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What is the difference between depression and just feeling low?
In general, a low mood can include feelings of sadness, an anxious feeling or feeling worried. It can also come with tiredness, low self-esteem, frustration and anger.
Under normal conditions, a low mood will tend to improve by itself after a short time. This can be helped by making some small but significant changes in your life, such as taking steps to resolve a difficult situation or talking about your problems with a trusted friend, getting more sleep and drinking less can improve your mood. A low mood that doesn’t go away can be a sign of depression.
Read more about the symptoms of depression, including the physical and social effects. Depression can also come on at specific points in your life, such as the winter months (SAD) and after the birth of a child (Postnatal Depression).
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What does ZANU-PF stand for?
He leads the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which is opposed to Mugabe's party, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF).
In addition to stabilizing the economy, the political agreement, under which Robert Mugabe (the long-time leader of the ruling party, Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front [ZANU-PF]) remains president and Morgan Tsvangirai, (the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change) becomes prime minister, also recognizes the need to respect differences of political opinion.
Mugabe's government embarked on haphazard and sometimes violent land reforms led by supporters of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front party.
This is forcing ordinary people to be dishonest,' he said, noting that many people have two cards, one for the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front and the other showing membership of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
As expected, the Secretary of State's remarks drew a stern response from Didymus Mutasa, Foreign Affairs secretary for the governing Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front.
Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front won 55 of Parliament's 120 elected seats, compared to 34 for the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change, the national election commission announced.
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Is it cyclohexane or is it benzene?
Benzene, C6H6, is an organic aromatic compound with many interesting properties. Unlike aliphatic (straight chain carbons) or other cyclic organic compounds, the structure of benzene (3 conjugated π bonds) allows benzene and its derived products to be useful in fields such as health, laboratory, and other applications such as rubber synthesis.
Benzene derived products are well known to be pleasantly fragrant. For this reason, organic compounds containing benzene rings were classified as being "aromatic" (sweet smelling) amongst scientists in the early 19th century when a relation was established between benzene derived compounds and sweet/spicy fragrances. There is a misconception amongst the scientific community, however, that all aromatics are sweet smelling and that all sweet smelling compounds would have a benzene ring in its structure. This is false, since non-aromatic compounds, such as camphor, extracted from the camphor laurel tree, release a strong, minty aroma, yet it lacks the benzene ring in its structure (Figure 1). On the other hand, benzene itself gives off a rather strong and unpleasant smell that would otherwise invalidate the definition of an aromatic (sweet-smelling) compound. Despite this inconsistency, however, the term aromatic continues to be used today in order to designate molecules with benzene-like rings in their structures. For a modern, chemical definition of aromaticity, refer to sections Aromaticity and Hückel's Rule.
Figure 1. Top-view of camphor, along with its monoterpene unit. Notice how camphor lacks the benzene ring to be "aromatic".
Many aromatic compounds are however, sweet/pleasant smelling. Eugenol, for example, is extracted from essential oils of cloves and it releases a spicy, clove-like aroma used in perfumes. In addition, it is also used in dentistry as an analgesic.
Figure 2. Eugenol, an aromatic compound extracted from clove essential oils. Used in perfumes and as an analgesic. The benzene ring is labeled in red in the eugenol molecule.
Due to the similarity between benzene and cyclohexane, the two is often confused with each other in beginning organic chemistry students.
If you were to count the number of carbons and hydrogens in cyclohexane, you will notice that its molecular formula is C6H12. Since the carbons in the cyclohexane ring is fully saturated with hydrogens (carbon is bound to 2 hydrogens and 2 adjacent carbons), no double bonds are formed in the cyclic ring. In contrast, benzene is only saturated with one hydrogen per carbon, leading to its molecular formula of C6H6. In order to stabilize this structure, 3 conjugated π (double) bonds are formed in the benzene ring in order for carbon to have four adjacent bonds.
In other words, cyclohexane is not the same as benzene! These two compounds have different molecular formulas and their chemical and physical properties are not the same. The hydrogenation technique can be used by chemists to convert from benzene to cyclohexane by saturating the benzene ring with missing hydrogens.
A special catalyst is required to hydrogenate benzene rings due to its unusual stability and configuration. Normal catalytic hydrogenation techniques will not hydrogenate benzene and yield any meaningful products.
Benzene can be drawn a number of different ways. This is because benzene's conjugated pi electrons freely resonate within the cyclic ring, thus resulting in its two resonance forms.
Figure 4. The Figure to the left shows the two resonance forms of benzene. The delocalized electrons are moved from one carbon to the next, thus providing stabilization energy. Ring structures stabilized by the movement of delocalized electrons are sometimes referred to as arenes.
As the electrons in the benzene ring can resonate within the ring at a fairly high rate, a simplified notation is often used to designate the two different resonance forms. This notation is shown above, with the initial three pi bonds (#1, #2) replaced with an inner ring circle (#3). Alternatively, the circle within the benzene ring can also be dashed to show the same resonance forms (#4).
The phenyl group can be formed by taking benzene, and removing a hydrogen from it. The resulting molecular formula for the fragment is C6H5. NOTE: Although the molecular formula of the phenyl group is C6H5, the phenyl group would always have something attached to where the hydrogen was removed. Thus, the formula is often written as Ph-R, where Ph refers to the Phenyl group, and R refers to the R group attached to where the hydrogen was removed.
Figure 5. Figure demonstrating the removal of hydrogen to form the phenyl group.
Different R groups on the phenyl group allows different benzene derivatives to be formed. Phenol, Ph-OH, or C6H5OH, for example, is formed when an alcohol (-OH) group displaces a hydrogen atom on the benzene ring. Benzene, for this very same reason, can be formed from the phenyl group by reattaching the hydrogen back its place of removal. Thus benzene, similar to phenol, can be abbreviated Ph-H, or C6H6.
Figure 7: Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), an antioxidant found in green teas and its extracts, is famous for its potential health benefits. The molecule is a type of catechin, which is composed of multiple phenol (labeled in red) units (polyphenols - see polycyclic aromatics). Since catechins are usually found in plant extracts, they are often referred as plant polyphenolic antioxidants.
As you can see above, these are only some of the many possibilities of the benzene derived products that have special uses in human health and other industrial fields.
Figure 18. Systematic (IUPAC) name of 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (common name), or TNT. Note that the methyl group is individually named due to the exclusion of toluene from the IUPAC nomenclature.
Figure 19. The common name 2,4-dibromophenol, is shared by the IUPAC systematic nomenclature. Only substituents phenol, benzoic acid, and benzaldehyde share this commonality.
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What is the shape of space? Before we can answer this question, we must decide what it means to ask it. "Space" here refers to the universe as a whole, but specifically to the vast vacuum lying between the stars and planets and other chunks of matter. We generally think of this space as empty, but the behavior of light suggests that space is in fact filled with a substance that nineteenth century scientists called "aether". Instead of trying to imagine what aether is made of or what its properties are, just think of aether as the "fabric of space".
As light passes near a large body, such as a planet, the path of the light bends. The Earth's gravity keeps our Moon in orbit, while the Moon's gravity affects the Earth's tides. If space were truly empty, there would be no way to explain the distortion of light rays or the influences of gravitating bodies on one another--how would gravitational attraction be transmitted through empty space? Postulating the existence of aether gives gravitational force, as well as magnetic and electrical forces, something to travel through.
To understand how matter affects the path of light, imagine a large sheet of rubber with a helium balloon trapped beneath it. As the balloon rises, it creates a large bulge in the surface of the rubber.
Now picture yourself as a Flatlander living in the surface of the sheet. (1) If you want to get from a point at the bottom of the bump to a point on the opposite side, it is shorter to go around the bulge than to go over it. You do not perceive the bump as a hill--it is a bulge into a third dimension which you cannot detect--but as an expanse of land too wide to walk across. Similarly, light rays in Flatland curve around the bump--light does not always travel in a straight line, but its path follows the straightest possible line. Like the balloon, dense bodies in our universe distort the fabric of space into a higher dimension, the fourth dimension, causing light to travel in a curved path.
The fabric of space is distorted locally by matter, but all of space may also be curved into something other than ordinary three-dimensional Euclidean space (3-space). Thinking about possible shapes of space is an important part of the science of cosmology, and it leads to speculation about fascinating scenarios which sound like plots from science fiction novels. What if you could travel billions of light years in one direction and end up back at Earth, without ever altering your course? What if when you returned, you were a mirror image of your former self? What if everything in the entire universe appeared to be within a few feet of you? We will consider shapes of space which could produce these phenomena.
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Bland was born in Virginia, the daughter of Richard Bennett and Maryann Utie Bennett. Occasionally her first name appears as Ann or Anne. Her birth date is unknown, but the death of John Utie, her mother's first husband, occurred probably in the summer of 1637, and later in the decade Maryann Utie married Bennett, a wealthy Puritan who served on the governor's Council for an indefinite period starting in 1642, was governor of Virginia from 1652 to 1655, and sat on the Council again from 1658 until his death in 1675. Sometime in 1660 Anna Bennett married Theodorick Bland, the Speaker of the House of Burgesses, who was about ten years her senior. Her father deeded the couple his house in James City County in 1662, and in 1665 her husband purchased the Charles City County property known as Westover and moved the family there. Theodorick Bland and Anna Bland had three sons, so far as is known, before his death on April 23, 1672. About four years later she married St. Leger Codd, a widower with three children from his first marriage. They had one son and one daughter.
Anna Bland Codd undertook a prolonged legal defense of the estate of her first husband, and as one consequence the General Assembly lost its status as the court of last appeal in the colony. The case pitted against each other two remarkable, powerful women skilled in the use of political patronage. Anna Bland faced a complicated task in managing property that Theodorick Bland had owned outright or controlled as agent or estate administrator. He had settled in Virginia to manage the large landed estate of his brother John Bland, who remained in England. After Theodorick Bland's death, John Bland sent his own son Giles Bland to the colony to take control of the property, but in this capacity Giles Bland laid claim to land that Theodorick Bland had clearly owned, including Westover. Anna Bland fought back, enlisting powerful allies in Virginia, among them her father and Thomas Ludwell, who, like her second husband, was a political ally of Governor Sir William Berkeley.
