubtedly, Galileo signifies independence and autonomy from the United States and the ownership of cutting-edge technology. Galileo has been regarded as a key instrument not only in the process of modernization of the Common Foreign and Security Policy and E.S.D.P., but also part of the ongoing integration of the European Union's defense industry. U.S. opposition to the European G.N.S.S. can be understood in two different, but complementary, perspectives: economic reasons (in terms of market share of G.N.S.S. services) and security and military concerns. In 2001, the former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz addressed the central problem in Washington's perspective by expressing, in a letter to the N.A.T.O. member states, the concern that Galileo could interfere with U.S. military operations guided by G.P.S. Wolfowitz also expressed the willingness of the Pentagon to take part in the development of Galileo, justifying this position with the fact that N.A.T.O. enjoyed the benefits of G.P.S. After Washington's "diplomatic offensive," analysts thought that the birth of Galileo was in danger. Yet in March 2002, there was a breakthrough and Galileo saw the green light during the Barcelona Summit of Heads of State and Government. After failing to put Galileo on the backburner, Washington started to emphasize concern over the interference of signals between the two G.N.S.S.s. This problem was solved in June 2004 with the interoperability agreement between the United States and the European Union. Yet even before, in October 2003, another problem came into sight when Brussels and Beijing signed the cooperation agreement on the development of Galileo. On September 18, 2003, the E.C. announced that China was to join the Galileo undertaking and finance it as a preferential external partner. According to the agreement, China would contribute at least 230 million euros. From Washington's point of view, this partnership posed several dangers to the transatlantic relationship and especially to the security and economic interests of the United States. Basically, by involving China in the development of Galileo, the European Union was indirectly helping the modernization of the People's Liberation Army (P.L.A.), an act that is regarded as unacceptable by many analysts and politicians in Washington. Indeed, it would be almost impossible to prevent the transfer of technology to the Chinese. This has been a very sensitive issue at a time when the United States is increasingly preoccupied with the military capabilities of China. In addition, the Europeans could be, in practice, contradicting the arms embargo imposed on Beijing in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Massacre. In the worst case scenario -- a war between China and Taiwan -- the P.L.A. would be using the European G.N.S.S. in a war against Taiwanese military forces. The possibility of the P.L.A. using the Galileo system was ruled out by E.U. authorities since the most accurate signal, the Public Regulated Service (P.R.S.), is encrypted and can only be used by specific entities: the European Police Office (Europol), the European Anti-Fraud Office (O.L.A.F.), civil protection services, safety services (Maritime Safety Agency), emergency response services, humanitarian response teams and the E.U. peacekeeping forces involved in the "Petersburg Tasks" missions. In any case, the United States was not convinced with this guarantee and spurred the development of a new generation of G.P.S. satellites. In 2004, a British media report unveiled that the United States was developing anti-satellite systems capable of wiping out E.U. Galileo satellites if they were being used against U.S. troops. For the European Union, the partnership with China represents an attractive opportunity to have access to a promising transport and telecommunication market. Right after the signing of the E.U.-China agreement, Loyola de Palacio, the former E.C. commissioner for transport and energy, made Europe's stand very clear, stating that "China will help Galileo become the major world infrastructure for the growing market for location services." This level of cooperation can only be understood in light of a Sino-European "maturing and comprehensive partnership" based on intense economic and political linkages. Simultaneously, the European Union has been projecting itself as a global player -- for some analysts, a rather civilian power -- with ambition to develop its autonomy and independence from the United States in terms of military capabilities. In China's eyes, cooperation in the Galileo project is seen as part of a strategy of strengthening China's position in the international arena, by cooperating in a sensitive technology that disrupts U.S. hegemony in G.N.S.S. In addition, this cooperation appears to be a golden opportunity to benefit from the transfer of expertise and technology in such a sensitive asset. This would be extremely useful in tandem with the Chinese Space Strategy. In 2000, China published the White Paper on Space Activities, declaring that the creation of an independent satellite navigation and positioning system was a priority. The embryo of this system was already in orbit when China and the European Union agreed on the partnership. The Beidou system consisted, at the time, of three geostationary satellites, whose positioning and navigation coverage and accuracy was far behind what Galileo aimed for. Analysts believed that the future Beidou-2 (also called Compass System), a 35-satellite constellation, would only be used by the military -- this would justify the decision of investing 230 million euros in the Galileo system. In November 2006, however, China's official news agency, Xinhua, unveiled that the Beidou system would provide, from 2008 onward, commercial open services with a ten-meter accuracy. It was noted that this service could be "free of charge" for the Chinese people and to other countries that would sign agreements with China. In addition to Chinese pressure, Russia announced in May 2007 that its own G.N.S.S., the Glonass system, which had been only partially operable, would be fully operable and available "for free" to customers in 2009 after the deployment of the remaining satellites of a 24 constellation. Meanwhile, the process of deployment of the first four Galileo satellites went into crisis, due to strong disagreements between the national industries of consortia responsible to build and deploy those satellites. Until July 2007, only one satellite -- Giove A -- was deployed (in December 2005). The whole process is delayed and what was supposed to be in orbit and operable in 2008 was postponed to 2011-2012. In face of these hurdles, the E.U. transport ministers asked the European Commission to draw a plan to "bail out" Galileo through public funding. Currently, the European Union faces growing pressure from the other major space powers in the realm of satellite positioning and navigation. With the new developments of the Beidou system, the promise of profitable access to the Chinese transport and telecommunication market may be in danger. What was deemed to be strategic cooperation may become strategic competition. The progress in the Beidou system implies that Chinese authorities were aware of its probable limitations in seizing the military benefits of the transfer of technology. At this moment, it is not clear how the E.U.-China partnership will evolve, given that it faces a complex network of common and contradictory interests. It is plausible that both parties may reach a solution to share the market through consultation. It is important, however, to bear in mind that the E.U.-China relationship is still, to some extent, a consequence of the other parts of the triangular equation: the U.S.-China relationship and the U.S.-E.U. transatlantic alliance. The rapidly announced development of the Chinese Beidou system and the Russian Glonass has put pressure on E.U. authorities to solve the imbroglio and spur the deployment of the remaining satellites. As a reaction to the foreseeable competition, Brussels has been eager to set up agreements with other countries. In June 2007, the E.S.A. paved the way to satellite cooperation with Africa through a cooperation agreement with the Agency for Security of Air Navigation in Africa and Madagascar. Previously, Israel, Ukraine, India, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and South Korea had signed agreements to become partners and join the Galileo project. In the meantime, even if there are some doubts on the commercial feasibility, it is becoming clear that the defense and military applications are, per se, a strong reason to use European taxpayer money to save Galileo. This Power and Interest News Report by José Carlos Matias was published on July 17, 2007. Posted at Japan Focus on July 17, 2007.
0.999962	Artificial intelligence (AI) is upending the workplace. As one of the most versatile technologies we've ever encountered, it's not surprising that AI’s applications and implications span many departments, divisions, and functional groups. When crafting and deploying an AI strategy, the most effective organizations will consider how it affects all aspects of their organizations. I recommend organizations ask and answer five fundamental questions. How can AI increase employee efficiency? In a typical 8-hour workday, the average worker is productive for fewer than 3 hours. We spend almost 2 hours each day attending to emails alone. AI can assist your employees in automating the routine tasks that cause them to be inefficient. From personal assistants (e.g, Zoom.ai) to phone managers (e.g., Carly) to "smart" calendar systems (e.g., Robby), the potential is vast. Especially exciting are the technologies that render lengthy documents more readable. Apollo, for example, parses articles and PDFs into easily-digestible bullet points. Similarly, Agolo leverages AI to generate summaries of text and other information. Canadian-based Beagle translates contracts into comprehensive visual summaries (in seconds). Equally exciting are technologies that generate text for us. Gartner predicted (in 2015) that 20% of business content would be authored by machines by 2018. In 2014, The Associated Press partnered with AI company Automated Insights to create a Chrome extension that automatically generates written explanations for Tableau graphics. Think about the most pressing bottlenecks hampering your employees’ efficiency. Determine whether it's worth the time, cost, and effort to leverage AI to remove some of these impediments. How much time could be saved if your next management report was essentially drafted for you by AI? How can AI improve employee engagement? According to Gallup, only 32% of U.S. workers are feel engaged on the job (statistics are even grimmer at the global level, with only 13% of workers engaged). Low engagement levels fuel employee turnover, which generally wreaks havoc on organizations. AI has great potential in terms of increasing employees' engagement levels and their commitment to their work. Gallup found that teams with high employee engagement rates are 21% more productive than those with low levels. AI is uprooting traditional approaches to employee training and management. In 2015, Gartner predicted that, by 2018, more than three million workers globally would be supervised by a "robo-boss". Indeed, AI robots are playing the role of boss at several companies, providing coaching, feedback, and other resources to employees. Not only do these robo-bosses supervise employees and monitor performance, they also suggest areas for improvement. Given that employees are more engaged when they receive constant feedback, support, and supervision, there’s great potential for AI to improve workplace performance. It's estimated that, already, nearly a third of workers are willing to work for a robo-boss. Even if you're not ready to hire your next robot CEO, take time to consider the many ways you can use AI capabilities to improve employee engagement. How can AI improve the performance of my sales teams? There's no shortage of ways in which AI can improve the performance of sales teams. From lead generation to predicting customer behavior to more effectively targeting customers to increasing customer engagement to accurately predicting performance, AI's applications are vast and powerful. AI-powered chatbots have gained significant traction in sales organizations as of late. Gartner predicts that, by 2020, 85% of all customer interactions will be managed without human interaction. By handling routine requests at high volumes, sales chatbots enable reps to invest their time in developing a strong rapport with the most lucrative subset of customers. It’s a tremendous perk that AI chatbots are available to interact with customers 24/7. Customer satisfaction levels are positively affected by rapid response rates. Juniper estimates that chatbots will save businesses $8B a year by 2022, up from $20M in 2016 (with an average cost savings of $0.5-$0.7 per interaction). Sales are the lifeblood of any business. There is a multitude of different ways to leverage AI to improve the performance of sales teams. Think about which AI tools are worth the time and monetary investments. How can AI improve the performance of my marketing teams? Gone are the days of spray and pray marketing. Marketers are increasingly looking to personalize content. From self-designed websites (e.g., Grid) to chatbots that recommend products (e.g., Boomtrain Messenger) to personalized marketing outreach (e.g., Node), AI is transforming all aspects of marketing. Social media listening is one of the many exciting iterations of marketing AI. By leveraging natural language processing (NLP), AI tools assess the sentiments of online customer reviews, Tweets, Facebook comments, and more. Meltwater, for example, assesses the tone of digital commentary related to a brand to gauge its reputation. People Browser, by way of another example, analyzes all social media mentions of a brand (and its competitors) and analyzes sentiments. Social media listening primes marketers to more effectively determine which products need to be re-positioned or disbanded. Target, Walmart, and Costco all us sentiment analysis to more effectively understand customer preferences and reposition their product offerings. How can AI improve the talent acquisition process? According to Josh Bersin, 61% of CEOs believe they aren't recruiting fast enough or effectively enough. 96% of recruiters believe AI can greatly enhance talent acquisition and retention rates. From tools that make job postings more appealing (e.g., Textio) to chatbots that interact with applicants (e.g., Ari) to AI-powered tools that search for candidates based on specific job descriptions (e.g, Entelo) to AI-fueled tools that automatically screen and evaluate resumes (e.g., Ideal), the potential for AI in the context of recruiting is impressive. An often-overlooked advantage of AI-driven recruiting tools is the potential to minimize hiring biases. Several studies have found that recruiters are more likely to hire candidates who are similar to them. According to Aubrey Blanche, global head of diversity and inclusion at Atlassian, the company's use of Textio helped boost the percentage of female recruits from 18% to 57%. HireVue (used by Nike, Unilever, Intel, and other large companies) also strives to minimize hiring biases. It extracts thousands of data points from video interviews, assessing everything from facial expression to body language to vocabulary usage, to objectively gauge such qualities as empathy and audacity. There's little doubt that your organization will implement new forms of AI technology in the coming years. While AI is the way of the future, It's important to appreciate that AI is not a "cure all" or a blanket solution. PwC recently found that a mere 20% of executives believe their companies exhibit the skills necessary to excel with AI. One final word of caution. Don't underestimate the vital role that training, certification, and other resource support play in empowering your employees to exploit AI to its fullest potential.
0.933418	Most hydraulic gear motors I see mention 400rpm min 3600rpm max. Does this mean they are ineffective below 400rpm flow? Or are they just highly inefficient? What kind of efficiency can I get from a lawnmower variable displacement pump and cheap gear motors? Should I use gearing/chains/etc to reduce the 3600rpm of the gear motor to the 300rpm desired speed? How well will such a system maintain low output RPM (in the range of 30rpm at the wheel, so 360rpm at the motor if gearing is used) under varying torque loads? will a high torque load make the motor stop or significantly slow down compared to free speed if flow is maintained? (ie: Will low flows just leak pass the motor? Just off the top of my head, I would think that a gear motor would be able to operate from 0 rpm- if it was a vane motor I can see that a minimum rpm would be required to make sure the vanes always contact the inside of the housing. Of course, if the gear motor rpm was at or near 0, there would be little or no power output even if the pressure was high. There would be maximum torque though, and power usage would rise as the rpm came up. If you applied pressure but didn't let the shaft turn, then the leakage rate at the applied pressure would be the sole user of the power. It's probably more an efficiency thing than anything else. My own thought is that for maximum efficiency in a hydraulic system, you would try to take the most advantage of the torque possible. In other words, if you had the motor running at 2000 rpm, but your torque usage was only a fraction of the motors capability, then you are supporting more pumping and friction losses than you need to. What I'm saying is I'd rather keep the pressure up and have the motor turning slower than the other way around. You would try to size the displacement of the motor such that at maximum continuous pressure rating, you'd get about as much torque as you needed or maybe 20% more- this is for hill climbing or burning rubber, whatever. Then your maximum speed would be related to the maximum flow rate your pump can produce. If that keeps the gear motor well under its maximum rpm, that would be fine. If the pump can produce a high enough flow rate to turn the gear motor past its rated rpm, then you probably need a larger displacement gear motor, which in turn would give you more torque from a standing start, but at the cost of a higher fluid flow rate. The larger displacement motor might be less efficient in that case. From my own calculations, done years ago and forgotten, I came up with a torque requirement figure needed to boost my three wheel vehicle weight plus my own weight up a certain maximum slope which is an overpass here in my town. I figured I would need to meet that as a minimum, otherwise I couldn't go up that slope. If I met that with some extra, then I could go anywhere in the region. Then on level ground, or from a standing start, the degree of acceleration I could get would be based on that torque capability and I would accept whatever that was. If my system had more torque capability, then it would also be less efficient over most of the operating conditions. I did have this worked out, but I'd have to calculate it all over again. My idea at the time was to have my drive motor integrated with the drive wheel axle, and turning at the same speed- in other words direct drive. Hydraulic motors are for the most part very inefficient. I've never seen one on any type of device designed for speed. There is a lot of resistance to overcome pushing oil through lines and the faster you try to push it the warmer it will get. The main use is slow speeds and power. Yea, I know hydraulics is not perfect for this application.. but it seemed to have its own advantages. Sealed drive train, simplicity compared to making my own gearbox and U joint arrangement, CVT transmission via variable displacement pump, Option for limited slip differential with a flow divider and cross over valve. Ease of adding 4 wheel drive if desired. I guess cost will be rather high however.. and losses... And weight really. It had nice appeal that it would be easy to add an electric or pedal power input to the circuit at a later time... And maybe an accumulator used to start the engine. There are a huge number of "it depends" involved in the design of such a system. Losses can easily exceed 50% at some speed ranges and even 100% at very low power and speed. Best efficiency is at full power assuming the system is operating at a power level consistent with the actual capability of the pump and motor and that they are matched. Under those conditions it is around 10% to 15%. Different types of pumps vary a lot with lots of tradeoffs for oil viscosity, temperature and volumetric efficiency at various rpms. Hydraulic pumps are not a good match to small displacement high rpm engines. They don't like more than around 2000 rpm because of cavitation issues.
0.959552	Less than perfect credit? A new auto loan might still be available to you in the form of bad credit new car financing. Before you seek any kind of auto loan you need to look at your own financial situation and determine just what sort of payment schedule you can handle. First, take a look at your own credit report. You can get a free credit report each year from each of the three major credit reporting agencies, Experian, TransUnion and Equifax. Analyze every detail of your credit report and carefully review any outstanding reports for mistakes. Be ready to provide documentation in writing to have errors corrected. Decreasing your debts and paying your bills on time every month are the fastest way to steadily increase your credit score. Make regular monthly payments on all credit cards but do not close your accounts. Lenders want to see a long history of repayments in addition to a low debt load. Lenders love to lend money so they make an assortment of options available to borrowers with varying degrees of credit. A signature loan, base solely on your current credit rating is the easiest and fastest way to get a loan. After that, some lenders will offer a second mortgage against your home, or a second lien against your new vehicle, if there is available equity. You might even find a lender willing to provide you with a debt consolidation loan to help you consolidate your existing debt into one manageable payment. This consolidated loan can then be offered to a third party lender, freeing up the new lender to loan you the money you need to buy your new vehicle. There are an abundance of ways for you to finance that new vehicle purchase regardless of your credit rating. You need to be careful not to assume too much debt, or chose an option which will not help you in the long run, but your lender is ultimately the one who will decide how much you can have and at what rate. Just do your homework before you sign anything.
0.96317	How to add content from Vkontakte on my social wall? To add hashtag, community and profile content from Vkontakte as a source to your social wall, you first need to connect your Vkontakte account to Walls.io. To do that just go to Settings > Sources in your Walls.io dashboard and select Vkontakte. You will be prompted to connect your profile. Vkontakte will ask for permission to connect to your Walls.io account. Just click Allow to finalize connecting your Vkontakte account to Walls.io. This is something you only need to set up once. This is something you only need to set up once. To add a Vkontakte hashtag as source to your social wall go to Settings > Sources in your Walls.io dashboard and select Vkontakte > Hashtag. Then simply add the hashtag you would like to display content from and click "ADD". To add a Vkontakte profile as source to your social wall go to Settings > Sources in your Walls.io dashboard and select Vkontakte >Profile. Then simply add the URL of the profile you would like to display content from and click "ADD". You can add any Vkontakte public profile, not just your own. To add a Vkontakte community as source to your social wall go to Settings > Sources in your Walls.io dashboard and select Vkontakte > Community. Then simply add the URL of the profile you would like to display content from and click "ADD". You can add any Vkontakte public community.
0.948669	Reverse engineering the feature layer name after features are selected? I have a draw function that allows someone to draw a polygon around a set of features, select them, and then populate a table with those selected features' attributes. I use the same draw function for creating selection queries for multiple layers though (using conditionals where the variable "selectionType" is chosen from a dialog box by the user before the draw function is activated) and when the selection is complete ("selection-complete" event), all those layers will then call the same function to populate a table. Because each of those layers has different attributes, I need to actually be able to tell what layer called the populateTable function so I can structure the table appropriately. Right now, in my "populateTable" function, I'm doing this by getting the title of the InfoTemplate and differentiating between the layers that way. I'm wondering though if there's a more straight forward way to do this? Yes, I know I could create a separate function for each one that creates a unique table but there would be redundant pieces of code as there are some repeated elements for each table despite there being different attributes among the layers that call the function.
0.999821	Linked to: Ivan Reitman, Harbord Collegiate Institute, University College, University of Toronto, Nike, Inc. Please help improve it by adding dated informations, images and videos about David Cronenberg. Rick Schmidlin - In 1986 he was an assistant producer on David Cronenberg's "The Fly" The Fly (1958 film) - There was a remake of the same name in 1986 directed by David Cronenberg, which itself had a sequel, 1989's "The Fly II" Jacqueline Hennessy - In 1988, the two appeared as twin call girls in the David Cronenberg film, "Dead Ringers" Ornette Coleman - In 1991, Coleman played on the soundtrack for David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch; the orchestra was conducted by Howard Shore. Crash - Cronenberg received the Special Jury Prize at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival for "Crash" Michael Snow - In 2000, TIFF commissioned Snow with Atom Egoyan and David Cronenberg to make short films, Preludes, for the 25th Anniversary of the festival. John Neville (actor) - He had a small role as "Terrence" in David Cronenberg's 2002 "Spider" Ashton Holmes - In 2005 he starred of David Cronenberg's movie "A History of Violence" Viggo Mortensen - In 2005, Mortensen starred in David Cronenberg's "A History of Violence" Viggo Mortensen - In 2005, Mortensen won critical acclaim for David Cronenberg's crime thriller "A History of Violence" The Fly - In 2008, Cronenberg directed Howard Shore's first opera, "The Fly" Viggo Mortensen - In 2009 he joined the cast of "The Road", a film adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name, and collaborated with David Cronenberg for a third time on "A Dangerous Method" Cosmopolis (film) - The film was scheduled to begin filming in 2010, with Paulo Branco's Paris-based production house Alfama Films co-producing with Cronenberg's Toronto Antenna Ltd. Juliette Binoche - On 17 February 2011, Screendaily announced that Juliette Binoche has been cast in David Cronenberg's film Cosmopolis with Robert Pattinson, Paul Giamati, Mathieu Amalric and Samantha Morton. He is married to Carolyn Zeifman until her death in 2017, production assistant on "Rabid"
0.999987	Vuoi entrare in relazione con Luca Greco, conoscerne meglio le attività e il profilo professionale? Chi è: Counselor di Quadrivio - Private Equity: Member of the Board of an acquired company and member of the Advisory Board of the Private Equity Fund. Managing Director di Tms - Libero - Riformista: Responsible of general media and centralised services, strategy, control, web strategy and management, new business in generallogistics, performances improvement, centralised contracting and cost cutting.
0.997021	A New York Times reporter's accusation that the Obama administration engages in censorship raises questions about when journalism slides into advocacy. Many reporters have contentious relationships with sources and with the government, but James Risen is in a class of his own. The veteran New York Times national-security reporter has scored some notable scoops the authorities didn't want him to—most notably about a failed CIA sabotage operation on Iran's nuclear program. When Risen got the story the first time, the government convinced The Times to quash it for national-security reasons. (He eventually published it in a book). The CIA thought it knew who leaked the info, and it subpoenaed Risen to reveal his source. Demanding this of a journalist is technically legal, but is highly unusual and often frowned-upon. Risen refused to divulge the source and said he'd go to jail instead, setting up a long showdown with the Justice Department. Ultimately, Risen won. Under pressure, Attorney General Eric Holder vowed, ambiguously, "As long as I’m attorney general, no reporter who is doing his job is going to go to jail." Risen testified, refusing to name his source, and the Justice Department still managed to convict Jeffrey Sterling for leaking. Everyone else lived happily ever after. Or not. Risen has launched a one-man crusade against Holder and the Obama administration. Risen escalated that this week with a series of angry tweets replying to a speech Holder gave the National Press Club, in which the reporter blasted the current White House as the greatest enemy of press freedom in a generation and accused the attorney general of shredding the First Amendment. Critics called it a rant; Risen said it was merely a fact-check. That divided response shows the dangers for reporters debating press freedom. It's the one area that can turn otherwise impartial journalists into fierce advocates. While many in the media see that as an essential risk, it is no doubt a risk. It's also unclear whether the public is on the press' side, and how it might react to that advocacy. Given Holder's speech today, I repeat: The Obama Administration is the greatest enemy of press freedom in a generation. Eric Holder has been the nation's top censorship officer, not the top law enforcement officer. Eric Holder has sent a message to dictators around the world that it is okay to crack down on the press and jail journalists. Eric Holder leaves behind a wrecked First Amendment. I plan to spend the rest of my life fighting to undo damage done to press freedom in the United States by Barack Obama and Eric Holder. Wait a second—doesn't that break some of the basic rules for reporters at major news organizations? Always strive for fairness. Don't take a political position. Report and let the reader decide. But like all rules, they have an exception: Almost no position is too extreme when it comes to freedom of the press. A Times spokesman emailed Politico, "The Times is not neutral on the issue of press freedom. We have vigorously opposed actions that inhibit legitimate reporting or that raise the specter of jail for reporters who are doing their jobs." The newspaper is not alone. NPR's ethics policy, while strictly proscribing political activities, names one special exception: "There may be cases where we can appropriately advocate for issues directly related to our journalistic mission (e.g. First Amendment rights, the Freedom of Information Act, a federal 'shield law”). It also may be appropriate to donate money or time to organizations that advocate on such issues." Whether or not Risen is substantively correct about the Obama administration being the worst on press freedom in a generation is a different question, and the answer is likely to vary based on who you ask. Besides political activism, reporters tend to stay away from stories in which they're directly implicated, since it tends to shape their perception. But Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan took the somewhat counterintuitive stand that this makes it more important for him to lead: "Because of his personal experiences, someone like James Risen has an obligation to speak out strongly on press rights." In any case, Risen has a point. In addition to his own persecution, the Justice Department has pursued Fox reporter James Rosen. Ann Compton, who covered every president from Ford to Obama, also said this is the least transparent. While Holder has promised not to jail reporters, it seems to be a statement of personal preference, not Justice Department policy. He hasn't pulled back from trying to get reporters to divulge their sources—only from certain tactics—and he has presided over a massive crackdown on leaks inside the administration. There are of course good reasons why the government would wish to reduce leaking, but it's also an essential outlet for whistleblowers. Leaks lubricate the machinery of free press. Meanwhile, the White House has been working on a whole slate of methods for bypassing reporters—or at least national political reporters. That means disseminating information directly to the public through videos, White House blogs, and Medium, and granting interviews to late-night shows, local journalists, and YouTube celebrities rather than to folks like, well, The New York Times' James Risen. President Obama has given notably few press conferences. Administrations since at least Nixon have been moving in this direction, but Obama has pressed beyond them, aided by technological advances that allow him to bypass traditional gatekeepers. The danger of the government speaking directly to people is that there's little place for checking facts, stress-testing claims, and pushing the conversation elsewhere. There's a reason that Voice of America, the external broadcast arm of the U.S. federal government, was long banned from distributing to American citizens. As a journalist, I'm unsure how to process Risen's angry response to Holder. I find Sullivan's claim that Risen is obligated to speak out especially because he's involved tough to square with the rest of the professional catechism of journalism. In some ways, maintaining the freedom to report sits ahead of and outside all other obligations, and it's reasonable for reporters to fight for their rights. Risen's work and his response to Sullivan on how he'd fight are also compelling—“by continuing to do aggressive investigative reporting. That’s the best way to fight back.” He's also got good reason to be personally angry at Holder, but it's hard not to feel uneasy seeing personal anger erupt. How might it distort his impressions, however subconsciously, while reporting? I’m amazed that the New York Times tolerates its reporters spewing this sort of factually challenged, ad hominem bile about people they notionally cover. Sure, Risen has free speech rights. And sure, he’s not just a reporter here. He’s also a litigant in a long-term struggle against the government. But still, I have to think the only reason the Times allows this sort of nonsense from him is that the positions he’s advocating happen to reflect the institutional positions of the press itself. The press risks losing the support of the American public on questions like leaks. The First Amendment Center polls every year on views about how the media use their constitutional freedoms, and while most still think the media is on solid ground, that proportion has fallen. Meanwhile, the number of people who think the First Amendment gives too much freedom has more than doubled over the last two years, to a level not seen since just after the 9/11 attacks. Does the First Amendment Go Too Far? That's a trend that ought to worry any reporter. At a time when trust in media is sinking, one would expect that the pattern would hold, barring any significant event, such as 9/11. One such event might be the attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris; a solid 60 percent of Americans who were familiar with the attacks said the decision to publish cartoons of Muhammad was justified. But that's just one case, and there's clearly further convincing to do. It won't do journalists any good to be right if they don't have widespread sympathy from the public. * This post originally identified Benjamin Wittes as a lawyer. We regret the error.
0.976177	Faust is a tragic play in two parts by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, usually known in English as Faust, Part One and Faust, Part Two. Although rarely staged in its entirety, it is the play with the largest audience numbers on German-language stages. Faust is considered by many to be Goethe's magnum opus and the greatest work of German literature. The American Prisoner is a British novel written by Eden Phillpotts and published in 1904 and adapted into a film by the same name in 1929. The story concerns an English woman who lives at Fox Tor farm, and an American captured during the American Revolutionary War and held at the prison at Princetown on Dartmoor. Kim is a novel by Nobel Prize-winning English author Rudyard Kipling. It was first published serially in McClure's Magazine from December 1900 to October 1901 as well as in Cassell's Magazine from January to November 1901, and first published in book form by Macmillan & Co. Ltd in October 1901. The story unfolds against the backdrop of The Great Game, the political conflict between Russia and Britain in Central Asia. The novel made the term "Great Game" popular and introduced the theme of great power rivalry and intrigue. "The Dunwich Horror" is a horror short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written in 1928, it was first published in the April 1929 issue of Weird Tales (pp. 481–508). It takes place in Dunwich, a fictional town in Massachusetts. It is considered one of the core stories of the Cthulhu Mythos. Howards End is a novel by E. M. Forster, first published in 1910, about social conventions, codes of conduct and relationships in turn-of-the-century England. Howards End is considered by some to be Forster's masterpiece. The book was conceived in June 1908 and worked on throughout the following year; it was completed in July 1910. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Howards End 38th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Zadie Smith's On Beauty is a modern retelling of the novel, as well as an homage to it.
0.999999	Provide the solution of this question. The problem of asymmetric information is that: A) neither health care buyers nor providers are well-informed. B) health care providers are well-informed, but buyers are not. C) the outcomes of many complex medical procedures cannot be predicted. D) insurance companies are well-informed but policy purchasers are not. When point e corresponds to $9 per copy for Silver Screen DVDs, Nostalgia Corporation can produce annual economic profit of at mostly about: (i) $25 million. (ii) $35 million. (iii) $50 million. (iv) $75 million. (v) $100 million. Monopolistic competitive firms face: (w) perfectly elastic demand curves. (x) perfectly inelastic demand curves. (y) downward sloping demand curves. (z) the industry demand curves. Predatory behavior would not comprise: (w) aggressive advertising. (x) monopolizing access to essential resources. (y) lowering prices. (z) getting a patent on a new invention which is likely to start a new industry.
0.999987	Instagram, Life, and Meaning: Instagram models during the shutdown This is who l am now A normal person What is the meaning of life? Meme, Meaning, and What Is: English tests in 30 years, "QUESTION 5: What is the meaning of this meme?" Confused, Monster, and Tumblr: adorable monster @tristanreveur Follow let me read your cards adorable monster @tristanreveur Follow The meaning of the cards is often subtle, and requires a very sensitive and trained eye to unlock their meaning 0s magicianmew: brownnesscrew:LMAOOOO The cards can give you a gentle, guiding hand when you are confused or perhaps have lost your way and want to learn from your mistakes. Meme, Memes, and Meaning: English tests in 30 years, "QUESTION 5: What is the meaning of this meme?" Complex, Dad, and Memes: thekeekster Tonight at Walmart I saw a little boy ask a little girl if he could hug her because he liked her sweater. The girl (these kids looked to be about 5, MAYBE 6) said no, so the boy said "okay. I like your sweater. Bye." And then ran back to his parents. He said to his Dad "I didn't hug her because she said no, but l told her I liked her sweater!"" And his dad said "Cool buddy!" And they went on with their shopping trip. If a small child understands the 'complex concept of consent, and the meaning of the word 'no, then so should everyone else. Happy, Meaning, and Happiness: Painting to make yourself happy Painting to make others happy Painting while teaching the meaning of happiness I miss him everyday. Birthday, Tumblr, and Happy Birthday: Painting to make yourself happy Painting to make others happy 2, Painting while teaching the meaning of happiness awesomacious: Happy Birthday Bob. Here’s a happy little template for ya. awesomacious: Happy Birthday Bob. Here’s a happy little template for ya.
0.995241	Sleep at least 7-9 hours each night: Your body needs sleep to perform at its best. Some of the benefits of sleep include injury recovery, weight management, and improved memory. Wash hands regularly: After doing things like preparing food in your kitchen or using the bathroom, wash your hands thoroughly. It'll help reduce the spread of harmful bacteria from you to everyone around you. Clean your home: At least once a week, clean your home. It's important to sanitize your bathroom and other spaces to prevent unwanted odors and kill germs. Vacuuming your home will help eliminate dust and other particles that can aggravate your lungs and nasal passages. Exercise regularly: If you're sedentary, gradually increase your frequency of workouts to prevent injury and help your body get stronger. Are you already working out 3 times a week? You can step up your game by working out 4 times a week or increasing your workout time from 30 minutes to 40 minutes per workout. Reduce sugar intake: Your body will thank you for following this tip. Here are a few ways to reduce your sugar intake: ask for water instead of orange juice when eating breakfast at a restaurant, limit yourself to one soda a week instead drinking soda every day, snack on carrots instead of candy. Reduce alcohol intake or stop completely: Drinking alcohol takes a toll on your body and can impair your judgment. Putting an end to your alcohol intake will ensure that you're always able to drive. Work with a professional to stop smoking: What if you could save money and improve your health at the same time? Ending your smoking addiction will save you money and improve your health. Your lungs, as well as the rest of your body, will thank you. Skip the fast food runs: Late night binges are not worth it in the long run. One way to avoid the late night fast food runs is to drink water after dinner and get start your bedtime routine by 9 p.m. Increase intake of fruits and vegetables: Fresh fruits and vegetables are a great way to get vitamins such as vitamin C. A variety of tasty produce will give you many of the nutrients you need to stay healthy and maintain a strong immune system. Teach your children how to wash their hands: Do your children know how and when to wash their hands? If not, now is the time to teach them. Get some sunlight: Vitamin D helps you feel positive and optimistic. Even in the winter time, being outside when the sun is out can help you feel better since your body is able to manufacture vitamin D from sunlight. Simple tasks outside like mowing the lawn or shoveling snow give you the opportunity to be under the sun. Try new recipes that call for healthier ingredients: Are you tired of eating the same things every week? Do some research and look up delicious recipes that call for healthy ingredients. You can even ask friends on social media what their favorite healthy recipes are. Preparing your own meals will give yourself a better idea of what you're putting in your body. Meditate: Taking even just five or ten minutes a day to focus on one thing is a simple way to feel mentally energized. You can also take a walk in the woods or sit by a lake and ponder since being in nature is an effective way to clear your mind. Take a walk: Go for around the block with a friend or family member a few times a week. It's a great way to chat and unwind mentally while getting some exercise. Getting a little fresh air for 10-20 minutes during the workday is an effective way to feel rejuvenated and energized. Pay attention to your health: Use a notebook or an app to track weight changes, how you feel mentally and emotionally, sleep patterns, as well as physical activity. This information will help you stay on top of how you're doing well and what things you need to change. Partner with a friend: Working with a friend or family member to improve your health helps you stay accountable and on track. You're more likely to be motivated to improve since you also have a vested interest in the progress of your partner. Hydrate: Drink water regularly. Staying hydrated provides many benefits including improved brain function, prevention of constipation, and preventing heat stroke. Put your phone down and reduce screen time: Reducing overall screen time will give eyes and mind time to recover. The longer you're on your phone, the more difficult it will be to fall asleep at night. If you have to be in front of a computer for work, schedule regular breaks where you step away from your computer every 45 minutes to an hour to give your eyes a break for a minute or two. It'll reduce eye strain and headaches. Laugh: Loosening up and laughter decreases stress hormones and gives your immune system a boost. Even an occasional knock-knock joke that makes you chuckle is helpful. Make time for recreation: All work and no play is detrimental to your health. Schedule time slots in your calendar where you are doing something recreational whether it's playing a game of chess with a friend or going to a local music concert. Your body and mind will thank you for the break from the usual routine.