Her principal adversary was John Bland's wife, Sarah Greene Bland, who had influence at court and with members of the Privy Council. Sarah Bland became her husband's legal representative and launched a counteroffensive in England in 1676. Giles Bland had meanwhile become a leader in Bacon's Rebellion (1676–1677), in the aftermath of which he was executed and his property confiscated. Sarah Bland traveled to Virginia in 1678 as her husband's representative. The claims and legal actions of Giles Bland and Sarah Bland subjected Anna Bland Codd and her second husband to lawsuits, petitions, and counterpetitions for nine years, during part of which they retired to his property in Maryland to avoid legal harassment.
Anna Bland Codd prevailed in the Virginia courts, where Sarah Bland lost both an appeal to the General Court and a further appeal to the General Assembly. Her allies in England were more powerful than those of Anna Bland Codd and St. Leger Codd, however, and in 1682 the Lords of Trade ordered the parties to appear at a hearing in London. Virginia's new governor, Francis Howard, baron Howard of Effingham, implemented the order by proclamation and also announced the Privy Council's decision that all future appeals from rulings of the General Court be made to the Privy Council in England rather than to the General Assembly. The assembly was unable to challenge the proclamation, which thus terminated the last vestige of that body's judicial powers and thenceforth gave Virginia litigants with powerful English connections a big advantage over those lacking such ties. St. Leger Codd went to England to support his wife's case and the Privy Council ordered the matter to arbitration, but the arbitrators finally settled the suit in 1686 in a manner generally satisfactory to Sarah Bland and unsatisfactory to Anna Bland Codd.
Although the legal battles exhausted much of the Codds' estate, Anna Bland Codd succeeded in preserving Westover and other of Theodorick Bland's properties for her sons, who became wealthy planters and prominent public men. Anna Bennett Bland Codd died in Maryland, probably about November 1687.
ca. 1676 - Anna Bennett Bland marries St. Leger Codd, a widower with three children. They will have one son and one daughter.
1676 - Sarah Greene Bland, wife of John Bland, launches a counteroffensive against Anna Bennett Bland's claim of her late husband's estate.
1682 - The Lords of Trade order Sarah Greene Bland and Anna Bennett Bland Codd to appear at a hearing in London.
1682 - The Privy Council decides that all future appeals from rulings of the General Court must be made to the Privy Council in England rather than to the General Assembly.
1686 - The arbitrators in the court case between Anna Bennett Bland Codd and Sarah Greene Bland settle the suit in a manner unsatisfactory to Codd and satisfactory to Bland.
ca. November 1687 - Anna Bland Codd dies in Maryland.
Gundersen, Joan R. "Bland, Anna Bennett." In the Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Vol. 2, edited by Sara B. Bearss et al., 3–4. Richmond: Library of Virginia, 2001.
Gundersen, J., & the Dictionary of Virginia Biography. Anna Bennett Bland (d. 1687). (2016, November 10). In Encyclopedia Virginia. Retrieved from http://www.EncyclopediaVirginia.org/Bland_Anna_Bennett_d_1687.
Gundersen, Joan and the Dictionary of Virginia Biography. "Anna Bennett Bland (d. 1687)." Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, 10 Nov. 2016. Web. READ_DATE.
Contributed by Joan Gundersen and the Dictionary of Virginia Biography.
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This doesn't have to do with my AI dog, Misha, rather my old childhood dog, Kaylee(Wolf, Husky as I was told when I got her four years ago), who isn't in an ideal situation. I have been thinking for several months about bringing her back home. She's living in the garage, and every time I take her out and offer her water, she gulps it down as if she hasn't drank or eaten food in a while. Her entire body is covered in hot spots, and her hips are acting up from previous accidents.
The only issue is, shes aggressive with other dogs, not usually, but conditionally. I have taken her out to the beach several times with my friends GSD Artemis,and they play and run so long as we're walking, but as soon as we stop for whatever reason, Kaylee tends to get aggressive. I wonder if it's a form of resource guarding. I had this dog for a year before my parents made me rehome her, and now i'm on my own and in more of a situation to take her, however I don't want to put my dogs at risk... However, when we move next year sometime, I will be in a more ideal situation to take her, but want to fix her aggression issue before that happens.
I do plan on consulting several trainers about her and her issue before we make plans to move, but was curious if anyone had experience dealing with this sort of situation?
Consulting a trainer is a great idea. I'm sure she would love to get out of the garage. She could also be having aggression issues because of physical discomfort. Hot spots can be so bad that they lose sleep and can get really agitated too. I don't know how old she is, but arthritis can be an issue, especially after excercise. Point being,a medical check up would probably be a good idea too.
Hello! My name is Melissa and I'm a dog trainer who has a 'thing' for behaviorally challenged dogs. I have a few follow up questions for you. First, how long has this dog been living in the garage? Is she in there alone? What kind of enrichment does she have? I ask these questions because you mention how fast she drinks water... hopefully she has access to water 24/7 and if not she should. You mention aggression but used with no context it is hard to give guidance. What is she doing that is aggressive? Could she just have a rough play style as vs being vocal(like most hybrids)? You mention that she could be in pain... that will always cause a dog to be reactive to some extent. This next bit comes from a place of concern, not judgement. Dogs are pack animals. They need their pack to be fulfilled as a dog being. They were once wolf animals who's sheer survival was dependent on the pack as a whole then domesticated them. But that pack mentality is still hard wired in to them. A Solitary dog with no contact with other dogs and/or limited contact to their people Can have a negative effect on a dog's behavior as a whole. If your dog is part Wolf, Even huskies have that more prevalent in their personalities. Is it possible that this negative behavior you're seeing from the dog could be solved by just making sure that their social requirements are being met? You can't expect a dog to be locked away in a garage and be able to maintain mentally. I beg you to find a balanced trainer who incorporates many different tools in their training method and move forward from there. If you have any further questions or concerns please don't hesitate to reach out!
She had gotten hit by a car when I had her, which is something I'm know is bothering her, but I've been noticing getting her exercise has helped a bit. I just don't see her often enough to make a big enough impact on the hot spots for them to clear up entirely. She is around 4-5 years old now.
Her current owners have talked to me about some issues she has too, like bladder infections and fleas... Last I checked, they haven't gotten her in to a vet to get checked out..
We only had her a year in 2013, but shes been living in this garage for about 3 and alone. The family has a few kids and a cat, shes always chased cats, not to hurt but more as a game. The aggression is attacking other dogs and getting into fights that are hard to break up. She gives no warning, and just chases them off, but the GSD that we usually have often usually retaliates back that further insinuates the fight. She is quite a vocal dog, and she is not when she gets aggressive. Sometimes she'll let out a low growl, before jumping on the other dog. When she plays, she usually is very loud, and likes to be chased and just run away from them. When we had her, she would get a bit unsure and speak up, she was very vocal about expressing her discomfort.
Another thing, is we had to rehome her a few years ago, I'm thankfully still in contact. I would bring her back in a heartbeat, however we do have two dogs in the house, and just don't want to put them at risk. One of the other dogs has a bad history of being attacked by an older dog that was in the home before I moved in.
I contacted a well known dog behaviorist here in Eugene, and she thinks its more of a possessiveness over me than anything else, like Kaylee feels she has to protect me from the other dogs.
Edited by Caffeinatedasian, 16 October 2017 - 10:01 AM.
You are very young and probably up until now not very able to help Kaylee. Its good that you are doing what you can. The garage situation sounds horrible. Solitary confinement on top of being a wolf hybrid is not likely to end well mentally for the dog. If the garage situation is as bad as it sounds, she'd be better off in a shelter or with a rescue organization. My advice to you would be to look at your resources. Research some shelters and husky and /or wolf hybrid rescues. If you can, first take her to the vet and get her the medical attention and rehabilitation she needs. Board her there. Ask them to evaluate her for you. You can surrender her to a shelter from there if that is the advice. If the vet is optimistic about Kaylee's rehabilitation and I mean temperament not just physical, then I'd put her in the best board and train program for dogs with problems that you can find / afford. Be prepared to bring your other dogs along and participate. At the end of the first week I'd get advice from the trainer and I'd take it, even if that advice was that complete rehabilitation is not going to happen. Presumably you will have seen how she is with your dogs and you in a controlled, neutral environment. You may have the answer based on that interaction. She may require 4 weeks board and train for behavior rehabilitation and obedience training. Even with that you would still have the pack integration at home which won't be easy. Pack chemistry is a funny thing. There's no good way ahead of time to predict what will work and what won't. If you are prepared to set up an outdoor dog run / kennel and have her live her life with a fair amount of kenneling that might be an option - at least superior to the garage situation. I have heard of people keeping dogs separate for months but able to see each other before blending. Good luck and I hope you can find a situation that is better for Kaylee, even if it's not living with you.
Update: My dog trainer, who also trained and knew Kaylee very well, is going to help me out! We've decided to find someone who works with Sheri and is familiar with leadership who can take her. After talking to several trainers and behaviorists we've narrowed it down to possessiveness, similar to resource guarding where she feels as though we cant protect ourselves, and must do it herself, due to lack of leadership she gets in her current home. I am going to talk to the owners, and work with Sheri and we are going to figure out a plan for her. She's a great dog with fantastic training, however she just did not get the leadership or socialization she needed in the last three years she's lived there.. Though, I am not in a good spot to take her, I still am able to do what I can to help her. I'm very happy to say, we're making progress in getting her help.
I hope you will let us know how she is doing. I know she is not an AIDog, but I can't help caring.
We haven't made any progress with getting her into another home, but it seems as though shes gained a little weight and her hot spots are getting better. We took her on a walk today and she was pretty dang happy to be out, though she has no muscle on her back legs, she seemed to be able to run around and play with Misha.
I noticed blood in the stool, or what it looked like, on the way back to the car and her belly was bloated, making me wonder if she has worms. Regardless, I brought it up to her owners and hope they take action in getting her healthy again.
Kaylee and Misha got along surprisingly well, she just complained and Misha was very polite and respected her and would back off when she would grump at her in the car. Misha continually surprises me with how respectful she is of other dogs. She's very good at listening to the other dogs and knows when and how to de-escalate a situation. Kaylee listened really well, too and it was just kept to talking, however only on the way back home, which I'm guessing was because she was tired, she immediately wanted into the car. They even played a bit on our walk! Gives me hope that this behavior is something that can be worked with and eventually resolved with the right people.
Ironically enough, when we had Kaylee, we brought her to a dog park and there was a woman with two AI dogs there who actually thought Kaylee was an AI dog from first glance, about 4-5 years ago! This was what sparked curiosity in me to research AI dogs.
Interests:Northern Ontario getaways. Clear lakes, kayaks & a full moon. Nature lover, fire dreamer, intuitive.
Drawn to Native culture, grew up beside Kanesetake (Oka), Quebec.
Former Weimaraner addict. Volunteer with dog rescue group doing work in Quebec, Ontario & Mexico.
My son and I are looking forward to our AI pup completing our circle.
Bless you for helping her out. I've just completed a canine attendant certification course, and dog aggression is next up. Knowledge is power.
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An old friend of mine called me earlier today to discuss his new business idea. I spent a couple of hours helping him flesh it out and create an action plan. However, like most would-be entrepreneurs, he had his priorities mixed up.
When most people want to launch their own business, they start by writing a business plan. Unfortunately, business plans are pretty useless in the early stages. You won't know enough to write a meaningful one until after you've launched your business.
Why the obsession with business plans? It's not because you need one to get investors because--surprise!--investors aren't going to believe your plan without proof of concept, unless you've already got an established track record.
The real reason, I suspect, is that writing a business plan is a low-risk, no-deadline activity that can be accomplished in one's spare time. It therefore allows would-be entrepreneurs to remain in their day jobs, while still pretending that they're moving the ball forward.
Rather than write a business plan, it usually makes more sense to launch a stripped-down version of your business to create proof of concept and to learn what problems you'll encounter going forward.
1. Define and execute the barest minimum.
You may be bursting with ideas and ecstatic about the possibilities, but you've got to focus on the basics: 1) what is our product, 2) how will we take orders, and 3) how will we fulfill those orders. Everything else is bullsh-t until you've got the basics in place.
In my friend's case, he wants to sell a customized product. While he wanted to talk about getting endorsement and extending the concept to other product categories, what he really needed at this point was: 1) the basic product, 2) a way to order it online, and 3) a manufacturer who could customize and drop ship the product.
In most cases, assembling the bare minimum will be about the same amount of work as writing a detailed business plan. More important, the time you spend executing the basics actually launches the businesses, rather than just trying to define it.
2. Do some easy but effective marketing.
For any business there are probably "n" number of things you can do to market your product. The trick in the early stages is to do just a few marketing activities that will have an outsize effect compared to the amount of effort involved.
List every possible way you could market or promote this product.
Assign every activity a number (1-10) where "1" is easy and "10" is difficult.
Assign every activity a number (1-10) where "1" is cheap and "10" is expensive.
Assign every activity a number (1-10) where "1" is "if successful, will get a lot of customers" and "10" is "if successful, will maybe get a customer or two."
Assign every activity a number (1-10) where "1" is absolute certainty you can do this and "10" is highly skeptical you can pull this activity off.
Now add up the numbers for each activity.
Throw out the bottom two thirds.
Execute the remainder in ascending order (starting with the lowest number).
I realize the above sounds simplistic but--believe me now or believe me later--you're vastly upping the likelihood of success if you just do minimum marketing at this point.
3. Assess and pivot as necessary.
Yeah, I know the term "pivot" is biz-blabby, but it's convenient here so I'll go ahead and use it. At this point, you either have 1) a viable business that's got some cash flow or 2) your business isn't working out. If it's viable, jump to step 4.
If your business isn't working out, do not fall into the trap of thinking that if you spend more time and money on marketing, you'll start getting customers and the business will be successful. It won't, and you'll just be throwing good money after bad.
Instead you've got to step back, take a hard look at the basics (step 1), and make changes so that the easy-peasy marketing (step 2) starts creating some revenue.
4. Grow your customer base.
actually works, figure out how to sell more. In most cases, you'll find that doing more of "what worked" (step 2) will create more new customers than trying to execute the remaining list of marketing activities.
For example, my friend knows a lot of celebrities, so one of the easy-peasy marketing tasks is to get endorsements on Twitter. He originally wanted to jump right into this, but I advised him to wait until he had the basics in place. That way, the tweets would drive traffic to his site.
If those endorsements drive traffic that converts to customers, then I would advise him to go for more endorsements rather than, say, worry about Google ads or brand extension.
5. Quit your day job.
BTW, if you follow the previous five steps, you probably won't need a business plan. The main thing is to take action and start small. That way you'll be worlds ahead of most other folk who want to start a business.
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Belfast Zoological Gardens (also known as Bellevue Zoo) is a zoo in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is located in a relatively secluded location on the northeastern slope of Cavehill, overlooking Belfast's Antrim Road, resulting in a uniquely tranquil environment for the animals that the zoo is frequently praised for.
Belfast Zoo is one of the top fee-paying visitor attractions in Northern Ireland, receiving more than 300,000 visitors a year. Located in north Belfast, the zoo's 55-acre (22 ha) site is home to more than 1,200 animals and 140 species.
The majority of the animals in Belfast Zoo are in danger in their natural habitat. The zoo carries out important conservation work and takes part in over 90 European and international breeding programmes which help to ensure the survival of many species under threat.
Belfast Zoo is owned by Belfast City Council. The council spends £1.5 million every year on running and promoting the zoo, which is one of the few local government-funded zoos in the UK and Ireland.
The zoo's work is overseen by the council's Parks and Leisure Committee. The committee is made up of 20 locally elected councillors.
The story of Belfast Zoo begins with the city's public transport system. At the beginning of the 20th century, passengers from Belfast were transported to the villages of Whitewell and Glengormley by horse-drawn trams belonging to the Belfast Street Tramway company and steam tramways from Cavehill and Whitewell.
In 1911, the tram line was taken over by Belfast Corporation, now Belfast City Council. The corporation decided to build a miniature railway, playground, and pleasure gardens. The area was named Bellevue, meaning 'good or pretty view'.
During the 1920s and 1930s, the gardens were a popular destination for day trips. In 1933, the corporation decided to install a representative zoological collection on the site. Then, in 1934, 12 acres (4.9 ha) on either side of the Grand Floral Staircase, a series of steps designed to reach the top of the hillside, were laid out as Bellevue Zoo.
It took 150 men to build the site and the steps can still be seen from Antrim Road today. The zoo was opened on 28 March 1934 by Sir Crawford McCullough, the then Lord Mayor of Belfast. The venture was supported by Councillor RJR Harcourt from Belfast Corporation and was partnered by George Chapman, an animal dealer and circus entrepreneur.
The zoo also has a farm which houses domestic animals such as pygmy goats, Shetland ponies, miniature donkeys, Irish Moiled cattle, ferrets, rabbits, barn owls, Tamworth pigs, Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs, Vorwerk chickens, turkeys, and Berkshire pigs.
The meerkats are a popular attraction at Belfast Zoo.
A giraffe in the shared indoor giraffe and elephant house.
Belfast Zoo is always making changes and welcoming new arrivals or celebrating births.
In 2001 a wolf-like dog broke into a kangaroo enclosure and killed one of the younger kangaroos that had been born at the zoo.
In June 2007, a Barbary lion cub was born at the zoo. This was the first Barbary lion to be born in Ireland. The cub was rejected by its mother and hand-reared at home by keeper Linda Frew. Lily the lion moved to Hodonin Zoo in the Czech Republic in August 2009, as part of a breeding programme.
In 2008, the zoo opened a new tropical rainforest which houses such animals as two-toed sloth, red-footed tortoises and Rodrigues bats. The Rainforest House is a walk-through exhibition with tropical landscaping and a constant temperature of 27 degrees.
More recently, renovations have included work on the gorilla and chimpanzee enclosures, giraffe and elephant enclosures, including a raised giraffe feeder, and new frames in the spider monkey and Andean bear enclosures.
In 2009, on its 75th birthday, the zoo opened a new state-of-the-art Visitors' Centre and "Zoovenir" Shop. The refurbishment features high-level roofing with plenty of natural light and multimedia presentations showing the history of Belfast Zoo and wildlife in Northern Ireland.
The zoo was awarded £250,000 from the Tourism Development Scheme (TDS) from the Northern Ireland Tourist Board to build the new reception area. The council has donated a further £300,000 to help with the increase in visitor numbers.
2009 was a successful year with plenty of new arrivals including a Sumatran tiger called Kabus, and the only tree-kangaroo in the UK, called Kwikila. 2009 also brought the zoo's highest level of visitors in its history with over 302,000 visitors. Over 90 babies were born in the zoo in 2009.
2010 saw the arrival of two smooth-coated otters, coppery titi monkeys and a pair of toco toucans. Other new arrivals that year included a female Sumatran tiger to join Kabus. May Day in 2010 had more than double the visitors of the same day in 2009.
Babies since 2009 have included a Malayan tapir, ring-tailed lemurs, a Grant's zebra, California sea lions, black-tailed prairie dogs, litters of piglets, spider monkeys, red kangaroos and many more.
2012 saw the birth of two eastern bongos, a blesbok foal, a giraffe foal and a baby chimpanzee and 2013 has seen the birth of coppery titi monkeys, a two toed sloth, another chimpanzee, twin white-belted ruffed lemurs as well as the arrival of two goodfellow's tree-kangaroos. Belfast zoo is only one of 22 worldwide zoos to hold the Goodfellow's tree-kangaroo.
Located within the grounds of the zoo is a 1930s art deco ballroom, the Floral Hall.
The hall was popular venue in its time and during the war the hall had blackouts fitted to the windows so that dances could continue. In the 1960s, the hall was visited by musical artists such as Pink Floyd and Small Faces. The Floral Hall closed to the public on 2 April 1972 and has remained derelict since the outbreak of the Troubles in the 1970s.
Belfast Buildings Preservation Trust are planning to renovate the building, although Belfast City Council have yet to provide any funding.
2010 has seen the project be taken further, with various meetings to discuss potential uses for the hall and the carrying out of a feasibility study.
In March 2018 Liverpool based developer Signature Living officially submitted a £5 million proposal to revive Belfast’s Floral Hall. Lawrence Kenwright, who owns Signature Living, said he hopes to develop the iconic building, and restore it for use as a "leading entertainment, conference and wedding venue” in the city.