0.999142	Having an Adsense Account is mandatory for Adsense Revenue? I don't have any adsense account, is there any options available for me? In order to monetize using the AdSense program, you need an AdSense account. If you do not have one, you can still get cash credits for your content posted in this site. Yes, Google Adsense account is mandatory for earning Adsense revenue from Techulator. If you like, you can also earn Infolinks revenue by integrating your Infolinks account with Techulator. Another method of earning is cash credit. Post articles in resource section and answers in Ask Expert section. You will get cash credit for every approved post. Here's some general useful information: You can apply for the AdSense program for publishers by setting up your own website, putting in good informative unique content. After a reasonable number of good quality posts at the website, say after 5-6 months, you could apply for AdSense. If you do get AdSense approval, you can then associate the account with Techulator and thus earn AdSense revenue from your posts here. However, if you apply for AdSense through a host site, then your account will be a host account. In that case, you will not be able to associate your AdSense account here to earn from your posts at this site. Whether or not you do have an AdSense account, even if a hosted one, I would recommend that you contribute to Techulator. The Webmasters are giving a very generous amount of cash credits across all sections. You can participate in contests too as also aim for the various awards being offered for top contributors in various sections & for each week and month. As Muddassir pointed out, you may even get a few earnings from Infolinks ad units. All in all, it is a win-win situation for TEC members even without any AdSense account!
0.999963	How do I set up the mydlink devices with the Google Assistant? mydlink DCS-8000LH HD Mini Wi-Fi Camera, DCS-8100LH HD Wi-Fi Camera, DSP-W115 Wi-Fi Smart Plug, and DSP-W245 mydlink Wi-Fi Power Strip can work with Google Assistant. Please finish the below three actions before setting up Google Assistant. (3) Install the mydlink devices and sign into mydlink account. Please follow the steps below to set up Google Assistant. Step 1: Launch the Google Home app. Then tap menu. Step 2: Tap Home Control. Step 3: Tap to add mydlink devices. Step 4: In the Add devices page. Tap mydlink Smart. Step 5: Please enter your mydlink account E-mail and Password. Then tap Sign in. Step 6: After logging in, your mydlink devices will display on the Devices list tab under Home control. Step 7: Now you can use Google Assistant to control mydlink devices.
0.999864	Google released a method for recovering pictures from low resolution to high resolution using pixel recursive super resolution model. At each level of the pyramid, a separate generative convnet model is trained using the Generative Adversarial Nets (GAN) approach (Goodfellow et al.). Samples drawn from our model are of significantly higher quality than alternate approaches. Recently, Google released a method for recovering pictures from low resolution to high resolution. Compared with state-of-art approaches, this paper proposed an End-to-End framework to accomplish the super resolution task as a whole. It is comprised of two convolutional neural networks, one being a prior network that describe the skeleton of low resolution images, the second being a conditioning network to optimize detailed features. This specific method highlights the improvement on detailed features recovery for high resolution images and promote the theory in a probabilistic paradigm. Specific to the core algorithm, I will provide a review on the sampling strategy, model architecture, and approach analysis pieces. The implication of the Super Resolution Problem lies in recovering the image’s resolution. Heuristic solution manages to repair and complement detail patches to reconstruct high-resolution picture. However, for missing features that do not exist in the original images, the recovery model is required to generate them naturally. Hence optimal super resolution restore model must account for the complex variations of objects, viewpoints, illumination and occlusions. It should also be capable of drawing sharp edges and making hard decisions about the type of textures, shapes, and patterns presentation in different parts of images. According to the stated requirement above, there is significant difficulty in generating visually vivid high resolution images. Since the super resolution problem has a long history in computer vision research. There are diverse feasible methods to recover high resolution images. An interpolation heuristic approach is easy to implement and widely used, basically it takes the strategy that takes the average among all plausible detailed feature values. However, the drawbacks of these similar methods are also obvious, because the linear models cannot properly express complicated dependencies between the input information and output results, thus the resulting images tends to be blurry. In order to obtain plausible vivid image details, detailed de-blurr approach has been proposed. The approach is similar to dictionary construction(a rather primary and simple approach), further study is learning layers of filter kernels to extract multiple abstractions (features existed in CNN layers) in CNN, then to adjust network weights by measuring pixel-wise loss between interpolated low-resolution images and high resolution images. Basically, this multi-layer filter based approach performs better with more feature layers. Thus, the SRResNet achieves the expected performance by learning from many ResNet blocks. This paper applies a similar conditional network design for better processing high-frequency features. 2. Conditioning network using Res blocks from ResNet. In the following section, this paper illustrates the superiority of pixel recursive super resolution framework and the potential issues with pixel independent super resolution, then validate the theories on corresponding dataset, comparing self-defined metrics. To state the necessity for deploying recursive super resolution method, this paper first illustrated the theory of pixel independent super resolution method> The next section demonstrates such theory will fail in conditional image modelling. The unsatisfactory experimental results led to Google’s recursive model. The key factor is to construct the most suitable distribution of output pixel values. Hence we are able to recover most vivid high resolution images with sharp details. The naïve way is assuming every prediction pixel value y is conditionally independent from others, therefore overall probabilities p(y\|x) is product by multiplying each individual predictions. denotes the variance, generally variance is known before instead of learning obtained, thus the only learned term is the L2 norm between mean value and individual prediction. Then maximization of log-likelihood (expressed in (1) ) could be transferred as minimization procedure of MSE(Mean Square Error) between y and C. In the end, the CNN is able to learn a set of Gaussian parameters to obtain optimal mean value C. are softmax weights of K possible discrete pixel values under three channels. Refer to MINIST experiment figure, the digit generation results under different methods shows the difference. Pixel-wise cross-entropy method can capture crispy images, but fail to capture stochastic bimodality, thus the digits object appeared at both corner. A similar situation happens on L2 Regression method. The final results give two blurred digits in one output high resolution image. Only pixelCNN can both capture the location information and crisp image information, hence it further illustrate the superiority of using pixelCNN in the proposed model. Denote a conditioning network predicting a vector of logit values corresponding to the K possible values that the i th output pixel can take. Denote a prior network predicting a vector of logit values for the i th output pixel. Where lse(·) is the log-sum-exp operator corresponding to the log of the denominator of a softmax, and 1[k] denotes a K-dimensional one-hot indicator vector with its k th dimension set to 1. With all the theoretical preparations down, the paper goes onto the implementation phase. The experiments are accomplished under TensorFlow framework, utilizing 8 GPUs along with SGD updates. For the conditioning network, a feed-forward convolutional neural network is built. It takes an 8×8 RGB image through a series of ResNet blocks and transpose convolution layers, while maintaining 32 channels throughout. The last layer uses a 1×1 convolution to increase the channels to 256×3, and uses the resulting activation to predict a multinomial distribution over 256 possible sub-pixel values via a Softmax operator. As for prior network, typically pixelCNN, the experiments used 20 gated PixelCNN layers with 32 channels at each layer . To validate the performance of the proposed framework, the paper chose to recover two types of objects: human faces and bedroom scene. All training images are from CelebA dataset and LSUN Bedrooms dataset. To satisfy the requirements of network input, the authors also applied a necessary pre-processing stage to each dataset: cropped celebrity faces from CelebA dataset and cropped central images for LSUN Bedrooms dataset. In both datasets, they also resized the images to 32×32 with bicubic interpolation, and again to 8×8, constituting the output and input pairs for training and evaluation phase. According to visually judging the results between different methods, NN method can give crisp images but with rather large gap to ground truth, the regression model gives a close rough sketch, and the pixel recursive super resolution approach lies seemingly in the middle between the two baseline methods. It captured some detailed information, but not significantly better performing than other methods. For measuring performance, it quantifies the prediction accuracy of trained model compared to ground truth using pSNR and MS-SSIM (Table 1), besides the traditional measurement, the result also involved a human recognition study. According to the result table, the recursive model didn’t perform well on the pSNR and SSIM measurement. Although the paper also cited the other two measurements to state validation. However, it currently seems to lack strong convince when adding synthesized information, or may need further work to test the measurement validation. For human fooled percentage, the model performs superior than other methods, hence one could say the generated images are more photo realistic. In summary, the pixel recursive super resolution method proposed an innovative framework to balance the trade-off between rough skeleton and details capture. However, personally I think the outcome performance is not very convincing to state the model is really productive in recovering low resolution images to high resolution. Although the different resolution setting made it difficult to compare, it did achieve good performance for human judgement. Thus, it can potentially have good industrial application in the future.
0.999989	Action: is the main section of a task. It defines the actions which should be performed by the task. Action: section is normally the last section of the task definition and is located after task options, authorization options, time specifiers, event specifiers and conditions for starting tasks. In this section, you can use words of Forth programming language, user-defined words and any predefined words provided by nnCron. A list of nnCron's predefined words that can be used in Action: section can be found in nnCron's Key Words.
0.947582	Manage the supplier performance evaluation program and perform audits of suppliers' quality systems and manufacturing process • Establishes supplier quality performance criteria. • Ensures all supplier failure investigations are comprehensive and quality situations are timely addressed and solved. • Partners with Quality Control to ensure inspection plans are reflective of supplier’s capabilities. • Partners with designated teams to evaluate new methods, processes, and materials to determine effect on the quality plan and revise accordingly. • Reports to management on the performance of suppliers, areas for improvement within the supplier management system, and performance against established objectives for the supplier quality program. • Working with new product/process development teams, assesses the capabilities of proposed new or alternate suppliers/materials (technical, process, quality system and cGMP compliance). • Actively participate as an accountable member of the Material Review Board (MRB). • Prepares documented procedures for Supplier management systems. • Provide Supplier Quality trainings and support services to other departments as required • Facilitate the Total Quality improvement process. • Complies with all Company safety policies and procedures as related to this position, including reading all relevant safety literature and using the required protective equipment. • Maintains professional and technical knowledge by attending educational workshops’ reviewing professional publications; establishing personal networks; benchmarking state-of-the-are practices; participating in professional societies. • Contributes to team effort by accomplishing related results; keeping business information confidential; administering the system security; ensuring data accuracy and integrity; maintaining updated professional and technical knowledge; assuring systems compliance with laws, regulations, and corporate standards; ensuring a safe and healthy environment. • Complies with QSR, ISO and all applicable regulations and company procedures. • Acknowledge and maintain commitment with the environmental policy, and participate actively in the environmental programs to achieve the objectives and targets with their area. • Participate in the development of environmental improvement projects, which imply the minimization, all possible negative environmental impacts of daily operations and activities.
0.91054	I had my face mashed into a fat, squishy bunch of tissue by the collective hand of all the listeners who called me out for saying a number of episodes back that humanity had never been so laid to waste as it was under the scourge of the Black Death. Uh huh, it has so, went the general line of the emails I received after the Black Death episode came out. When the Europeans came to the Americas, almost a hundred million people were wiped out, maybe more. Did you know there's still a Bureau of Indian Affairs in the United States and that it's active and it's still called the Bureau of Indian Affairs? It's true. The BIA is currently led by a member of the Pawnee tribe named Larry Echo Hawk, who serves as the Assistant Secretary, reporting directly to Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar. Mr. Echo Hawk is the former Attorney General of Idaho, a former Brigham Young law professor, Marine and a respectable safety who led his BYU team in interceptions during the 1968 season. All of this may be helpful information. If you've always wanted a full or partially-complete human skeleton of unknown origin, then you should contact Mr. Echo Hawk and let him know you're a BYU fan. Who exactly was the first person to realize that one could pluck an unfertilized egg from beneath a hen, crack it and spill its contents into a hot pan and eat it? What was the context where the event took place? It wouldn't appear to be starvation, as one might imagine the person would have just eaten the chicken, unless of course it was a starving person with such tremendous foresight as to first test his curiosity before proceeding with the chicken slaughter.
0.999626	a new way to take "time off" Maybe “time off” doesn’t have to mean a silent meditation retreat or seclusion in a woodsy cabin for weeks. What if “time off” simply meant that you had permission to shake up your routine for a bit and engage even more with the world around you. You could explore the things you usually take for granted, talk with people you usually don't bother with, or just have a new perspective and discover new people and places. It’s amazing what a different environment can inspire. Even if you feel far away from being able to take time off from your business or your regular routine, believing it's possible is the first step in getting closer to it happening. Are you willing to believe and stay open to the possibility? Here's your recommendation for the week: Write out a fantasy scenario of what your yearly work schedule would look like if anything was possible. Write (or draw) what you might see possible in your life as a result of taking more "time off" - whatever that means to you. As always, share with me below! I'll respond as soon as I can.
0.958097	Accenture has worked closely with AWS to build specialized tools that automate SAP deployments and operations on AWS. These tools include AWS infrastructure and SAP architectural deployment blueprints that enable integrated testing and validation, as well as customizable and scalable deployment solutions. The tools make it easy to operate, administer and integrate advanced capabilities so that your SAP environment runs effectively on AWS. Most SAP deployments are manual, time-consuming and prone to human error, all of which can cause significant delivery issues and compromised quality. In the enterprise world, you may not have a standardized and streamlined path of deployment, which results in SAP environments that are set up differently and can lead to unexpected delays and expensive operational costs. In response, some companies have tried to throw more people or money at the problem, while others have made attempts to use infrastructure automation tools. These tools, however, come with a steep learning curve and heavy lifting from the infrastructure team, which many times does not have deep SAP experience. This is how companies can end up with semi-automated and inconsistent deployments. Why are Accenture DevOps automation tools important? Accenture and AWS have challenged the status quo with Accenture DevOps automation for SAP on AWS. The tools standardize SAP system deployments and provide a series of capabilities to streamline the entire operations lifecycle while integrating services that AWS provides. The Accenture automation tools can reduce time to market while improving the consistency and resiliency of SAP system architectures and enhancing the customer experience. Leading practices by default: We manage and continuously maintain SAP and AWS leading practices in the tool by pulling in lessons learned and the newest SAP and AWS features. Reduced time to market: By using templates and defining everything as code, SAP landscapes can be deployed in a matter of hours. Deployments of components are massively parallellized. Reduced deployment costs and increased service reliability: We significantly reduce manual labor and its associated errors. Reduced run costs: We automate SAP Basis and infrastructure operations which results in lower costs vs. manual management. Increased compliance and auditability: The template-based approach allows companies to meet strict compliance requirements. Our everything defined as code approach delivers a real-time, up-to-date configuration management database. Accenture cloud builder contains up-to-date best practices from SAP and AWS to produce cost savings, more consistent deployment and landscape management, as well as auditability. It uses various automation tools to deploy an SAP environment, including foundational pieces like VPC, subnets and security groups. Deployment is carried out by populating easy-to-use web forms which are passed on to API-driven automation tools like Jenkins and Chef. After the SAP instances are deployed, Accenture cloud runner can be used to enable automated application-consistent start/stop activities for non-production SAP environments. These can be scheduled within a given uptime window and can help clients save on infrastructure costs by having specific systems like sandbox, training and even development only available as needed. The tool equally enables auto-scaling for production systems, allowing us to size for a steady state and not for peak activity. Accenture cloud admin provides automation capabilities for various lifecycle actions like backups, system copies, refreshes and OS patching. This can substantially simplify SAP administration activities and allow customers to focus on more strategic and value-driven activities. Cloud admin puts the keys of the house in the hands of SAP Basis admins by automating SAP Basis activities including the scripting of the underlying infrastructure tasks. Accenture cloud monitor provides end-to-end monitoring across compute, network, storage, operating system and database all the way into the SAP application. This provides a consistent, “single pane of glass” view to customers, without having to look at different siloed logs and connecting the data points. Cloud monitor delivers 250 KPIs, metrics and alerts out-of-the-box and comes integrated with AWS CloudWatch. Accenture and AWS have changed the market for SAP implementations and operations on AWS by deploying Accenture DevOps automation tools for our client engagements to implement and operate an end-to-end solution. Using the guiding principle of “everything as code,” Accenture and AWS are helping clients deploy SAP and cloud infrastructure at extraordinary speed and scalability, and with unprecedented consistency. We are making development automation happen today.
0.998392	Constantly suffering from migraines and headaches is not normal, and although over the counter painkillers may provide temporary relief, a better understanding of these conditions may provide a long-term solution for living headache and migraine free. What are Headaches and Migraines? Headaches and Migraines are not synonymous terms. Headaches are pain and discomfort in the head, while migraines are typically felt on one side of the head. Tension headaches feel as though there is an elastic band around your head, creating pressure and pain. Migraines are characterized with sharp pain, blurred vision, dizziness, and sensitivity to light. Headaches and Migraines may be caused by lifestyle conditions such as eating particular foods, dehydration, or a lack of nutrients. If your suffer from frequent headaches and migraines, the cause may also be attributed to alignment of the body. When the body is out of alignment due to repetitive strain, posture, and developmental issues, pressure is placed on nerves causing muscles to tighten, and ultimately triggering a sharp pain to the head. The symptoms of a headache typically include sensations of tightness and pressure, tenderness, and dull aching pain. Headaches are typically an annoying disturbance causing irritability, but do not entirely impair an individual’s ability to function. Symptoms of a migraine however, are more severe. Migraines typically include pounding sharp pains on one side of the head. The intensity of this pain causes symptoms such as blurred vision, sensitivity to light, vomiting, sensitivity to sound, lightheadedness, and irritability. If you’re experiencing chronic headaches and migraines, a chiropractor can assess your condition and determine the treatment best for you. If the cause of the condition is bodily alignment, a chiropractor will adjust the alignment of the body. Adjustments are non-invasive treatments that provide immediate relief by relieving pressure on the nervous system. Adjustments also promote long term physical health, and prevention of future headaches and migraines. If the condition is related to lifestyle, the chiropractor will provide an assessment of common triggers such as diet and physical activity and prescribe accordingly.
0.966462	Transmon and Xmon qubits are two types of superconducting charge qubits that seem to be often used in superconducting quantum devices. However, I wasn't able to easily find direct comparisons between them. The Xmon architecture seems (1304.2322) to have been introduced by Martinis' group, as an alternative to the transmon qubit, so I would expect the former architecture to be better in at least some respects. On the other hand, it also seems (cond-mat/0703002 and 0712.3581 seem to be the relevant references) that the devices from IBM use transmon qubits. What are the main differences between the two, from a practical point of view (in other words, when and why does one prefer one over the other)? The transmon is a Josephson junction and capacitor in parallel. Originally, transmons were differential circuits, i.e. two transmons on the same chip were not galvanically connected in any way. In other words, transmons didn't share a ground reference. Furthermore, in the early days, transmons were almost always embedded into the middle of a harmonic resonator. The resonator, often referred to as a "bus resonator", was used to couple multiple qubits together, i.e. qubits embedded in the same resonator could couple to each other. The xmon was grounded. Each xmon on a chip connects to a common ground plane with a nominally fixed voltage. The xmon was not embedded into a resonator. Instead of coupling through a resonator, each xmon couples through a direct capacitance to each of its neighbors. Nowadays, several research groups build qubits without the bus resonator and call them "transmons". Much more could be written. If someone leaves a comment asking for more details on any particular aspect of the difference between transmon and xmon, I will write more. Rob Schoelkopf told me the story of where the name "transmon" came from while we were at the Les Houches summer school on "Quantum Machines". The charge qubit suffered from low frequency noisey charge fluctuations that lead to dephasing. To get around the problem, Professor Schoelkopf thought to shunt the junction with a bit of transmission line. The line would be a short circuit at dc, allowing low frequency charge to equalize, but it would be a high impedance at the qubit's resonance frequency allowing the resonance to remain. The combination of a transmission line with the junction plasmon mode lead to the name "transmon". In the end, it turned out that a capacitor was simpler than a transmission line and served a purpose equivalent to the transmission line, so the qubit wound up being a capacitor in parallel with the junction. However, the name "transmon" had already stuck (or maybe "capmon" just didn't sound as good). In one sense, the Xmon qubit is a transmon qubit, in that they both operate in the $E_J>>E_c$ regime of the CPB Hamiltonian and take advantage of the exponentially suppressed charge noise vs. polynomial decrease in anharmonicity effect discussed in (Koch, 2007). You could work out the dynamics of a superconducting qubit-resonator system without ever knowing whether the equations were describing an Xmon or a transmon, so functionally its hard to differentiate the Xmon. On the other hand, there are a lot of important design differences introduced in the Xmon: The qubit is grounded (mentioned above), the qubit is no longer embedded in the resonator, its conveniently tunable, the lifetime is enhanced (although the ibmqx3 chip that IBM uses for its quantum experience has qubits with $T_1\approx40 \space \mu s$ which matches the original Xmon lifetime). Also, the Xmon's shape is a great match for a surface code architecture that requires a tight-packed grid of qubits. Practically, there are a lot of other transmon designs that offer some of the same benefits of the Xmon. So "transmon vs. Xmon" isn't the general question to ask; just go with the design that's got the best lifetimes and maybe tunability. Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged physical-qubit architecture superconducting-quantum-computing or ask your own question.
0.968271	Jean Grey-Summers (born Jean Elaine Grey) is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character has been known under the aliases Marvel Girl, Phoenix, and Dark Phoenix. Created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, the character first appeared in The X-Men #1 (September 1963). Jean Grey is a member of a subspecies of humans known as mutants, who are born with superhuman abilities. She was born with telepathic and telekinetic powers. Her powers first manifested when she saw her childhood friend being hit by a car. She is a caring, nurturing figure, but she also has to deal with being an Omega-level mutant and the physical manifestation of the cosmic Phoenix Force. Jean Grey experienced a transformation into the Phoenix in the X-Men storyline "The Dark Phoenix Saga". She has faced death numerous times in the history of the series. Her first death was under her guise as Marvel Girl, when she died and was "reborn" as Phoenix in "The Dark Phoenix Saga". This transformation led to her second death, which was suicide, though not her last. She is an important figure in the lives of other Marvel Universe characters, mostly the X-Men, including her husband Cyclops, her mentor and father figure Charles Xavier, her unrequited love interest Wolverine, her best friend and sister-like figure Storm, and her genetic children Rachel Summers, Cable, Stryfe and X-Man. The character was present for much of the X-Men's history, and she was featured in all three X-Men animated series and several video games. She is a playable character in X-Men Legends (2004), X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse (2005), Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 (2009), Marvel vs Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds (2011), Marvel Heroes (2013), and Lego Marvel Super Heroes (2013), and appeared as a non-playable in the first Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. Famke Janssen portrayed the character in five installments of the X-Men films. Sophie Turner portrays a younger version in the 2016 film X-Men: Apocalypse. Turner will return to portray the character as well as her alternate personality the Phoenix in the 2019 film Dark Phoenix. Created by writer Stan Lee and artist/co-writer Jack Kirby, Jean Grey first appeared as Marvel Girl in The X-Men #1 (September 1963). The original team's sole female member, Marvel Girl was a regular part of the team through the series' publication. Initially possessing the ability of telekinesis, the character was later granted the power of telepathy, which would be retconned years later as a suppressed mutant ability. Under the authorship of Chris Claremont and the artwork of first Dave Cockrum and then John Byrne in the late 1970s, Jean Grey underwent a significant transformation from the X-Men's weakest member to its most powerful. The storyline in which Jean Grey died as Marvel Girl and was reborn as Phoenix (Uncanny X-Men #101–108, 1976–1977) has been retroactively dubbed by fans "The Phoenix Saga", and the storyline of her eventual corruption and death as Dark Phoenix (Uncanny X-Men #129–138, 1980) has been termed "The Dark Phoenix Saga". This storyline is one of the most well-known and heavily referenced in mainstream American superhero comics, and is widely considered a classic, including Jean Grey's suicidal sacrifice. When the first trade paperback of "The Dark Phoenix Saga" was published in 1984, Marvel also published a 48-page special issue titled Phoenix: The Untold Story. It contained the original version of Uncanny X-Men #137, the original splash page for Uncanny X-Men #138, and transcripts of a roundtable discussion between Shooter, Claremont, Byrne, editors Jim Salicrup and Louise Jones, and inker Terry Austin about the creation of the new Phoenix persona, the development of the story, and what led to its eventual change, and Claremont and Byrne's plans for Jean Grey had she survived. One of the creative team's questions that affected the story's conclusion was whether the Phoenix's personality and later descent into madness and evil were inherent to Jean Grey or if the Phoenix was itself an entity merely possessing her. The relationship between Jean Grey and the Phoenix would continue to be subject to different interpretations and explanations by writers and editors at Marvel Comics following the story's retcon in 1986. At the time of the Dark Phoenix's creation, Byrne felt that, "If someone could be seen to corrupt Jean, rather than her just turning bad, this could make for an interesting story." Salicrup and Byrne stated later that they viewed Phoenix as an entity that entirely possessed Jean Grey, therefore absolving her of its crimes once it was driven out. However, the creative and editorial team ultimately agreed that Phoenix had been depicted as an inherent and inseparable aspect of Jean Grey, meaning that the character was fully responsible for her actions as Phoenix. As a result, Shooter ordered that Claremont and Byrne rewrite issue #137 to explicitly place in the story both a consequence and an ending commensurate with the enormity of Phoenix's actions. In a 2012 public signing, Claremont spoke about the context of the late 1970s and the end of the Vietnam War during the story's writing, stating that the history of these events also made Jean Grey's genocidal actions difficult to redeem. In the original ending, Jean does not revert to Dark Phoenix, and the Shi'ar subject her to a "psychic lobotomy", permanently removing all her telepathic or telekinetic powers. Claremont and Byrne planned to later have Magneto offer Jean the chance to restore her abilities, but Jean choosing to remain depowered and eliminate the threat of Dark Phoenix returning to power. The unfinished cover for X-Factor #1, before Bob Layton and Jackson Guice decided on the fifth team member. (X-Factor #1) Art by Jackson Guice. After several years, Marvel decided to revive the character, but only after an editorial decree that the character be absolved of her actions during The Dark Phoenix Saga. Writer Kurt Busiek is credited with devising the plot to revive Jean Grey. Busiek, a fan of the original five X-Men, was displeased with the character's death and formulated various storylines that would have met Shooter's rule and allowed the character to return to the X-Men franchise. He eventually shared his storyline idea with fellow writer Roger Stern who mentioned it to Byrne, who was both writing and illustrating the Fantastic Four at the time. Both series writer Bob Layton and artist Jackson Guice, who were developing the series X-Factor—a team of former X-Men—had yet to settle on their fifth team member, initially considering Dazzler. Layton opted to fill the open spot with Jean instead, and both he and Byrne submitted the idea to Shooter, who approved it. Jean Grey's revival became a crossover plotline between the Avengers under Stern, Fantastic Four under Byrne, and X-Factor under Layton. Busiek later found out that his idea had been used thanks to Layton, and he was credited in Fantastic Four #286 and paid for his contributions. The decision to revive Jean Grey was controversial among fans, with some appreciating the return of the character and others feeling it weakened the impact of the Dark Phoenix Saga's ending. Busiek maintained that the idea that led to Jean Grey's official return to Marvel Comics was merely a case of sharing his ideas with friends as a fan, and that he neither formally pitched the idea to anyone nor gave it the final go ahead. Claremont expressed dissatisfaction with the retcon, stating in 2012: "We'd just gone to all the effort of saying, 'Jean is dead, get over it,' and they said, 'Haha, we fibbed.' So why should anyone trust us again? But that's the difference between being the writer and being the boss." In a 2008 interview Byrne said he still felt Busiek's method of reviving Jean Grey was "brilliant", but agreed that in retrospect the character should have remained dead. In the comics, having been fully established as separate from the "Jean Grey" copy created and taken over by the Phoenix Force, Jean is "absolved" of involvement in the atrocities of "The Dark Phoenix" storyline, and she returned in the first issue of X-Factor (1st Series). Claremont later commented on how Jean's revival affected his original plans for Madelyne Pryor, stating that the relationship between the two women was intended to be entirely coincidental. He intended Madelyne only to look like Jean by complete coincidence and exist as a means for Cyclops to move on with his life and be written out of the X-Men franchise, part of what he believed to be a natural progression for any member of the team. Claremont expressed dismay that Jean's resurrection ultimately resulted in Cyclops abandoning his wife and child, tarnishing his written persona as a hero and "decent human being", and the "untenable situation" with Madelyne was dealt with by transforming her into a prolicidal demonic villain and killing her off. Soon after the beginning publication of X-Factor, Marvel also reprinted and released the original X-Men series under the title Classic X-Men. These reissues paired the original stories with new vignettes, elaborating on plot points. One such issue, Classic X-Men #8 (April 1987), paired the original X-Men #100 (August 1976) story of Jean Grey's disastrous return flight from space immediately preceding her transformation into Phoenix ("Love Hath No X-Man...") with the new story "Phoenix". The story further supported the retcon establishing Jean Grey and the Phoenix Force as two separate entities. Following the conclusion of Inferno, Jean continued to be a mainstay character throughout the rest of X-Factor X-Factor (1st Series) ended its run featuring the original X-Men with X-Factor #70 (September 1991), with the characters transitioning over to Uncanny X-Men, explained in continuity as the two teams deciding to merge. The fourteen X-Men divide into two teams—"Blue" and "Gold"—led by Cyclops and Storm, respectively. Jean was added to the Gold Team beginning in Uncanny X-Men #281 (October, 1991). Following Cyclops's possession by the mutant villain Apocalypse and disappearance in the conclusion of the crossover storyline "Apocalypse: The Twelve", Jean lost her telekinetic abilities and was left with increased psychic powers, the result of the "six month gap" in plot across the X-Men franchise created by the Revolution revamp. During the Revolution event, all X-Men titles began six months after the events of Apocalypse: the Twelve, allowing writers to create fresh situations and stories and gradually fill in the missing events of the previous six months of continuity. Due to editing decisions following the success of the 2000 X-Men film, which depicted the character of Jean Grey with both telepathy and telekinesis, an explanation for Jean's altered powers in the comics was never explicitly made, though writer Chris Claremont revealed in interviews that it was intended to be an accidental power switch between fellow X-Man Psylocke, explaining Psylocke's new telekinetic powers as well. Jean was next featured in the six-issue miniseries X-Men Forever written by Fabian Nicieza, which was designed to tie up remaining plot lines. During the series, Jean revisited many of the events involving the Phoenix Force and the series introduced the concept of "Omega level mutants", a category for mutants with unlimited potential, which included Jean herself. In June 2001, X-Men was retitled as New X-Men under writer Grant Morrison. The title consisted of a smaller team featuring Jean, Cyclops, Beast, Wolverine, Emma Frost, and Charles Xavier. The overarching plot focused on the team assuming the roles of teachers to a new generation of mutants at the Xavier Institute while navigating their personal relationships and dealing with newly emerging pro- and anti-mutant political sentiments. Jean also made minor appearances in other titles during the New X-Men run, such as Chris Claremont's X-Treme X-Men, occasionally lending support to the characters. Jean and her connection with the Phoenix Force was examined again one year after the conclusion of Morrison's run on New X-Men in X-Men: Phoenix – Endsong written by Greg Pak in 2005. At the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con X-Men panel, when asked whether or not Jean would return, editor Nick Lowe responded by saying, "She's dead." Regarding Jean's actual return to the X-Men franchise, Marvel indicated that Jean's eventual return is being discussed but stated that the return of Jean Grey was "a story Marvel does not want to rush". Marvel loosely tied questions regarding Jean Grey's eventual return to the events in 2007's X-Men: Messiah Complex in which a mutant girl named Hope—who has red hair, green eyes, and immense mutant powers—is born, and 2010's X-Men: Second Coming which sees both Hope's return as a teenager and the return of the Phoenix Force. Following the conclusion of Avengers vs. X-Men as part of the Marvel NOW! event, a teenage Jean Grey and the four other founding members of X-Men are transported across time to the present day by Beast in the series All-New X-Men by Brian Michael Bendis. The original adult Jean Grey returned to the Marvel Universe in a new series titled Phoenix Resurrection: The Return of Jean Grey, released on December 27, 2017. The series was written by Matthew Rosenberg with art by Leinil Francis Yu. Jean Elaine Grey was born the second daughter of John and Elaine Grey. She had an older sister, Sara Grey-Bailey. John Grey was a professor at Bard College in upstate New York. Depictions of Jean's childhood and her relations with her family have shown a stable, loving family life growing up. Jean's mutant powers of telepathy and telekinesis first manifest when her best friend is hit by a car and killed. Jean mentally links with her friend and nearly dies as well. The event leaves her comatose, and she is brought back to consciousness when her parents seek the help of powerful mutant telepath, Charles Xavier. Xavier blocks her telepathy until she is old enough to be able to control