^ a b c d "Visit Us". belfastzoo.co.uk. Belfast City Council. Retrieved 23 March 2011.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Belfast Zoo.
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Is it a good idea to use strings in a struct as values to static properties?
I'm in a discussion with a co-worker concerning the use of structs. I have a couple of structs that contain several static properties that are used throughout our website. The value of those properties are all strings. They're not very long, the longest value has 29 characters.
His argument: "I am saying there is no performance gain because there are strings inside of them. For value types yes you gain memory/gc benefits. With strings they are ref types so allocate to the heap and won't give any benefit."
My argument: "...I'm simply treating the string values as value types by using the struct, therefore saving time and gaining performance by not having to instantiate it every time."
Let me know if I'm completely wrong and should just use classes or if there is a better way of using the structs for my values (i.e: readonly instead of static, etc...).
"For value types yes you gain memory/gc benefits." -> True.
"With strings they are ref types so allocate to the heap and won't give any benefit." -> True.
"..I'm simply treating the string values as value types by using the struct" -> This doesn't make sense. You can't "treat" as value types or reference types. That's determined by how String is implemented. Given that String is read-only and un-subclassible in most programming languages, it usually has value semantics (even if it is really implemented as a reference to a heap object"
"therefore saving time and gaining performance by not having to instantiate it every time." -> The struct doesn't matter here. String constants are in a static portion of the program, they're not subject to garbage collection, and they're not on the heap.
Putting these strings in struct vs. a class doesn't matter. As long as they're string constants, they're lazily initialized the first time the struct/class is references.
This is a head splitting description. First, strings are always reference types, no matter how or where you declare them. Your struct will be empty because you have no non-static members. The references will take up 4 * 12 bytes in size. Where the characters are will no longer matter, they will remain in the same place for the lifetime of your process. If you want the text to be laid out in a struct you must use character arrays instead and declared them non-static.
Second, there are no properties in your example. You only have data members.
Performance-wise you gain nothing by having strings contained in a struct. You may even lose performance if you are not careful by cause boxing and unboxing.
Either way, for accessing the strings it would not bear significance. Reading a string of only a couple of characters will already take longer than finding the first character, which is really what this is about. And this ratio will quickly increase as the string gets longer.
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged c# strings properties stack heap or ask your own question.
Async properties in interfaces to cater for the possibility of expensive first-time evaluation: Is this a good idea?
Functions returning strings, good style?
Should I use properties for the properties of properties?
How can I add properties to subclasses and access them without casting from a superclass?
Is it bad practice to store certain values as strings?
Is it a bad idea to use getters/setters and/or properties at all?
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0.729557 |
Hey all I just thought I'd humbly submit a proposal for the history of the USS Renaissance, and past ships to bear the name if that's all right?
The first ship to bear the name Renaissance in Starfleet history, was a Neptune Class starship built in orbit of Luna, and launched on July 6th, 2152 and was under the command of Captain Kenneth Sterling. The Renaissance spent most of it's early carrier exploring, and cataloging the Berengaria system, initially surveyed by the USS Enterprise, and returned from it's survey mission to Earth in 2156 to little fanfare. That same year, the Earth-Romulan War began and the Renaissance took part in many of the wars early offensive actions until, as a result of a perverse stroke of luck, the ship struck a cloaked Romulan vessel shearing off the ships rear impulse drives, and caused half the ship to vent atmosphere, killing Captain Sterling, and most of the senior staff. The crippled ship was towed to Vulcan where she spent most of the war under repairs, until 2160 when she was dragged prematurely from the space-yards by Lieutenant Commander Johannessen to take part in the final battle of the war, and arguably the most pivotal, the Battle of Charon. The ship survived the battle, and the end of the war and returned to Vulcan to finish her refit which lasted another two years thanks to the damage sustained during the Battle of Charon. The ship was relaunched on her tenth anniversary, and spent her last four years of service under the command of Captain Lockner as the Renaissance aided in protection and construction of various structures throughout the Berengaria system, until she was finally decommissioned and scrapped for parts in 2166, after fourteen years of faithful service.
I like it so far, continue. And thanks for compensating for my being too lazy to get a history together.
Sorry I haven't been feeling to well today, and I figured getting a post up was more important, si I'll have this up tomorrow. God I need to stop making promises like these in Simming.
The Saladin Class Renaissance was launched from the San Francisco Fleet Yards in 2247, and served primarily as a border patrol, and survey vessel, under the Command of Lieutenant Commander James Clarkson. As a border patrol ship with the Romulan Neutral zone the Renaissance and her crew were forced to walk the fine line between keeping the border secure, and making sure they didn't do anything that could spark another war with the Romulans. She finished her first tour of duty in 2250 and returned to Earth, after years of being relatively disconnected from Federation Society as a whole, and Clarkson promoted to full commander, before the ship began her second tour of duty, this time as a survey ship helping to map the Federation's border with the Tholians. Unfortunately the ship was literally lost two years after beginning her survey mission, her last transmission mentioning a Binary Star System. To this day the mystery of the Renaissance is one that a piques a few peoples interest, along with what seems like a gargantuan number of ships lost by today's standards from that era. Despite recent talks with the Tholian Assembly no official inquiry has been made as to how the ship disappeared or why, although it is often believed to have been destroyed in a Tholian attack, similar to the one that caused the USS Defiant to go missing. Starfleet did mount a limited search effort, however they were hindered by an inability to bring sufficient resources into the area, and the Renaissance was declared destroyed with all hands presumed dead in 2255.
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Paul Cezanne, the greatest Post-Impressionist master, was born in Aix-en Provence where he received his formal education as a classmate of Emile Zola. Cezanne, whose banker father wished him to study law, did not arrive in Paris until 1861 although he had studied drawing in Aix and showed considerable ability. While studying at the Académie Suisse, Cezanne met Pissarro who was to influence him greatly. When he failed the entrance examinations for the Beaux-Arts, however, he returned to Aix. After working for a year in his father's bank and painting only in his spare time, he returned to Paris (1862-64). Zola introduced him to Manet, Renoir, Bazille and Degas, and Cezanne worked fairly loosely with these artists. Between 1864 and 1890 Cezanne lived in Paris, its environs and in the region around Aix until diabetes forced him to retire permanently to Aix. Early in his career, Cezanne admired Caravaggio, Courbet, and Delacroix, and his paintings until 1868 were romantic or baroque in style, dark in color, and classical in subject. During the period 1868-72 Manet's influence may be noted in added clarity and solidity of form. During his Impressionist period (1872-79) his palette lightened and, following Pissarro's example, he approached nature with greater simplicity.
Throughout the years that he exhibited with the Impressionists Cézanne held the unhappy distinction of being the most derided member of the group. He liked his own work no better than the critics and public did, however, but in 1880 he began to develop his own theory of painting and his own style. It is a style characterized by unemotional, non-narrative, closed compositions that are based on the reduction of every object in nature to the cone, the cylinder, or the cube - those permanent qualities, which he believed were beneath all accidental external variations. He achieved a three-dimensional architectural effect by deliberately alternating warm and cool tones, by using a dark outline around objects and forms, and by an intensely dynamic balancing of shapes. None of Cézanne's works are the result of accident. He painted and repainted, altered brush strokes attacked his subjects from different angles, and deliberately falsified perspective to achieve a timeless landscape, an orderly intelligence, and a solidity of form.
All modern art can be said to stem, either directly or indirectly, from Cézanne: Symbolism, Fauvism, Cubism, Expressionism, and Abstract Expressionism. He immediately affected the work of Gauguin, van Gogh, Picasso, and Braque who, in turn, have influenced countless others. Cézanne finally began to receive some public recognition in 1895 and for the remaining eleven years of his life he enjoyed both public and private attention. He continued to paint until six days before he died of pneumonia on October 22, 1906.
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0.999905 |
Is Your Dog's Mouth Cleaner Than Yours?
Practice positive reinforcement by encouraging and rewarding good behavior in your pet.
It's important to restrict your pooch's access to a small area of your home until it's trained.
Socializing your puppy by exposing it to other people, animals, and environments will help it become comfortable with its living situation.
Establishing rules and following them consistently is crucial when training your dog.
Let your pet know who the boss is from the start. Establish the rules and follow them consistently.
If your pet demonstrates poor behavior in certain situations or environments, avoid those situations as much as possible.
If you keep a close eye on your pet, you'll quickly learn what it needs to be comfortable and cared for.
When you get a new pet, make sure you supervise it closely during training and restrict its access to a small area of your home until properly trained.
Correct bad behaviors by providing your pet with alternatives (e.g., swap a toy for your favorite tennis shoes or a chew stick in lieu of a table leg).
Positive reinforcement is good. Never reprimand your pet physically or force it to follow your commands, as this may lead to fear and aggression.
Don't "rough house" with your pet or encourage aggressive behavior, as your pet can't distinguish between when this is acceptable and when it isn't.
Slowly socialize your puppy by exposing it to other people, animals, and environments so that over time, it becomes comfortable with its living situation.
If your pet continues to demonstrate serious behavior problems, seek the counsel of your vet or a veterinary behaviorist.
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0.999658 |
New York Scrapbook Kit - 12" x 12"
Commemorate a trip to the Big Apple using New York Scrapbook Kit. This vintage kit includes cardstock stickers, alphabet cardstock stickers, 3D sticker embellishments, and memory papers with newsprint and retro color schemes. Scrapbooking can be fun and easy using this exciting kit!
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0.982305 |
Why is the moon bigger when it’s rising?
Because it’s closer to your eyes.
That’s ridiculous. When it’s rising and setting, It is not closer to your eyes. The moon is sometimes closer to Earth, but it’s not significantly closer when it’s rising or setting in relation to where you are on the Earth.
The “supermoon” occurs when the moon is in the part of its orbit that is closest to the Earth. It really is a lot closer at perigee than at apogee — the difference is about the same distance as a trip all the way around the equator of Earth (or four trips around the moon itself).
The thing to remember is that the moon is always pretty large. It does look bigger when it’s closer, and it’s closest once every orbit (27 days).
It looks bigger when you have a frame of reference, like trees or some other structure on the horizon, such as a giant robot.
Don’t be too discouraged if you miss an eclipse or other lunar moment. It’ll be back around again.
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0.964307 |
Der E-Bike-Markt ist weiterhin in Bewegung: Neue Marken und Anbieter drängen auf den Markt, aber auch auf der Seite der Pedelec-Käufer ist ein deutlicher Wandel in den vergangenen Jahren zu beobachten.
Die Vliesstoff- und Tissueindustrie ist ständig in Bewegung und sehr dynamisch. Eine der zahlreichen Herausforderungen dieser Industrie sind Strategien der Produzenten für Consumer-Produkte, die das Ziel verfolgen, die Absatzmarkt auf Konsumenten mit niedrigem Einkommen auszudehnen. Besonders große, multinationale Unternehmen haben diesen großen Markt im Visier.
Whether Pedelec, S-Pedelec, E-Bike, E-Scooter or E-Motorcycle, everyone talks about Electrified Two-Wheelers as new means of transportation these days.
Measurement of customer satisfaction, which reflects the unique features and business structures of a company, is a prerequisite for successful and goal-oriented customer retention. A number of special features of the B2B sector, and especially plant construction, make it necessary to consider interdependencies of contact points and business phases in such analyses.
Industrialization of emerging economies, continuing population growth and increasing environmental awareness are mega-trends that should sustainably increase the use of renewable energy sources in electricity generation. However, the growth of alternative technologies is stalling, and many companies are questioning whether it is still worth their while to maintain a focus on these markets.
Developers in the automotive industry are investing considerable effort in the reduction of fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. Additionally, many of them are also addressing the question of which fuels will be required in the future.
There are few industries for which the term "old economy" is as fitting as it is for the rail and rail vehicle industry. But much as in Europe in the 19th century, the industry is playing a crucial role in the industrialization process in today's emerging markets.
The development of components for electrically driven or electrically assisted vehicles has become much more visible in recent years. Are we now caught up in the great leap forward which will culminate in annual production of one million electric vehicles in Germany by the year 2020?
The agricultural market is a growth market: Demand for agricultural machinery and agrochemicals is due to increase significantly within the next few years. Most important drivers are a growing world population and growth of income, which has an impact on nutritional habits. Yet agricultural production remains inefficient in many parts of the world.
Increasing user numbers are enhancing the role of Social Media not only for B2C but also for B2B companies when it comes to quickly reaching and addressing clients, employees, potential applicants, media representatives, and the general public. A few years ago it was still uncertain whether the hype about Facebook, YouTube, and other Social Media platforms would soon fade. However, now it is clear that surfing and communicating in Social Media is part of everyday life for millions of users.
Employer branding is the new catchphrase in HR marketing. Given the current and the future situation on the labor market, this field of communication is worth every effort: Already today, the demographic development and the so-called “war of talents” lead to bottlenecks in the recruitment of qualified workforce. As a consequence it becomes increasingly important for companies to be perceived as a positive and attractive employer brand by current and potential employees.
Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) will accelerate the modernization and differentiation of the country’s economy. German companies with insight into the Russian market could be major beneficiaries.
Der chinesische Dieselfahrzeugmarkt steht in den Startlöchern für Euro IV.
For successful clients and market-oriented development of new products or systems it makes sense to integrate market research already in the pre-development phase. Schlegel and Partners often plays an important role here, especially in international market research requiring prompt execution for technically demanding and complex products and systems, as the following case of one of our clients shows.
Africa has become an increasingly attractive location for foreign investors not only from EU countries and the US, but also from BRIC countries like Brazil and China. Economic, social, and political stabilization provide improved opportunities to invest in Africa’s abundant natural resources and in land utilization and infrastructure projects. Schlegel and Partners can contribute to the success of going-to-market or investment decisions by gathering the required market information through desk research and qualitative interviews with experts and market participants.
Although worldwide oil and gas production is still increasing, conventional oil production has already peaked, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Oil and gas production technologies are in a transition phase: fracking, oil-sand technologies, and deep-sea production are just a few buzzwords describing current paradigm shifts in fossil fuel recovery. However, technology challenges provide opportunities for oil production equipment manufacturers.
Many advances in heavy commercial vehicles may significantly improve fuel efficiency but require, on the one hand, some five to ten years before implementation. On the other hand, adaptation of road traffic regulations is required to get many of the new improvement technologies on the road.
The aftermarket business has long been recognized by major vehicle manufacturers as offering important sales potential and in particular a source of earnings.
Schlegel and Partners was founded by four partners in 1992 as a management buyout of the central market re-search unit of Freudenberg. The founding idea of acting as a missing link between market research and consulting in the capacity of a global growth consultant still forms the basis of our strategic positioning today.
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Founded in 1916, the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History reconnects more than 100,000 people each year (including their 6,200 members) to nature, indoors and outdoors.
We're not your typical structured museum with stiff curators, cold halls, and strict rules. We like to go outside and get our hands dirty, pick things up and take a closer look, laugh, skip or maybe even jump for joy. Because learning is messy and we learn by doing, not sitting. That's why we offer a different approach to discovering the natural world: one where you're free to wander, ask ''silly'' questions and explore on your own terms. And when you come here you'll see we're a museum unlike anything else. In a nutshell, we're naturally different.
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0.94646 |
Can you name the world’s most delicious food? Based on 35,000 objective votes done by CNN poll and my subjective opinion as a proud Indonesian, it’s BEEF RENDANG! You will know that incredibly proud feeling when your country got acknowledged worldwide for its (and my) favorite dish, you feel like screenshot-ing your screen, print the article, and hang it on your wall. Beef Rendang the world’s most delicious food is classic Indonesian culture. Rendang is considered a “dry” curry, which means the sauce is simmered down to a minimum. Because it is so distilled, the sauce sticks to the meat, making this dish one of the most flavorful.
Another fun fact, Rendang is loved by all ethnics in Indonesia, especially Padangnese who invented the dish (obviously – rolled eyes). Everywhere around Indonesia, you can find Padang-inspired Indonesian restaurant and Rendang is readily available for order. If you happen to stop by Jakarta and going for a photo-hunting quest in Kota Tua, I’d recommend you to try Beef Rendang from Indonesia at Padang Merdeka.
Bring your hat, sunglass, and sunblock! As someone who lives in Jakarta, I sometimes can’t even stand the heat, so do you think you can?
Never leave without a big bottle (or it’s best to bring galoon) of cold cold water.
Keep your camera’s battery full and your eyes on full watch for aesthetic buildings and pick-pockets.
Now on to the star of this article: Indonesian Beef Rendang at Padang Merdeka. Located across Bank BNI building and nearby Stasiun Jakarta Kota, you can easily access this place if you’re travelling by commuter line. To be precise, here’s the complete address: Jl. Lada No.1, Pinangsia, Tamansari, Kota Jakarta Barat, Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta 11110. Padang Merdeka offers you the best Indonesia foods with the great taste.
The entrance is located on the right side of the restaurant, through a bright red gate and not located in front. My suggestion, don’t be silly by trying to look through the dark tinted glass and knock, it’s not the entrance (trust me I know so). As we enter, barricade of friendly staffs greeted me and my friends right away, and we’re seated at the table of our choice.
If you have never eaten at any Padang restaurant before, you need to know some useful tips to prevent you from being so clueless. First, you DON’T NEED to order any food (drinks only), unless you’d like to add orders. Why? Because they’ll deliver them straight to your table in a circus-like way. Second, you DON’T NEED to eat everything on your table. Just pick your favorite ones and eat them with hands (because Padang foods are best eaten with bare hands, proven by Indonesians). Last but not least, NEVER MISS eating Rendang, because life isn’t complete without Rendang. If you can’t eat beef, they have a choice of Chicken Rendang with nasi (rice) or just simply devour the sauce and enjoy it with hot rice.
I must say the Rendang at Padang Merdeka is somehow a bit different to the ones I used to eat. Padang Merdeka’s Rendang looks a bit darker and less oily. And as soon as it touches my taste buds, the sweetness, spiciness, and saltiness hit me right away. I must say that the usual ones are usually spicier than this and less sweet, but I got no complaint with their Rendang because I find that I couldn’t stop munching and end up cleaning up the whole plate till I can see my reflection. Tenderness is alright, but I’d love it if they can be softer than this. Tried other meals such as: Gulai Ayam (Chicken Curry), Tempeh Goreng, Terong Balado, Daun Singkong, Beef Brain Curry, and Sambal Ijo, and for 30 minutes I forgot all the troubles I went through to reach Kota Tua from home.
Overall it’s 8 out of 10 for the Beef Rendang and the restaurant’s services as well as the design. If you’re unfamiliar to Indonesian’s spices or recipes, I’d suggest you to check Padang Merdeka out. There are many things you can do after your meal: explore Museum Fatahilah (right beside it), cycle on neon-colored bike, grab a Delman (carriage with horse) and go around Kota Tua, and/or visit Museum Bank Indonesia and get amazed. Kota Tua is easy to spot, the old, Netherlands-y buildings act as obvious landmarks. Happy Rendang-hunting and don’t forget to have fun!
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Gupteswar is a famous cave shrine of Lord Shiva. It is located at the top of a limestone hill named Badudi Hill which is about 500 meters above sea level.
The place is surrounded by a dense forest of Sal trees and flanked by Kolab river, and Sabari River, a 2 m high Shiva Linga stands in the cave since unknown times means it is created from nature locally says Patal Futa. The shrine is called Gupteswar which means the ' Lord Siva of Hidden Place.'. It is so named because it was lying hidden in the cave up to 1665 for a very long period.
History: In 1665 the King of Jeypur State Maharaj Sri Bikram Dev was got a Order from Lord Shiva in dream to find out the Hidden Place where the Lord Shiva was established. Then King started searching all forests and hills there around and got the Holly Shrine in a cave and started worshiping since then. The Great Maha Shiva Ratri is being celebrating every year.
One can reach it by climbing the 1000 steps flanked with rows of champaka trees. The entrance of the cave is about 3m wide and 2 m in height. There are also several other caves nearby. Inside the second cave there is a large statue called Kali Gai (Black Cow) some people worship it as Kamadhenu the divine cow means who fulfills any wills of devotees, One have to wait there with outstretched palms under the Panha of Kali Gai to collect drops of water which fall only at long intervals and getting a drop of water from Kali Gai is the bestow of God to be blessed with all happiness and prosperity.