it, leaving her with access only to her telekinetic powers. Xavier later recruits her as a teenager to be part of his X-Men team as "Marvel Girl", the team's sole female member. After several missions with the X-Men, Xavier removes Jean's mental blocks and she is able to use and control her telepathic powers. She begins a relationship with teammate Cyclops, which persists as her main romantic relationship, though she also develops a mutual secret attraction to a later addition to the team, Wolverine. Marvel Girl becomes Phoenix. (X-Men #101) Art by Dave Cockrum. During an emergency mission in space, the X-Men find their shuttle damaged. Jean pilots the shuttle back to Earth, but is exposed to fatal levels of radiation. Dying, but determined to save Cyclops and her friends, Jean calls out for help and is answered by the cosmic entity, the Phoenix Force. The Phoenix Force, the sum of all life in the universe, is moved by Jean's dedication and love and takes the form of a duplicate body to house Jean's psyche. In that instant, the Phoenix Force is overwhelmed and believes itself to be Jean Grey and places Jean's dying body in a healing cocoon. The ship crashes in Jamaica Bay, with the other X-Men unharmed. The Phoenix Force, as Jean Grey, emerges in a new green and gold costume and adopts the new codename "Phoenix", with immense cosmic powers. Meanwhile, the cocoon containing the real Jean Grey sinks to the bottom of the bay, unnoticed. Phoenix continues her life as Jean Grey with the other X-Men, joining them on missions and saving the universe. During "The Dark Phoenix Saga", Phoenix becomes overwhelmed and corrupted by her first taste of evil and transforms into a force of total destruction, called "Dark Phoenix", consuming a star, inadvertently killing the inhabitants of the star's planetary system, and jeopardizing the entire universe. However, Jean's personality manages to take control and Phoenix commits suicide to ensure the universe's safety. Upon its suicide by way of a disintegration ray, the Phoenix Force disperses into its original form and a fragment locates the still-healing Jean at the bottom of Jamaica Bay. In trying to bond with her, Jean senses its memories of death and destruction as Dark Phoenix and rejects it, causing it to bond with and animate a lifeless clone of Jean Grey created by the villain Mister Sinister. Sinister created the clone to mate with Cyclops to create genetically superior mutants. Named "Madelyne Pryor", the unaware clone meets Cyclops in a situation engineered by Sinister and the two fall in love, marry, and have a child, Nathan Christopher Summers. Meanwhile, the cocoon is discovered and retrieved by the Avengers and the Fantastic Four. Jean emerges with no memory of the actions of the Phoenix/Dark Phoenix. The Avengers and Fantastic Four tell her of what happened and that she was believed dead until now. She is reunited with the original X-Men and convinces them to form the new superhero team X-Factor, reusing her "Marvel Girl" codename. Jean learns that Cyclops has romantically moved on with Madelyne, who is angered over his decision to lead X-Factor and neglect his family. Though Jean encourages Cyclops to return to Madelyne, he finds their house abandoned and assumes that Madelyne has left him and taken their infant son; Cyclops returns to X-Factor and he and Jean continue their relationship. The team's adventures continued throughout the series, culminating in the line-wide "Inferno" crossover. Madelyne eventually resurfaces, now nearly insane and with powers awakened by a demonic pact, calling herself the Goblyn Queen. Learning of her true identity and purpose as a clone created by Mister Sinister drove her completely insane and she plans to sacrifice Nathan Christopher to achieve greater power and unleash literal Hell on Earth. While attempting to stop her, Jean is reunited with the other X-Men, who are happy to learn that she is alive, particularly Wolverine, reminding Jean of her unaddressed feelings for him. Jean and Madelyne confront each other, and Madelyne attempts to kill them both. Jean manages to survive only by absorbing the remnant of the Phoenix Force housed within Madelyne, giving her both Madelyne's memories and the Phoenix's memories from "The Dark Phoenix Saga". While continuing on X-Factor, Cyclops proposes to Jean and she meets her alternate future daughter Rachel Summers (who goes by the codename "Phoenix" as well and is also able to tap into the Phoenix Force), but she rejects them both out of the feeling that they indicate that her life is predetermined. When X-Factor unites with the X-Men, Jean joins the Gold Team, led by Storm. During this time, she no longer uses a codename, instead being referred to by her civilian name. After some time, she makes up with Rachel, welcoming her into her life, and proposes to Cyclops and the two marry. On their honeymoon, the couple is immediately psychically transported 2000 years into the future to raise Cyclops's son Nathan, who had been transported to the future as an infant in hopes of curing him of a deadly virus. Jean adopts the identity of "Redd" along with Cyclops ("Slym") and they raise Nathan Christopher for twelve years before they are sent back into their bodies on their wedding honeymoon. Jean learns that a time-displaced Rachel had used her powers to transport them to the future to protect Nathan, and per Rachel's request, Jean adopts the codename "Phoenix" once again to establish it as a symbol of good after all the bad it had caused. Meanwhile, her psychic and telekinetic abilities begin to grow and she begins using the iconic green and gold Phoenix costume again. Jean also met another alternate future child of hers and Scott's: the immensely powerful Nathan Grey, who accidentally revived the psionic ghost of Madelyne Pryor, leading to another confrontation between the two women. Jean Grey on the cover of Uncanny X-Men #334. In Bishop's original timeline before he ends up in the present he finds the X-Men's war room and finds a garbled distress signal from Jean about a traitor destroying the X-Men from within. Meanwhile, in the present, the X-Men begin to hear increasing news about a malevolent entity called Onslaught. Jean first sees Onslaught as a psionic image with the rest of the X-Men after Onslaught coerces Gateway to kidnap Cyclops, Wolverine, Storm, and Iceman. He later appears to her again in a similar way after rescuing her and Gambit from Bastion and offers her a chance to join him. Onslaught makes his first full appearance to Jean on the astral plane and shows her how humanity is closing in on mutants as well as revealing that Xavier was in love with her while she was a student to convince her to join him. He then telepathically brands his name to her mind when she refused and asks him his name. When Juggernaut comes to the mansion with information about Onslaughts true identity but has a mental block preventing him from divulging it, Jean enters his mind and helps him to remember who Onslaught really is and to her horror she discovers that Onslaught is really Professor X, having gone insane ever since wiping Magneto's mind. Professor Xavier calls the X-Men together for a meeting and Jean tries unsuccessfully to rally the X-Men against him before he manifests Onslaught. While Onslaught easily overtakes the rest of the X-Men, Jean escapes to the war room and sends out the distress signal that Bishop found in the future. After a massive battle against Jean and the rest of the X-Men, Onslaught escapes to carry out his plans. After Onslaught nearly kills the X-Men they team up with the Avengers to make a plan to stop him, knowing full well that it may come down to them killing Xavier if the world is to survive. Jean accompanies Cyclops, Archangel, and Psylocke to Muire Island where they and Moira McTaggart discover the Xavier Protocols, secret plans that Xavier made to kill any of the individual X-Men should anyone become a threat against the world. Meanwhile, Jean's earlier distress signal makes it to X-Factor, Excalibur, and X-Force. After returning to New York, Jean works closely with Reed Richards to help build up defenses against Onslaught as well as to help create the psionic armor that could block Xavier's telepathic powers as seen in the Xavier Protocols. When Jean senses that Xavier has been freed from Onslaught and is going to confront him on his own, she and Cyclops bring together the rest of the X-Men to back him up. The rest of the Avengers and Fantastic Four join them in a final stand against Onslaught before he completely destroys the world. In a final act of desperation Jean finds Hulk and locks away Bruce Banner's mind, leaving only the Hulk in control so he can fight Onslaught unencumbered. With the vast majority of earth's heroes missing and assumed dead after Onslaught is finally defeated, Jean and Cyclops open their home to Quicksilver and his daughter and try to help the X-Men to get their lives get back together. Jean Grey on the cover of New X-Men #128. Following Cyclops's possession by the mutant villain Apocalypse and apparent death, Jean continues with the X-Men, but is distraught by the loss of her husband. She later learns that she is an "Omega-level" mutant with unlimited potential. Jean begins to suspect that Cyclops may still be alive and with the help of Nathan Christopher (now the aged superhero "Cable"), is able to locate and free Cyclops of his possession by Apocalypse. The couple return to the X-Men as part of the Xavier Institute's teaching staff to a new generation of mutants. While Jean finds she is slowly able to tap into the powers of the Phoenix Force once again, her marriage to Scott begins to fail. Jean and Wolverine address their long-unspoken mutual attraction, deciding it is best not to act on their feelings; Cyclops grows further alienated from Jean due to her growing powers and institute responsibilities and seeks consolation from the telepathic Emma Frost to address his disillusionment and his experiences while possessed by Apocalypse. These therapy sessions lead to a "psychic affair" between Scott and Emma. Jean's discovery of the psychic affair results in a confrontation between her and Emma, though ultimately Jean realizes that her marriage to Scott has run its course and that Emma truly loves him. In a final confrontation with a traitor at the institute (the X-Men's teammate Xorn, posing as Magneto) Jean fully realizes and assumes complete control of the powers of the Phoenix Force, but is killed in a last-ditch lethal attack by Xorn. Jean dies, telling Scott "to live". However, after her funeral, Scott rejects Emma and her offer to run the school together. This creates a dystopian future where all life and natural evolution is under assault by the infectious, villainous, sentient bacteria "Sublime". Jean is resurrected in this future timeline and becomes the fully realized White Phoenix of the Crown, using the abilities of the Phoenix Force to defeat Sublime and eliminate the dystopic future by reaching back in time and influencing Cyclops to accept Emma's love and her offer to run the school together. Jean then reconciles with Cyclops and fully bonds with the Phoenix Force and ascends to a higher plane of existence called the "White Hot Room". A weakened Phoenix Force returns to reanimate Jean. Jean tries to convince the Phoenix Force to let her go so they can return to the White Hot Room together, but once again the Phoenix Force takes over. Jean lets Wolverine find her and tries to convince him to kill her again before the Phoenix does more damage. The Shi'ar track the Phoenix Force and make an alliance with Storm to find her and defeat her. Jean takes Wolverine to the North Pole before the Shi'ar can kill her and convinces him to kill her. He stabs her numerous times but Phoenix keeps reanimating her, prompting Jean to dive deep into the ice and freeze herself. The Phoenix Force leaves her body and once again assumes Jean's form to tempt Cyclops to attack her so she can absorb his optic blasts and become strong again. When the Phoenix Force merges with and overwhelms Emma Frost Cyclops frees Jean from the ice. Once freed Jean ejects the Phoenix from Emma and accepts that she is one with the Phoenix Force. After feeling the love from the X-Men, the Phoenix relents and returns with Jean back to the White Hot Room. Before she departs, Jean and Cyclops share a telepathic emotional farewell. Though she had yet to fully return, the Phoenix Force and Jean continued to manifest themselves, particularly the Phoenix through the red-haired, green-eyed "mutant messiah" who slightly resembles Jean named Hope Summers, and Jean briefly appears in a vision to Emma Frost from the White Hot Room, warning the X-Men to "prepare". She again appears in a vision to Cyclops when he is overwhelmed by the power of Dark Phoenix, helping him abandon the power so that it can pass on to its true host. After Nightcrawler is fatally wounded by the Crimson Pirates, Jean appears to him along with Amanda Sefton and the recently deceased Wolverine to help coax him back to life. Jean's spirit begins to manifest in a more straightforward and aggressive manner to the time-displaced Jean from an alternate timeline, seemingly training her for the arrival of the Phoenix. However, after the younger Jean begins to ignore her, she possesses the time displaced Jean and uses her as a means to ambush Emma Frost. Strange psych occurrences around the world, which include a large bird flaring out from the sun and an explosion on the moon, raise red flags for the X-Men, who quickly launch an investigation of these events. After a string of bizarre encounters with familiar enemies, many of them considered deceased, the X-Men come to one conclusion: the Phoenix Force is back on Earth. The X-Men also discover that psychs are going missing or falling ill, which prompts the team to investigate the grave of Jean Grey. As they find the coffin of their long-dead teammate empty, they race to locate the Phoenix before it can find a suitable host. As it turns out, with the time-displaced teen Jean Grey out of the Phoenix Force's way, the cosmic entity has already resurrected the present adult Jean Grey. However, she doesn't recall her life as a mutant and an X-Man, and terrible visions from her previous life have left Jean unsure of the difference between reality and fiction. As she lays inside of what appears to be a Phoenix Egg, the X-Men theorize that the strange psych occurrences are subconscious cries for help made by Jean Grey and must try to stop the Phoenix from merging with their old friend. Old Man Logan is able to make Jean Grey remember her true life and she learns about the fate of her family and several of her friends, among them Cyclops. As Jean faces the Phoenix Force, she is finally able to convince the cosmic entity to stop bringing her back and let her go. Alive once again, Jean is reunited with her friends as the Phoenix Force journeys back to space. Restored to life, Jean gathers some of the greatest minds on Earth together so that she read their minds to plan her next move. Recognizing that there has been a sudden surge in anti-mutant sentiment, to the point where there are plans to abort pregnancies if the mutant gene is detected, Jean announces her plans to establish a more official mutant nation, making it clear that she will not establish a geographic location for said nation as past examples make it clear that doing so just makes mutants a target. To support her in this goal, she assembles a team including Nightcrawler, X-23 and Namor, but is unaware that her actions are being observed by Cassandra Nova. In All-New X-Men, present-day Beast goes to the past and brings a younger version of Jean to the present day along with the other original X-Men in hopes of helping the present-day Cyclops to see how far he's fallen. This version has experienced a surge in her abilities due to the trauma of being brought to the future. The time travel also caused her suppressed telepathic powers to awaken much earlier in her life than they were supposed to. She also has a habit of reading people's minds without their permission, to the great frustration of her team.[volume & issue needed] During the Battle of the Atom crossover, a future version of this Jean Grey, who had never returned to the past and whose powers had grown beyond her control, would return to the present as Xorn, a member of the future Brotherhood of Mutants. Xorn perished during the battle, but in the process the X-Men also found out that there is something preventing the All-New X-Men from returning to the past. During this timeline, she reads the mind of current Beast, who regrets never admitting his feelings for her, so confronts younger Beast and gives him a kiss, which creates problems with the younger Cyclops. She and her team also leave the Jean Grey School for mutants and go to Cyclops's school, where she forms a reluctant friendship with Emma Frost as she trains her psychic abilities. Jean is later kidnapped by the Shi'ar and placed on trial for the destruction done by the Phoenix Force years earlier in a 2014 crossover story line Trial of Jean Grey. The All-New X-Men team up with the Guardians of the Galaxy to rescue Jean from the Shi'ar homeworld, but Jean would end up awakening a new power that she never had, in which she is able to absorb massive amounts of psionic energy from others and combine her telepathy and telekinesis, which she used to defeat the powerful Gladiator, leader of the Shi'ar. Following the reconstruction of reality after the Battleworld crisis, Jean has parted ways from the rest of the time-displaced X-Men as she attempts to find her own life in the present by living a normal civilian life in College until Storm recruits her to join her new team of X-Men to help protect mutants from Terrigen. She mentions having broken up with Hank McCoy, considering him to be more of a brother. After the X-Men go to war against the Inhumans to destroy the Terrigen, Jean leaves Storm's team and attempts to return to her original timeline along with the rest of the time-displaced X-Men but realizes that they're not from the 616 timeline, leaving them stranded on Earth 616 with no idea which timeline they're originally from. With this new knowledge that they are from an unknown alternate timeline, Jean becomes the time-displaced X-Men's new leader and they quit the X-Men in hopes of finding their place in the current world. Jean ends up approached by Magneto, who offers her and her team to join him in preserving Xavier's dream by defeating those who oppose it. Jean accepts and her team joins him, but in secret they train themselves in case Magneto ever reverts to his villainous roots to kill them. As part of the Marvel's RessurXion event, Jean Grey received her first-ever solo series. While on a solo mission against the Wrecking Crew, Jean receives a vision that the Phoenix Force is coming back to earth. She goes to the rest of the X-Men to warn them about her vision but as there haven't been any Phoenix sightings since the X-Men went to war against the Avengers to decide the fate of the Phoenix, she has a hard time getting Beast, Captain Marvel, and Kitty Pryde to accept that her vision was real even though they assure her that if the Phoenix ever does return then the X-Men and Avengers will come together and do all they can to stop it. Jean feels even less taken seriously when Beast begins examining her for signs of delusional hallucinations. Jean then meets with other former Phoenix hosts Colossus, Magik, Rachel Summers, Hope Summers and Quentin Quire, where the latter uses his powers to show her how the aftereffects of bonding with the Phoenix Force has individually affected each of them. A meeting with Namor helps Jean come to the conclusion that she can refuse the Phoenix and even possibly defeat it. After meeting with Thor and training with Psylocke, Jean learns how to create telekinetic weapons to help with her impending battle against the Phoenix. Jean ends up sent back in time for unknown reasons and ends up meeting that timeline's Jean Grey shortly after she first becomes Phoenix. Time-displaced Jean attempts to ask Phoenix questions about the Phoenix Force but she dodges Jean's questions. Instead Phoenix takes Jean for a night out and shows off her powers. After witnessing Phoenix use her cosmic powers to fight off Galactus from consuming a defenseless planet, Jean contemplates warning Phoenix of her fate until an encounter with The Watcher stops her from doing so. The Watcher commends Jean and tells her that choosing to not change her future means that her ultimate fate is in her own hands whether or not she ends up hosting the Phoenix Force back in her present. As Jean returns to her present, Phoenix cryptically states that they will meet again. Backed by a host of former Phoenix Force wielders, Emma Frost, Quentin Quire, Hope Summers, the Stepford Cuckoos and even the spirit of the adult Jean Grey, the teen Jean tries to defy destiny and stop the Phoenix before it can take her over and bend her to its will. With the Phoenix Force now on Earth, the team realizes it's going to take a lot more than they have to stop it. And while the young Jean is able to wound the Phoenix with the aid of Cable's Psi-mitar, the Phoenix seems just too strong for anyone to overcome. Teen Jean eventually managed to push the cosmic force far away from her friends and allies, where a final battle can take place. However, both Jean Greys learned how wrong they were, as the Phoenix was never coming for teen Jean, at least not like they believed. Actually, the Phoenix wants the adult Jean, but to do that it needs the young Jean out of the way. Thus, the force floods her body with flaming psychic energy, incinerating her from the inside out, leaving only a skeleton. This was done to resurrect the adult Jean Grey, which the Phoenix considers its one true host. However, after dying, the younger Jean found herself somehow in the White Hot Room despite not being a Phoenix host. Angry, the Phoenix attempted to destroy her using mental manifestations of its past hosts, created from pieces of their life forces left in the Room. Jean realized that she could control the White Hot Room against the Phoenix wishes and commanded the cosmic entity to resurrect her, which it did so in order to get rid of her. After returning to Madripoor, she was approached by her resurrected older Earth-616 counterpart, much to her surprise. Jean Grey is an Omega-level mutant, and at her highest and strongest potential was bonded with the Phoenix Force and with it was able to defeat even Galactus. When her powers first manifested, Jean was unable to cope with her telepathy, forcing Professor X to suppress her access to it altogether. Instead, he chose to train her in the use of her telekinesis while allowing her telepathy to grow at its natural rate before reintroducing it. When the Professor hides to prepare for the Z'Nox, he reopens Jean's telepathic abilities, which was initially explained by writers as Xavier 'sharing' some of his telepathy with her. Her telekinetic strength and skill are both of a supremely high power-level, capable of grasping objects in Earth orbit and manipulating hundreds of components in mid-air in complex patterns. She often uses her telekinesis to lift herself and others, giving her the ability of levitation and flight. She uses her telekinesis to create durable shields and energy blasts. Jean later manifests a "telekinetic sensitivity" (called "the Manifestation of the Phoenix") to objects in her immediate environment that lets her feel the texture and molecular patterns of objects, feel when other objects come into contact with them, and probe them at a molecular or subatomic level. Jean's younger self who had been brought from the past into the present by an older Hank McCoy eventually found an entirely new usage of her powers separate from the Phoenix Force. The teenage Marvel Girl learned she has the ability to merge and become psionic energy by drawing on the ambient thought waves emanating from sentient minds then pooling them together with her own telekinetic prowess. Transforming her physical self into raw mental power with which she can discharge and utilize at will. Its potency is such that she can match and overpower the likes of Gladiator; magistrate of the Shi'ar with relative ease. Under the tutelage of Psylocke, teenage Marvel Girl has learned the ability to create psionic weapons that damage a target either physically, mentally or both in some point. She showed skill in constructing multiple types of psionic weapons that differ in size, length and power which she uses in combat. Jean as the White Phoenix of the Crown. When transformed into Phoenix, Jean's powers escalate to a considerably higher level, allowing her to rearrange or disintegrate matter at a subatomic level, fly unaided through space, survive in any environment (even the core of a star), and manipulate electromagnetic and cosmic energies for various effects and atmospheric disturbances. She can create stargates that can transport her anywhere in the universe instantaneously. At this level, she is powerful enough to easily defeat a herald of Galactus. Jean, while acting as a Phoenix Force avatar, can create 'cosmic' fire, even in seemingly impossible situations such as the vacuum of space or underwater. Typically it manifests as a raptor or part of a raptor such as claws or wings. Jean has perfect control over this fire, only consuming what she wills. This fire does not require oxygen to burn, and burns so intensely that matter is consumed without by-products such as ash. It is unclear whether the fire is an extension of her telekinesis and telepathy or a more general property of the Phoenix Force. The cosmic fire is a literal punctuation to the Phoenix's purpose to "burn away what doesn't work", as well as being described as "burning through lies and deception". As the Phoenix, Jean is able to resurrect after death. In some depictions, these resurrections are immediately after she is killed, while other depictions indicate that resurrection must occur at a "correct" time, sometimes taking a century. The Phoenix Force allows Jean to revive, absorb, rechannel, and preserve the life-force of any kind of life-form, meaning that she can take life energy from one person and give it to others, heal herself with the same life energy, or even resurrect the dead, since the Phoenix is the sum of all life and death. The relationship between Jean Grey and the Phoenix (and the nature of the powers she has) is portrayed in a variety of ways throughout the character's history. In the initial plotline of the Phoenix being a manifestation of Jean's true potential, these powers are considered her own, as part of Claremont and Byrne's desire to create "the first cosmic superheroine". However, since the retcon of the Phoenix as a separate entity from Jean Grey, depictions of these powers vary; these include Jean being one of many hosts to the Phoenix and "borrowing" its "Phoenix powers" during this time, being a unique host to the Phoenix, and being one with the Phoenix. She is later described as the only one currently to be able to hold the title of "White Phoenix of the Crown" among the many past, present, and future hosts of the Phoenix. Jean — both young and adult versions — is also the only character ever to force the Phoenix against its own cosmic will to do anything while not presently a host to its powers. In one instance Jean forcibly ripped the Phoenix out of Emma Frost and imposed its status upon herself. Young Jean was able to keep her psyche anchored in the Phoenix's mind postmortem despite the Phoenix's own efforts to forcibly remove her after it murdered her. Jean then subsequently forced the Phoenix to resurrect her after manipulating the Phoenix's mental landscape against it. This not the first time Jean was resurrected without the Phoenix; in one instance, she was even able to fully resurrect herself after being clinically dead completely independent of the Phoenix Force. As a fictional character in the Marvel Universe, Jean Grey appears in various alternate plot lines and fictional universes. She was ranked third in Comics Buyer's Guide's 100 Sexiest Women in Comics list. Jean Grey appears in various media, such as animated programs, video games, films, and is sometimes referenced in pop culture. "End of Greys", a story arc featured in the Uncanny X-Men comic book series. Rachel Summers, (also known as Rachel Grey) the daughter of the alternate future counterparts to Cyclops (Scott Summers) and Jean Grey. She inherited her mother's telepathic and telekinetic powers and the code name Phoenix. Thus far, at least four different characters—each of whom somehow gained the power of "the speed force"—have assumed the mantle of the Flash in DC's history: college athlete Jay Garrick (1940–1951, 1961–2011, 2017–present), forensic scientist Barry Allen (1956–1985, 2008–present), Barry's nephew Wally West (1986–2011, 2016–present), and Barry's grandson Bart Allen (2006–2007). Each incarnation of the Flash has been a key member of at least one of DC's premier teams: the Justice Society of America, the Justice League, and the Teen Titans. The Flash is one of DC Comics' most popular characters and has been integral to the publisher's many reality-changing "crisis" storylines over the years. The original meeting of the Golden Age Flash Jay Garrick and Silver Age Flash Barry Allen in "Flash of Two Worlds" (1961) introduced the Multiverse storytelling concept to DC readers, which would become the basis for many DC stories in the years to come. Like his Justice League colleagues Wonder Woman, Superman and Batman, the Flash has a distinctive cast of adversaries, including the various Rogues (unique among DC supervillains for their code of honor) and the various psychopathic "speedsters" who go by the names Reverse-Flash or Zoom. Other supporting characters in Flash stories include Barry's wife Iris West, Wally's wife Linda Park, Bart's girlfriend Valerie Perez, friendly fellow speedster Max Mercury, and Central City police department members David Singh and Patty Spivot. A staple of the comic book DC Universe, the Flash has been adapted to numerous DC films, video games, animated series, and live-action television shows. In live action, Barry Allen has been portrayed by Rod Haase for the 1979 television special Legends of the Superheroes, John Wesley Shipp in the 1990 The Flash series and Grant Gustin in the 2014 The Flash series, and by Ezra Miller in the DC Extended Universe series of films, beginning with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016). Shipp also portrays a version of Jay Garrick in the 2014 The Flash series. The various incarnations of the Flash also feature in animated series such as Superman: The Animated Series, Justice League, Batman: The Brave and the Bold and Young Justice, as well as the DC Universe Animated Original Movies series. The Flash first appeared in the Golden Age Flash Comics #1 (January 1940), from All-American Publications, one of three companies that would eventually merge to form DC Comics. Created by writer Gardner Fox and artist Harry Lampert, this Flash was Jay Garrick, a college student who gained his speed through the inhalation of hard water vapors. When re-introduced in the 1960s Garrick's origin was modified slightly, gaining his powers through exposure to heavy water. Jay Garrick was a popular character in the 1940s, supporting both Flash Comics and All-Flash Quarterly (later published bi-monthly as simply All-Flash); co-starring in Comic Cavalcade; and being a charter member of the Justice Society of America, the first superhero team, whose adventures ran in All Star Comics. With superheroes' post-war decline in popularity, Flash Comics was canceled with issue #104 (1949) which featured an evil version of the Flash called the Rival. The Justice Society's final Golden Age story ran in All Star Comics #57 (1951; the title itself continued as All Star Western). In 1956, DC Comics successfully revived superheroes, ushering in what became known as the Silver Age of comic books. Rather than bringing back the same Golden Age heroes, DC rethought them as new characters for the modern age. The Flash was the first revival, in the tryout comic book Showcase #4 (Oct. 1956). This new Flash was (Barry Allen), a police scientist who gained super-speed when bathed by chemicals after a shelf of them was struck by lightning. He adopted the name The Scarlet Speedster after reading a comic book featuring the Golden Age Flash. After several more appearances in Showcase, Allen's character was given his own title, The Flash, the first issue of which was #105 (resuming where Flash Comics had left off). Barry Allen and the new Flash were created by writers Robert Kanigher and John Broome and cartoonist Carmine Infantino. The Silver Age Flash proved popular enough that several other Golden Age heroes were revived in new incarnations (see: Green Lantern). A new superhero team, the Justice League of America, was also created, with the Flash as a main, charter member. Barry Allen's title also introduced a much-imitated plot device into superhero comics when it was revealed that Garrick and Allen existed on fictional parallel worlds. Their powers allowed them to cross the dimensional boundary between worlds, and the men became good friends. Flash of Two Worlds (The Flash (vol. 1) #123) was the first crossover in which a Golden Age character met a Silver Age character. Soon, there were crossovers between the entire Justice League and the Justice Society; their respective teams began an annual get-together which endured from the early 1960s until the mid-1980s. Allen's adventures continued in his own title until the event of Crisis on Infinite Earths. The Flash ended as a series with issue #350. Allen's life had become considerably confused in the early 1980s, and DC elected to end his adventures and pass the mantle on to another character. Allen died heroically in Crisis on Infinite Earths #8 (1985). Thanks to his ability to travel through time, he would continue to appear occasionally in the years to come. The third Flash was Wally West, introduced in The Flash (vol. 1) #110 (Dec. 1959) as Kid Flash. West, Allen's nephew by marriage, gained the Flash's powers through an accident identical to Allen's. Adopting the identity of Kid Flash, he maintained membership in the Teen Titans for years. Following Allen's death, West adopted the Flash identity in Crisis on Infinite Earths #12 and was given his own series, beginning with The Flash (vol. 2) #1 in 1987. Many issues began with the catchphrase: "My name is Wally West. I'm the fastest man alive." Due to the Infinite Crisis miniseries and the "One Year Later" jump in time in the DC Universe, DC canceled The Flash (vol. 2) in January 2006 at #230. A new series, The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive, began on June 21, 2006. The initial story arc of this series, written by Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo with art by Ken Lashley, focused on Bart Allen's acceptance of the role of the Flash. Flash: Fastest Man Alive was canceled with issue #13. In its place The Flash (vol. 2) was revived with issue #231, with Mark Waid as the initial writer. Waid also wrote All-Flash #1, which acted as the bridge between the two series. DC had solicited Flash: Fastest Man Alive through issue #15. All Flash #1 replaced issue #14 and The Flash (vol. 2) #231 replaced issue #15 in title and interior creative team only. The covers and cover artists were as solicited by DC, and the information text released was devoid of any plot information. In 2009, Barry Allen made a full-fledged return to the DCU-proper in The Flash: Rebirth, a six-issue miniseries by Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver. While several other individuals have used the name Flash, these have lived either on other parallel worlds, or in the future. Jay Garrick, Barry Allen, and Wally West are the best-known exemplars of the identity. The signature wingdings are never absent. Jay Garrick was a college student in 1938 who accidentally inhaled heavy water vapors after taking a smoke break inside his laboratory where he had been working. As a result, he found that he could run at superhuman speed and had similarly fast reflexes. After a brief career as a college football star, he donned a red shirt with a lightning bolt and a stylized metal helmet with wings (based on images of the Greek deity Hermes), and began to fight crime as the Flash. His first case involved battling the "Faultless Four", a group of blackmailers. Garrick kept his identity secret for years without a mask by continually vibrating his body while in public so that any photograph of his face would be blurred. Although originally from Earth-Two, he was incorporated into the history of New Earth following the Crisis on Infinite Earths and is still active as the Flash operating out of Keystone City. He is a member of the Justice Society. Barry Allen depicted in Justice #1 (August 2005). Art by Alex Ross. Barry Allen is an assistant scientist from the Criminal and Forensic Science Division of Central City Police Department. Barry had a reputation for being very slow, deliberate, and frequently late, which frustrated his fiancée, Iris West. One night, as he was preparing to leave work, a freak lightning bolt struck a nearby shelf in his lab and doused him with a cocktail of unnamed chemicals. As a result, Barry found that he could run extremely fast and had matching reflexes. He donned a set of red tights sporting a lightning bolt (reminiscent of the original Fawcett Comics Captain Marvel), dubbed himself the Flash (after his childhood hero, Jay Garrick), and became a crimefighter active in Central City. In his civilian identity, he stores the costume compressed in a special ring via the use of a special gas that could compress cloth fibers to a very small fraction of their normal size. Barry sacrificed his life for the universe in the 1985 maxi-series Crisis on Infinite Earths, and remained dead for over twenty years after that story's publication. With the 2008 series Final Crisis, Barry returned to the DC Universe and returned to full prominence as the Flash in the 2009 series The Flash: Rebirth, which was soon after followed by a new volume of The Flash ongoing series, where Barry's adventures as the Scarlet Speedster are currently published. Wallace Rudolph "Wally" West is the nephew of both Iris West and Barry Allen, by marriage, and was introduced in The Flash (vol. 1) #110 (1959). When West was about ten years old, he was visiting his uncle's police laboratory, and the freak accident that gave Allen his powers repeated itself, bathing West in electrically-charged chemicals. Now possessing the same powers as his uncle, West donned a copy of his uncle's outfit and became the young, crime fighter, Kid Flash. After the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths where Barry Allen was killed, Wally took over as the fastest man alive. Following the events of Infinite Crisis, Wally, his wife Linda, and their twins left Earth for an unknown dimension. Wally, his wife and twins were pulled back from the Speed Force by the Legion of Super-Heroes at the conclusion of The Lightning Saga. This set the stage for Wally West's return as the Flash after the events of The Flash: Fastest Man Alive #13 (see Bart Allen), in All Flash #1, and with The Flash (vol. 2) series, which resumed with issue #231 in August 2007. It subsequently ends with issue #247, and West, along with all the other Flash characters, play a large role in 2009's The Flash: Rebirth. He briefly appears in the Blackest Night story arc but shortly after the New 52 was launched and the character was nowhere to be seen. He is back as the Flash in DC Rebirth and joined the Titans. Bartholomew Henry "Bart" Allen II is the grandson of Barry Allen and his wife Iris. Bart suffered from accelerated aging and, as a result, was raised in a virtual reality machine until Iris took him back in time to get help from the then-current Flash, Wally West. With Wally's help, Bart's aging slowed, and he took the name Impulse. After he was shot in the knee by Deathstroke, Bart changed both his attitude and his costume, taking the mantle of Kid Flash. During the events of Infinite Crisis, the Speed Force vanished, taking with it all the speedsters save Jay Garrick. Bart returned, four years older, and for a year claimed that he was depowered from the event. However, the Speed Force had not disappeared completely, but had been absorbed into Bart's body; essentially, he now contained all of the Speed Force. Bart's costume as the Flash was a clone of his grandfather's, similarly stylized to Wally West's. Not long after taking the mantle of the Flash, Bart was killed by the Rogues in the thirteenth (and final) issue of The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive. However, he was later resurrected in the 31st century in Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds #3 by Brainiac 5 to combat Superboy-Prime and the Legion of Super-Villains. Bart returned to the past and played a large role in The Flash: Rebirth. Dark Flash is a Doppelganger of The Flash from Earth-X. His true identity has not yet been revealed. The Dark Flash is scheduled to be a villain for the crossover event between The Flash, Supergirl, Green Arrow and The Legends. He isn't a Flash from the future that becomes the good Flash, He is just a version. Daughter of the speedster Johnny Quick, Jesse Chambers becomes a speeding superhero like her father. She later meets Wally West, the Flash, who asks her to be his replacement if something were to happen to him (as part of an elaborate plan on his part, trying to force Bart Allen to take his role in the legacy of the Flash more seriously). She briefly assumes the mantle of the Flash, after Wally enters the Speed Force. John Fox was a historian for the National Academy of Science in Central City in the 27th Century. He was sent back in time to get the help