The Place is popular with the name of Gupteswar or as Gupta Kedar in the vicinity, this holly place is endowed with unusual panoramic natural beauty, and is associated with Shri Ramachandra the great hero of the epic Ramayana. According to mythology, the linga was first discovered by Lord Ram when he was roaming in the then Dandakaryana forest with wife Sita and brother Laxman and later worshipped it calling it Gupteswar. The poet Kalidas too, described the scenic beauty of Ramgiri forest where the cave temple is referred to in his famous ‘Meghadutta'. The nearby hill has been named "RAMAGIRI.
However, with the passing of time, the temple was unused since the King Sri Bikram Dev searching to get it. Lingam was being worshipped by the tribes of Koraput region. During Shivaratri Celebration Gupteswar Temple draws over 200.000 devotees from Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Chattisgarh. People suffering from incurable diseases come here to worship the god and remain here for months in the hope of getting cured.
Other Attraction Places: Never forget to see the near by places, which are also having great value for your visit Gupteswar.
Paravadi: Paravadi means Para: Pigeons and Vadi: Rack means the Rack for Pigeons. Where you can find thousands of Pigeons of different color living there and popular folklore is that the Pigeons living there are having a great moral and religious value in their behavior. And it is also believed that some of pigeons are living since the mythological age.
Sabari River: Sabari means the feminine word of Sabara the local name of Tribal people and called so in Oriya. The ever floated River Sabari floating in high stone base gives most attraction with fear.
Children’s Park: A children’s Park is maintained there for visitors.
Medicinal Garden: A Garden is maintained there with thousands of species of Rare Medicinal Plants and it is a better place to recognize some rare Plants there.
Tiger Cave: Out of many caves a cave is named Tiger Cave where tigers were living then.
Rama Kunda and Sita Kunda: During Rama Banabasa Sri Ramachandra and Devi Sita and brother Laxman was living in Ramagiri Hill for Months and Sri Rama and Devi Sita was bathing there to worship Lord Shiva in separate ponds now they called so Rama Kunda and Sita Kunda.
Rama Pada , Hati Pada, and so many caves are there to visit.
How to Reach: It will be about 50 K.M from Jeypur. One can find the way to Gupteswar at Ramagiri on the way to Baipariguda from Jeypur. As the Jeypur and Koraput are connected with National High Way and Indian Railways from Vijaya Nagarm in Andhra Pradesh you can reach there in either means. And you can find Night Bus Services from Bhubaneswar to Koraput and Jeypur and even upto Baipariguda on the way to Malkanagiri. You can find Taxi service and Lodgging and broading facility at Jeypur and Koraput to visit the Places around Koraput.
Tikarapada Reserve Forest Or Satakosia Wild Life Sanctuary a Nature Tent for all visitor love to be in Lap of Nature and to feel excitiment with Wild Lives. The beauty and panaromic view of the High Hills around with Deep Forest and Wide Sand beach of River Mahanadi will attract you to stay for another day there in the Nature Tent. You will find picnicer and visitors there starting from the Pampasar Gate up to Tikarapada On Mahanadi River.
You will find Tents on sands of the River Bank as a fascility by Satakosia Wild Life Forest Division for Visitors. Big Umbrellas with Tables and Chairs like Five Star Hotels or Resorts are being provided there to enjoy the beauty of the nature. Where you can stay with prior permission of the Forest Department. The Tents providing water and solar light fascility with beds for Two people will offer you scenic delights of the wildlife at its best in both day and night.
The Gharial crocodile sanctuary, situated there on the bank of Mahanadi River and caring habbits of the local people will also be remeberable and tempting. The blue water of Satkosia Gorge and boating in river will show you Tortoise and different water birds with their natural living style. If you are brave enough to trekk around or as an environmentalists or as a photographer then you will not return with a empty hand or mind.You may find as an ideal place for you to practice river rafting and fishing. Travel in this natural environment and experience the call of the wild at every nook and corner of the forest.
Satakosia Wild life Sanctuary Binkey near to Tikarapada a beautiful nature habitat.
Large sand of River bed bounded with high hills and serpent water body will enchant U at Tikarapada Wild Life sanctuary area.
You Can Catch the sound of the predators, and your chance to watch the elephant, tiger, leopard, Sambar, Gaur, Spotted dear, Poisoned Snakes if you trekk. You can hear high pitched voices of the tribal clans singing from the adjoining village, renders it all the more natural and mystical. Load your backpack with dry foods, mosquito repellents and drinking water and make your way towards the depths of the forest.
Keep alert lookout for antelopes, as they vanish in a fraction of a second before you could actually catch a glimpse of them.The swamp water of the lake provides a perfect breeding ground for these reptiles.
If You move in deeper in the jungle, you may witness a lone Crested Serpent Eagle gliding in lazy circles, searching for its prey. Or a Hornbills rising suddenly from a tall tree. A beautiful Racket Drongo streaks through the path, its black tail trailing behind. It's a sheer feast for the eyes. The best part of this Forest is the old world charm that it has preserved.
How to Reach: How to Reach: Tikarapada is in west-south direction of Angul Town of Orissa and it will be about 45 KM away. If you count from Bhubaneswar it is about 205 K.M. You may reach to the spot hiring a Car or by Pvt. Bus from Angul as it is well connected in road and rail and is situated on the National High Way which is connecting Bhubaneswar to Sambalapur.If You are visiting from Berhampur then Charichakka a Sqaure of State High Way connecting Bhubaneswar- Balangir- Berhampur, where you can find a Car or Trekker for visiting the Place but you have to cross the river Mahanadi from south to north. You have to call loudly to call a boat man from other side of the river.
Visit Thengo Dam a beautiful Picnic Spot in Sonepur District of Orissa .Odisha to have a feel of healthy natural environment.
Thenga Dam Site : A famous Picnic spot in Sonepur district is Thengo Dam Site of Birmaharajpur Block on Harihara Jora Irrigation Project. The Dame site is attracting thousands of local visitors around the year to have a picnic there under the natural and beautiful environment around.
The spectacular water body in foot of the hills and deep forest with cool environment will give you a touch of nature. You can rent a wooden boat with boatman for boating in there. You can also see and feel the charming sound of different species of birds including peacock there in the jungle. Some times in winter you can also find the foreign birds there that are in migration to Chilika Lake. Some times there is also possibility of seeing an elephant, bear or a wolf there in the jungle at the Dam Site. A picnic under the deep shadow of the Jungle will never be erased from your brain if visited.
How to Visit : It is will be 35 Km away from Sonepur the District Head Quarter in North direction via Dharmasala on bank of River Mahanadi, Kotasamalai famous for Patali Srikhetra and Jaloi. One can visit from Sambalapur it will be about 90 KM away in east direction via, Dhanupali Chaka of Sambalapur, Huma famous place for Tilted Temple of Lord Siva, and Goddes Metakani on the way to Ulunda, Dharmasala. In other way one from Deogarh or Angul can visit from NH 42 at Charmal or Motibahal Chaka. You can stay at Sonepur to visit other near by famous spots and temples in the district.
How to Reach: Saptasajya is in west-south direction of Dhenkanal Town of Orissa and it will be about 20 KM away. If you count from Bhubaneswar it is about 100 K.M. You may reach to the spot hiring a Car from Dhenkanal as Dhenkanal is well connected in road and rail and is situated on the National High Way which is connecting Bhubaneswar to Sambalapur.
Pick Time: December to February is Pick period for Picnicker. Unprecedented flow of people happens during that period.
Schools, Colleges especially engineering colleges from the state and outside of the state come to have a Picnic here.
Saptasajya means Sapta: Seven, Sajya : Bed, means Seven Beds of Bhagwan Bishnu, here the beauty and panoramic view or you may say lap of Nature composing of seven mountain beds including several cascading streams flowing from hill tops, cackle of birds and streams, healthy smell of earth with smell of flowers and buds of medicinal plant. Once you reached the Saptasajya Hill, you will be attracted to so many thing you never seen or never heard. You may trek the uphill across many small stream flowing down. One Temple of Lord Siva is there and you will not find any bazaar or market for getting your liking foods so you must be adjusted to available foods or snacks or you may take your prepared food or you may be prepared for a picnic there as most of visitors came here to have a picnic. You can find another small Shiv Ling near above to this temple, passing through lush green forest and bushes of wild flowers and an Ashram on the top where a Sadhu or Monk is dwelling and Practising dhyan . You will feel... So cool...thick forest all around...sound of the streams mixed with the chirping sound of Cuckoos. And the most beautiful part --- the Stream is flowing down to directly falling on the Shiv Linga, on the rock base and no temple is constructed there.
You will find the mouth of the stream coming out from below a rock Just 10 ft above the Siva Ling. A Folklore you may hear, there are some caves above this place of the mountain where only the priest of the Saptasajya can go as Shiv Bhagwan himself stays in those caves guarded by Tigers…Another is that Pandavas of Mahabharat had rested here for some time…when they were in Banabasa.Enjoy your Leisure at SaptaSajya! Have a Picnic! Find a way to express your love to a beloved one with a Red Rose there!
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How to use todo.txt intelligently for plaintext task management.
A text-based task list can save a lot of time because it keeps your fingers on the keyboard and your mind free from deciphering interface baubles and unnecessary bells and whistles. Todo.txt is just one way of keeping a plaintext task list, and is not even the simplest way, but it is a great format that has a great community building great software around it.
I created a unique way of using Todo.txt to manage the numerous projects and tasks I handle each day. It is optimized to help me quickly prioritize today's work, rather than for project planning, and to allow for rapid capture of new tasks. The following sections describe the reasoning behind my choices and provide tips and tricks to getting todo.txt to work well for you.
Your task list should be a essential tool to help you manage your day.
Keep you task list simple, both for speed, and to keep focus where it should be: on working, not on managing tasks.
Capture all your tasks as soon as possible, as quickly as possible.
Organize your task list based on your priorities, right now to keep your next actions up top and ready to be pounced upon.
Keep your task list current, and keep only current tasks in it. Try to keep tasks that you are not certain you will off of your task list. This includes future tasks and project plans, which belong in different files outside your main task list.