of one or more of the three Flashes (Garrick, Allen, West), in order to defeat the radioactive villain Mota back in Fox's own time period. (Each Flash had individually fought Mota over the course of several years in the 20th century.) Fox's mission was a failure, but during his return trip, the tachyon radiation that sent him through the time stream gave him superspeed. He defeated Mota as a new iteration of the Flash and operated as his century's Flash for a time. Shortly after, he moved to the 853rd century and joined "Justice Legion A" (also known as Justice Legion Alpha) as seen in the DC One Million series of books. The name "John Fox" is combined from the names of seminal comic book writers John Broome, who co-created the Barry Allen and Wally West Flashes, and Gardner Fox, who co-created the Jay Garrick Flash. The father of Sela Allen, his wife and daughter were captured by Cobalt Blue. He is forced to watch his wife die and his daughter become crippled. As he and Max Mercury kill Cobalt Blue, a child takes Cobalt Blue's power gem and kills Allen. This Flash is one of the two destined Flashes to be killed by Cobalt Blue. Sela Allen is an ordinary human in the 23rd century until Cobalt Blue steals electrical impulses away from her, causing her to become as slow to the world as the world is to the Flash. Hoping to restore her, her father takes her into the Speed Force. When her father is killed, she appears as a living manifestation of the Speed Force, able to lend speed to various people and objects, but unable to physically interact with the world. Blaine Allen and his son live on the colony world of Petrus in the 28th century. In an attempt to end the Allen blood line, Cobalt Blue injects Allen's son Jace with a virus. Lacking super speed, Jace was unable to shake off the virus. In despair, Blaine takes his son to the Speed Force in the hopes that it would accept him. It takes Blaine instead and grants super speed to Jace so that he can shake off the sickness. Jace Allen gains super speed when his father brings him into the Speed Force to attempt to cure him of a virus injected into his body by Cobalt Blue in an attempt to end the Allen bloodline. In memory of his father, Jace assumes the mantle of the Flash and continues the feud against Cobalt Blue. After an alien creature invades Earth, a history buff named Kriyad travels back in time from the 98th century to acquire a Green Lantern power ring. He fails, so he tries to capture the Flash's speed instead. After being beaten by Barry Allen (The Flash (vol. 1) #309, May 1982), he travels back further in time and uses the chemicals from the clothes Barry Allen was wearing when he gained his powers to give himself super speed. Kryiad later sacrifices his life to defeat the alien creature. Bizarro-Flash was created when Bizarro cloned Flash. He had a costume the reverse colors of Flash's, however he had a mallet symbol because Flash was holding one when he was cloned. The modern version of Bizarro Flash has the symbol of a thunderbolt-shaped mustard stain. He has the powers of the Flash but he is completely intangible. All incarnations of the Flash can move, think, and react at light speeds as well as having superhuman endurance that allows them to run incredible distances. Some, notably later versions, can vibrate so fast that they can pass through walls in a process called quantum tunneling, travel through time and can also lend and borrow speed. Speedsters can also heal more rapidly than an average human. In addition, most incarnations have an invisible aura around their respective bodies that protects them from air friction and the kinetic effects of their powers. On several occasions, the Flash has raced against Superman, either to determine who is faster or as part of a mutual effort to thwart some type of threat; these races, however, often resulted in ties because of outside circumstances. Writer Jim Shooter and artist Curt Swan crafted the story "Superman's Race With the Flash!" in Superman #199 (Aug. 1967) which featured the first race between the Flash and Superman. Writer E. Nelson Bridwell and artist Ross Andru produced "The Race to the End of the Universe", a follow-up story four months later in The Flash #175 (Dec. 1967). However, after the DC Universe revision after Crisis on Infinite Earths, the Flash does successfully beat Superman in a race in Adventures of Superman #463 with the explanation that Superman is not accustomed to running at high speed for extended periods of time since flying is more versatile and less strenuous, which means the far more practiced Flash has the advantage. After Final Crisis in Flash: Rebirth #3 the Flash is shown as being significantly faster than Superman, able to outrun him as Superman struggles to keep up with him. He reveals that all the close races between them before had been "for charity". In the Smallville episode "Run", Flash is not only able to run faster than a pre-Superman Clark Kent but can match Clark's top speed while running backwards. While various incarnations of the Flash have proven their ability to run at light speed, the ability to steal speed from other objects allows respective Flashes to even significantly surpass this velocity. In Flash: The Human Race Wally is shown absorbing kinetic energy to an extent enabling him to move faster than teleportation and run from the end of the universe back to earth in less than a Planck instant (Planck time). Speedsters may at times use the ability to speed-read at incredible rates and in doing so, process vast amounts of information. Whatever knowledge they acquire in this manner is usually temporary. Their ability to think fast also allows them some immunity to telepathy, as their thoughts operate at a rate too rapid for telepaths such as Martian Manhunter or Gorilla Grodd to read or influence their minds. Flashes and other super-speedsters also have the ability to speak to one another at a highly accelerated rate. This is often done to have private conversations in front of non-fast people (as when Flash speaks to Superman about his ability to serve both the Titans and the JLA in The Titans #2). Speed-talking is also sometimes used for comedic effect where Flash becomes so excited that he begins talking faster and faster until his words become a jumble of noise. He also has the ability to change the vibration of his vocal cords making it so he can change how his voice sounds to others. While not having the physical strength of many of his comrades and enemies, Flash has shown to be able to use his speed to exert incredible momentum into physical attacks. In Injustice: Gods Among Us, Flash uses these kinds of attacks as many of his special moves. The Flash has also claimed that he can process thoughts in less than an attosecond. At times he is able to throw lightning created by his super speed and make speed vortexes. Some flashes also have the ability to create speed avatars (i.e. duplicates) and these avatars have sometimes been sent to different timelines to complete a particular mission. (Barry Allen exhibits this ability in the live action series "The Flash"). He can also be seen negating the effects of the anti-life equation, when he freed Iris-West from its control (probably due to his connection with the speed force). It is said that Wally West has reached the velocity of 23,759,449,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (about 24 tredecillion) × c (the speed of light) and he could only do this with the help of every human being on earth moving so the speed force was joined through everyone. With that speed he was able to not only run from planet to planet but different galaxies and universes at what would be considered a blink of an eye. Tanaka Rei from Legends of the DC Universe: Crisis on Infinite Earths. Art by Paul Ryan and Bob McLeod. In the final issue of 52, a new Multiverse is revealed, originally consisting of 52 identical realities. Among the parallel realities shown is one designated "Earth-2". As a result of Mister Mind "eating" aspects of this reality, it takes on visual aspects similar to the pre-Crisis Earth-2, including the Flash among other Justice Society of America characters. The names of the characters and the team are not mentioned in the panel in which they appear, but the Flash is visually similar to the Jay Garrick Flash. Based on comments by Grant Morrison, this alternate universe is not the pre-Crisis Earth-2. A variant of the Flash—a superfast college student named Mary Maxwell—was seen in the Elseworld book Just Imagine Stan Lee Creating The Flash. The Flash of Earth-D, Rei was a Japanese man who idolized Barry Allen, whose stories only existed in comic books on this world. Rei was inspired by Allen to become the Flash, much like Allen was inspired to become the Flash by his idol, Jay Garrick. Allen and Rei met during the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" when Barry was coming back from the 30th century and arrived in the wrong universe. As Earth-D was under attack by the shadow demons, Barry called on the Justice League and Tanaka called on the Justice Alliance, his world's version of the Justice League. They built a cosmic treadmill and were able to evacuate much of Earth-D's population. The Justice League left, but 39 seconds later, Earth-D perished. Rei made his only appearance in Legends of the DC Universe: Crisis on Infinite Earths (February 1999). The story was written by Marv Wolfman, with art by Paul Ryan (pencils) and Bob McLeod (ink). The young, female Flash of the Tangent Universe is not a speedster, but instead "the first child born in space" and a being made up of and able to control light. As a side effect, she can move at the speed of light, which actually makes her faster than most of the other Post-Crisis Flashes, as only Wally West has ever survived a light-speed run without becoming trapped in the Speed Force. She recently reappeared in Justice League of America #16, somehow summoned out of the paper 'green lantern' of her universe—an artifact that survived the Crisis that erased the Tangent Universe from existence. Lia Nelson also appeared in Countdown: Arena battling two versions of the Flash from other Earths within the Multiverse. In the 52-Earth Multiverse, the Tangent Universe is designated Earth-9. In Superman & Batman: Generations 2, three different Flashes appear: Wally West as Kid Flash in 1964, Wally's cousin Carrie as Kid Flash in 1986, and Jay West, the son of Wally and his wife Magda as the fifth Flash in 2008. Barry Allen makes a cameo appearance out of costume in 1964. Ali Rayner-West, aka Green Lightning, is a descendant of both Kyle Rayner and Wally West. She has both a power ring and superspeed, as seen in Green Lantern: Circle of Fire. She was a living construct created by Kyle Rayner's subconscious, who later re-fused into his mind. A teenage version of Jesse Chambers appears as the Flash of the Ame-Comi universe. As with most of the other characters of that Earth, she sports an Anime-inspired costume. The 1980s series Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew! presented the parallel Earth of "Earth-C-Minus", a world populated by funny animal superheroes that paralleled the mainstream DC Universe. Earth-C-Minus was the home of the Crash, a turtle with super-speed powers similar to those of Barry Allen's, and a member of his world's superhero team, the Just'a Lotta Animals. The Crash as a youth had read comics about Earth-C's Terrific Whatzit, similar to how Barry Allen enjoyed comics about Earth-Two's Jay Garrick. An African-American teenager named Danica Williams appears as the Flash in the Justice League Beyond series, acting as Wally West's successor during the 2040s (following the events of Batman Beyond). She is employed at the Flash Museum in Central City, and like Barry Allen, is chronically late. She later enters into a relationship with Billy Batson, who is the secret identity of the superhero, Captain Marvel. Throughout his 70-year history, the Flash has appeared in numerous media. The Flash has been included in multiple animated features, such as Superfriends and Justice League, as well as his own live action television series and some guest star appearances on Smallville (as the Bart Allen/Impulse version.) There are numerous videos that feature the character. In the Challenge of the Superfriends series which ran from 1978–1979, he appears in every episode and has spoken lines in only twelve out of the sixteen episodes of the series. He also had two arch enemies from the Legion of Doom, Captain Cold and Gorilla Grodd. The Flash appeared for one season (1990–1991) on the CBS Network, starring double-Emmy Award winner John Wesley Shipp as Barry Allen. Produced by Danny Bilson and Paul DeMeo, the series was a mild amalgamation of the Barry Allen and Wally West versions of the comics in that the female lead was Tina McGee (portrayed by Amanda Pays) and Wally's need for large amounts of food after expending so much energy running all over Central City was transferred to Barry. After his lightning-induced chemical accident, Barry got into crime fighting after the death of his police officer brother, Jay; it is presumed that Jay was named for the original comic book Flash, Jay Garrick. A handful of the Scarlet Speedster's rogues gallery made guest appearances throughout the series: Captain Cold (Michael Champion) ("Captain Cold"), Mirror Master (David Cassidy) ("Done With Mirrors"), and the Trickster (Mark Hamill) ("The Trickster" and "Trial of the Trickster"). The Flash also fought a clone of himself who wore a blue costume. A few episodes were written by comics legend Howard Chaykin and the TV costume was designed by Dave Stevens (The Rocketeer). While a critical success and vigorously backed by the network, the series had the dubious distinction of being aired against ratings powerhouses The Cosby Show on NBC and Fox's The Simpsons. The Flash was preempted by Christmas specials and the Desert Storm war in Iraq, and was cancelled after its first season. Warner Brothers released the series in a 6-disc DVD box set on January 10, 2006. The series' main musical theme was composed by Danny Elfman, with the remainder of the episodes' music being composed by Shirley Walker (this collaboration would also occur on Batman: The Animated Series). When the Flash made a guest appearance in the Superman: The Animated Series episode 'Speed Demons', Walker incorporated some of the themes from the live-action series into the episode. Wally West is the Flash who appears in the DCAU voiced by Michael Rosenbaum. He has Wally's personality like telling bad jokes and being attracted to most women. He does have some Barry Allen traits as well like being in Central City and working as a forensic scientist. He is the only Flash to appear in the DCAU however Jay Garrick's helmet is seen on display in the Flash museum in the Justice League Unlimited episode Flash and Substance. Kid Flash (Wally West) appears in the Teen Titans episode Lightspeed and protects Jump City while the Titans are away. He refers to a previous partnership with The Flash (presumably Barry Allen). He soon reforms Jinx and enters a romantic relationship with her. The Flash is a playable character in the Mortal Kombat and DC Comics crossover game Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. The first official render for The Flash was released to the public on Monday July 7, 2008. His bio reveals that this version is Barry Allen. He is also a playable character in Injustice: Gods Among Us and its sequel, developed by NetherRealm Studios. Two versions of the Flash make appearances in DC Universe Online. Barry Allen fights alongside the heroes against Gorilla Grodd's army, and is a bounty for the villains. Jay Garrick appears in the Watchtower, selling powerful armor to Level 30 Heroes with the Metapower origin. Impulse is shown in Young Justice: Invasion as the grandson of Barry Allen and Iris West. He comes from the future to save his grandfather from Neutron (A.K.A. Nathaniel Tryon). Once he travels back he does succeed in saving Barry Allen, and stopping Neutron, this was supposed to save the future, but it is shown that the future remains the same. When he tries to travel back to his time (2056), his time machine doesn't work, it is shown in a backstory that he knew he was going to be stuck in the past, because the wires would be fried, though he doesn't reveal this to anyone on The Team, at that moment, he is considered an official member. In the Arrow episode titled "The Scientist", Central City CSI Investigator Barry Allen partners with Felicity Smoak to find the thief that broke into one of the Queen Consolidated Applied Sciences building. Barry claims that he was sent from Central City to Starling City to investigate since there were connections to a case in Central City. Oliver Queen soon finds out that Barry was actually an assistant who came to Starling to investigate this strange occurrence in the hope that he would find an answer to who murdered his mother when he was a child. His appearance set up the character for his own series in 2014. This Flash makes guest appearances in episodes of Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl. The Flash made his first theatrical film appearance in The Lego Movie. He was part of Metalbeard's pirate crew. He later made a brief appearance in The Lego Batman Movie. In October 2014, Warner Bros. announced that Ezra Miller will star as the lead in a live-action film adaptation of The Flash set to be released in 2018 along with a cameo in the 2016 film Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. The Barry Allen version of the Flash appears in Justice League Action. Numerous references to the Flash are presented on the television show The Big Bang Theory. A particular reference is main character Sheldon Cooper's Flash t-shirt, which has become a staple of merchandise clothing. In the season 1 episode The Middle-Earth Paradigm, the four main male characters on the show all independently dress up for a Halloween party as the Flash before deciding that they can't all be the Flash so no one gets to. In the season 10 episode The Birthday Synchronicity, Sheldon bought a Flash onesie for Howard & Bernadette's newborn. In season 3 of Lost, in the episode "Catch-22", Charlie and Hurley debate over who would win a footrace between The Flash and Superman. The false name Barry Allen is used by character of con artist Frank Abagnale, Jr.(posing as a Secret Service Agent), in the movie Catch Me If You Can. When a coffee shop waiter notices the notes of FBI agent Carl Hanratty, he reveals that Barry Allen is the Flash, giving Carl a vital clue to his unknown subject's identity. In 2006, a near-pristine copy of Flash Comics #1 was sold in a Heritage Auction for $273,125. The same book was then sold privately for $450,000 in 2010. Renan Kanbay wears a Flash costume while playing Carrie, the manager of a comic book store, in Joe Lipari's Dream Job (2011). The band Jim's Big Ego wrote the song "The Ballad of Barry Allen" detailing the hardship having to watch time moving so slowly from the perspective of Allen. The frontman of the band, Jim Infantino is the nephew of Flash artist Carmine Infantino. In the film Daddy Day Care, one of the day care kids named Tony wore a Flash costume for the majority of the film. In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "Power Ponies", Pinkie Pie becomes a superhero based on the Flash called Fili-Second. In an episode of The Simpsons, Comic Book Guy dresses as The Flash while running in a marathon. He says "No one can outrun the Flash" but ends up falling in a pothole and gets stuck. Like Batman, Superman, and Green Lantern, the Flash has a reputation for having fought a distinctive and memorable rogues gallery of supervillains. In the Flash's case, some of these villains have adopted the term "Flash's Rogues Gallery" as an official title, and insist on being called "Rogues" rather than "supervillains" or similar names. At times, various combinations of the Rogues have banded together to commit crimes or take revenge on the Flash, usually under the leadership of Captain Cold. The Rogues are known for their communal style relationship, socializing together and operating under a strict moral code, sometimes brutally enforced by Captain Cold. Such "rules" include "no drugs" and, except in very dire situations or on unique occasions, "no killing".
0.994628	Did you know that you and I are eukaryotes? Our cells have a nucleus, so that makes us eukaryotes. So eukaryotes eat plants and animals. Single-celled eukaryotes eat bacteria and other living things that are smaller than they are.
0.982002	Come to the same conclusion about prison in America. But is that where the similarity ends? The first got deported from the U.S.A. the other one became the President. "We, the People, recognise that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which only asks what's in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defence." ...But that is where the similarity ends. Obama's current view about drugs and drug abuse. What are your views on drugs and incarceration? Both are inexorably linked as policy on one affects the other. I'm curious to know what you think.
0.999997	Is wallet the right place to store condoms? The best place to store unused condoms in a cool, dry place where they won't get creased or dried out, not in a wallet or pants pocket. Sometimes condoms haven't been stored properly and the material breaks down before the expiration date. If a condom ever seems dry, sticky, or stiff when it comes out of the package, don't use it. Instead, get a new condom. And never use oil"based lubricants such as lotion, massage oil, mineral oil, petroleum jelly, or baby oil with condoms because these substances can break down the material.
0.999991	Reading is the ability to decode and acquire meaning from printed symbols. This process is common to most cultures and is considered to be an essential part of learning and development in many of these cultures. Parents often wonder when their children will begin to read, but are usually surprised to know that the development of reading begins long before a child can actually read. Let’s take a look at the process of learning to read and when this occurs for most children. This stage begins when a child is happy to sit and listen to someone read to them. This stage usually begins in the first 2 years of life and can lasts until the child is about 5 years of age. During this stage children may be able to recognize some letters and number without attributing any meaning to them. By the end of this stage some children are able to recognize many letters, numbers and simple words. During the next stage the child begins to decode the symbols and they are able to understand the meaning behind much of what they are reading. At this stage they begin to break down the words into sounds which are put together to read the words. This skill, known as phonological awareness, is considered to be a key event in learning to read. This usually occurs between the ages of 4 and 7 and continues to be an important part of reading after this time. During this stage a child will develop a vocabulary of about 4,000 words. At this stage the child is able to put the sounds together smoothly and become faster and more confident in their reading. They are able to understand letter patterns and vowel pairs that make up more complex words, along with prefixes and suffixes. For most children this stage is achieved somewhere between 6-8 years of age. It is this stage that the child switches from learning to read and begins to read to learn. Children begin to comprehend more of what they are reading and will develop knowledge of various literary techniques, which helps to understand meaning beyond the words. This stage usually occurs between 8 and 12 years of age. It is important to note that these are estimates and some children will learn to read faster or slower than these estimations.
0.999995	Now I am going to give you a few more things to chew on...Muahhaaaahha. Note, I am not ripping you apart here, I am offering my opinion since you asked. This is gonna hurt though, I imagine. First, loose the third picture. There are way to many things going on there that I won't even describe. Your second picture is very nice, your first picture shows you have a spine, and the last picture is, well, just nice. Second, use I correctly througout. The use of i says alot of things and I think on balance your better off use it correctly. Third, start sentences with an upper case character. If you don't have the time to spell correctly in your profile, some women might find that an indication negative things about you. here is what i believe, the foundations to a proficient relationship are: Compromise, Trust, Communication and Respect. Here is the breakdown of me..... I am a wholesome person being described constantly by my female friends [as] " you are gonna make some woman really happy one day ". italian background but born here, and just the everyday friendly guy that boosts people's spirits when they are down low. I'm the guy that goes out of their way for another person regardless of how well I know that individual. I'm the type that brings a laugh and smile to people in general cause that is my character. I'm the guy you can bring home to your parents. I like women the same way I enjoy my food.... sweet, wholesome and goes straight to my heart[heh, like a cheesburger and hardend arteries? :)]. I am a sucker for a pretty face and an even bigger sucker for a really nice pair of eyes. The type of woman i am looking for, is one who is wholesome, very kind hearted, family orientated, has a good head on their shoulders and has an ambition and drive to succeed in life. someone who has a great sense of humor and loves to laugh is a must, someone who doesn[']t mind staying in and watching a good movie and cuddling on the couch. if they [continue with the use of the singular here and personalize it by saying "you"]are a little shy i tend to be more drawn to them[this sounds like you are looking for clingy women that may have esteem issues, I would shorten up this sentence if if must stay"I like shy women" perhaps]. bonus points if you are a family guy[Family Guy] & south part[South Park] fan.[I cringed when I read that the first time. "...if you are a family guy & south part" AAHHHHH!!! Good luck man, and just remember I am giving you some feedback to as to improve your profile. I did not spend all this time writting this with anything other than wanting to help you out. Your going to do fine. Just a couple more things and I am ought-a-here. You might consider adding some detail about your interests. At the end of your description, try to bring it back to "you", personally reach out to the reader. Your last statement here is cuddling on the couch. You might want something (with more creativity than I am going to say)"So if any of this sounds good to you, let me know, I would love to hear from you." Move her to act, rather than sit on the couch at this point. im happy with meeting up for a coffee or go to a nice resturant (i know a few select good spots) then just see where the evening goes from there, nothing really planned out, as long as I can spend time with a woman and get to know her in depth. the conversation has to be there, if it isnt....then it isnt worth the time. "I would like to spend time with you to get to know you for who you really are; but then that is just the first date, isn't it?...". Again, it is bringing it back to a personal appeal to the individual reading, not the abstract "woman". Finally, and this is it! I mean it...:) your header could use some creativity. "Help Wanted.... Apply within" Women don't want to help you, and it is a bit tacky too. Yes, I know this is the Pond, that we are advertising, but... Put some thought into your header as it is RIGHT there when people search and open your profile. well now that all of that is settled.. lets see what i can reel in with my new bait eh? thank you once again for all your help, cheers!
0.999933	(CNN) -- The first bodies to be recovered from the crash of Air France 447 arrived at a Brazilian Air Force base in Recife, Brazil, Wednesday, the air force announced. Brazilian pilots and a medical team bring one of the first bodies ashore at Fernando de Noronha island. The 16 bodies were taken to the Legal Medical Institute in Recife for identification, the statement said. Police will perform DNA tests at their lab in the capital, Brasilia, if necessary, they said. Another 25 bodies have been found and will go through the same procedure starting Thursday, the air force said. Official identification of the bodies will be made only by the Legal Medicine Institute, even if any of the bodies could have been identified while on Fernando de Noronha, the islands where they were first brought after being recovered. A French nuclear submarine joined the hunt Wednesday for the flight data recorders and other wreckage from Air France Flight 447 as Brazilian air force and navy crews continued to pull bodies from the Atlantic. Bad weather and poor visibility are expected in the search area, Brazilian Air Force spokesmen said. France is leading the investigation into what caused last week's accident when the Paris-bound flight from Rio de Janeiro plunged into the sea off the Brazilian coast with 228 passengers and crew on board. The French nuclear submarine Emeraude began patrolling the area Wednesday morning, the French defense ministry said. Around 400 French military personnel are involved in the salvage effort. France has also sent two tugs towing 40 tons of recovery equipment, a surveillance ship and a ship equipped for amphibious operations. Fourteen aircraft -- 12 Brazilian and two French -- are participating, along with five Brazilian ships. The U.S. Navy will contribute two high-tech acoustic devices to listen underwater for the emergency beacons that are attached to the voice and data recorders. Brazilian officials emphasized earlier this week that finding bodies was their main priority. The French are in charge of finding the voice and data recorders. It was not clear whether the bodies had drifted in the 1-2 knot currents or whether their separation suggested that the jet may have broken apart in the air. The ocean depth where the debris and bodies have been found varies, but averages about 3,000 meters (nearly 9,900 feet) deep, according to the University of New Hampshire/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association Joint Hydrographic Center. Brazilian officials said the plane debris will be taken to France for investigation but the bodies would undergo forensic tests in Recife. Another Air France pilots' union, ALTER, has advised its pilots not to fly planes until their Pitot tubes are replaced. ALTER, the smallest of three Air France pilots' unions, would not say what percentage of the carrier's pilots it represents. Air France decided to replace all its probes starting April 27, following laboratory tests earlier in the year, the airline said.
0.955533	The 2004 United States presidential election in Missouri took place on November 2, 2004, and was part of the 2004 United States presidential election. Voters chose 11 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president. Missouri was won by incumbent President George W. Bush by a 7.2% margin of victory. Prior to the election, 10 of 12 news organizations considered this a state Bush would win, or otherwise considered as a red state. He also won a wide majority of the counties and congressional districts in the state. Despite the fact that the state has voted for the eventual winner of the election in a presidential election since 1912, with the exception of the 1956 election, Bush carried this state with a larger margin of victory than his nationwide results, indicating that the state is more conservative than the rest of the country and that it's trending Republican. These factors eventually led the state to lose its bellwether status in the next election. From May 2004, Bush won every single poll from the state. The final 3 polls taken from the state averaged Bush leading with 51% to 45%. Bush raised $4,026,802. Kerry raised $1,418,159. This state was considered a major swing state. Both the Republican ticket and Democratic ticket visited the state 7 times in the general election. Kerry focused mostly on the urban areas such as St. Louis and Kansas City, while Bush focused more on rural such as Warrenton, Missouri and Sedalia, Missouri. This was a better result for President Bush than 2000, when he carried the state by only 3%. In 2004, he received 265,789 more votes than in 2000, while Kerry won only 148,033 more votes than Gore in 2000. Bush won by a 7% margin. Kerry won just 4 counties in the state: Jackson County, Ste. Genevieve, St. Louis County, and St. Louis City. As of the 2016 presidential election[update], this is the last election in which Boone County voted for the Republican candidate. Bush won 6 of 9 congressional districts. 25% 75% William Lacy Clay, Jr. Technically the voters of Missouri cast their ballots for electors: representatives to the Electoral College. Missouri is allocated 11 electors because it has 9 congressional districts and 2 senators. All candidates who appear on the ballot or qualify to receive write-in votes must submit a list of 11 electors, who pledge to vote for their candidate and his or her running mate. Whoever wins the majority of votes in the state is awarded all 11 electoral votes. Their chosen electors then vote for president and vice president. Although electors are pledged to their candidate and running mate, they are not obligated to vote for them. An elector who votes for someone other than his or her candidate is known as a faithless elector. The following were the members of the Electoral College from the state. All 11 were pledged for Bush/Cheney. ^ "2004 Presidential General Election Results - Missouri". ^ IT, Missouri Secretary of State -. "News". www.sos.mo.gov. This page was last edited on 1 February 2019, at 00:39 (UTC).
0.999997	This will probably be the only 'restaurant review' you will ever see on my blog given that I eat out maybe once or twice a year! You probably think I'm joking, but I'm not! Unfortunately being a 'single mum' (I put it like that because though Jon has been in my life a few years now I still live alone with my sons and don't see him much!) on a budget it means I don't get out much! Last week though Jon took me out for a 'date night' we haven't done this in over a year, we really didn't know what to expect. We chose a new local restaurant called 'Le Pisani' it looked fantastic, it was only recently built and the interior decoration is smart and modern. The atmosphere was lovely, staff were polite and the music wasn't too loud. It was noisy though, so many people and so much conversation, I just wasn't used to eating around so many people I think. The food arrived promptly, there wasn't too much of a wait. We had a starter & main each. I chose a fish starter & chicken main. They were both tasty, well seasoned (there is a pepper mill with table salt on the top in the middle of the table, it's a two in one fancy looking gadget so don't get confused like we did thinking there was no salt available, haha) good size portions and the food looked and tasted fresh. I was really impressed with their 'chips' lovely big chunky potatoes, more like wedges than chips but very nice. The vegetables were perfectly cooked & the sauce went really well with it all. Jon had a wood pigeon starter & pasta main, he enjoyed both. I'll happily recommend the place to friends, family & customers who pop into my shop asking for somewhere nice to go out for a meal. I would love to say we'll go back but if I'm honest I wouldn't be able to justify the cost when I usually feed me & the boys for a week for £55 so I think I will stick to home cooking for now - at least for 5-6 months, then maybe we'll go back again! It sounds like a nice restaurant overall. The food presentation is really nice.
0.997724	Here at Celtic Heroes we really care about our players, and we realise that disabling an account due to breaches of in-game policies is a very severe measure, and is something we do not do lightly. With this in mind we have created an appeals procedure that players can use in order to appeal the disabling of an account. Write a SHORT summary as to why you feel your account should be enabled. We will then examine your case, and if your appeal is successful you will be e-mailed and informed that your account has been enabled. If you appeal has been unsuccessful, you will be e-mailed and informed of the reason why we have chosen not to enable your account. Do not send any e-mails which are not appeals to the address listed above. E-mails which are not appeals against the disabling of an account will be disregarded. Please send only 1 e-mail appealing the disabling of an account. Multiple e-mails regarding the same appeal will be disregarded. Do not post an appeal, or anything related to an appeal, in the game forums, on the Facebook page, or via Twitter. These messages will be disregarded and may be removed without warning. Do not send an in-game Support message regarding an appeal. Messages such as these will be disregarded by the Support team. If you are appealing an account which has been disabled a 2nd time because of repeated breaches of in-game policies, your appeal will be disregarded, and your account will not be enabled.
0.956275	هدف: مسئله اصلی بانک‌ها این است که به چه میزان و چگونه در انواع فعالیت‌های نوآورانه سرمایه‌گذاری کنند؟ فعالیت‌های نوآورانه بانک‌ها در دو قطب پارادوکسی اکتشافی و بهره‌بردارانه انجام می‌گیرد. روش: برای پاسخ به این پرسش از روش مطالعه موردی طولی چندگانه استفاده شده است. در همین رابطه، چهار بانک برای مطالعه موردی انتخاب شد و در بازه زمانی 1385 تا 1396 به طور عمیق مورد تجزیه و تحلیل قرار گرفتند. یافته‎ها: پس از شناسایی تنش‌های نوآوری‌ اکتشافی و بهره‌بردارانه در این بانک‌ها، استراتژی‌های پاسخ به این تنش‌ها در هر بانک مشخص شد. نتیجه‎گیری: استراتژی‌های پاسخ بانک‌ها در قالب 17 تم استخراج شدند و در چهار دسته کلی (بُعد) گزینش، جداسازی، موازنه و تعالی قرار گرفتند. Objective: The main issue for banks is how much and how to invest in a variety of innovative activities. Innovative activities in banks are carried out in two paradoxical exploratory and exploitative poles. Methods: To answer such questions, a longitudinal multiple case study method was used. To do so, 4 banks were selected as the cases for this study and were analyzed in-depth between 2006 and 2017. Results: At first, the tensions of exploratory and exploitative innovation approaches were identified in these banks. Then, the required strategies to respond to these tensions were extracted in these banks. Conclusion: Banks strategies of response were extracted within 17 themes and were classified into the following 4 categories (dimensions): selection, separation, balance, and transcendence. Abernathy, W. J., & Clark, K. B. (1985). Innovation: Mapping the winds of creative destruction. Research policy, 14(1), 3-22. Andriopoulos, C., & Lewis, M. W. (2009). Exploitation-exploration tensions and organizational ambidexterity: Managing paradoxes of innovation. Organization Science, 20(4), 696-717. Andriopoulos, C., & Lewis, M. W. (2010). Managing innovation paradoxes: ambidexterity lessons from leading product design companies. Long range planning, 43(1), 104-122. 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0.987633	If you need a car but you're on a tight budget, what's the best solution? Before making any decisions on what to buy you need to think about how many miles you'll do, your lifestyle, and most importantly your budget. If you only use a car for weekly trips to the supermarket you won't need to invest a lot of money in buying a car. A cheap runaround will do just fine. On the other hand, long motorway journeys are more comfortable in a car that has a bit of power behind it. Boot size may be an issue if you have a lot of equipment to carry around. If you have a family you'll probably want a car with plenty of space. However, if you're single, a small 2 door car may be an ideal choice. Is a budget car your best option? If you're a student buying your very first car or you don't have a lot of savings, you need to consider a budget car. They're not only affordable to buy but also cheap to run. Many dealers allow you to pay a deposit and take out a loan which gives you flexibility. Some offer 0% financing which sounds good. The repayment term is often short though which means higher monthly payments. A low interest loan with an initial deposit can be a very affordable way to buy a car. For example, if you buy a used car at £2,500 and took out a 3 year loan at 7% interest, you'd pay £76.95 a month. You've also got to allow for tax and insurance as well as servicing and MOT. It's often a good idea to research these costs first so you don't get any nasty surprises! What if your credit score isn't great? Many people with poor credit history and lack of funds feel trapped. Most finance companies won't lend money to anyone in this situation. Even if you can afford to pay the monthly cost of a new car it may still be out of reach if you have poor credit history. Your only option may be to either improve your credit score or save up for a large deposit. Some car finance companies may be more favourable towards you if you can pay a sizeable amount towards your new car. However, depending on your financial situation this could take a long time. Don't make the mistake of buying an old banger just because its all you can afford and you need a car. You'll only end up paying huge sums of money in garage repairs. This is certainly not a cost effective solution! Pay as you drive, an affordable way to buy a car? Compact Cars Wales have created a very affordable way to buy a car. No matter how bad your credit score you will be accepted. With a low deposit and the option of paying weekly or monthly, you can easily work out a budget that fits your needs.
0.989859	I will start with the dashboard as this will be the starting point for users. So what does the user need to access globally? The primary goal of the dashboard is to give the user an overview of their workload and progress. Alongside this they need to access projects quickly. My initial thoughts for the global navigation are to have a fixed sidebar (A) that can be added to contextually. Additional functionality can then be added to this main navigation depending on what they are doing within the app. To help users manage their workload a list of priority tasks (B) could be shown with a deadline indicator. My initial thoughts were to display the five most urgent tasks to avoid overwhelming the user. These would link to the respective projects, and have the associated side panel displaying once accessed in the project page, so that the user can quickly access any further information about the task. I will also use colour coding to show whether a task is overdue or approaching. This system will run throughout the app for consistency. Alongside this a notification bar could be used to display daily events (C) to alert users to any meetings etc they have planned. It would also be useful to have the option to be able to access a full calendar view from here so users can get an overview. A modal or full screen overlay could work well, especially if any further functionality is needed such as adding more events or changing dates. Alongside the time management tools I would like to give users an overview of their business (D). Hopefully giving them insights into their earnings, time allocations etc can help them manage their time and money. There could be multiple statistics to show here so having the option to customise the information shown may be helpful. This could be managed from the settings page, however it may be more useful if there is a contextual menu that allows them to change the displayed information directly. This list could increase but these will provide a good starting point. A second option for these stats could be to have groups of statistics that could be swapped out within the panel. For example a money group displaying earnings etc or a time panel to break down time management. The project grid (E) is intended to give users a birds eye view of all current projects. Each project will be displayed as a card which displays high level information about the project. Initially this would display, the project name and client details. A deadline would also be shown, showing the final deadline for the project, which would be added when the user initially creates the project. Alongside this the hours worked and remaining tasks would also be displayed. It would also be helpful to continue the colour indication system through the project grid to help users spot deadlines that are approaching etc. An additional notification (F) could be shown if a user has completed all projects and their deadline has passed to remind to invoice their clients. Invoicing or marking the whole project as complete would archive the project so it is out of the way of open projects but still available for reference. It would be interesting to have some external input as to the best way to organise the project grid? My initial thoughts were to have them ordered by deadline date with the closest deadline being first. Another option would be to allow the user to reorder them. Depending on the workload of a user there may also be a requirement for search / filter functionality which could be something to include. As the dashboard is to help users manage their workload it may also be worth having a contextual menu available here that would allow users to manage their projects. This could include tasks such as marking projects complete / invoicing etc? I think the dashboard is in a good place to start out with, although I do plan on reviewing it in detail once I have a more complete project page as creating an initial layout for the project page may highlight additional functionalities that could be useful for the user. As I mentioned earlier, there is also a number of secondary tasks that could be useful on the dashboard that could be displayed contextually to avoid bloating the design which will need to be included. I plan to revisit each workspace and expand on all the individual functionalities to create a complete flat plan of available actions and states required before designing the interface.
0.968036	Everyone has creditors they would rather pay back before others (such as debts owed to family or friends), but if you pay back these creditors prior to filing for bankruptcy they could be considered preferential debt payments. This would allow the bankruptcy trustee to recover any payments made in order to more evenly distribute it amongst all creditors. What is a preferential debt payment? A preferential debt payment is essentially any payment that benefits only certain creditors prior to filling for bankruptcy. If, for example, you were to pay back a loan you owed your friends business and then shortly there after file for bankruptcy, it would most likely be considered a preferential debt payment. This will vary depending on your relationship with the creditor. For most creditors, any payments made within the 90 days prior to filling for bankruptcy would be considered a preferential debt payment. Three important things to note are that the payment must exceed $600, you must be insolvent at the time of payment, and the creditor must be receiving more than they otherwise would in a bankruptcy settlement in order for the payment to count as a preferential payment. If, throughout the bankruptcy process, it is determined that a preferential debt payment occurred, the trustee can recover, or clawback as it is commonly refereed, the full amount paid. It is important to note that this is not illegal, unless the payment was made with the known intent to defraud your other creditors or hide assets from the court. In most cases, the payment will simply be clawed back from any of the involved parties. The payment will then become part of the bankruptcy settlement.
0.977297	What happened to the SS Koombana? In my previous post on the SS Waratah, AlfrednTheFetuc brought this story to my attention because the cases were very similar, after reading the story, I decided to make this post. The SS Koombana was a 340 foot long mail carrying steamship launched in 1908 by the Adelaide Steamship Company. On the morning of March 20, 1912, the SS Koombana and the SS Bullarra left Port Hedland for Broome, Australia. The Koombana's captain reported a failing barometer and said that the voyage may take longer than they had expected, but the captain of the Bullara assured them that it wasn't a big deal and the two ships left. Several hours later, the pair of ships ran into a north eastern cyclone and the two ships became separated. The Bullarra was damaged and managed to make it to Cossack, eventually returning to Hedland without her smokestack. During the storm, several ships were severely damaged and sunk, and the Koombana is presumed to be one of them. On April 2nd, worry grew as the Koombana hadn't shown up yet and a search party was assembled consisting of several steamships that sailed through debris looking for evidence of the Koombana, but all they found were some air tanks, a state-room door, two wooden planks that covered tanks on lifeboats, a panel from the promenade deck, and a wooden plank for a motor launch from the Koombana's starboard bow. None of the 74 passengers nor 76 crew members were found. Many commentators said that the Koombana was top-heavy and had a narrow bottom and wide top which made her very unstable and prone to capsizing, so the main theory is that the Koombana capsized in a storm and sank. The only supposed wreck found was in 1973 when what looked like a large ship was found between Broome and Hedland, but the wreck could not be confirmed and has been lost.
0.999999	How Do I Make a Monthly Meal Plan? A monthly meal plan can ensure people are eating healthy food. Grocery lists help with time management and organization. Including children in the planning process allows them to feel involved and enthusiastic. A monthly meal plan can be a great way to ensure that you and your family are eating healthy meals on a regular basis, and may also help you to save money at the grocery store. It can be a challenge to plan for a month's meals all at once; some people find it easier to start with a week or two, and then move up to a month once you get the hang of it. With a little preparation, however, it's not too difficult. You will want to begin by collecting a number of different recipes, and determining how many meals those recipes will likely create. Planning the grocery list is the next step; some things may be bought in bulk in advance, but other fresh ingredients will need to be purchased weekly. The best place to begin when trying to create a monthly meal plan is to go through your existing recipe books and start looking for ones that look interesting. You might also check online for new recipes. It is generally recommended to select about twenty recipes for the month; it is likely that you'll have enough leftovers that you won't need to create a new recipe every day of the month. Also, if you particularly like a recipe, you might want to make it again in the month. When you are creating the monthly meal plan from your recipes, most people find it helpful to write it down. This makes it easier to see at a glance what you'll be making, as well as make sure you aren't making similar meals too close together. Ensure that each meal includes a blend of nutritious foods such as fresh vegetables, whole grains, and lean protein. This will ensure the meals are healthy as well as filling. As you are writing the monthly meal plan down, it may be helpful to start making your grocery lists at this point. Identify things that can be purchased in advance, or fresh items that will need to be purchased the week they will be used. Compare this to the items you already have on hand so you do not buy duplicates, and then try to shop when things are on sale, or with coupons, to save some money. It may seem like a big project to make a monthly meal plan at the start of each month, but it will become easier over time, and it will really save time throughout the rest of the month when you already know what to have for dinner. How Do I Make a Weekly Meal Plan? How Do I Make a Family Meal Plan? How Do I Choose the Best Online Meal Plan? What Are the Pros and Cons of a 1200 Calorie Meal Plan? How Do I Make a Vegetarian Meal Plan? How Do I Choose the Best Breakfast Meal Plan? How Do I Choose the Best Meal Planner? I make a lot of meals using canned food. It is usually cheaper than fresh food, and you can keep it in your cabinets for months or years before it expires. I love using canned black beans as a side item by seasoning them with spices. All I have to do is heat them up with a touch of olive oil and seasoning. A can is only a few cents, and it will feed four people. I also buy canned salmon and form it into patties to fry. Sometimes, I just saute it with teriyaki sauce and corn to make a one pot meal. I like to purchase canned biscuits, but I only use a can twice a week, because these are more expensive than canned vegetables and fish. You want to always keep the cost of items in mind when planning how often to use them. @lighth0se33 – Soup has become a big part of my monthly meal plan. It is just as delicious reheated as it was to begin with, and it usually retains its good flavor for over a week. I make chicken noodle soup with celery, carrots, and conchiglie pasta, and we eat it about three more times after the first meal. I also make chicken tortilla soup with zucchini, black beans, corn, and spices that is a big hit over and over. The only thing you have to remember is to leave off any ingredients that might go stale over time. For example, with the chicken tortilla soup, you are supposed to use corn chips as a topping. I always tell people to add those to their individual servings, because wet, old corn chips would ruin the soup in the fridge. No one in my household has a problem with eating leftovers, so this has made making a monthly meal plan fairly simple. When I make meals like bacon spaghetti, I make a very large pot of it, and we eat it once more at dinner during the week, as well as at lunch once or twice. Some things just don't taste as good when reheated, so I don't make as much of them at one time. I plan for one meal when making stuff that will only taste good the first time it is hot. So far, I've been relying on bacon spaghetti and beef stir fry as my go-to reusable meals. Does anyone have any other suggestions for meals that you can eat several times before they disappear? Since I have begun making monthly meal plans, I have only had to go shopping once every two weeks instead of every week. I buy in bulk and use coupons, and I believe I have saved quite a bit over time by doing this. It may not seem like it at first, because you do have to shell out more when you are buying larger quantities at once. However, I have kept track, and I have saved over time. The fruits and vegetables that I buy generally stay good for a couple of weeks. The only exception to this is bananas. If my bananas start to get overripe, I just freeze them or use them in milkshakes.
0.996365	Everyone loves having a midnight snack just before going to bed. Is this good or bad for your health? We have all heard the myth of gaining weight by eating a meal before bed resulting in various adverse effects. Many individuals have a daily ritual of sleeping or taking a nap immediately after eating as it makes you very drowsy. However, many others believe that it is an unhealthy habit to go to sleep as soon as you finish eating and practice walking after eating a meal which aids in digestion. Read the article below and identify whether sleeping after eating is good or bad for your health. 1 Why Do You Feel Sleepy Immediately After Eating? 2 Does Sleeping After Lunch Or Dinner Makes You Gain Weight? 3 Which Problems Occur Due To Sleeping After Having A Meal? 4 After How Long Can You Sleep After Eating A Meal? People have an urge to sleep after eating as their bodies are occupied digesting the food that has been eaten. After you are done eating, the brain sends signals to the organs for immediate digestion and directs all the blood away from the rest of the organs. The red blood cells aid in digesting the food which helps distribute the nutrients all over the body, leading the brain to blood deprivation and causing you to feel sleepy. Does Sleeping After Lunch Or Dinner Makes You Gain Weight? No, it is not necessarily true that sleeping will result in weight gain. However, eating before going to bed might result in weight gain due to the consumption of calories and sleeping without losing any. Bear in mind that it does not matter when you have your meal because the calories which you consume might have been burned off already throughout the day. Of course, you will gain weight if you consume more calories than you can burn through daily exercises. Which Problems Occur Due To Sleeping After Having A Meal? which results in being tired. Hunger in the middle of the night does not guarantee that you will prepare a salad at that time. It will be more appealing to opt for ice cream or pizza. The unhealthy decisions regarding meals at night before bed lead to weight gain as you are unable to burn those calories. Many studies have been conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology concluding several reasons as to why you should avoid going to sleep after eating. You might feel good lying down immediately after a meal, but it results in heartburn leading to issues sleeping. Heartburn occurs due to the excessive production of stomach acids spreading from the stomach and directing towards the throat or chest. The stomach acid heading towards the upper organs result in belching, leading to a sour taste in the mouth. The heartburn is also associated with burping making it worse for you to have a good night sleep. The feeling of acid reflux is also termed as Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease or GERD. The condition occurs due to the location of the valve between the esophagus and the stomach which does not close. The stomach acids move towards the throat and make you feel a burning sensation. If the condition is not treated immediately, it will result in damaging effects on the mucous membrane of the throat leading to further complications. A study was conducted in Greece which concluded that sleeping immediately after eating a meal leads to the increased risk of stroke. A study was conducted at University of Ioannina Medical School which included around 500 participants of which 250 had previous strokes, while other 250 people were diagnosed with a medical condition termed as Acute Coronary syndrome. The results showed that people who slept after four to five hours of eating were at less risk of having a stroke. The theories which were related to these findings included that acid reflux is associated with sleep apnea which might result in stroke. According to another research study, as the body is working hard in digesting food and if you sleep after eating, there are increased chances of a rise in blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol levels leading to increased risk of having a stroke. Eating a meal just before sleep results in stomach pain and bloating resulting in turning and tossing of your body. Spicy, dense, and fatty foods lead to digestive issues, including heartburn, leading to sleep complications. After How Long Can You Sleep After Eating A Meal? It takes around two to three hours for the food to completely digest. You need to stay up for at least two hours after finishing the meal. You can sleep well after the food is completely absorbed and your body will not store fat as it has already burned it off. studies conclude that smoking a cigarette after consuming a meal equals to 10 cigarettes consumed at different times. This increases your risk of suffering from lung cancer. Taking a bath after eating increases your chance of suffering from digestive problems. Taking a shower increases the blood flow towards the hands, legs, and all over the body. This leads to less blood flow towards digestive organs and weakens digestive functions. If you are planning on taking a shower, you should wait 40 minutes after finishing your meal. Fruits help the body in digestion if consumed one to two hours before eating lunch or dinner. If the fruits are eaten after eating a meal, they lead to bloating. Do not drink tea for one hour before eating and after finishing a meal as the acidity of the tea might make it difficult for the body to digest the food properly. The acids of the tea contain hard proteins making it difficult to digest and also prevents the body from absorbing iron. Have pre-sleep meals which are easily digestible, low in calories, a delicious taste, and readily absorbable by the body. This means choosing a good quality snack along in a small portion. These healthy snacks include a glass of milk with honey, whole-grain cereals, almonds, blueberries, peanut butter, fruits with low-fat yogurt, crackers, and others. In conclusion, rather than sleeping immediately after finishing a meal, staying upright is a better option as it allows for proper digestion. Have your dinner at least two to three hours before sleeping, enabling your body to digest the food thoroughly. This time duration prevents the body from undergoing any digestive problems which might occur due to lying down flat after having a meal. Snack on light foods if you are hungry before bed, such as whole-grain cereals or crackers. These foods are easy to digest and serve as an excellent source of proteins and carbs. Avoid eating large meals, or heavy foods, before bed such as burgers, fries, or pizza as these are rigid for the body to digest and they are loaded with calories.
0.999321	If you are a blogger and considering outsourcing tasks to freelancers, it’s good to think this way. You need to decide whether you want to hang onto your money and control or outsource some tasks to save time. A number of things must work together in order to produce the results you need to be a successful blogger. To help you boost productivity, here’s a list of 8 essential blogging tasks you should outsource to a freelancer. Digital marketing “is an umbrella term for all of your online marketing efforts. Businesses leverage digital channels such as Google search, social media, email, and their websites to connect with their current and prospective customers.” It usually involves the creation and promotion of digital assets. Freelance platforms like Fiverr.com connect thousands of freelance digital content creators to users who need help in this area. Virtual assistants can help you with a number of different types of tasks such as data entry, e-commerce fulfillment, writing, content creation, research, etc. You can hire a virtual assistant using professional freelancing sites like Upwork.com. Social media can fall under the digital marketing umbrella, however, if it is a primary task then it may need dedicated support. Building a blog as a brand you may not have the time to manage your social media presence adequately. This is especially true for bloggers who own and manage multiple blogs. Not to mention, they may own websites connected to a specific blogs. These websites likely includes physical or digital products that need management on a regular basis (e.g., dropshipping, fulfillment, etc.) So it’s a good idea to outsource social media management if you can’t find the time to do it yourself. Meanwhile, you can also automate and manage social media at scale by using tools like ZOHO Social. Micro tasks are tedious. For example: inventory management, database management for emails and customer data, CRM for contacts, etc. Micro tasks are often necessary, yet require a lot of time that can distract you from the more critical aspects of running a blog. Consider using a marketplace like FreelanceMyWay, to hire freelance experts that specialize in online business and marketing tasks such as web development, social media, content creation, and data entry. It’s important for visual elements on your blog and the user experience (UX) to be at its best. If you need to create eye-catching graphics, browse marketplaces like 99designs. Upwork offers a number of development freelancers for hire. This pertains to the content, format, grammar and overall readability. You can hire freelance writers or use article and essay writing platforms like Bid4Papers.com. Online editing and proofreading services can easily improve any text, eliminate grammar errors, detect plagiarism (if you accept guest posts) and much more. If you’re offering products and services then customer service is a key priority offering automated ticketing, live chat, and features that allowing you to track, prioritize, and solve customer interactions with ease. Consider online Zendesk or Freshdesk. If you experience high call volume, you may want to consider outsourcing inbound call management to call centers like Liveops.com. Let trained and reliable experts and automated software handle customer orders or customer service issues so you can focus on growing your blog. Plan to create an app for your blog? Perhaps you want to incorporate new technology into your blog? This is highly specialized and requires technical skills. Seasoned software engineers, coders and architects with expertise across hundreds of technologies, use platforms like Toptal. Blogging requires a focus on increasing site traffic and key metrics, so you’ll want to focus on results, not the process. If you are too involved in the process, you won’t have time to focus on growing and monetizing your blog. If you outsource menial (but important) tasks, you can focus on what’s really important. It all comes down to the old “time vs. money” argument. If you are just starting out, you will try to control everything and cut costs. However, as you monetize and grow revenue, you will want to focus on scaling and spend a little cash to free up your time. With that in mind, it’s time to outsource and work on your blog and not just in it.
0.999998	Pollen is the leading cause of seasonal allergies. Each spring, summer, and fall, tiny pollen particles are released from trees, weeds, and grasses, causing seasonal rhinitis, commonly referred to as hay fever (nasal/sinus allergies). While many other allergens can easily be avoided, it is very difficult to avoid pollen, even indoors! Furthermore, individuals with pollen allergies can develop sensitivities to other allergens such as dust mites, pet dander, and mold spores. Pollen are microscopic grains, typically round or oval in shape, that are shed by plants, trees, and grasses as part of their reproductive cycle. They can travel enormous distances when carried by winds - often several hundred miles! A single plant may produce millions of pollen grains per day. Most colorful and scented flowers like roses do not cause significant allergies because their pollen is heavy and waxy, and is transported primarily by insects, not wind. In other words, it is less likely to be inhaled in significant quantities. Pollen is readily transported inside your home by wind and air flow through open doors and windows, on your clothes, or even on your pets. Once inside your home, pollen is easily stirred up and breathed into your nose, throat, and lungs, where it causes irritation that leads to a wide range of allergy symptoms including runny nose, sore throat, coughing, sneezing, watery irritated eyes, etc. The best defense against pollen inside your home is a high quality HEPA air filter which is capable of trapping and containing the tiny particles. Such filters will also eliminate other allergens such as pet dander and dust mites that you may be more sensitive to during your hay fever attacks.
0.999998	Executives at New Horizon Capital, a “princeling” private equity firm founded by the son of China’s former premier Wen Jiabao, are planning to spin out and raise funds of as much as $1 billion, according to three sources who have been approached about potentially backing the fund. This is the first time that executives from such a high-profile Chinese princeling firm are known to have spun out into a separate fund structure, and comes after a lengthy legal process that saw the firm halt plans for a $1.5 billion fund, originally scheduled to launch in 2014 off the back of a successful investment in Alibaba Group. Princelings are the sons and daughters of senior government officials in China, and New Horizon, founded in 2005 by Wen Yunsong, also known as Winston Wen, is among the best-known of China’s princeling private equity firms. The firm blazed a trail by raising and investing a series of ever-larger US dollar funds, but its deals drew sharp criticism and accusations of favouritism in China’s blogosphere. Wen officially stepped away from the business in 2009-2010, but has told investors he retains financial interests in the firm, said two of the sources. The restructuring at New Horizon comes amid an ongoing crackdown on corruption under Xi Jinping’s administration, which has forced officials and their offspring to keep a low profile, and made investors wary of putting money into funds with princeling ties. While investors downplay the changes at New Horizon, they are widely discussed in private equity circles as investors try to gauge political sentiment for princeling firms in China. “These disputes over partnership structures are common in private equity, and I see nothing unusual about the changes at New Horizon,” said one investor source. “They have good people in the firm who can take over, and Jianming (the firm’s co-founder) is staying involved, so it’s not like a full spinout,” the source added. As part of the restructuring, investors have been told that Yu Jianming, the firm’s managing partner, who co-founded New Horizon with Wen and who is widely regarded as Wen’s right-hand man, is stepping away from day-to-day operations of the business and “retiring” to Singapore, but he will invest in the fund as a limited partner (LP) and sit on its investor committee. New Horizon did not respond to questions related to the content of this story. Wen and Yu founded New Horizon in 2005, raising a $100 million debut fund with money from backers including Softbank and Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek, according to two sources with direct knowledge. New Horizon’s launch coincided with the start of an I.P.O. bull run in China. GDP was growing at 11.3%, according to World Bank statistics, and authorities that had once viewed private equity firms as capitalist vulture funds were warming to the idea of private equity as a way to distribute capital to start-up companies, to fuel economic growth and long-term stability. Access to deals, and high profits, attracted more capital for New Horizon from a wider range of investors. The first fund returned over 5 times its money at a time when China funds were typically returning 3 times, said one of the two sources with direct knowledge. New Horizon raised and deployed a series of dollar funds with increasing speed, tapping investors keen to profit from China’s economic boom. On the strength of its first fund, the firm raised a second fund in 2007 of $500 million, while Fund III raised $750 million in 2009 and Fund IV raised $1.05 billion in 2011, despite a global downturn and increasingly tough fundraising climate. Investors in New Horizon funds have also included Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, AlpInvest Partners, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan, Notre Dame Endowment and Vanderbilt University Office of Investments, according to sources with knowledge of the funds. The firm’s deals and profits — such as an unrealised investment return of 184.5 times from its pre-IPO investment in wind power company Sinovel Wind Group — drew increasing criticism in China’s blogosphere. An $80 million-equivalent pre-IPO investment into Sihuan Pharmaceuticals Holding Group ahead of a Hong Kong listing also attracted media coverage in late 2010, when the deal was overturned by Hong Kong’s securities regulator for violating its rules on timing of investments, and for offering a substantial discount to the IPO price that regular investors would pay. Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing subsequently issued an interim guidance note on pre-IPO investments. Further fuelling the controversy, public documents show that New Horizon still netted a 60% profit from its roughly two-month investment in Sihuan Pharmaceuticals — or around $47 million — under the buyback agreement inserted in the investment documents. After the Sihuan investment, New Horizon stated that Wen officially stepped away from the business in around 2009-2010 for a role at China Aerospace Science & Technology Corporation. He became chairman of state-owned China Satellite Communications Corp in 2012. Yu Jianming, like Winston Wen, a graduate of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Business, is expected to take responsibility for the continued running of New Horizon’s $750 million 2009 Fund III, and its $1.05 billion 2011 Fund IV, one of the first three sources approached on the funds said. Under the new structure, two new funds, Redview Capital and Advantec will be created, both targeting $350 million, with hard caps at $500 million, meaning they will raise as much as $1 billion, said a second source. The funds will target core sectors for private equity and venture capital investments in China. Redview will focus on investments in consumer, manufacturing and clean technology sectors, while Advantec will focus on technology and healthcare investments, said the second source. The current plan is for Yu Jianming to sit on the investor committees (IC) of both funds, and to be a limited partner (LP) in each fund, the source added. Existing executives at the firm include Jie Zhang, a managing director who has been with the firm since 2006, and Sun Zhuang, another managing director. New Horizon had originally planned to launch a fifth investment fund of up to $1.5 billion in late 2014, the sources said. However, the fundraising was postponed, as executives at the firm entered a protracted legal process to deal with distribution of profits, ownership and running of existing funds, as well as the structure of the new funds, two of the three sources said. New Horizon’s fifth fund was originally planned to capitalise on the firm’s investment in Alibaba Group, and was timed for launch immediately after the Chinese tech company’s blowout listing in New York in 2014. Alibaba Group shares were hotly sought after long before the 2014 IPO listing. Private equity insiders knew that the firm’s dominance of China’s booming ecommerce market offered a potentially huge windfall profit from the planned IPO. They also knew that gaining access to Alibaba shares would show evidence of strong political and business connections in China. Launching a fund immediately after the Alibaba IPO would encourage new and existing investors to join any new private equity fund. New Horizon’s investment in Alibaba was made in 2012, when a consortium led by China sovereign wealth fund CIC helped to finance Alibaba’s $7.1 billion buyback of its own shares from Yahoo!. The deal valued Alibaba at around $38 billion at the time. Alibaba raised $21.8 billion through a New York listing in September 2014, valuing the firm at $167.6 billion. The company currently has a market value of around $194 billion. On that market value, New Horizon’s paper profit from Alibaba currently would stand at around 5.1 times its initial investment. Princelings have an established association with private equity investing in China, and the belief that princeling-linked funds have the political connections to gain access to the best deals — like Alibaba — remains attractive to investors, particularly as China’s economic growth stutters, and profits become harder to find. The 2012 Alibaba deal saw two other firms with princeling co-founders gain access to shares: Boyu Capital and Nepoch Capital. But Nepoch’s Alibaba investment illustrates both the risks and rewards of an investment strategy tied to princelings. Nepoch’s co-founder, He Jintao, the son of former politburo member He Guoqiang, was removed in 2014 from the documents that Nepoch shows its investors, after he was detained in connection with an anti-corruption case against Song Lin, the former chairman of state-run conglomerate China Resources, two sources close to the situation said. Nepoch had invested $100 million in the Alibaba deal in 2012, with $40 million of that total coming from co-investors Siguler Guff, JPMorgan and Neuberger Bermann, who were early investors in the fund, the sources said. As part of the deal, the co-investors paid none of the usual management fees or carried interest to Nepoch on their investments, increasing their profits, said the sources. Funds of Siguler Guff — Siguler Guff BRIC Opportunities Fund III, LP and Siguler Guff HP China Opportunities Fund, LP — were listed in Alibaba’s IPO prospectus as selling a total of 483,872 shares, or 50% of their holdings at the IPO. Siguler Guff declined to comment. Neuberger Bermann and JPMorgan did not respond to requests for comment. Nepoch eventually raised $300 million out of an initial target fund of $500 million, said the two sources close. “The fund is already in profit for the co-investors, based on that one investment,” said one investor in the fund. It is not clear, though, if Nepoch will be able to raise a second investment fund from investors.
0.999938	Imagine the following scenario: General Motors - the car company - owns several construction companies in the Midwest, and finances the building of roads and highways across Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, and Kentucky. They receive tax incentives to build, maintain, and improve these roadways, are granted exclusive rights to the roadways (so no one else can build a competing roadway), and they charge anyone who wishes to use these roads an access fee. In an effort to bolster car sales, GM proposes the following rules: anyone who drives a GM car or truck (Chevy, GMC, Cadillac, Buick, Pontiac, or Saturn) is allowed to use the roadway for free. People who drive cars made by Ford or Dodge pay the same nominal fee, and anyone who drives a foreign car pays an additional "domestic roadway compatibility tax" that is a percentage of the value of the car being driven. Because Toyota has been such an frustrating competitor to GM, all cars manufactured by Toyota are prohibited from being driven on the GM roadways. Anyone who owns a Toyota vehicle must instead purchase a "GM Roadway Authorized Vehicle." Ridiculous, right? I'm sure most people would agree that this sort of scenario would be completely unacceptable. Even though GM did build the roadways, they did so while collecting kickbacks from the government (also known as your tax dollars), and then they turned around and charged you an access fee to be able to use the roads. There is no reason why GM should be allowed to limit what brand of automobile can be driven on the roadways. However, this is the same thing that is happening with Net Neutrality rules. On Tuesday, the FCC announced new Net Neutrality rules that are so toothless, so vague, and so full of loopholes that the Internet Service Providers shouted with glee. Now, Comcast, AT&T, and other ISPs can dictate what you do on the internet, where you can go, and how quickly you can do it. What does this mean now? It means that sites such as Netflix and Hulu - sites that ISPs hate because they use bandwidth - could be severely limited or even banned by an ISP. Or, they could instead promote their own video subscription site to the exclusion of other sites. Another aspect of the failed Net Neutrality rules is that it doesn't offer consumer protection for wireless Internet access. What this means is that AT&T could prevent iPhone owners from browsing sales on Verizon's website, or that Sprint could prevent users from visiting ESPN.com, requiring them to use Sprint's services to check sports scores and news. You think that's far-fetched? How eager do you suppose AT&T is for iPhone users to watch Netflix over their 3g network? Finally, changing these rules gives improved access to rich, established companies who can afford to pay higher access fees, leaving other sites to battle through a bottleneck to reach the end user. This means the next Internet start up, won't. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak: "Keep The Internet Free" Ryan Singel: "Mobile Carriers Dream of Charging Per Page" Craig Aaron: "The FCC's Guide to Losing Net Neutrality Without Really Trying" The only people who are happy with these rules (or who want to do away with them altogether) are the Republicans and the Industry. That's a sure sign that the consumer is getting hosed. Net Neutrality is just the start of it. What's to stop a company from limiting access to anything critical of a bill that they like, or a politician that they endorse? The internet is about the free exchange of ideas, no matter how wacky or ridiculous. Letting business dictate what we can do online is dangerous, unAmerican, and just plain wrong.
0.999944	Give the classic American Thanksgiving turkey stuffing a Middle Eastern and Jewish twist. Duck fat is available at some kosher markets, chicken fat is available in the freezer of some chain supermarkets. Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit (150 degrees Celsius). Place challah cubes on a baking sheet and bake for 7-8 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl. Raise the oven temperature to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Meanwhile, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large non-stick pan and cook sausage over medium-high heat until cooked through, breaking sausages with a fork. Add to challah cubes. Add 2 more tablespoons olive oil and chicken fat to the same pan over medium-high heat and sauté onion, celery and carrot for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Strain porcini, keeping the liquid, wash and slice porcini and add to pan together with sliced mushroom, continue to sauté until mushrooms release liquid, about 5 minutes longer and add to challah cubes in the bowl. Measure 1/2 cup of the porcini liquid, making sure not to use the dirt at the bottom, and add to bowl together with rosemary, salt, black pepper and chicken stock. Mix well. Transfer to a greased 9-by-12 inch baking dish and bake for 30 minutes. Serve warm.
0.948746	Q.1-10): Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Paragraph 1: According to sociologists, there are several different ways in which a person may become recognized as the leader of a social group in the United States. In the family traditional cultural patterns confer leadership on one or both of the parents. In other cases, such as friendship groups, one or more persons may gradually emerge as leaders, although there is no formal process of selection. In larger groups, leaders are usually chosen formally through election or recruitment. Paragraph 2: Although leaders are often thought to be people with unusual personal ability, decades of research have failed to produce consistent evidence that there is any category of “natural leaders.” It seems that there is no set of personal qualities that all leaders have in common; rather, virtually any person may be recognized as a leader if the person has qualities that meet the needs of that particular group. Paragraph 3: Furthermore, although it is commonly supposed that social groups have a single leader, research suggests that there are typically two different leadership roles that are held by different individuals. Instrumental leadership is leadership that emphasizes the completion of tasks by a social group. Group members look to instrumental leaders to “get things done.” Expressive leadership, on the other hand, is leadership that emphasizes the collective well-beings of a social group’s members. Expressive leaders are less concerned with the overall goals of the group than with providing emotional support to group members and attempting to minimize tension and conflict among them. Group members expect expressive leaders to maintain stable relationships within the group and provide support to individual members. Paragraph 4: Instrumental leaders are likely to have a rather secondary relationship to other group members. They give others and may discipline group members who inhibit attainment of the group’s goals. Expressive leaders cultivate a more personal or primary relationship to others in the group. They offer sympathy when someone experiences difficulties or is subjected to discipline, are quick to lighten a serious moment with humour, and try to resolve issues that threaten to divide the group. As the difference in these two roles suggests, expressive leaders generally receive more personal affection from group members; instrumental leaders, if they are successful in promoting group goals, may enjoy a more distant respect. Q.1) What does the passage mainly discuss? a) The problems faced by leaders. b) How leadership differs in Small and large groups. c) How social groups determine who will lead them. d) The role of leaders in social groups. e) The problems created by the leaders. e) Who consider collective well being of others. a) few people qualify as “natural leaders”. b) there is no proof that “natural leaders” exist. c) “natural leaders” are easily accepted by the members of a group. d) “natural leaders” share a similar set of characteristics. e) “natural leaders” accept the benefit by the members of a group. Q.4) Which of the following statements about leadership can be inferred from paragraph 2? a) A person who is an effective leader of a particular group may not be an effective leader in another group. b) Few people succeed in sharing a leadership role with another person. c) A person can best learn how to be an effective leader by studying research on leadership. d) Most people desire to be leaders but can produce little evidence of their qualifications. b) Taxing work on group members. d) Not mentioned in the passage. e) identifying the responsibility of group members. b) goals of the group. d) find a solution for. a) examples that illustrate a problem. b) cause and effect analysis. e) to win a victory over.
0.996438	Sometimes, what we need is a reminder of what we already know rather than learning something new. Because many of you (myself included) are on vacation this week, I thought that, instead of writing a new post, I would highlight the top Friday Forwards of 2017 and give a quick summary of each. The Human Element: In many ways, our focus on technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI) is causing us to lose our ability to effectively communicate with and relate to each other as humans. It doesn’t always feel like progress. 18 Summers: This post affected a lot of parents. Many wrote to tell me that it inspired them to make similar plans with their family. BS of Busy: Saying we are busy has become a cultural crutch. Being busy doesn’t make us happier or more productive. Bad Week: The story of how Dr. Mary-Claire King was able to push forward during the worst week of her life, leading to a medical breakthrough that has saved millions of women’ lives. Freedom to Fail: Important lessons from a soccer coach on how we all need to have room to fail, learn from our mistakes and grow. Beautiful Day: This is the story of a man who created a wonderful legacy for his family. Tri-It: Reflections and lessons learned from running my first Olympic Triathlon, including why you should practice on stage. RV Reflections Part 1 and Part 2: 9 lessons learned about life and business from a 10-day RV trip with my family though Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. Burning Bridges: Why it’s never a good idea to burn a bridge, even when you need to walk away from a relationship. Carpe The Diem: The improbable story of how my son and I ended up together at the greatest Super Bowl in history after I decided not to be a hypocrite and take a chance.
0.998392	Count the Michigan Department of Transportation among the growing chorus of opposition to a proposal to speed limit heavy vehicles. Among the criticisms of the proposed speed limiter mandate outlined by MDOT Director Kirk Steudle, are the cost of enforcement, the dangers posed by speed differentials, and that the mandate is tantamount to a de facto national speed limit for trucks and buses. More than 5,000 comments have been filed already. The majority of those opposed to a proposed mandate to speed limit vehicles weighing more than 26,000 pounds say the risks posed by increasing vehicle interactions via speed differentials outweigh any purported safety benefit of slowing large trucks and buses down. MDOT’s comments also weighed in on the speed differential issue, describing the government’s decision to “set aside the issue of crash rates” as a risky approach. Other national groups who filed comments opposing the proposed mandate or expressing concerns with the current proposal include the National Motorists Association, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Groundwater Association, and the National Federation of Independent Business. Groups who filed comments in support of the mandate include the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the National Safety Council, and the National Transportation Safety Board.