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Charm Your Way to Influencing Everyone. Do you use the same exact approach to both groups and individuals? No matter what your style is, you want to incorporate one trait, and that is that you're considerate and will listen to everyone around you and take everyone's thoughts, concerns, and ideas into consideration. This goes a long way in making people feel appreciated, which will make you a positive influence.
Challenge those around you: One of the most important things you can do to influence others is to challenge those around you. If there's a tough situation on the hands of you and your staff, offer your own ideas and potential solutions, but really challenge them to offer their own as well. This will be a positive influence on those around you in that by feeling challenged in any given situation, they'll feel that they can always have something to contribute and that their opinions and suggestions are actually valued. This can go a really long way.
Listen to suggestions: People want to be heard, and for you to be listening to the opinions, ideas, and suggestions of others, it certainly shows positive influence in that it shows true engagement. Again, people want to feel valued and want to feel like their suggestions and opinions matter, so it's very important to give them both that platform and opportunity. In my personal experiences, in a managerial role, I've seen great success with this. For example, if a certain situation arises that creates differing opinions, it's of great benefit to hear everyone's opinion. From a standpoint of being influential, it shows people that listening to those around you is one of the true traits of a great leader.
Tell people what they need to hear: In terms of being influential, it's important to always try to say the right things and to not say the wrong things. Albert Einstein once famously said, \"Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you anywhere.\" Be influential on your staff in that they should be imaginative. This is important in inspiring creativity in the workplace and establishing you as someone who shines with influence among their peers.
It's no secret that it's important to be a positive influence on those around you. From my experience, this is especially true in the office. It's good to keep morale up, and if you're someone who is in a managerial role, it's very important to be influential in a positive manner. Face it - influence matters, and it's not exactly easy to be influential in a positive way. However, with that said, I'm confident that I can help.
Here, I want to share with you some tips on how you can influence others in a positive way around the office.
Identify your style: Self-awareness is where it all begins. Do you use the same exact approach to both groups and individuals? No matter what your style is, you want to incorporate one trait, and that is that you're considerate and will listen to everyone around you and take everyone's thoughts, concerns, and ideas into consideration. This goes a long way in making people feel appreciated, which will make you a positive influence.
Tell people what they need to hear: In terms of being influential, it's important to always try to say the right things and to not say the wrong things. Albert Einstein once famously said, "Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you anywhere." Be influential on your staff in that they should be imaginative. This is important in inspiring creativity in the workplace and establishing you as someone who shines with influence among their peers.
How do you try to be influential in your life and to inspire those around you? Let myself and the readers know in the comments below!
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Ferguson, Missouri (CNN) - Two months.
It looks like it might be that long before a local grand jury decides whether to bring charges in the death of Michael Brown - the loud, passionate calls for swift justice notwithstanding.
The shooting of the African-American teenager by a white Ferguson, Missouri, police officer has sparked days of demonstrations and nights of often violence protests in the St. Louis suburb.
St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch told CNN affiliate KMOV that his office planned to begin presenting the case to a grand jury Wednesday. The grand jury could levy significant charges against Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot and killed the 18-year-old Brown.
(CNN) - The Army will conduct "a comprehensive, coordinated" review into the case of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl - the recently freed soldier whom some have deemed a hero, others a deserter - the military branch's civilian leader announced Tuesday.
Secretary of the Army John McHugh began a statement on Bergdahl's case by saying that "we are grateful that an American soldier is back in American hands" and insisting "our first priority is ensuring Sgt. Bergdahl's health and beginning his reintegration process."
McHugh didn't address specific questions surrounding how the soldier ended up detained in Afghanistan or what he did while in that situation. But he did say that the military's review "will include speaking with Sgt. Bergdahl to better learn from him the circumstances regarding his disappearance and captivity."
"All other decisions will be made thereafter, and in accordance with appropriate regulations, policies and practices," McHugh said.
(CNN) - Three weeks after Malaysia Airlines Flights 370 set off from Kuala Lumpur, search aircraft set off Saturday from Australia - hoping to, finally, find the Boeing 777 in the southern Indian Ocean where experts now believe it ended up.
The area that search teams - including a Chinese Ilyushin IL-76 and an Australian P-3 Orion that set off Saturday morning from Perth - are now focusing on is 1,100 kilometers (680 miles) to the northeast from where they'd been concentrating for more than a week, and it's closer to the Australian coast. This change is thanks to a new analysis of satellite data that Australian authorities say show the commercial airliner could not have flown as far south as once thought.
Saturday's renewed search comes days after Japan and Thailand both said they'd sent new satellite images to Malaysia showing debris fields that could be related to the plane, which vanished with 239 people aboard.
Air Vice-Marshal Kevin Short, commander of Joint Forces New Zealand, told CNN's Erin Burnett five of the dispatched aircraft "located debris in their search area" on Friday. Some of the spottings were "hundreds of miles away" from each other, although Short said this vast expanse is "not unusual" given the ocean conditions and the time passed since the airplane's purported crash.
That includes 11 small objects spotted by one of his military's P-3 planes. CNN's Kyung Lah, who went out on a U.S. Navy P-8 search plane Friday, said the crew of that plane spotted white objects, orange rope and a blue bag.
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Question: I was wondering if you could give me examples of story goal for paranormal romance stories. I think I'm confusing story goal with internal and external goals. Any advice will help thank you.
1. Is primarily pursued by the protagonist.
2. Affects or involves most of the other characters. Either they have an interest in whether this goal is achieved, or they are concerned with the same type of goal themselves.
In Twilight, as it appears to me, the story goal is to gain possession of Bella. Edward (the protagonist) wants to possess her, but in a way that preserves her humanity, while James (the antagonist) wants to consume her humanity by biting her and turning her into a vampire. The werewolves seem concerned with preventing her from being possessed by any vampire, and this goal involves/affects all the other vampires, werewolves, and her father to some extent as well.
On the other hand, the personal concern of Bella (the main character) seems to be her desire to become a vampire and join with Edward.
She has strong feelings for Edward (symptom) and tries to be rational about them (response), but it appears as though the only thing that would satisfy her desire (solution) would be for him to give into his desire and bite her.
Meanwhile, her inner conflict concerns her low opinion of her value, looks, etc. and whether these make her unworthy of Edward's love - even though she appears to be his intellectual match.
Note that the protagonist and the main character (or principle POV) can be different characters, as in this case, but more often they are the same character. However, just as Bella's desire to be bitten is something unique to her in Twilight, a character's personal goal is their own, while the story goal is shared with or involves others.
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Batu Ferringhi is a suburb of George Town in Penang, Malaysia. Located along the northern coast of Penang Island and about 11 km (6.8 mi) northwest of the city centre, it is the prime beach destination in Penang among locals and tourists. To cater to the influx of tourists, several major high-rise hotels have been established along the 4 km (2.5 mi) stretch of beaches, including Hard Rock Hotel.
The beach resorts along Batu Ferringhi also offer various water sport activities, such as parasailing. On a clear day, one could get a picturesque view of the Andaman Sea and Mount Jerai, which is located within the neighbouring state of Kedah. In addition, Batu Ferringhi is famous for its night market that offers a wide variety of merchandise and street food.
There had been human activity within Batu Ferringhi as early as 1592, when an Englishman, Sir James Lancaster, arrived and began pillaging other vessels around Penang Island. However, for much of its recent history, Batu Ferringhi was a quiet village, until the urbanisation of the area beginning in the 1970s.
Due to its location along the northern coast of Penang Island, Batu Ferringhi was hard hit by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
The word Ferringhi is originally a Malay term for a person of Portuguese descent, but eventually came to denote all Westerners. It is, in turn, derived from Arabic ferringi, which was also used in the Middle East and Africa to mean a foreigner from the West.
Batu Ferringhi, therefore, would mean the place where Westerners had come ashore, with the Malay word batu (meaning rock) referring to the rocky shoreline of this particular area.
Among Indians, the area is known as Paringgi Malai.
Batu Ferringhi was first explored in 1592, when Sir James Lancaster, an English privateer, came ashore at this particular area. This made Lancaster the first European to reach Penang Island. Having come ashore aboard the Edward Bonaventure, Lancaster and his crew proceeded to pillage every vessel they encountered for the next four months.
The urbanisation of Batu Ferringhi only began in the 1970s. This involved the construction of several hotels along the beaches, attracting locals and tourists alike. Condominiums soon followed, offering gorgeous views of the sea overlooking the Malay Peninsula. However, these developments did not come without problems, such as the deteriorating seawater quality that has led to the infestation of jellyfish around Batu Ferringhi.
Batu Ferringhi was one of the hardest hit areas during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that ultimately claimed a total of 52 lives in Penang.
In 2009, Hard Rock Hotel opened its Penang branch at Batu Ferringhi, adding to the list of major hotels already within the suburb.
The main thoroughfare within Batu Ferringhi is the coastal Batu Ferringhi Road, part of Federal Route 6. Batu Ferringhi Road continues on from Tanjung Bungah Road, cutting through the heart of the suburb until it becomes Jalan Teluk Bahang at the western edge of Batu Ferringhi. The few roads within this suburb, including Batu Ferringhi Road, are prone to traffic congestion due to its popularity as a tourist destination.
Rapid Penang buses 101 and 102 serve the residents of the suburb, by connecting Batu Ferringhi with George Town and other destinations on Penang Island, such as Tanjung Bungah, Tanjung Tokong, the Penang International Airport and Queensbay Mall.
Another bus service, the Hop-On Hop-Off service, caters primarily to tourists. This service, which utilises open-topped double decker buses, includes three stops within Batu Ferringhi - an optional stop at Miami Beach and two standard stops at Holiday Inn and Hard Rock Hotel.
The only school within the Batu Ferringhi suburb is the Uplands International School, which caters primarily to the expatriate community within this suburb as well as those from the neighbouring Tanjung Bungah suburb.
The nearest public primary and high schools are situated at Tanjung Bungah.
Although Batu Ferringhi does not have a shopping centre, the suburb is notable for its night market. Souvenirs, DVDs, artworks, jerseys, and other apparels and accessories can be found at bargain prices within the night market, which is also lined with various food stalls that sell Penang's famed street cuisine and titbits.
^ a b "The island". www.footprinttravelguides.com. Archived from the original on 2014-06-02. Retrieved 2016-11-11.