0.957611	The Cascade Range or Cascades is a major mountain range of western North America, extending from southern British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to Northern California. It includes both non-volcanic mountains, such as the North Cascades, and the notable volcanoes known as the High Cascades. Mount Rainier National Park is located in the Cascade Mountain Range in the Pacific Northwest. It was established on March 2, 1899 as the fifth national park in the United States. Many say that Rainier is the most beautiful of all the 60 National Parks. Rainier encompasses 236,381 acres including all of Mount Rainier, a 14,411-foot stratovolcano. The mountain rises abruptly from the surrounding land with elevations in the park ranging from 1,600 feet to over 14,000 feet. Rainier is the highest point in the Cascade Range, around it are valleys, waterfalls, subalpine meadows, old-growth forest and more than 25 glaciers.
0.999978	Error: option --version not recognized USAGE: idle [-deins] [-t title] [file]* idle [-dns] [-t title] (-c cmd \| -r file) [arg]* idle [-dns] [-t title] - [arg]* -h print this help message and exit -n run IDLE without a subprocess (DEPRECATED, see Help/IDLE Help for details) The following options will override the IDLE 'settings' configuration: -e open an edit window -i open a shell window The following options imply -i and will open a shell: -c cmd run the command in a shell, or -r file run script from file -d enable the debugger -s run $IDLESTARTUP or $PYTHONSTARTUP before anything else -t title set title of shell window A default edit window will be bypassed when -c, -r, or - are used. [arg]* are passed to the command (-c) or script (-r) in sys.argv[1:]. Examples: idle Open an edit window or shell depending on IDLE's configuration. idle foo.py foobar.py Edit the files, also open a shell if configured to start with shell. idle -est "Baz" foo.py Run $IDLESTARTUP or $PYTHONSTARTUP, edit foo.py, and open a shell window with the title "Baz". idle -c "import sys; print(sys.argv)" "foo" Open a shell window and run the command, passing "-c" in sys.argv and "foo" in sys.argv. idle -d -s -r foo.py "Hello World" Open a shell window, run a startup script, enable the debugger, and run foo.py, passing "foo.py" in sys.argv and "Hello World" in sys.argv. echo "import sys; print(sys.argv)" \| idle - "foobar" Open a shell window, run the script piped in, passing '' in sys.argv and "foobar" in sys.argv. Error: option --help not recognized USAGE: idle [-deins] [-t title] [file]* idle [-dns] [-t title] (-c cmd \| -r file) [arg]* idle [-dns] [-t title] - [arg]* -h print this help message and exit -n run IDLE without a subprocess (DEPRECATED, see Help/IDLE Help for details) The following options will override the IDLE 'settings' configuration: -e open an edit window -i open a shell window The following options imply -i and will open a shell: -c cmd run the command in a shell, or -r file run script from file -d enable the debugger -s run $IDLESTARTUP or $PYTHONSTARTUP before anything else -t title set title of shell window A default edit window will be bypassed when -c, -r, or - are used. [arg]* are passed to the command (-c) or script (-r) in sys.argv[1:]. Examples: idle Open an edit window or shell depending on IDLE's configuration. idle foo.py foobar.py Edit the files, also open a shell if configured to start with shell. idle -est "Baz" foo.py Run $IDLESTARTUP or $PYTHONSTARTUP, edit foo.py, and open a shell window with the title "Baz". idle -c "import sys; print(sys.argv)" "foo" Open a shell window and run the command, passing "-c" in sys.argv and "foo" in sys.argv. idle -d -s -r foo.py "Hello World" Open a shell window, run a startup script, enable the debugger, and run foo.py, passing "foo.py" in sys.argv and "Hello World" in sys.argv. echo "import sys; print(sys.argv)" \| idle - "foobar" Open a shell window, run the script piped in, passing '' in sys.argv and "foobar" in sys.argv.
0.972981	When you hear “bat”, what do you think of? A small, hairy creature that is active in the darkest hours of the night and who sleeps upside down? (That’s what I think of!) And it’s true! But there is so much more to bats than that. Did you know that bats are the second largest order of mammals in the word? In fact, there are more than 1,300 bat species worldwide and they represent about 20% of all classified mammal species! And, they play a huge, often underappreciated role in ecosystems across the globe. Humans may have a lot to learn from these nighttime predators as they are critical to pollination, reforestation, and even pest control. First, a little background. Bats are categorized into two groups. The first are the fruit-eating megabats (also known as flying foxes). This group makes up 30% of bat species, and, as their name suggests, they consume various types of fruit. The second group is the echolocating microbats, which makes up the other 70% of bat species. The bats in this group use echolocation, a sort of night vision to hunt and consume small insects. Not only do bats make up a huge chunk of mammals, but they are found worldwide. 34% of all bat species are found in Asia, 26% in Latin America, 21% in Africa, 13% in Oceania, and 6% in the US/Canada and other regions. While often overlooked, bats are key to the ongoing success of many ecosystems–both as pollinators and predators working to keep insect populations under control. The warm weather and constant availability of fruit in the Tropics makes it a paradise for fruit-eating bats who live there in abundance. However, insectivorous bats, vampire bats, and nectar-feeding bats are also very common in the rich, warm, biodiverse ecosystems of this region. Fruit bats vary in size, from around two inches in length up to a whopping 16 inches with a wingspan of over five feet at their largest! The tiniest bats weigh a few ounces while the biggest ones can even weigh a few pounds. Additionally, fruit-eating bats have very large eyes and excellent vision, so they depend mostly on sight and their sophisticated sense of smell for daily activities such as foraging for fruit. Non-fruit-eating bats, or the echolocating microbats eat mostly insects. Insectivores and other carnivorous bats lack the superior eyesight of the fruit-eating bats and rely on echolocation to find and consume their prey. Surprisingly, this lack of eyesight is not at all a disadvantage for these bats. In fact, a single echolocating bat can consume over 3,000 insects in one night! Nectar-feeding bats are important pollinators of tropical rainforest plants. Like fruit-eating bats, nectar-feeding bats rely on sight to locate their primary source of food: flower nectar. To gain access into those hard-to-reach flowers, these bats are equipped with a long, thin tongue, like that of a hummingbird! As they rub up against the flowers to reach the prized nectar, they become vital pollinators for the rainforest. Vampire bats have a reputation as the scary creatures from horror films, but in reality they feed on farm animals in tropical regions. They use their chisel-like incisor teeth to make a tiny incision in the animal’s skin in the darkest hours of the night to avoid predators. Why are Bats Important as Pollinators? Bats pollinate many ecologically and economically important plants around the world. In fact, there are at least 500 species of flowers that rely on bats as their pollinators. While more common pollinators like butterflies and birds are general pollinators (meaning they collect pollen from many different plants), bats have specific preferences when it comes to which flowers they pollinate. Many of these unique flowers have even evolved to attract bats as opposed to other, general pollinators. Some of these adaptations include always being open at night (ready for pollination and closed during the day), large in size, pale in color, and very fragrant with a fermenting or fruit-like odor. Often times, the flowers offer a copious amount of dilute nectar to attract the bats. In addition to the beautiful flowers, bats do great favors in pollinating other plants. In Australia, flying foxes, nectar, and fruit eating mega bats, pollinate the dry eucalyptus forests that produce timber and oil for human use. Mexican agave plants, a source of fiber and a key ingredient for tequila, are additionally dependent on the pollination services of several types of nectar-feeding bats. Thanks to bats, we have a variety of excellent resources. Not only do bats love eating fruit, but they are also crucial in providing humans with a variety of fruits. Mangoes, bananas, guavas, and peaches are just a few of these delicious fruits that are predominantly pollinated by bats. Deforestation of the Tropics is a huge, worldwide issue. And, believe it or not, fruit-eating bats play a critical role in dealing with this issue! Bats are super effective in that they widely disperse seeds to degraded, deforested areas. The bat world is exceptionally diverse and abundant, with a variety of canopy and understory feeding habits. Their ability to fly (and quickly!) allows them to cover large distances during their nightly foraging flights, allowing them to reach deforested and degraded areas of the forest more easily than any human. Some German scientists have done related research, further reiterating the fact that bats are crucial to reforestation efforts. In one study, artificial bat roosts were installed in some deforested areas to attract more bats to the region. Evidence from the study showed that that there were, in fact, significant increases in seed dispersal over this wide range of sparse forest! Bats are a fantastic and natural way to help us speed up forest regeneration. There are many bat species in Osa. According to the research done by Doris Audet at Osa Conservation’s Piro BioStation, 33 species of bats from six families have been identified over the course of 32 nights of sampling. Phyllostomidae (leaf-nosed bats) were the predominant family in the captures. The presence of a diverse bat population in Osa Conservation’s old growth properties demonstrates that the forest is strong and healthy. Additionally, their presence will be a huge aid in the regeneration of some of the previously degenerated areas. Bats are potentially some of the most overlooked and forgotten about creatures of the forest, yet they play a huge role. Not only do they keep pest populations low, but they also pollinate our plants and help restore the forest. Understanding their role in both the ecosystem and the human world is crucial to their conservation and continued success and appreciation. Thank you bats!! Relationships Are Tough: Orchid Bees and Orchids. Have you ever seen the Exaerete, the bright green bee as long as your finger? What about the Euglossa, known for it’s metallic blue, green, or red body? These insects and many others like them aren’t just any bees—they’re Orchid Bees. The Euglossini (the umbrella term for Orchid Bees) are some of the most important pollinator insects of the Neotropics, known for their unique coloring, size, and even shape. Their bodies can be partially metallic or covered in brown or black hair. From Mexico to Argentina (and Florida where they were accidentally introduced), Orchid Bees rule the bug world. Euglossini collect nectar, pollen, and resin from plants just like any other bees, with an added special trait—they collect “odoriferous compounds”! What, you may ask, is an odoriferous compound? Well, it’s just a fancy way of saying that Orchid Bees collect fragrances from very specific species of orchid. Each species of Orchid bee has a fragrance preference and each orchid has a specific fragrance. Ultimately, this means that specific species of Orchid bees are attracted to specific species of Orchid! Not only does the Euglossini collect the fragrances, but it also uses them for courtship purposes. In other words, the male Euglossini has evolved to be extraordinarily picky in the smells that it collects and uses to attract a female to mate with. Additionally, because the orchids are pollinated as the bee collects the fragrance, some orchid species are more likely to be pollinated than others. Unfortunately for all you Orchid enthusiasts, this is potentially bad news. Orchids have evolved to specifically cater to an Orchid Bee’s preferences, meaning that many orchids can only be pollinated by one or two species of Orchid Bee! Additionally, estimates say that the survival of around 700 species of orchid (equivalent to 10% of the Neotropical Orchidae) is dependent solely on the existence of these insects! Yep, you heard me—no orchid bees means no orchids. Think twice the next time you have the urge to swat a bee! Despite this risk, orchids are relatively self-sufficient and have some amazing (and creative) adaptations to ensure pollination. Enticing bees with scents of vanilla, cinnamon, and even rotting meat is just the beginning. As a bee crawls into the flower of an orchid to collect the perfume, the orchids actually glue packets of pollen (called pollinaria) onto the bees in places where the packets will not easily rub off. Now, the pollinaria will pollinate the next flower of the same species that the orchid bee visits. In this way, the bee’s pollination is more efficient and more orchids are pollinated! This relationship is often described as asymmetric mutualism, which means that both species benefit from each other without completely relying on the symbiotic partner for survival. Even though some relationships between Orchid Bee and orchid rely more on each other, for the most part there are multiple pollinators for every orchid and additionally multiple orchids for every Orchid Bee. This asymmetric relationship isn’t just mutually beneficial, but it actually has really influenced the evolution of the orchid bee, allowing a male Euglossini’s preferred fragrance mixture to evolve rapidly when there is a disturbance to the system, such as an environmental disturbance, allowing both the bee and orchid populations to be resilient. The relationship between Bee and orchid attests to the power of nature to overcome challenges and evolution as nature’s problem-solver. When I left England on a cold, dark morning in June I had absolutely no idea what to expect when I touched down in Costa Rica. I knew there was rainforest, but I didn’t really know what that was, and I knew I was going to do sea turtle conservation, but I had never done anything like it before. Now, back in England and reminiscing on my experience, I can say whole-heartedly that it was the best thing I have ever done. I spent one glorious month at Estaciόn Piro on the Osa Peninsula. The surrounding rainforest is one of the most awe-inspiring places I have ever been. I saw two nesting Olive Ridley turtles, Coatis, Agoutis, countless birds, reptiles and insects and even a juvenile Cayman! But there is a special place reserved in my heart for Fleur, the baby Kinkajou. Charlie and I were walking back from a morning patrol on Pejeperro beach when we were stopped in our tracks by a tiny ball of fur curled up in the middle of the trail. At first we were startled, not knowing what it was, thinking it was going to run off at any moment, but she was completely oblivious to us. We checked to see if she was breathing, she was. We tried making a few little noises to see if she would get up and move away as we thought she might be hurt, but she would not be disturbed from her sleep. They are nocturnal after all! There was nothing Charlie and I could do for her on our own so we dragged ourselves away and headed back to base for a well-earned breakfast. We returned a few hours later with Manuel, the animal whisperer, to rescue her if she was still there. It was about 10 am so the chances of her mother coming back in the midday heat were next to none and the chances of her dying of dehydration, exposure or getting eaten by a bird, cat, or even ants, were very high. So we scooped her up and took her back to the station. Kinkajous have a long tongue so they can feed off the nectar in plants. We started by trying to feed her a little sugary water but that didn’t go down too well so we gave her goats’ milk instead, which she liked. She was very relaxed and animated. She stretched out and scratched her belly. They have the most amazing hands and feet, like humans but with big claws for gripping the branches. And she chewed her tail, like a child when it’s teething. I think she was too young to know fear because she was not nervous around us at all. Our plan was to take her to a sanctuary that afternoon but alas the unpredictability of life in the jungle was no different that day so we nursed her overnight. She was so little and it was a cool and very wet night, so I got up to check on her and feed her twice. Once at midnight and again at about 3.30am when she started making a bit of a racket, a high pitched squeaking sound to be precise. We took her to the Sanctuary the next day. She was strong and healthy, a spunky little survivor, and I am confident that they will be able to rehabilitate her back into the wild. I had many amazing experiences in Costa Rica but I will treasure my time with Fleur the most.
0.999993	The construction equipment industry - which includes manufacturing, distribution and maintenance companies - has shed a staggering 37 percent of its workforce since the equipment market peaked in 2006. At 37 percent, the unemployment rate of the equipment industry is twice that of the construction industry as a whole and more than three times that of the general economy. By comparison, auto manufacturing and dealership jobs are down 16 percent, while job losses in the finance and insurance industry amount to 6 percent of their workforce. Spending on construction equipment has fallen by more than 50 percent compared to its peak in 2006. The economic output of this industry has contracted by nearly 40 percent and resulted, directly and indirectly, in the loss of approximately 550,000 jobs. In other words, eight percent of all jobs lost since the start of the recession have been associated with the equipment industry downturn. Over the course of the recession, losses to industry sales and employment have decimated taxes paid on employee income, corporate profits and sales of machinery; the magnitude of the decline indicates that tax revenues associated with our industry have fallen by $12.8 billion.
0.999951	Utopia is a town located in Broward County, Florida. As of the 2000 census, the town had a total population of 714. \nUtopia is located at 25°59'19" North, 80°12'12" West (25.988719, -80.203268)1. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 0.8 km² (0.3 mi²). 0.8 km² (0.3 mi²) of it is land and none of it is covered by water. \nAs of the census of 2000, there are 714 people, 262 households, and 175 families residing in the town. The population density is 889.3/km² (2,326.9/mi²). There are 279 housing units at an average density of 347.5/km² (909.2/mi²). The racial makeup of the town is 21.57% White, 65.97% African American, 0.28% Native American, 0.56% Asian, 0.00% Pacific Islander, 9.38% from other races, and 2.24% from two or more races. 22.83% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race. There are 262 households out of which 37.0% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 30.9% are married couples living together, 28.2% have a female householder with no husband present, and 33.2% are non-families. 27.5% of all households are made up of individuals and 5.7% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.73 and the average family size is 3.32. In the town the population is spread out with 32.6% under the age of 18, 9.9% from 18 to 24, 31.1% from 25 to 44, 19.6% from 45 to 64, and 6.7% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 31 years. For every 100 females there are 94.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 91.6 males. The median income for a household in the town is $22,000, and the median income for a family is $24,250. Males have a median income of $21,602 versus $16,058 for females. The per capita income for the town is $12,306. 28.4% of the population and 23.8% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total people living in poverty, 34.3% are under the age of 18 and 30.2% are 65 or older.
0.992986	Hike in Yosemite and discover the amazing Yosemite Valley. Yosemite National Park is a haven for thrill-seekers whether you’re tackling El Capitan or hiking through the park you are sure of great scenery and a great adventure. The park’s unusual combination of granite monoliths, waterfalls and streams has been created over the course of millions of years by the movement of tectonic plates so this really is a unique environment. The park is full of plants and animals and trekking is the best way to see this side of the park. The adrenaline junkies on the walls are having a great time, but they are missing out on a lot of the details of this stunning landscape. We recommend tackling this hike in the summer when the warmth and lack of rain make it a wonderful time for exploration. The best section of the park to hike through is what’s often called the heartland of Yosemite around the famous Half Dome. A granite dome which dominates the landscape. It is possible to hike through the park with the help of pack horses, this allows you to take a load of your mind, literally, and to instead take in the epic views and wonderful scenery. So let’s go into more detail shall we? Day 1: Check-in at Piccadilly Inn anytime after 4pm. Meeting with trip summary at 6pm in the Hotel lobby, after which you have a free night for dinner and preparation for the trip. Day 2: The van will pick you up at 7am, for a two-and-a-half hours drive to the trailhead. From here, you will hike to the forested valley of Post Creek, where you will have time to go for a swim and maybe even fish whilst the guides prepare dinner, whilst you swim, relax and watch the stars. Day 3: From Post Creek, you will hike over the Post Peak Pass, and enter the Yosemite National Park half-way through the day. After approximately 11 miles, you will reach Lake 10K, you next camping site at roughly 10,000 feet, with views to several of the park’s tall peaks. Day 4: Having climbed up yesterday, today you will go steadily downhill, dropping 2,500 feet over 11 miles. You will walk through the Merced Valley’s scenic surrounding, ending up at Merced Lake, approximately 7,300 feet above sea level, where you will make your camp for the night. Day 5: Hiking 7,5 miles of various ups and downs, the trail heads Westwards towards the Half Dome, one of the most famous places in the Yosemite National Park. The day ends with an early dinner below the Half Dome, ready for an early ascent the next day. Day 6: To reach the top of the Half Dome, you start the day before the sun is up. At 8,836 the view is spectacular, offering a unique chance to see the far-reaching mountain ranges and Yosemite valley. After making your way down, you will break camp and head along the well-known John Muir trails for about three miles, before you camp for the night. Day 7: Making your way through the Sunrise area, your 8,5 miles long hike will take you to Cathedral Lakes, with a breath-taking view of the waters at 9,288 feet. Day 8: After breakfast in scenic surroundings, you will pack up for the last time and head to the rolling Tuolumne Meadows in the eastern part of the national park. A shuttle will pick you up and drive you through a view of the landscape, stopping for a picnic lunch. The trip ends in Fresno at 5 or 6pm in the evening. This is one of the best places to hike in the world, and it makes the perfect break from the more extreme elements of Yosemite’s adventurers. To book this adventure visit Tourdust.
0.999945	Pack a safe lunch. Ensuring a safe lunch means keeping hot foods hot and cold foods cold, from the time your child leaves the house until he/she sits down to eat. Use a thermos for hot foods, such as soup, and include a cold pack with foods that need to stay chilled. If possible, pack your child’s lunch in an insulated bag. Meet your child’s caloric needs. Children’s caloric needs vary greatly, depending on age, activity level, and other factors. Talk to your child’s pediatrician to get a general estimate of what his/her caloric needs are, and aim to provide one third of those calories at lunch time. If your child buys lunch at school, view it as an opportunity to talk about choosing healthy options when faced with a range of choices. For a complete set of tips on planning healthy school lunches, click here.
0.997119	If you are using a fireplace or wood stove as your main source of heating, you will have plenty of daily and weekly fireplace chores to complete, such as adding fuel to the fire, stoking the fire in the morning, and cleaning out the ash pan. Even if your fireplace is solely for entertainment, you will still have a few maintenance chores to complete when your family uses it. You may be wondering how safe it is to allow your children to interact with the fireplace and whether they should have chores associated with the fireplace. Below are some tips for setting up family responsibilities for your fireplace. When deciding who in your family will do what, it is important to begin with a list of all of the fireplace chores. You should make a chart of daily, weekly, monthly and annual fireplace cleaning tasks, such as emptying ash and cleaning the glass. If you are using the fireplace as a source of heating, you will also want to add in chores related to starting the morning fire, adding fuel throughout the day, carrying wood in from the wood stack and splitting fuel into kindling. Once you have a complete chore chart, it will be easier to divide responsibilities fairly. Age is not always a good indicator of which chores your child is ready to take on. Their maturity and experience with fireplaces is much more pertinent. For example, an 8-year-old who has grown up with a fireplace in the home may be able to start fires, add fuel, and clean out ashes, whereas a 10-year-old with no fireplace experience may not be able to complete these tasks without instruction and close supervision. Before you assign any chore to your child, you should make sure that they can efficiently and safely complete the chore by instructing them and then supervising several times. When assigning tasks to young children, you should consider how dangerous or critical each task is, both to your child and your equipment. For example, adding fuel to a fire can be a more dangerous task than starting a fire, which is a risk to your child. While cleaning out the fireplace once it has cooled may not pose a risk to your child, it is possible for them to spread ashes in your home or to damage the fire brick by being too rough with it. You may want to complete high-risk tasks yourself or assign them to another adult and allow your younger children to watch or assist with these tasks until you are comfortable that they can complete them on their own. After you assign chores, you should check in regularly to make sure that your children are completing them. For example, failing to wipe down the glass on your fireplace once a week could lead to buildup that is hard to clean. Similarly, if your children forget to add fuel to the fire, it can result in a cold house for you. Regular checkups will assure you that your fireplace system is running efficiently. You should keep in mind that some fireplace tasks may be too complex or dangerous for your children or yourself. For example, you may want to hire a professional to complete an annual inspection of your fireplace and chimney. Additionally, you may want to hire a professional to sweep out your chimney when it is necessary. Click here to learn more about your fireplace maintenance options.
0.999414	While at a party with a few of your best friends, one of them suddenly remarks that her grandmother, who was a practicing Hindu recently died. Based upon your study of Hinduism this week, what four (4) basic components of the Hindu belief system can be inferred about what happens to a Hindu when they die? Part of the requirement for a substantive post is to bring something new to the conversation. Read the forum prompt and fully answer it, demonstrate understanding of the lesson/content, include evidence from firsthand experience, reference to the course materials, and apply what you’re discussing to work, life, and reality.
0.995424	I was really inspired when I saw this post by Emily Henderson. I made two pieces of paper art for one of my living room art walls. And this piece which fits inside their 12x12 shadow frame. Starting with the second piece first, I first punched hearts out of white card stock. I really liked the white on white feel with the shadows creating the drama. Instead of gluing half of each heart to the paper, I laid out the die cut hearts - 25 total - out on the cardstock background and sewed down the middle of each row. I used white thread, but a contrasting thread would have looked good too. Maybe turquoise or red or orange? I purposely ramdomized the position of each heart for a more organic feel. Then I carefully folded up each half of the heart to create the butterfly effect. Then I framed it in the shadow frame which has room for the 3D effect. Next up I made the layered heart. First I cut a heart out of news paper in a shape that I liked and that fit inside the mat of the frame. I then copied the shape cutting out a total three news paper hearts, 3 yellow tissue hearts, 3 light yellow tissue hearts and 12 cream yellow tissue hearts. Then I stacked them by color from the bottom up: Yellow, light yellow, cream yellow. I layered the news paper hearts in the cream yellow section. Then I sewed a wide zig-zag on the widest setting with a stich spacing of 1 on my sewing machine down the middle of the stack of hearts. I taped the stitching on the back to keep it from unraveling. Then I crumbled each layer slightly and framed it in the smaller of the two shadow frames. Then I hung the pieces with a group of other artwork made previously by me and my son and it ended up looking like this. This article: Heart art - Inspired by Etsy finds by Emily Henderson first appeared on http://ahomefordesign.com.
0.956509	Paired-tag sequencing approaches are commonly used for the analysis of genome structure. However, mammalian genomes have a complex organization with a variety of repetitive elements that complicate comprehensive genome-wide analyses. Here, we systematically assessed the utility of paired-end and mate-pair (MP) next-generation sequencing libraries with insert sizes ranging from 170 bp to 25 kb, for genome coverage and for improving scaffolding of a mammalian genome (Rattus norvegicus). Despite a lower library complexity, large insert MP libraries (20 or 25 kb) provided very high physical genome coverage and were found to efficiently span repeat elements in the genome. Medium-sized (5, 8 or 15 kb) MP libraries were much more efficient for genome structure analysis than the more commonly used shorter insert paired-end and 3 kb MP libraries. Furthermore, the combination of medium- and large insert libraries resulted in a 3-fold increase in N50 in scaffolding processes. Finally, we show that our data can be used to evaluate and improve contig order and orientation in the current rat reference genome assembly. We conclude that applying combinations of mate-pair libraries with insert sizes that match the distributions of repetitive elements improves contig scaffolding and can contribute to the finishing of draft genomes. Genome assemblies consist of kilobase- to megabase-sized contiguous sequences of DNA (contigs) that need to be positioned in a correct order and orientation. This ordering of contigs (scaffolding) requires long-range structural information that reaches beyond the boundaries of contigs. Commonly used reference genome assemblies, like those of human [1, 2], rat , and mouse , were all constructed using long-range structural information obtained by Sanger sequencing based applications. For example, mapped large insert clones (e.g., cosmid, fosmid and bacterial artificial chromosomes) and paired-end whole genome shotgun sequencing of plasmids with variable insert sizes contributed to elucidating the complexity of genomes at the structural level. Despite the high quality of these assemblies, tens to thousands of intercontig gaps still persist [3, 5, 6]. Currently, genomes are frequently sequenced by cost-effective next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies. However, long-range structural information is often not available from such efforts and would require more costly and toilsome techniques than routine fragment or paired-end sequencing. The absence of long-range information poses significant challenges for dealing with repetitive sequences that often represent 50% of mammalian genomes [1, 7]. Emerging technologies like long-read single-molecule sequencing or single-molecule mapping systems like optical mapping [9–11], may eventually help to overcome many of the challenges put forward here. However, application of methods solely based on current NGS technology would be most optimal because such platforms are maturing fast and are very broadly available.Current NGS platforms are already capable of producing positional information using paired-end (PE) and mate-pair (MP) templates. PE sequencing involves the generation of pairs of sequencing reads derived from both ends of a contiguous DNA fragment. This sequencing modus is currently standard on most platforms but is limited by technology features (e.g. PCR constraints) that typically only allow for insert sizes of less than 500 bp . MP sequencing, however, can provide much longer distance information , but requires several molecular sample processing steps to clone DNA fragment ends through a circularization step, making it a relatively laborious approach. Most commonly used MP approaches span 1 to 3 kilobase pairs (kb) and are therefore capable of spanning many repetitive or low complexity sequence elements. However, common repetitive elements [like LINE (L1) elements] in vertebrate genomes can span as much as 8 kb in size (Additional file 1) [7, 14], illustrating the need for longer range information for comprehensive analysis of genome structures. To this end, various bioinformatic algorithms like CREST and ALLPATHS-LG have been developed to increase effective PE read span by systematically merging overlapping sequences. Experimentally, novel methods producing larger insert sizes have also been reported [17, 18]. While these techniques clearly demonstrate the power of larger distance information, most do have limitations that could interfere with comprehensive analysis (e.g., maximum insert sizes of ~10 kb [17, 19], potential biases introduced by enzymatic digestions , and relatively laborious or costly approaches that can only produce single fixed insert size libraries [20, 21]). Furthermore, a systematic assessment of the utility and combination of different library insert sizes for resolving existing assembly difficulties in complex regions of genomes is currently lacking. Here, we modified existing MP library construction protocols to allow for the generation of a wide range of small, medium and large insert size mate-pair libraries (3 kb up to 25 kb) and present a systematic comparison of their individual and combined utility for exploring mammalian genome structure. Our results show that two of the medium-sized MP libraries (8 kb and 15 kb) are most efficient for bridging repeats in the rat genome as well as for contig scaffolding. Furthermore, combining the medium-sized MPs with large insert (20-kb and 25-kb) libraries reduces the number of scaffolds by another 25% and results in a 3-fold increase in N50. Our results are useful to define the most optimal experimental paired-read approach to support the de novo assembly of mammalian genomes. We constructed MP libraries through modification of the standard SOLiD protocol for mate-pair library construction (Additional file 2), to allow construction of MPs with insert sizes up to 25 kb. We used ~100 μg high-molecular-weight genomic DNA isolated from tissue of a single Brown Norway rat as starting material for all libraries. Sheared DNA was size-separated by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis [22, 23] followed by excision of various fragment sizes from a single lane and conversion into mate-pair libraries. In total, we generated seven different library insert sizes, including six libraries produced with this adapted MP protocol and one PE fragment library that was prepared in a separate experiment (Table 1). Based on paired read mapping, the libraries showed median insert sizes of 170 bp (PE), 3 kb, 5 kb, 8 kb, 15 kb, 20 kb, and 25 kb. * The _b samples are retrieved from a replicate experiment using an independent DNA isolate from the same animal. Number of PCR cycles required to retrieve sufficient library molecules in the final adapter-mediated PCR. * Complexity is defined as minimal sequencing depth (in million clones) at which over half of the pairs are clonal. To assess library complexity by determining the maximum number of unique reads obtainable from a MP library, two of the large-insert libraries (20-kb and 25-kb) were sequenced to a higher depth in an additional sequencing run. To assess reproducibility of the adapted MP protocol, three libraries (5-kb, 8-kb, and 15-kb) were generated in duplicate from independently isolated, sheared, and separated genomic DNA samples. Insert size distributions of the individually produced replicates were highly consistent (Figure 1a and Table 1). In total, 192.4 million pairs of MP reads and 160 million pairs of PE reads were generated. A total of 62.3 million non-duplicate MP read pairs and 131 million non-duplicate PE reads were consistently mapped against the rat reference genome, resulting in a genome-wide physical coverage of 228.5× (220× for MP libraries and 8.5× for 170-bp PE). Less than 1% of the paired reads were inverted (one of the reads in other orientation than expected) or everted (both reads in other orientation resulting in wrong order of tags) and approximately 10% were mapped remotely (i.e., to a distant genomic position, significantly deviating from what is expected based on the insert-size distribution). Remote, inverted, or everted events represent a mixture of 1) library construction artefacts due to chimeric molecules, 2) errors in the reference genome assembly (misassemblies) and 3) real structural differences between the reference strain and the substrain tested here. The first category typically involves stochastic events that are supported by a single read pair and that are filtered out by requiring multiple independent supporting read pairs for calling. MP insert size distribution and library complexity. (a) Insert size distribution of all mate-paired libraries and biological duplicates. Data have been filtered for non-clonal pairs. (b) Complexity of each library is depicted by the number of unique read-pairs versus the number of properly mapped read-pairs. On the x-axis, increasing sequencing depth is represented based on actual sequencing data versus the amount of unique information obtained on the y-axis. A plateau indicates that a library has been sequenced to saturation. Sequencing libraries may suffer from low complexity due to library amplification steps in the protocol. When the proportion of unique library molecules is low due to inefficient molecular reactions or low amounts of input material, sequencing more reads of that same library would not yield any additional information, but only extra copies of previously sequenced molecules (duplicate reads). We assessed the complexity of each library by plotting the number of read-pairs with unique genome coordinates against the total number of all mapped pairs (Figure 1b). In general, the complexity of the small-insert libraries is higher than that of the large-insert libraries, which more quickly saturate to the level where deeper sequencing delivers predominantly non-informative duplicate reads. Duplicate reads do not necessarily affect the utility of the libraries, because these reads are filtered out as a first step in the analysis procedure; however, low complexity does decrease the capacity to obtain sufficient physical genome coverage. Three sample groups can be distinguished in Figure 1b: (1) high-complexity libraries that deliver approximately 100 million unique pairs (PE, 3kb, 5kb_b and 8kb_b), (2) medium-complexity libraries that result in about 10 million unique pairs (5kb_a, 8kb_a and 20kb), and (3) low-complexity libraries resulting in approximately 1 million unique pairs (15kb_a, 15kb_b, 25kb). Several of the low-complexity libraries show a plateau in the curve, indicating that these have been sequenced to saturation (25kb, 15kb_a). For others (5kb_b, 8kb_b), deeper sequencing would be informative. Library complexity may be influenced by several experimental conditions. When starting with an equal quantity of genomic DNA, fragmentation for a standard PE library provides approximately 140-fold more unique molecules than for a 25-kb library. Furthermore, MP library preparation involves a circularization step (Additional file 2) that becomes less efficient as the size of the molecule increases. Quantification of DNA before and after circularization (and removal of non-circularized molecules) showed a circularization efficiency of up to 37% for libraries below 10 kb and 5–10% for libraries above 10 kb (Additional file 3). Each of these library generation steps has a negative impact on the recovery of material; for example, an input of 10 μg 25-kb size-selected DNA would result in approximately 6 ng (>4,000-fold reduction) of DNA for adapter ligation and subsequent adapter-mediated PCR. As a consequence, more PCR cycles are required for larger insert libraries to obtain sufficient amounts of library DNA for NGS (Table 1). Although the 3- and 5-kb insert libraries could routinely be generated at high complexity, we observed more technical variation for the large insert libraries. For example, the 20-kb library required only 14 PCR cycles during the library preparation procedure and performed well in the complexity analysis (comparable to 5- and 8-kb libraries). The 15- and 25-kb libraries required 21 and 17 cycles, respectively, and resulted in libraries of lower complexity (Figure 1b). These results indicate that the number of required PCR cycles is a very good predictive parameter for library complexity. The 5-, 8-, and 15-kb libraries were generated in duplicate using DNA isolated from two different tissues of the same animal. The insert size distribution was found to be highly reproducible (Figure 1a), but the library complexity was much more variable between duplicates (Figure 1b). These differences might have been due to differences in DNA quality (e.g. amount of single strand breaks) or purity (e.g. associated protein or small molecule contaminants) of the DNA and subsequent differences in shearing efficiency. Indeed, DNA yields after size fragmentation were as much as 2.5-fold lower for the duplicate DNA sample (data not shown), which systematically resulted in less complex libraries. Most importantly, however, statistics for the amount of consistently mapped read pairs were comparable for all replicates (Table 1), indicating that the mapped unique read pairs were similar in quality (e.g., low chimaerism) and insert size. Low complexity in libraries could be circumvented by using larger amounts of input DNA and/or by optimization of shearing conditions to concentrate DNA in the desired size range. In our experiments we aimed for a broad size distribution to be able to simultaneously extract DNA for a range of different sizes. Although the larger insert libraries come with more duplicate reads, far fewer sequencing pairs are required to physically cover the complete genome. It should be noted, that for all MP libraries in the experiments described here more than 10x physical coverage was obtained, including 48x coverage for 20 kb inserts. To assess the value of the various insert size libraries for genome structure analysis, we determined the ability of each library to (1) physically cover the reference genome and overlap various repeat elements, (2) drive contig scaffolding, and (3) fix contig assembly issues in the current genome assembly (errors in contig order and orientation). The ability to physically cover a complete genome by sequencing is not only determined by the length of the read, the insert size of the library, and the number of paired reads, but also depends on genome-specific characteristics, like the composition and distribution of repetitive elements. The rat genome is representative for other mammalian genomes and contains 1.24 Gb of repetitive sequences, which is over 49% of the 2.51 Gb in the current reference genome assembly (RGSC 3.4, v.66 ). Retrotransposable LINE (L1) elements are the largest class of repeats with a total length of 474.6 Mb (18.9% of the genome), followed by retrotransposons that are flanked by long terminal repeats (LTRs; 220.9 Mb; Figure 2a and b). To evaluate the effect of library insert size on the degree of physical genome coverage, we merged data from duplicate libraries with the same insert size. Although the MP libraries had far more physical genome coverage, all datasets were normalized to an equal physical genome coverage based on properly mapped and oriented read pairs, which was limited to 8.5x by the available amount of data for the PE library. Next, we determined per library the fraction of bases per contig of the rat reference genome that is physically covered, specifically focusing on repetitive elements. Despite the same physical genome coverage and much higher base coverage, short-insert libraries (PE and 3 kb MP) were much less efficient in spanning long repetitive elements, such as LINEs or LTRs, than larger insert MP libraries (≥ 15 kb) (Figure 2c and d respectively). As expected, PE pairs overlapped hardly any of these elements but also the most widely used 3-kb MP libraries were found to only span approximately half of the 3-kb repeat elements, and only a few elements with sizes above 4 kb. Slightly improved results were observed for the 5-kb and 8-kb MP libraries, where approximately half of the repeats with a matched size could be spanned by at least one mate-pair. The 15-, 20-, and 25-kb libraries spanned over 90% of the repeat elements across the whole size spectrum and all displayed a very similar performance, indicating that there is limited added value for even larger insert sizes. Bridging of repeat elements by paired read libraries. (a) The percentage of each repeat type per window of 1000 repeats (y-axis) is shown, relative to the size of each repeat on the x-axis. A higher density of dots indicates the presence of more repeats in the indicated size bin. (b) Pie chart of the largest classes of repetitive elements based on their total length (Mb) in the rat genome. Satellite repeats, RNA repeats, and low-complexity repeats are listed as “Other.” (c + d) Bridging by paired-tag libraries of all annotated LINEs (c) and LTRs (d) within contigs of RGSC 3.4. The size of LINE elements or LTRs (x-axis) is plotted against the percentage of elements of that specific size that were bridged by one or more read-pairs from each of the libraries. All single library datasets were normalized to 8.5× physical genome coverage. To evaluate the utility of the various libraries for guiding genome assembly, we simulated the scaffolding step of such process by using the 137,257 contigs from the current rat genome build and the different MP data sets as input for the SSPACE 2.0 software. To allow for library insert-size comparison, we again used the normalized datasets at 8.5x physical coverage and determined the N50 (at least half of the genome bases are in scaffolds that are equal or exceeding the N50 value) and the number of scaffolds (segments of the genome reference consisting of contigs in known order, separated by gaps) for each individual library and combinations thereof, using the output of the SSPACE software (Figure 3a, Table 2 and Additional file 4). When we consider only the utility of single libraries, the N50 increases from ~38 kb for the PE data to 140–163 kb for the MP libraries of 5 kb and up. PE libraries are not effective in reducing the number of scaffolds as compared to the capillary sequencing-based contigs: a reduction of only 15 scaffolds is obtained (from 137,256 scaffolds in RGSC3.4 to 137,241 scaffolds using the PE data). In contrast, individual MP libraries decreased the number of scaffolds by up to more than 50% (~67,000 for the 5 kb library, which performs best of all individual MP libraries). When considering two insert size libraries, combination of 5 or 8 kb and 20 or 25 kb are most optimal with N50's of ~0.5 Mb. Intriguingly, 3 kb mate-pair libraries, which are most commonly used, showed the worst performance from all MP libraries, also when combined with other libraries. Including all libraries in the scaffolding process results in a further decrease of scaffolds (36,348) with an N50 increase up to 1.3 Mb. Increasing the physical coverage for a single insert library shows to be far less effective than combining libraries with different insert size (Additional file 5 and Additional file 6). For example, when we increase the coverage of the 5 kb insert library to 34x physical coverage, the N50 increases from 141 kb to 262 kb. However, combining 8.5x coverage data for the 5 kb insert library with similar coverage of any other MP library (up to 34x) results in much higher N50 values ranging from ~431 kb up to ~1 Mb. Combinations of libraries with different insert sizes improve contig scaffolding. (a) All library data sets were normalized to 8.5× non-clonal physical genome coverage resulting in the use of approximately 130 million pairs for the PE library to several million pairs for the MPs. The scaffold N50 (y-axis) as determined by SSPACE is plotted against the total number of scaffolds (x-axis) for each individual library and for all combinations of libraries. Scaffolding results for the current genome reference (RGSC 3.4) are displayed as well. (b) Representative examples of the genomic loci on rat chromosome 18 that show major discordance between optical map and the RGSC 3.4 reference genome. MP-assisted scaffolding restored concordance between sequence scaffolds and optical maps. The top panel (black) represents the reference genome assembly with the vertical lines indicating predicted SwaI sites; the middle panel (red) represents optical map data obtained using SwaI digests; the lower panel represents the rescaffolded genome using the MP data. The indicated positions on chromosome 18 are according to the current RGSC 3.4 assembly. A large region of approximately 75 kb (top panel) that shows low concordance with the predicted path of the optical map (0.065 Mb–0.14 Mb), increased significantly after MP-scaffolding. The bottom panel shows another example of increased resemblance to optical mapping data (3.85 Mb–3.90 Mb). Order and placement of contigs was shifted in the new scaffold resulting in SwaI sites identical to the optical map. *All libraries were normalized to 8.5x physical genome coverage, limited by the amount of available data for the paired-end (PE) library. Finally, we evaluated the value of various MP insert sizes for improving the existing rat genome assembly. To this end, we compared de novo scaffolds constructed using MP data with independently obtained genome-wide optical mapping data. Optical mapping is an integrated system that provides long-range genome structural information by the construction and analysis of genome-wide, ordered restriction maps [9, 10, 26, 27]. We limited the analysis of concordance between sequence scaffolds and optical maps to one of the small rat chromosomes (RNO18), because the fine level optical structural alterations (OSAs) that were automatically called by the optical mapping pipeline were manually curated between sequence scaffolds and optical maps, which required exploration on a case-by-case basis for mediation at the nucleotide-level. We divided the chromosome into 872 100-kb windows and found that 96 out of 872 of such bins harboured structural changes within scaffolds of RNO18 when comparing the MP-updated genome structure with the original genome. The 96 bins contained a total of 199 unique inconsistent connections between contigs within scaffolds. Next, we looked at structural differences between scaffolds of RNO18, based on the comparison of the MP-based scaffolding and the reference genome and observed many more bins to be affected (166/ 872 bins containing a total of 1374 inconsistent links between scaffolds). In total, 236 bins showed one or both types of inconsistent connections. Of these 236 bins, only 106 showed concordance with the reference genome. 130 bins were found to contain OSAs including absence or discordance of alignment between the optical maps and RGSC 3.4 genome assembly (detailed description in Additional file 7 and Additional file 8). Because the optical mapping system constructs ordered restriction maps and does not evaluate genome structure at the nucleotide level, not all discordances detected by the mate-pair analysis are revealed through optical mapping data. For example, small contigs or changes that do not overlap with a SwaI restriction site will not be identified. We explored two of the largest segments with long-range disagreement between optical maps and RGSC3.4 assembly and conclude that MP-assisted re-scaffolding can recover concordance with the independently generated optical maps (Figure 3b). The complete MP data described here has therefore also been used for building the new genome reference of the rat (Rnor5.0, GenBank ID GCA_000001895.3, unpublished results). Here, we show that large insert MP sequencing is a versatile tool for analysing genomes at the structural level and providing long-range information for genome scaffolding. Our results show that the addition of MP sequencing can dramatically increase contingency of mammalian genome references. In all analyses, insert sizes of >8 kb were shown to be essential because of their ability to bridge the longer and more abundant LINE and LTR elements. The analysis where the fraction of long repeats that is spanned by each MP library is determined shows that large insert MPs are capable of spanning ~90% of the annotated long repeats. The remaining approximately 10% of elements that could not be bridged by any of the MP reads can likely be explained by a highly repetitive nucleotide context around the repeat elements themselves. When a repeat element is surrounded by other repeats (mostly at centromeric or telomeric regions) one or both reads of the pair that would span such region can not be mapped uniquely to the genome and can thus not be included in the analysis. In agreement with this, our data show that even a combination of all libraries in this study fails to span 4–5% of repetitive elements larger than 3 kb in size (Figure 2c and d). Because rat and other vertebrate genomes contain tens of thousands of repeat elements that exceed the routinely used paired-end insert sizes (up to 500 bp), but include the very common LINE elements, we conclude that the inclusion of mate-pair libraries with insert sizes of 8 kb and above are instrumental for comprehensive reconstruction of genome structures. The largest insert libraries (20–25 kb) were instrumental for increasing the N50 of scaffolds to megabase levels. Because the draft rat genome is already of relatively high quality, the improvements presented here have only mild effects. However, we anticipate that large insert MP sequencing will be very useful for finalizing low-pass capillary sequenced or NGS-based genomes like those of most primates as well as many of the vertebrate genomes. Genomes with large fractions or large segments of repeats, like that of the zebrafish or certain plants, might benefit even more from large insert mate-pair data as their genomes have a very high repeat content in combination with recently duplicated sequences. Furthermore, most ongoing genome sequencing projects employ next-generation sequencing techniques, and because de novo genome assembly based on short-reads is still in its infancy, contig sizes for vertebrate genomes are typically in the kilobase range [19, 28, 29]. Although paired-end data with insert sizes up to 500 bp are now commonly included in these processes, our results demonstrate that longer-range information as provided by the large insert MPs described here is essential for comprehensive genome assembly. It should be stressed that the structure of every genome of interest is unique and variable in complexity. Therefore, the optimal combination of MP insert sizes will vary as well. A quick examination of the repeat size and distribution could aid in determining which MP insert size combination is expected to be optimal, but experimental optimization or a broad range of libraries such as used here might be required. In the analyses presented here, we focused on the application of large insert MPs for genome sequencing efforts, but the findings could be extrapolated to the detection of structural variation. Previous analyses of whole human genomes have shown that SVs affect more base pairs than single point mutations, yet the field has struggled to find a suitable approach for comprehensive detection of such events . Hillmer et al. concluded that the most optimal insert size for SV detection is approximately 10 kb, although a thorough examination of the value of insert sizes above 10 kb was not described . In unravelling the structure and organization of ultra-complex clustered mutation events, like the recently described chromothripsis, larger insert sizes (20–25 kb) may extend the detection limit and help to complete the overall picture [31–34]. It should be noted, however, that a “mate-pair only” approach also comes with disadvantages: small insertions, inversions, duplications, and deletions may be missed due to the broad size distribution and relatively low coverage at the base level. Large insert MP sequencing represents a good alternative for the more traditional bacterial artificial chromosome-end sequencing because the sequencing libraries can be produced by relatively simple and scalable procedures without the need for laborious cloning and colony picking. Furthermore, the protocol can be fitted to all existing NGS platforms by changing the oligonucleotide adapters that are used. The mate-pair library construction protocol is relatively laborious compared to standard fragment library construction protocols, but with the latest improvements of the mate-pair protocol (SOLiD 5500 version), the procedure takes ~14 hours of hands-on work. More importantly, robustness of the protocol has been increased and the required input genomic DNA was reduced to only 1–5 μg for a standard ≤ 3-kb library, compared to 5–20 μg for the SOLiD V4 protocol (Additional file 9). The removal of column-based clean-up steps and the increased circularization efficiency (via the implementation of intra-molecular hybridization instead of circularization to an internal adaptor) are the main factors that allow for a reduced amount of input DNA. Nevertheless, our results show that limiting the amount of input DNA can strongly affect the complexity of the resulting library. For larger insert libraries it is therefore recommended to start with maximized amounts of DNA (>20 μg). Although large insert MP libraries must be sufficiently complex, high physical genome-wide coverage is readily obtained at relatively low sequencing depth of tens of million read pairs. Alternative large insert approaches, like fosmid di-tag sequencing , have been documented to suffer from low library complexity, which may be overcome by using larger amounts of input material, but they have an additional disadvantage as they are restricted to a fixed insert size of approximately 40 kb [16, 20, 35, 36]. Our data clearly demonstrate the added value of medium-sized insert libraries for genome structure analysis, a conclusion that was supported by Hampton et al. , who had to use supporting 4–6 kb mate-pair data to obtain essential long-range information that could not be obtained by fosmid di-tags alone. Using the MP protocol presented here, small, medium and large insert MP libraries can be generated in one go. Nevertheless, we did not generate libraries of equal size to 40-kb fosmid clones, so we could not determine if inserts of 25 kb are sufficient to fully replace 40 kb fosmid clones or if 40 kb pairs would span the last 4-5% of repeats that could not be covered by any of the MPs used here. We conclude that large insert MP sequencing provides a robust approach for comprehensive assessment of genome structure and for driving genome scaffolding processes. Applying combinations of mate-pair libraries with insert sizes that match the distributions of repetitive elements improves contig scaffolding and can contribute to the finishing of draft genomes. The sequencing platform flexibility, the scalable large insert size, the relatively limited amount of required sequencing tags, and the associated low sequencing costs make large insert MP sequencing an interesting and broadly applicable technique that is accessible for every routine sequencing lab. To allow for the construction of large insert MP libraries, we modified the standard SOLiD 4 mate-pair library preparation protocol (Additional file 2). In short, genomic DNA was isolated from Brown Norway (BN/RijHsd) rat brain and testis tissue. DNA (100 μg) was sheared under mild conditions using HydroShear (JHSH204007, 20 cycles, SC15) and subsequently end-repaired (Epicentre End-ItTM DNA-end repair kit) in 1 mL End-It mix per 100 μg input DNA. CAP adapters were ligated in 500-μL reaction volumes of New England Biolabs Quick Ligase reaction mix. The amount of ligated adapter was determined based on the DNA content (100 pmol CAP adapter/pmol DNA). Following CAP-adapter ligation, DNA fragments were purified with phenol:chloroform:isoamylalcohol (PCI, pH7.9) by gentle mixing and centrifugation in MaXtract high-density tubes (QIAgen, 1.5mL, #129046). The fragmented DNA was separated via pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE; Bio-Rad CHEF Mapper XA system). PFGE conditions and settings were: 1% low melt agarose gel (Invitrogen, #16520100), 0.5× TBE, 14°C, 19 hours, forward current: 9.0 V/cm, switch time 0.08 s–0.46 s, reverse current 6.0 V/cm, switch time 0.08 s–0.46 s. Multiple size ranges (<7 kb, 7–10 kb, 10–14 kb, 14–18 kb, 18–24 kb, 24–33 kb, and >33 kb) were selected from the gel using a 1 kb extension ladder (Invitrogen, #10511-012). For unknown reasons, actual library insert sizes after library construction and mapping tend to be lower than their initial appearance on gel. A probable explanation for this is that most library construction steps may show a small bias towards smaller molecules (e.g. during circularization). Further on in the manuscript, each library will be referred to as the actual insert size as determined after data analysis. Following gel excision, DNA was carefully recovered using GELaseTM (Epicentre, #G09200). DNA fragments were circularized with a biotinylated internal adapter at a final DNA concentration of 1 nanogram per microliter (ng/μl). For every 40-μl reaction volume, 1 μl T4 DNA ligase was used. The reaction mixture was purified, and non-circularized fragments were removed by a plasmid-safe DNase treatment (Epicentre, #E3101K). Following linear DNA removal, DNA polymerase I-directed nick translation “pushed” the nick from the adapters into the circularized target DNA to generate sufficient tag length for sequencing (~100 bp for each tag, 13 minutes on ice water [0°C], inactivated with PCI). T7 exonuclease and S1 nuclease treatment were used to digest the circles at the position of the nick. The digested fragments of approximately 300 bp in size were end-repaired and bound to MyOne C1 streptavidin beads via the biotinylated internal adapter. Standard SOLiD P1 and P2 adapters were ligated to the blunt ends of the library molecules (a-tailing and alternative adapters should be used at this step to make the library compatible with the other sequencing platforms like Illumina, see Additional file 10), followed by another round of nick translation to remove the nick introduced by adapter ligation. Mate-pair libraries were amplified by PCR for 13–21 cycles, depending on the library. Amplification of the 14–18-kb size range samples (with an estimated final insert size of 10–12 kb) did not result in sufficient material (most likely because of unsuccessful adaptor ligation) and were not further included in the process. For all other insert size libraries we continued with templated bead preparation and libraries were successively sequenced on the SOLiD 4 system. For all libraries together, 192.4 million pairs of MP reads (AB/SOLiD V4, two slides) were sequenced. Paired reads were mapped against rat reference genome RGSC 3.4 using BWA v0.5.9 , and non-unique (based on identical read start sites for the forward and reverse read) and ambiguously mapped read pairs were removed from the data set. For construction of the paired-end library (PE; 170-bp insert), the SOLiD 3 protocol for fragment library preparation was used (SOLiD™ 3 System Library Preparation Guide; Section 2.1). DNA (3 μg) derived from the Brown Norway rat was used for shearing using Covaris S2 (10 cycles of 60 s, intensity 5, 100 cycles/burst, 4°C). Sheared DNA was end-repaired using the Epicentre End-ItTM DNA-end repair kit. P1 and P2 adapters were ligated to the DNA fragments, and the library molecules were selected based on size (220–300 bp, including 90 bp for both adapters). PCR amplification was done for 5 cycles with primers specific to the adapters to obtain sufficient library molecules for ePCR and sequencing. Sequencing was done in paired-end mode (forward and reverse tag; 50 bp and 35 bp, respectively) on the SOLiD 3 system (1 slide AB/SOLiD V3). Approximately 1.6 × 108 paired-end reads were sequenced (95% non-clonal) and mapped with BWA, resulting in a data set with a median insert size of 170 bp. Forward and reverse reads were mapped independently against contigs of rat RGSC3.4 genome assembly using BWA 0.5.9. Only read pairs with a single best hit for each tag (X0 flag equal to 1) were taken into consideration for estimate of insert size distribution. Analysis of library complexity was done by randomly sampling of reads from a library and determining the number of non-clonal pairs. Next, read pairs with exactly the same mapping coordinates of forward and reverse tags were marked as clonal and excluded from further analysis. Distribution of insert sizes was estimated from read pairs with proper orientation and distance between tags (below 100 kb). To allow comparison of different library insert sizes for contig scaffolding, we created a subset of data for each library that corresponds to 8.5x non-clonal physical coverage of rat genome. We randomly sampled read pairs from each library, computing physical coverage represented by non-clonal pairs with expected orientation and distance between tags on chromosomal level (skipping pairs corresponding to first and last percentiles of insert size distribution). Read pairs from the normalized datasets with forward and reverse tags mapped to different contigs were selected for scaffolding analysis. Scaffolding was performed using SSPACE v2.0 software with default parameters. The order in which the libraries were used by SSPACE was as recommended by the SSPACE manual - always from the smallest to largest insert size. Repeat annotation of the rat genome reference was obtained from Ensembl database (v.66) and was used for calculation of size distribution and abundance of different repeat types. This annotation was used to determine the percentage of repeat elements spanned by mapped fragments from each mate-paired library. We used the normalized dataset where every library had 8.5x physical coverage (as described above). We considered only unambiguously mapped read pairs that had a proper orientation of tags and did not exceed 99th percentile of fragment size distribution. Since individual copies of a mobile element or repeat class differ in size, we used 500 bp windows for calculation of percentage of mobile elements overlapped by fragments from each library. Original RGSC3.4 scaffolds and those obtained after NGS-assisted re-scaffolding were compared to each other by nucleotide BLAST search. Nearly identical (>99%) super-kb segments were plotted as Harr-plot visualization graphs. Most evident discordant regions were manually selected and the corresponding genomic segments were compared to optical maps of Brown Norway rats. Optical maps are generated from large, randomly sheared high-molecular weight genomic DNA molecules that are stretched on a microscope slide. After stretching, the DNA molecule is digested with a SwaI restriction enzyme. While the DNA remains attached to the slide, the cuts become visible under the microscope as small gaps and the sizes of the stained DNA fragments can be measured. Multiple optical maps are then combined to form a comprehensive reference optical map for the Brown Norway rat genome. The optical maps used in this study are produced in the lab of David C. Schwartz and are available upon request. To compare our assembly with existing Brown Norway rat optical maps, nucleotide sequences of MP-enhanced scaffolds were digested in silico with a SwaI restriction enzyme. The in silico digested fragments were plotted next to optical maps, originally aligned to the RGSC 3.4 assembly and visually inspected for concordance. The data sets supporting the results of this article are available in the ArrayExpress repository under accession number E-MTAB-1082. This work was supported by funding from the European Union framework 7 integrated project EURATRANS (HEALTH-F4- 2010–241504 to E.C.); the NWO-CW TOP grant (700.58.303 to EC); and the National Institutes of Health (R01 HG000225 to D.C.S). Funding for open access charge: primary funding from the Hubrecht Institute. EL, CL and TTH are employees of Life Technologies, manufacturer of SOLiD sequencing systems used in this study. SvH, WK, NL, and EL, carried out the molecular experiments; FR, CL, SZ and VG performed bioinformatics analyses. SvH, WP SZ, SG, DS and VG performed and analyzed optical mapping experiments, SvH, WK, and EL generated large insert mate pair sequencing libraries, NL performed next-generation sequencing. SvH, WK, TH, VC and EC conceived of the study, and participated in its design and coordination and drafted the manuscript. All authors contributed to the final version of the manuscript and have read and approved it.
0.964329	(CNN) -- Huge crowds in the Vatican cheered Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday as he made his first public appearance since announcing his resignation at the end of the month. He thanked the Roman Catholic faithful in several languages and said it was not appropriate for him to continue as pope. "I've decided to resign the ministry given to me by the Lord. I've done this in full freedom, for the benefit of the Church," he told those gathered in a Vatican City audience hall for his regular weekly appearance. Benedict said he was fully aware of the gravity of his decision but that he could not carry on as pope "if I don't have the strength that it requires." He appeared tired but not visibly unwell as he sat and read his remarks off several sheets of paper. Benedict will also celebrate an Ash Wednesday mass marking the beginning of Lent at St. Peter's Basilica in the afternoon. The service has been moved from Saint Sabina Church, where it is traditionally held, to the Basilica to accommodate the crowds of worshipers expected to attend, Vatican officials said. The news Monday that Benedict was standing down at the end of February "because of advanced age" shocked the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics. He is the first pope to resign in nearly 600 years. Despite his decision, Benedict will continue his work as planned until he stands down on 28 February, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, a spokesman for the Vatican, said Tuesday. He will hold a final audience in Vatican City's St. Peter's Square on February 27. The pontiff, born Joseph Ratzinger, will first head to the pope's summer residence in Castel Gandolfo before he likely retires to a monastery and devotes himself to a life of reflection and prayer, Lombardi said. He won't be involved in managing the church after his resignation. "The pope is well and his soul is serene. He did not resign the pontificate because he is ill but because of the fragility that comes with old age," Lombardi said. The pope's decision was not linked to a recent medical intervention to replace the battery in his pacemaker, Lombardi said, adding that it had been a routine procedure. Benedict's unexpected move has inevitably prompted frenzied speculation over who might assume the papacy in his place. Addressing reporters Tuesday, Lombardi left many questions about what will come next unanswered -- including those concerning exactly when a successor will be elected. The Vatican does not yet know when the cardinals will meet in a conclave to decide who will replace Benedict, Lombardi said. Vatican experts are studying legal documents on the subject, he explained. But the conclave is likely to come between 15 and 20 days after the pontiff steps down, he said, and a new pope will be in place before Easter is celebrated at the end of March. While Benedict won't be directly involved in his successor's selection, his influence will undoubtedly be felt. He appointed 67 of the 117 cardinals that are set to make the decision. The number of electors could drop to 115, as two cardinals will turn 80 in March, when their age makes them ineligible to cast a vote. More than two-thirds of the final number of cardinals must agree on the next pope. The announcement that a decision has been made will come in the form of a puff of white smoke emerging from a chimney in the Vatican. Much speculation has focused on whether Benedict's successor might come from Africa or Latin America, rather than Europe, where Roman Catholic congregations are shrinking. The pope's older brother, the Rev. Georg Ratzinger, speaking in Regensburg, Germany, said he expected to see a pope chosen from outside Europe one day -- but not just yet. "I'm certain a pope will come from the new continents but whether it will be now, I have my doubts," he said. "In Europe, we have many very able people, and the Africans are still not so well known and maybe do not have the experience yet." Among those considered frontrunners for the role are Cardinal Angelo Scola, archbishop of Milan; Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, who heads the Vatican's office of bishops; Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, an Argentinian; and Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana. Whoever gets the nod, the selection of a new pontiff is expected to go smoothly. "We're not going to have a problem of two competing popes. If Pope Benedict still wanted to have influence, he wouldn't have stepped down," said senior Vatican communications adviser Greg Burke. While not quite unprecedented, Benedict's resignation is certainly historic. The last pope to step down before his death was Gregory XII, who in 1415 quit to end a civil war within the church in which more than one man claimed to be pope.
0.993476	1. Cut off the lid of your paper covered cigar box (not the shiny wood cigar boxes) using a craft knife or scissors and save for later. 2. Remove as much of the paper as possible and sand with sandpaper. Note: Using sandpaper helps to eliminate any stray paper that clings to the box. A textured surface will accept any medium better than a smooth surface. 3. Apply gesso to the entire box and allow the box to dry. 4. Paint the inside of the box blue. 5. Apply gel medium over the blue paint. Sprinkle the small cut out white stars on top one third area of the bottom of the box and then spread gel medium over the stars also. 6. To create a crackling effect, rub a good amount of craft glue in the sides of the box into the surface, when it is tacky, apply acrylic paint to the top. It is best to paint one side at a time and let it dry before doing another side so that you can get all the paint on before the glue starts to dry. 7. Set aside to dry and crackles will begin to show. 8. Glue a photocopy of women to a piece of watercolor paper to stiffen using gel medium. 9. Allow to dry then apply cream colored acrylic paint to the clothes to fade them back; add hats in the cream paint to the last row of ladies. 10. Cut out photocopy of your picture. 11. Begin to color hats and clothes using opaque markers, draw in black lines for the hats. 12. Glue wooden spools to the bottom of the box. Add more gel medium to the top of the spools and then press the photocopy of the ladies on top of the spools. 13. Place the cigar box lid that you cut off earlier onto a piece of Plexiglas. Trace around it with a permanent maker, and then cut it with a Plexiglas cutter. Score many times lightly, using the ruler as your guide. Once it is scored, slide the Plexiglas to the end of the counter and break it off. 14. Place your piece of Plexiglas onto the cigar box, make a mark on the plastic protecting the Plexiglas to note where you want to transfer your words. 15. Lift the Plexiglas off the cigar box and turn on its back, place your photo copy face down on the Plexiglas and wet the back using nail polish remover and cotton ball. Rub the photocopy with a burnishing tool to transfer the copied words, lift a corner to check and if not fully transferred place back down, add more nail polish remover and rub again. 16. Clean your Plexiglas off with a dry paper towel and then add gel medium to the corners of your cigar box, place Plexiglas down and allow to dry. DIY crafters paint a colorful centerpiece that's perfect for any table.
0.999978	The following events and venues match your search for “Georgia Southern Eagles”. To sort the list, click on the column header. To find tickets for the given event, date & time, click the tickets link in that row. To find events taking place at a matching venue, click that venue name.
0.999889	Did you know all plastics fall into only 2 categories when it comes to their reaction to heating? These 2 categories are called Thermoplastic and Thermosetting. Thermoplastic materials become soft when they are heated and solid when cooled to room temperature. This is similar to heating and cooling wax. Thermoplastics are materials such as acrylics, cellulosics, polyamide, polystyrene, polyethylene, fluoroplastics, polyvinyls, polycarbonate, and polysulfone. Thermosetting materials cannot be reheated and softened again. Once these are formed they cannot be reformed. This is simliar to baking a cake or boiling an egg. Thermosetting are materials such as aminos, casein, epoxies, phenolics, polyesters, silicones, and polyurethanes.
0.999829	This is the wife of the man who wrote Barack Obama's two best sellers. Listen to her words, they are the key to understanding Obama's blueprints. Jesus heald the sick and feed the poor because he loved them. Not because the government told him to! Typical leftist murder-fantasy. What does this video reveal? a) Every law enforcement agency in California shall fully cooperate with the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service regarding any person who is arrested if he or she is suspected of being present in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws. (b) With respect to any such person who is arrested, and suspected of being present in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws, every law enforcement agency shall do the following: (1) Attempt to verify the legal status of such person as a citizen of the United States, an alien lawfully admitted as a permanent resident, an alien lawfully admitted for a temporary period of time or as an alien who is present in the United States in violation of immigration laws. The verification process may include, but shall not be limited to, questioning the person regarding his or her date and place of birth, and entry into the United States, and demanding documentation to indicate his or her legal status. (2) Notify the person of his or her apparent status as an alien who is present in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws and inform him or her that, apart from any criminal justice proceedings, he or she must either obtain legal status or leave the United States. (3) Notify the Attorney General of California and the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service of the apparent illegal status and provide any additional information that may be requested by any other public entity. (c) Any legislative, administrative, or other action by a city, county, or other legally authorized local governmental entity with jurisdictional boundaries, or by a law enforcement agency, to prevent or limit the cooperation required by subdivision (a) is expressly prohibited. Holy pot calling the kettle black, Batman! Look familiar? The world is full of hypocrisy, isn't it? Oil Spill? How about Nashville!
0.999998	Compare the calories burned standing to a variety of other activities at the calories burned chart. Calories burned standing, the laziest kind of calorie burning exercise. Standing isn’t nothing though, it certainly takes more effort than sitting, for example, or laying down, which is probably the laziest thing you can do, and burns practically no calories at all. Standing really does take some effort though, and there are some calories burned standing. There are actually a fair number of office workers and others who sit for long hours every day who opt to stand instead, for several reasons, including burning calories and the weight loss that results. If you’ve ever tried standing for an eight hour stretch you know just how difficult a full day of standing can be, and how many potential calories you are burning. So if you really want to burn every possible calorie to help lose weight and reduce your waist line, then you should absolutely try to stand when you could be sitting or laying down. These calculations for calories burned standing assume that you are moving around a bit and not just standing in one place. So the amount of calories burned standing isn’t all that impressive, but it’s better than nothing, and can add up if you manage to stand for long periods of time, such as a full day at the office. You can probably also see that heavier tend to burn more calories from standing, which makes sense, because it takes more effort to keep more weight upright. So if you really want to up the amount of calories burned standing you can invest in a weight vest or even just a backpack with something heavy in it. Taking up a more physically demanding activity, however, will burn significantly more calories than the slight difference a weight vest would make.
0.999954	Now try that again with punctuation. Helder Costa1, rzkwp8, multo and 3 others like this. It was not Microsoft's intent to require users to downgrade in order to install Lumia Cyan. In fact, they initially allowed installing Lumia Cyan directly but then ran into the BitLocker problem. The BitLocker's encryption interferes with the installation of Lumia Cyan thus making it so the phone no longer works without performing a recovery. Although only a minority of users use BitLocker, updates to Lumia Cyan from DP were disabled for all users, probably because there wasn't any way to block BitLocker users specifically. It is expected that the problem will eventually be fixed. However, at this time, nobody knows when. Since the carriers control the rollout of the Cyan firmware, it would not be easy to update it to either install properly on Bitlocker-enabled handsets or disable it for these users only. So, they would need to issue an update for DP that works around this issue, but probably haven't figured out a way of doing so yet. I think Microsoft and Microsoft Mobile (former Nokia) are equally at fault and yes it is a hassle, but when you install a developer preview or beta of anything, you have to accept the risks involved. Casual users should wait for official updates. For me, I just saw it as an opportunity to perform a hard reset to start fresh; it took a couple of hours of my time but as a result my phone is working much better. Is windows phone 8.1 update officially out? Nokia 920 on Tesco wont find 8.1 update? Phone doesn't properly recognize files on my SD card?
0.805467	The owner of a real estate agency on the Costa del Sol, wanted to strengthen the brand to improve their market position and reputation among their two target audiences of buyers and sellers. Evaluate and if necessary improve the current positioning and the brand strategy. As a consultant I worked with the client through a 1-on-1 workshop method to look at the current positioning. It proved to be necessary to redefine the business definition of the real estate agency with regard to customer needs to fulfil, services to deliver, types of homes, which target audiences, but also the area in which to operate. We ended up with a business positioning that was narrower and tighter, and as a result more focused. This helped in prequalifying potential buyers and being more efficient in time spent, as selling second homes to foreign clients can be a time consuming and years long process. After developing the more focused business positioning, I developed a brand and communication positioning for the client. This was strongly based on the personal values of the entrepreneur on one hand, but also as distinct from the competition. The brand then later formed the bases for a new tagline and visual identity.
0.999919	Moving money from "Business Checking" to "Cash-on-Hand" Greetings, all! This is my first - and surely not my last - post, as I bravely try for the first time to do my own accounting - ulp! The instruction for "How to create a transfer between two accounts" is not working for me when I want to transfer money from "Business Checking" to "Cash-on-hand," aka petty cash. I am getting a message that says: "Failed: Cannot create transfer with that pair of transactions." What I am doing (in real life) is removing working capital from Business Checking in cash, to use for the cash payment of business expenses. Later I will show these expenses as being paid from "Cash-on-Hand" -- but first I have to move the cash into Cash-on-Hand from Business Checking - right? How should I show that in Wave? Thanks in advance for your kind reply - ! The instruction you read is on the right track. Navigate to Accounting > Transactions. Click the More button at the top right hand corner and select Add journal transaction, then enter the following details. Click Save button to proceed. I was just looking at the same issue - as Scott said, here it talks about creating two separate transactions and then connecting them afterwards, which sounds awfully complicated! Is a journal transaction the equivalent of this - what's the pros/cons of each method? In short, the article is correct. Strictly speaking, you do record a payment out of the bank account, and then a deposit into the cash account, and in double-entry bookkeeping, these two are Credit and Debit entries of the transaction respectively. In Wave, you see two entries listed under Transactions instead of one - one is the one you entered, eg., withdraw money from the bank for transfer to cash, and the other is created by Wave automatically (labelled Created Transfer) for depositing money from bank acc into Cash on Hand. These two entries in Transactions correspond to the two vouchers you should be making - a payment voucher for the bank ledger, and a receipt voucher for the cash ledger. Technically, a Journal Entry is for anything that does not involve a bank/ cash ledger, eg., sales/ receivables (sales journal), purchases/ expenses payable, depreciation, etc., but Scott was having an issue creating the bank/ cash entries so a journal entry can have the same effect. I have a client who enters everything as journal entries and obviously it works for her. Credit Your Cheque account by the same amount" (Just for clarity to future readers: For me, and what I described above, this would be the other way around: I wanted to move money OUT of my Business Checking (aka working capital) account and putting it into "Cash on Hand" -- a term I use only for "Petty Cash," aka, actual coins and bills of national currency. Because that is what the word "CASH" means to me.
0.999915	I want to see this movie because it looks relatable. Who could pass up a good romance story? I have previewed the movie and it was wonderful! I would love to see it again with my husband, so he could enjoy it, too!
0.984931	Sinope was discovered on July 21, 1914, by Seth Barnes Nicholson on photographic plates taken with the Lick Observatory's 36-inch (0.9 meter) telescope. Sinope is generally considered a member of the Pasiphae group, a family of Jovian satellites which have similar orbits and are therefore thought to have a common origin. However, there is some uncertainty about whether Sinope belongs in this group or not. Both Pasiphae and Sinope are locked in secular resonances with Jupiter, which means that Jupiter's gravity tugs at them at regular intervals in a way that can modify their orbits over time. This could account for the differences in their orbits compared to each other and to other presumed members of the Pasiphae group. If Sinope does not belong in the Pasiphae group, then the individual moon called Pasiphae retains 99 percent of the mass of the original asteroid. If Sinope is included, Pasiphae still retains the lion's share: 87 percent of the original mass. None of the Pasiphae members is massive enough to pull itself into a sphere, so they are probably all irregularly shaped. Sinope has a mean radius of 11.8 miles (19 kilometers), assuming an albedo of 0.04. At a mean distance of about 14.8 million miles (23.9 million kilometers) from Jupiter, the satellite takes about 759 Earth days to complete one orbit. Sinope was named for a nymph who outsmarted a smitten Zeus (the Greek equivalent of the Roman god Jupiter). Hoping to win her favor, he offered her anything she wanted and she replied that what she wanted was to remain a virgin. Sinope outsmarted Apollo in the same way.
0.870238	Imagine this scenario: You’re traveling through a busy airport and your flight is leaving soon. First, you’re stuck in crowded check-in lines. Thirty minutes later, you begin the crawl through TSA security screening. You see 10 rows with at least 20 people in each and you start to panic. Things are moving slow and the clock is ticking. Will you have to beg your way through the inpatient crowd? Will you miss your boarding window? Finally, the airport security team realizes the volume of traffic and gets smart. They open two more lines to speed the screening process. Your anxiety subsides. Yet you still wonder: Why wasn’t the airport better prepared for the crowd? With easy access to all the travel data—including the number of departing flights and passenger counts—couldn’t they dynamically adjust the number of check-in booths, security lines and staff members to better match the expected volume? Why weren’t they leveraging the power of data at their disposal? The same idea applies to website performance. When visitor traffic is high, performance and speed may suffer. Or worse, consumers wanting to make purchases on-the-spot get frustrated and leave. Football enthusiasts can’t buy that championship souvenir in real-time from their mobile device while sitting in the stadium. Travelers can’t book that room while they’re wowed by the grand event at the hotel or students can’t register for that class before their schedules fill up. CMS technologies can help by integrating with e-commerce, marketing automation, CRM and analytics platforms. This integration can help you leverage customer behavior data to drive real-time knowledge, capitalize on immediate marketing opportunities, and ultimately, drive sales. Whether you’re in education, hospitality, manufacturing, sports or entertainment, analytics are the “runway” by which your marketing engine can take flight. Contact us today to see how we can help your organization with your next CRM project. Are your dashboards displaying the right metrics?
0.990831	How do you explain to someone the difference between a cultural lifestyle and a Christian lifestyle? When you have enormous hurdles to jump through in going from a cultural lifestyle to that of a Christian life. I can sum it up in a few verses though by quoting you Matthew 10:38-39. 38 And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me is not worthy of me. 39 He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it. Gal. 3:26-29 KJV For ye are all the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. 27) For as many of you that have been baptized into Christ (this means born again) have put on Christ. 28) There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male or female: for ye are all one in Jesus Christ. 29) And if ye be Christ's then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. Simply put, there are no ethnicities in the eyes of God, He divided up the people at Babel for the sake of their ego's, but there was never supposed to be different cultures or ethnicities because God created man after HIS image and woman after the image of man. It was only man's free will that brought on the consequences of sin. I shall attempt this dangerous calling with the utmost care. We were all born into the families we have. We were all born into the culture we're a part of. However, because of tradition, every culture has it's cultural misdealings and it's inherited sinfulness. First and foremost, we are not to live for ourselves. This is the first stumbling block that every Christian from every culture and life style has to overcome. We are not our own. We were bought with a price and now we need to live accordingly. Anything that distracts our attention away from our calling, anything that is not of Christ, anything that does not edify Christ's kingdom is of the world and is not of Christ. So now it doesn't matter what ethnicity you are or what culture you are a part of, if you are asked to join in worshiping your relatives, if you are required to believe that cows are sacred and could be an ancestor, or you are required to go to the temple and burn incense to your ancestors, you should not do it, if you are a believing Christian. You should not participate in any kind of rituals. Do not participate in any religious functions no matter how insignificant they may seem. This also means not following any horoscopes or birth sign character charts or insinuations. It is clear when we are in Christ, we are yoked together. Remember too, that when we are worshiping Christ in a group of two or more in Jesus name, He is there with us, so if you are a believer, and gathered together with unbelievers, you, being the body of Christ, automatically bring Christ into the gathering. Also the bible says, in the mouths of two or more witnesses let every word be established. So whoring after idols can come with two or more people gathered together also. 2 Corinthians 6:14 - 18 says, be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? 15) And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? 16) And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 17) Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, 18) And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. So you see, we have to always be a Christian first, and any cultural traditions, actions, or even thoughts, that are not in-line with the Word of God, have to be avoided and cleansed from our lives. Here's another warning, if your hanging around a group of Christians and all of a sudden the group decides to do something that is ungodly or sinful, like go to an inappropriate movie, don't do it. If your doing anything and your spirit doesn't feel peace about it, then God is trying to direct you away from that thing. To go on further, there's so much cultural etiquette that we have to fulfill in certain cultures. Whether it's not disciplining your children under the guise of letting them have a happy childhood, or not confronting the people in your life who do wrong and make your life miserable because you're afraid they will lose face. Here's what the bible says about that. October 12th, 2009 - 22 rev.
0.999997	The initiation process in project management includes establishing objectives. Projects are the cornerstone of all business activities in small companies. Firms must complete various projects to achieve their financial goals and obtain information. Business owners and managers have only one attempt executing a project successfully. Hence, the process must be carefully thought out and planned. The initiation process in project management includes the necessary steps to getting the project launched. There are several key phases of the project management initiation process. The first phase of the project management initiation process is establishing an objective. This is when managers meet and decide what information they need from the project. A small company may have multiple objectives for a project. For example, a marketing research manager may want to better understand what makes consumers buy her company's products. She may also want to determine which demographic groups of customers spend the most money. Demographics pertain to consumers' incomes, genders or age groups. Objectives are essentially the outcomes businesses wish to obtain from completing projects. A manager must have a well-defined scope for a project to be successful, according to Reference for Business. In other words, all the objectives must be clearly defined. A small company must determine its approach to a specific project to bring it to fruition, which is part of the initiation process. The approach includes listing the methods and tasks required for the project. For example, the marketing research manager may decide that conducting phone surveys is the best method for better understanding the needs of customers. She may also determine which questions to include on the questionnaire. The next step would be determining all the steps or tasks involved in conducting the research: Hiring a marketing research agency, managing the survey process, analyzing the results and writing the final report. The project may end with several presentations, one for middle management and another for top management. A time frame must be established for completing all tasks, as most projects have deadlines. Managers must estimate the amount of time it takes to complete individual tasks. For example, the research manager, with the help of the research agency, may estimate that the phone surveys will take two weeks. She may need another week to analyze the results and three days to write the report. Managers usually have specific budgets for projects. Therefore, they need to stay within certain parameters. Hence, most managers request proposals from outside vendors before selecting them to executive portions of the project. Proposals outline the various tasks and associated costs. Several vendors may be considered for the project. Managers usually select vendors that can supply the most information at the cheapest costs. Managers must delegate work during the project initiation process before any work commences. An advertising manager may be developing a new direct mail advertising campaign. She may need to assign a copywriter to create the sales letter, brochure and order form. A marketing analyst may be needed to track the results of the direct mail advertising. And the advertising manager may use a local vendor to print all the written materials. Delegation of work is usually the last phase of the initiation process in project management. The project kickoff ensues immediately after all project initiation. Suttle, Rick. "What Is the Initiating Process in Project Management?" Small Business - Chron.com, http://smallbusiness.chron.com/initiating-process-project-management-36001.html. Accessed 18 April 2019.
0.999999	Stai cercando recensioni per acquistare un router openvpn e sei indeciso su quale acquistare? Shopping Consultants ha preparato una rapida selezione dei migliori router openvpn acquistabili sul mercato. Impostazione semplice: l'interfaccia di configurazione super semplice ti consente di accedere a Internet in modo semplice in 30 secondi. Contenuto della confezione: Router Tenda AC6 AC1200 Smart Dual-Band Smart, adattatore di alimentazione, guida di installazione, cavo Ethernet, 3 anni di garanzia. MINI TRAVEL ROUTER: Convert a public network(wired/wireless) to a private Wi-Fi for secure surfing. Tethering, 3G/4G USB Modem Compatible. Powered by any laptop USB, power banks or 5V DC adapters (sold separately). 39g (1.41 Oz) only and pocket friendly. LARGER STORAGE & EXTENDABILITY: 128MB RAM, 16MB Flash ROM, dual Ethernet ports, UART and GPIOs available for hardware DIY. OPENVPN CLIENT & TOR: OpenVPN client pre-installed, compatible with 20+ VPN service providers. TOR firmware available for downloading. PACKAGE CONTENTS: GL-MT300N-V2 mini router (1-year Warranty), USB cable, User Manual. DUAL BAND AC ROUTER: Simultaneous dual band with wireless speed 300Mbps(2.4G)+433Mbps(5G). Convert a public network(wired/wireless) to a private Wi-Fi for secure surfing. OPEN SOURCE & PROGRAMMABLE: OpenWrt/LEDE pre-installed, backed by software repository. OPENVPN CLIENT: OpenVPN client pre-installed, compatible with 20+ VPN service providers. LARGER STORAGE & EXTENSIBILITY: 128MB RAM, 16MB NOR Flash, up to 128GB MicroSD slot, USB 2.0 port, three Ethernet ports. PACKAGE CONTENTS: GL-AR750 mini router (1-year Warranty), Power adapter, USB cable, Ethernet cable and User Manual. Mai più una connessione lenta grazie alle indicazioni di Shopping Consultants! Migliori router modem fibra: alternative, offerte, scegli il migliore!
0.991879	How are daily precipitation totals computed? I would like to use ASOS data from Iowa State University to compute daily rainfall totals for specific locations. Using ASOS, I am unable to match the official NWS totals. I am assuming that the definition of a day is midnight to midnight, local time. For example: KLGA had a record rainfall total of 3.33" on June 7, 2013. An excerpt of the ASOS data covering June 7 is below. The "D" and "H" columns are EDT. It appears that rainfall totals are cumulative and reset hourly at 51 minutes (see hours 12 and 13 EDT for example). But I am unsure how to interpret certain cases. What do I do with hour 21, which reports 0.21" at 36 minutes, 0 at 48 minutes, and 0.24" at 49 minutes. Does that 0 denote a reset prior to 51 minutes, implying a total of 0.45" for that hour? Or does it indicate something else, such as a temporary cessation? The general questions are: a) how does one parse the p01i column, and b) should it be possible to use ASOS precipitation data to match official NWS totals? Thanks! Edit: See below. Note that the value of p01i at 6:59 (0.01") is less than that at 6:51 (0.05"), and greater than that at 7:40 (0"), which in turn is less than that at 7:51 (0.09"). What exactly is being reported here? The day is measured from midnight to midnight local time, without a DST adjustment. So in June, LGA remains at -0500. The official daily 2013 rainfall totals for June 2, 3, 6, and 7 are 0.11, 0.96, 0.10, 3.33, 0.79. Using the algorithm above with the ASOS data for the same days yields 0.11, 0.96, 0.10, 3.32, 0.80. Typical synoptic (hourly) obs come in about 51 past the hour (sometimes a couple minutes off). The other reports you're seeing are generally subops (SPECIs) which generally only report precip since the last ob given, but the total of which should always be reflected in the hourly. So for 2136/2148/2149 timed obshour... you just use the 0.24 from 2149, and it should include the others in it (so skip the others that would lead to double-counting). On the other hand, the 659 ob being smaller than the 651 ob makes sense... as 659 is in the NEW hour... so would be reflected in the 751 ob (which is indeed higher). I didn't get a chance to look too closely, but looks like all of these are unfortunately altered forms of the data. I believe typical full data should have METAR or SPECI in it to indicate which obs you want? But no big deal, if you look back at the rawer-looking data you gave, looks like you can find which ones you want by looking for the ones with SLP reported right about the end. Or, even better, just look for the 6**** fields right about the end, which are the 6 hour total precipitation. Just add the four of those up, and you'll have the daily total. If you're trying to accomplish all this in Excel, some formulas could be worked up to automatically take what you need from the day's data, or you could use a regex in any of the variety of online regex testers. Or writing some sort of script could save a lot of time if you're downloading a lot of data. But the rawer data is often safer and more easy to work with. I think I used a page like this for more info back in the day when I had to do it. I am grateful to Daryl Herzmann at Iowa State, who wrangles data at the Iowa State Environmental Mesonet for providing an off-exchange answer. Synoptic reset times are between 51 and 57 minutes past the hour, depending on the site. A possible way to automate the use of ASOS data is to find the modal minute value in the data. This seems highly likely to be the reset minute. The most quoted daily rainfall total is measured midnight to midnight, local standard time, by summing the synoptic hourly total. Because it is standard time, DST is ignored. Daryl has a presentation that discusses precipitation measurement. Thank you Daryl! Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged meteorology measurements precipitation or ask your own question. How can I downscale daily values of relative humidity? How to interpret hourly precipitation forecast? Where can I get historic hourly precipitation data for Italy? What does a mm of rain mean? How can I convert a CERA-20C total precipitation dataset of "monthly means of daily means' (edmo) to mm/month?
0.947372	What is the chemical physics option? This option in the physics degree program combines courses from the physics and chemistry departments to provide training in chemical physics. It includes most courses that are required for a regular Bachelor of Science degree in physics, adding several courses in physical chemistry/analytical chemistry. The option prepares you for research into the structure of matter using a wide range of spectroscopic and computational methods, and for graduate studies in chemical physics, physical chemistry and atomic and molecular physics. This program offers introductory physics in a lecture and studio format – an active learning environment that includes group work and labs, all in a single room with a professor and graduate teaching assistants. The style allows for a coherent, connected and supportive experience. One studio course integrates the study of calculus and physics, for a deeper understanding of both subjects. You’ll have many research opportunities with physics faculty and research scientists, working on projects funded by NASA, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Education, Department of Defense, National Institutes of Health and other agencies and organizations. You’ll learn how to approach, analyze and solve complex problems as you develop new technologies, methods and theories that will prepare you for a range of careers in research, engineering and education. The Department generally recommends MATH 645 Linear Algebra for Applications over MATH 545 Introduction to Linear Algebra for physics majors, but the best option, when possible, is MATH 525 Linearity I-MATH 526 Linearity II.
0.976359	The 45th U.S. President is up against the likes of Johnny Depp and Will Ferrell among others for the Worst Actor category, while the First Lady faces Kellyanne Conway for Worst Supporting Actress. AceShowbiz - U.S. President Donald Trump has been named as a contender in the Worst Actor category at the upcoming Golden Raspberry Awards. Nominations for the spoof film prizes, also known as the Razzies and Razzie Awards, were announced in a YouTube video by organisers on Sunday night (January 20), with Trump receiving nominations over archival footage of himself in political documentaries "Death of a Nation" and "Fahrenheit 11/9". In addition, Trump and his "self-perpetuating pettiness" were nominated in the Worst Screen Combo category, while the President's wife, First Lady Melania Trump, and his advisor Kellyanne Conway, received nods due to archival footage of them in filmmaker Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 11/9", which was released in September (2018). Trump, 72, previously won the Razzie for Worst Supporting Actor for 1990's "Ghosts Can't Do It", in which he appeared as himself. Neither the President nor White House representatives have commented on the Razzie nominations as yet. Dinesh D'Souza's "Death of a Nation", John Travolta's crime drama "Gotti", Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly's buddy comedy "Holmes & Watson", and Melissa McCarthy's black comedy "The Happytime Murders", all received six Razzie nominations. The winners of the 39th edition of the Razzie Awards will be announced on February 23 - the night before the 91st annual Academy Awards. Amber Heard - "London Fields" Melissa McCarthy - "The Happytime Murders and "Life of the Party (2018)" Amanda Seyfried - "The Clapper" Johnny Depp (voice only) - "Sherlock Gnomes" Will Ferrell - "Holmes & Watson" Donald Trump - "Death of a Nation" and "Fahrenheit 11/9" Bruce Willis - "Death Wish" Jamie Foxx - "Robin Hood (2018)" Ludacris (voice only) - "Show Dogs" Joel McHale - "The Happytime Murders" John C. Reilly - "Holmes & Watson" Justice Smith - "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom" Kellyanne Conway - "Fahrenheit 11/9" Marcia Gay Harden - "Fifty Shades Freed" Jaz Sinclair - "Slender Man" Melania Trump - "Fahrenheit 11/9" Any two actors or puppets - "The Happytime Murders" Johnny Depp and his "fast-fading film career" - "Sherlock Gnomes" Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly - "Holmes & Watson" Kelly Preston and John Travolta - "Gotti" Donald Trump and his "self-perpetuating pettiness" - "Death of a Nation" and "Fahrenheit 11/9" Etan Cohen - "Holmes & Watson" James Foley - "Fifty Shades Freed" Brian Henson "The Happytime Murders" Peter and Michael Spierig - "Winchester"
0.999996	What does emergency preparedness mean to you? There are many definitions, perceptions, and understandings of emergency preparedness, but the only one that is relevant is what it means to you, and your situation. Each community, organization, small business, and family will have a different reason to be prepared and therefore efforts for improvements will differ. The hazards and risks will differ for every situation. The vulnerability, resources, and capacity will also vary. The value, importance, and desired outcomes will change. Likewise, each person and situation will place importance on different aspects of preparedness. There are as many descriptions of emergency preparedness as there are people and situations. There is no wrong or perfect definition, but the most effective definition is the one that comes from you and relevant to your situation. Therefore, the only way to address and improve preparedness is to understand why you want to be prepared, why you need to be prepared, and what is your ultimate outcome.
0.995719	There was no rice with the order and was delayed at the restaurant. I'd like to know if there is a delay expected or an expected pickup time. Food is always delicious! Service is excellent and friendly! Always great food and very friendly service! Delicious rolls with the perfect ratio of fillings to rice. Some places put way too much rice, but this was a thin layer of rice with a good amount of tuna/avocado in one roll and tempura/cucumber in the other. The sushi lunch special was neatly packed to go and came with salad and miso soup. Love this place--Wonderful food and great service! Love the online ordering. Super simple!!! Great sushi too!! I enjoy the food but the chicken in the chicken teriyaki bento box has a very strange/unpleasant texture to it. The flavor is good though. Fast service and the food was delicious! Delicious and plenty of food! I was pleased from beginning to end. The hostess was friendly and attentive when picking up my to go order, the food was well prepared and decently portioned (I tend to eat more sushi than most), and the side items included with my main order were a nice touch and pleasant surprise. This restaurant will be high on my list the next time I'm in the mood for well prepared seafood items.
0.999999	For many Phuket and surrounding areas brings back the frightening memories of the 2004 earthquake and tsunami which lead to large scale death and destruction. However, time is a great healer and things have settled down since that horrific natural disaster. Today, Phuket and the surrounding areas continue to be a major tourist attraction. There are a number of places to see in and around Phuket and Rawai beach resort, according to many, is one of the most fascinating tourist destinations in Indonesia and perhaps in South Asia. Rawai is perhaps the first tourist beach as far as Phuket is concerned. It has a rich history and tradition behind it and people from Phuket used to drive around 17 kilometers to reach Rawai during weekends. It has some of the best collections of casuarina trees making it an ideal spot for whiling and lazing the time. It was considered to be a better option than the dangerous hillside destination situated on the west coast of Phuket. It is today referred to as a working beach. In other words Rawai is the starting point for having a look at the various islands surrounding Phuket. There are a number of tail-boats and other options available which could be used for discovering the flora, fauna and the sea life that forms the core of the areas surrounding Phuket. You could use Rawai as a base for visiting Coral Island, Racha Island or Koh Lone which are extremely beautiful and exotic places to say the least. It is an ideal spot for those who might be on the lookout for the right fishing or snorkeling expedition. Many fishermen use Rawai as the mooring point and venture out for fishing into the sea which is their main source of income and livelihood. Hence there is no doubt that Rawai is the place to be in for those who wish to enjoy sea life at its best.
0.999998	How do I declutter my kids room? Whenever I enter my kids room I feel upset and lose all my calm. Whenever we clean the room, in no time my kids manage to make it all messy again. I am looking for tips from experienced parents on how they managed to help their kids keep their room clean. Further to my previous advice, I would highly recommend reading the book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying by Mary Kondo. Most parents think that keeping a room tidy comes naturally to everyone. However, that's rarely the case. Even adults need help with learning to properly keep things neat and organized. Rather than blaming your kids for creating a mess, a good idea would be to educate them about how to go about keeping everything organized. Think of it as a skilled activity which cannot be done effectively without proper training. I am sure if you help them learn the art of tidying up, they will be happy to work with you on this and slowly it will become a habit. For example, if you can work with your kids to arrive at a method of how to put back toys and where, and over time it will start coming to them naturally. Also, set an example by first keeping your own room clean and organized which should become an inspiration for not just your kids but also other family members.
0.980291	. I was given product for a review, but all opinions are my own. is what works best for me. I've searched for products that do a lot and are easy and quick to apply. I hope this routine works as well for you as it does for me! It helps even out my skin without having to wear a ton of makeup. Plus it's a great moisturizer for these cold, dry winter months. . Seriously, this stuff is so good. Two quick coats and my eyelashes are long, separated and just overall amazing. if I only have a minute for makeup, I'll just swipe this on my lashes and call it a day. since high school and it's still my favorite. It's a great neutral color with some sparkle to it. I also like to add a bit of dark brown shadow into my crease just to give my eyes a little more depth. doesn't leave any sort of trail behind I was really excited to try it. I have very thin lips, which makes it hard to use conventional lipstick without using a brush to apply it. I LOVE that Lipsense goes on like a lip gloss with a wand. It's so much easier to apply that way! To use Lipsense, you add three layers of your color (I'm wearing Apple Cider here), wait about 5-10 seconds between each layer to allow it to dry. Then, you add the Lipsense gloss over the color to lock everything in. and she told me where I was going wrong. Which, is another plus to using Lipsense! Your distributor is always there to help. Now I can kiss my babies all day and never leave a mark!
0.970791	A phobia is the excessive or unreasonable fear of something that actually presents little or no danger. Phobias can take many forms. A person suffering from a phobia may go to great lengths to avoid the feared object or situation, which can make the phobia even worse. People with phobias, particularly social phobia, may also have problems with substance abuse if they turn to drugs or alcohol as a way to cope with their fears and anxieties. Some common types of phobias are of animals (snakes, spiders), the natural environment (storms, water, dark), situations (flying, small spaces, heights) and harm to body (blood, needles, injury). Approximately 5 -10% of the US population has one or more phobias. They are common, treatable issues. If you or a friend have a phobia that is making it hard to get things done or enjoy life, the first step to feeling better is to reach out for help. Physical symptoms like difficulty breathing, racing heart, trembling, dizziness, sweating and lightheadedness. Anxiety disorders are the most common mental health condition. The good news is they can be treated and managed. It's OK to ask for support. Reaching out is the first step to feeling better.
0.999967	Are you ready for __________? Depending on how you fill in the blank, that question can either bring about excitement or fear. This weekend we studied 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 with the theme “Ready Or Not” and embraced the excitement of being ready for Christ to Come.
0.961073	Underline the letters in the following passage which should be capitalised. – “the dark sky over the north pole stayed all day during the winter”. The rules for capital letters are straightforward - until you start thinking about them in detail! We can all tell a child that there is a capital needed to start a name, whether it's of a place or a person, but what about the name of a season? Also, we see the points of the compass frequently capitalised but is this necessarily the case? Look at the above sentence. Obviously, we need the first letter to be capitalised; encourage your child to remember this as otherwise they will become so hung up on the tricky ones that they'll miss the glaringly obvious one. Secondly, we have to look to see whether there are any names of either places or people. In this sentence, we do not have any names of people but there is a name of a place (north pole) so this will have to be capitalised. Finally, the issue of the capitalising of seasons: the rule is simple - we do not use a capital for these words unless they are part of a specific name. The dark sky over the North Pole stayed all day during the winter. Underline the letters in the following sentence that should be capitalised.- "well," lily began, "you need to travel east until you reach the m1." This time there are issues of more than just basic capitalisation - you will need to know about the rules of punctuating speech. Firstly, we must do the obvious things. The first word of a sentence must be capitalised, so that should be done without even thinking! Secondly, we search for names of people and places. 'Lily' is a name but there are no others. Thirdly, we look at 'm1' - it is a convention that we use a capital letter to show a motorway or other road name. Some people may also think that 'east' needs a capital letter but, like seasons, there is no need to do so. We frequently see directions capitalised but that's because we are used to seeing the words as part of a place name, when obviously they have to have a capital letter. "Well," Lily began, "you need to travel east until you reach the M1."
0.939695	Why do architects use Scale? I think that the ENGLISH should have the last say on how words are spelt in ENGLISH. Or, you & Jack could accept the cultural differences from two entirely different countries. We all know that our children take time to learn how to spell correctly. (No offence intended, just making a point). None taken, I was making a joke...that's what the meant. But while we are on the subject..."Spelt"? Spelt is a strain of wheat my friend. I think you meant "spelled". No offenSe, but the English are not even capable of using their own measuring system. Why would we leave the language in their hands? I do prefer Aluminium to Aluminum, though. but the English are not even capable of using their own measuring system. we gave it away as a joke but some people can't see the funny side. Why would we leave the language in their hands? wunce you talks englesh good, can't nobody change ya! Spelt is a strain of wheat my friend. I think you meant "spelled". :lol:Yep; even us Brits have trouble with our own language. I get all that but we often get detail drawings from engineers and architects that show a connection plate for instance with hole sizes/plate thickness and overall area but it will still be done at say 1:20. Doesn't make sense at all. You mean a Cad copy or a paper copy comes in like that? I work with an Architect who said his details were 1:8. We use imperial inches and feet, so I guess that translates to 3/8" = 1'-0"..... either way, what an odd scale. That cooks my noodle! I'm in the same confused state about those "mixed" scales. If you're doing your drawing in imperial, then why have such scales as 1:8 ... that's an ISO-like scale name, and if ISO then you "should" be using metric shouldn't you? One problem we have though is that the standardized set of ISO scales (see clause 7.5) don't always cut the cake. E.g. we very often use something like 1:25, sometimes even 1:75 (or any 10x derivative of those, e.g. 1:250 1:2.5 1:750). Look you'll see the 1:25 scale on all metric scale rulers, and even the 1:75 on most. You sometimes even get the 1:33 1/3 scale on a ruler, though that one's very seldom used in my experience. I've NEVER seen a 1:8, 1:16, 1:30 or 1:40 on any ruler whatsoever, the first time I saw these was in ACad's scale list . I suppose if they're out there, people's go'nna use 'em! But if you have that note about not scaling, I suppose it doesn't matter much - else the poor guy measuring off your drawing is going to have to pull over a calculator pretty soon! If it's a CAD copy drawn at 1:20 in model space, the guy should be enlightened - preferably using a stupid stick! Do you mean they actually made such scales in the scale list? Or worse their linework in model space is scaled to thise arb figures! If it's just that the viewport is zoomed to that factor (I'm being generous here ) then it's possible that the vp wasn't locked and their finger accidentally "touched" that scroll wheel! If they consciously zoomed the vp to that scale to "make it fit" ... then they should have a note on it stating NTS ! We don't get the CAD files (so I have no idea what their modelspace is scaled at), just physical paper plans (which they charge you for). The scales on the plans are always printed on the plan as that, i.e. 1:77.295 (where they basically just fit it on the page as you say). WTH! You mean they actually WROTE that into a piece of text on the page? Are they on ACID or something? Yes, that is actually written into a piece of text on the page. That's typed in, which could even mean it's not the "correct" scale as drawn. Never mind that it's a non-rational scale! They actually made a scale like that in the scalelist and then set the text to show the VP's scale (if in Paperspace) / CAnnoScale (if in Modelspace) in a field. Yet this could still also mean it's not the scale as drawn! Here it shows the scale's name, not its ratio and also not its zoom factor. So seeing something like that on a page would make me worry to bits! Or is the text part of the plot stamp perhaps? Or is that coming from something like those old micro-film records? Some of our local municipalities still use those things! You go to their offices, ask to view a particular erf#, go sit at the machine, find the relevant drawng(s) and ask them to print it for you. Only to find it's not to scale, but worse: can hardly be read as it's faded too much. Anecdotally: the oldest building I worked on (about 15 years ago) was converting Port Elizabeth's original harbor master's house (built in 1825) to an office building (needed some serious sensitivity as it's a heritage site). There was absolutely no record of it, had to go measure every nook-n-cranny to draw up the new plans for submission! He did say it was a Government agency!
0.997309	When a mechwarrior falls in battle, what does she leave to legacy? As per dicussions and github posts, Beacons and Upgrades are getting a bit of an overhaul. First and foremost, Beacons will now come with 3 upgrade slots rather than the single upgrade of the past. These upgrade spots will be in a triangular pattern around the beacon, while the middle will remain open and occupied by Dropzones. This allows us to greatly expand the number of Upgrades because players will have access to more building slots, and let us introduce some more interesting mechanics and choices. At the same time, we should expand upon the Upgrades themselves with further upgrades, or sidegrades, to unlock even more abilities or specialize default ones. Below is a list of Upgrades and their potential unlock paths. * Vehicle Landing Pad: Brings in AI vehicles, can be upgraded to unlock heavy vehicles and advanced House units. Having 3 slots per beacon will let players build little facilities all over the map tailored to their needs, and also targets for enemy aero raids or skirmisher attacks.
0.999908	I am in the process of discussing contract review procedures. In order to be effective, procedures for contract review and signature authority should accomplish at least two main purposes—establish the process for the review and approval of proposed contracts by various departments (e.g., legal, finance and other departments involved in the fulfillment of obligations created under the contract) and identifying which persons within the company have the authority to approved specified transactions or activities and thus execute a proposed contract on behalf of the company. Ideally the contract review process will also provide an opportunity for evaluating the proposed contract in the context of the company’s overall business strategy. This can and should occur through the creation of a business case for each proposed contractual arrangement (or at least those contracts that are “material” in light of the company’s business) that describes the key rewards and risks associated with the contract, explains why the contract is important to the company’s business plan, establishes performance milestones, and suggests procedures for monitoring performance under the contract after it is executed. The business case process forces the initiating party to think through each proposed contract and become an informed internal champion for the relationship and also serves as an important information and communication tool for senior management to the extent that they are being kept in the loop as to the specific activities and tactics that are being used to further the company strategy that has been established at the top of the hierarchy. Creating signature authority, including delegation of authority downward in the organizational structure of the company, is particularly important as the business grows and the company adds management layers and the number of employees multiplies. When the company is small almost all new contracts should be signed only by the president or chief executive officer of the company after review by the senior managers responsible for the departments that will be involved in fulfilling the company’s obligations under the contract. As time goes by, however, authority to sign contracts can and should be formally delegated by the president and chief executive officer to competent officers and managers within the company subject to specific conditions and limitations defined in the delegation instructions. In all cases, for example, authority to sign contracts should be conditioned upon creation of a written record that all steps in the review process have been completed (e.g., review and approval by other interested departments). Delegation of authority is generally limited to contracts that do not create a financial exposure for the company that exceeds specified amounts. For example, a department manager may be allowed to commit the company to provide cash or services up to $50,000; however, any commitment above that amount would need to be reviewed and executed by someone more senior in the hierarchy. Business relationships with third parties based on “standard contracts” that have been drafted by the company’s legal department may also get “fast track” treatment and not require separate review by the legal department. Managers may also be given more leeway to enter contracts that have been previously anticipated in the business plan and budget for their particular department provided that the managers have complied with other requirements with respect to solicitation of bids and proposals for contracting. The content in this post has been adapted from material that will appear in Business Counsel Update (July 2008) and is presented with permission of Thomson/West. Copyright 2008 Thomson/West. For more information or to order call 1-800-762-5272. This entry was posted in Compliance and Risk Management on March 6, 2008 by agutterman.

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