^ a b Staff, ExpatGo (2014-06-24). "Sailing Around Penang with Three Expats in a Small Boat". ExpatGo. Retrieved 2016-11-11.
^ a b "Boxing Day tsunami, 10 years on: 'The water came - my family is gone'". Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 2016-11-11.
^ Yee, Kow Kwan. "Sea change for Batu Ferringhi - Community | The Star Online". Retrieved 2016-11-11.
^ "Alleviating traffic congestion in Penang - Features | The Star Online". www.thestar.com.my. Retrieved 2017-05-21.
^ "myPenang - Penang Hop-On Hop-Off is here!". mypenang.gov.my. Retrieved 2017-05-20.
^ "Penang Hop-On Hop-Off Official Website". www.myhoponhopoff.com. Retrieved 2017-05-20.
^ a b "Batu Ferringhi Night Market". Time Out Penang. Retrieved 2017-05-21.
^ a b Planet, Lonely. "Batu Ferringhi Night Market in Batu Ferringhi, Malaysia". Lonely Planet. Retrieved 2017-05-21.
^ "How to spend 24 hours in Penang". Retrieved 2017-05-21.
This page was last edited on 31 January 2019, at 03:38 (UTC).
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When should I use this type of document?
A curriculum vitae is a more extensive document typically used by those with graduate education who are pursuing positions in academia or research.
A curriculum vitae or CV is similar to a resume in that it provides an overview of your professional and educational experience. The difference between the two primarily lies in content and purpose. A CV is typically developed for teaching applications or research positions in a university or research setting. A resume is prepared for employers outside the academic environment.
Include all relevant research experience in your area of specialization. You may choose to list publications, conference presentations and any other evidence of scholarly work in this section.
List all teaching fellowships, assistantships, or any other experiences working with students in a classroom/laboratory setting. You may also choose to list teaching interests or similar categories.
Include service to the university or community. You may also include professional associations, volunteer work, committee membership, etc. in this section.
It is important to incorporate evidence of research, teaching, and service in your CV, but choice of category headings to cover these areas is purely subjective. Most CVs include a sampling of the category headings listed below. Choose category headings that emphasize your particular strengths and achievements. Also, depending on the position to which you are applying, it may make more sense to rearrange categories. For instance, if you are applying for a college teaching position where teaching is the focus, it is recommended to focus on that general area early in the CV. If research is the primary focus of the institution to which you are applying, listing research-related categories near the beginning of the CV will be most effective.
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How powerful is the Queen compared to 2 Rooks ?
Discussion of computer chess matches and engine tournaments.
This textbox is used to restore diagrams posted with the [d] tag before the upgrade.
Re: How powerful is the Queen compared to 2 Rooks ?
With no minor pieces on the board and an average number of pawns (five per side), two rooks are nearly a pawn better than the queen. But on a full board the queen is indeed better than two rooks, as GM Roman Dzindzichashvilli taught me before computers were strong enough to answer the question. On average thruout the game the queen is a bit weaker.
It seems to me that you are confusing the question of "which side is better" with the totally different question of "can one side win with perfect (or very strong) play". With equal pawns (five or less per side) and no particular positional advantage for either side, the two rooks will almost always be superior in the sense that it takes stronger play to hold for the queen than to hold for the rooks. Whether the rooks can win depends on the details of the position. I don't doubt that the queen can draw with perfect play from many such positions, but I also don't doubt that the two rooks can draw more often than not with a pawn less in similar situations. To me, "equal" does not mean "drawable" but it means that neither side has a significantly higher chance to win the game than the other side assuming good but not perfect play (which in most cases is not knowable). Whether "good" means 2000, 2500, 3000, or 3500 level play depends on context.
I believe that the Alpha Zero team has done a lot of tests with different endgame pieces + pawns configurations. not necessarily thousand of games, but meaningful configurations that helped them to determine a more exact value of each pieces, in which computer has proven different and more exact value than what we humans has given each pieces for so long.
AlphaZero searches 60 thousand positions per second and it trained for 9 hours.
60,000 Nodes / second * 3600 seconds / hour * 9 hours = 1,944,000,000 nodes. About 2 billion chess positions were considered by the neural network.
This is actually a drastic underestimate.
The 60,000 nodes per second number is from the match play against SF, where it played on 4 first-generation TPUs.
To generate self-play games for training, 5000 first-generation TPUs were used for 9 hours. The supplementary materials note that each move in training was based on an 800 node search, which averaged ~40 milliseconds.
That's 45000 TPU-hours, times 3600 seconds in an hour, equals 162 million TPU-seconds. At 800 nodes in .04 seconds, that's (162000000/0.04)*800 or about 3.2 trillion nodes calculated in the training games.
As a check on the plausibility of that math, they also say they played 44 million training games in those 9 hours. At ~ 0.04 seconds per played ply, that would suggest there were 162000000/.04 ply played in training, which divided by 44000000 games would be 92 ply per training game, which is similar to what we see in Leela.
So, if we're talking about all positions seen by search in training including duplicates (lots and lots of 800 node search from the start position and such), it's likely something like 3.2 trillion nodes total for that training run.
I see what you mean, and also a lot has to do with what side has the initial move like in this case and if the initial position is advantageous to the Queen side or the two Rooks side to move. Can you show me several positions where there is no advantage to either side no matter which side start and the two Rooks manage to win at the end?
In order to get an Idea oh how many more nodes can Alpha Zero calculate than lets say Komodo or SF10 on the fastest hardware or computer that SF10 can find, can you give us an Idea of how many Nodes / per second can Komodo or SF10 calculate on the fastest computer that Komodo can get hook on?
The way you formulate the question suggests you expect the opposite from what is actually the case.
Stockfish and Komodo calculate around 70 million nodes per second on a fast machine. Alpha Zero calculates only 80 thousand nodes per second.
Thanks for making me realize that it is not how fast a machine with Komodo or SF10 can calculate, but according to what I think I read is that Alpha Zero has done thousand and thousands of training hours and analyzed billions of positions under those training and it is capable of retaining those positions in case it comes again in one of its future game. Therefore, LCO will be stronger than Komodo or SF10 very soon.
In this game GM Magnus Carlsen was trying to demonstrate that to GM Aronian, but when the Opponent is as strong or close in rating and they do NOT have to be two programs like Komodo versus SF10, it becomes very very hard to win with two Rooks.
That is also completely wrong. AlphaZero cannot retain any positions. It just has a far more advanced (but far slower) evaluation than SF10 / Komodo. And not significantly more training games have been used for tuning it than have been used for tuning Komodo or SF10. After 4 hours of training AlphaZero had already reached the level of Stockfish. That was done with many machines in parallel, though. But that is what fishtest does too.
I do NOT believe that the Evaluation is much advanced than what Komodo uise, why does it train so much then, if is not going to use that knowledge later ?
Why do you say it trains 'so much'? It doesn't train more than Stockfish, does it? Especially if you take into account that it is about 1000 times slower than Stockfish, in terms of positions per second it sees during training. (Or perhaps only 100 times, if Stockfish is not running on a high-end machine.) IIRC the AlphaZero training took 4 hours on 5000 TPUs (which is 1250 machines like the one it was playing on.) That would have been 5000 hours on a single such machine. But taking the factor 100 in nps into account, that would correspond to 50 hours of Stockfish tuning. Stockfish development has taken orders of magnitude more than 50 hours tuning time.
And of course Stockfish or Komodo did not start with zero knowledge. It was hard-coded in them which were good and which were bad captures, or that it makes sense to refute moves from the same position in the same way. AlphaZero initially had no clue that a Queen was worth more than a Pawn. It didn't even know whether a Queen was an asset or a liability. A substantial part of the training was used just to acquire the knowledge that is hardcoded in every conventional chess engine.
I understand that Alpha Zero does not have extensive knowledge Like Komodo, or SF10, but I refused to believe that it had Zero knowledge about the worth of the pieces and it only had knowledge about in what direction each piece move, otherwise in the first few in the first few games it probably trade its Queen for a pawn, or a rook or any other pieces that are much inferior, and the same goes for the Rook, that during the first few games the Rook was traded for a Bishop, Knight or even pawn. The only way that I would believe that it had absolutely zero knowledge of the worth of each piece is if I see the first few games.
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While contraction of sarcomeric actomyosin assemblies is well understood, this is not the case for disordered networks of actin filaments (F-actin) driving diverse essential processes in animal cells. For example, at the onset of meiosis in starfish oocytes a contractile F-actin network forms in the nuclear region transporting embedded chromosomes to the assembling microtubule spindle. Here, we addressed the mechanism driving contraction of this 3D disordered F-actin network by comparing quantitative observations to computational models. We analyzed 3D chromosome trajectories and imaged filament dynamics to monitor network behavior under various physical and chemical perturbations. We found no evidence of myosin activity driving network contractility. Instead, our observations are well explained by models based on a disassembly-driven contractile mechanism. We reconstitute this disassembly-based contractile system in silico revealing a simple architecture that robustly drives chromosome transport to prevent aneuploidy in the large oocyte, a prerequisite for normal embryonic development.
Muscle contraction forms the basis of animal locomotion, and at the microscopic scale, contraction of actin filament (F-actin) networks drives a plethora of essential cellular processes. Most prominently, the cortex, a thin and entangled network of F-actin underlying the plasma membrane determines the shape of animal cells, and changes in cell shape underlie cell migration, cell division and tissue morphogenesis (Munjal and Lecuit, 2014; Pollard and Cooper, 2009; Salbreux et al., 2012). While myosin motor activity, non-muscle myosin II in particular, is the main driver of these processes, filament dynamics has been shown to play a critical role as well. For example, cell migration is to a large part driven by polymerization of actin filaments at the cell front and depolymerization at the rear (Cramer, 2013; Mseka and Cramer, 2011; Pollard and Borisy, 2003; Ridley, 2011). Cytokinetic ring closure has been shown to be driven by depolymerization of filaments in some species, although myosin activity certainly is the main driver in others (Green et al., 2012; Mendes Pinto et al., 2012; Neujahr et al., 1997).
In addition to its cortical functions, recent studies revealed extensive 3D F-actin networks in the bulk cytoplasm of large oocytes and embryos with essential functions in intracellular transport processes (Field and Lénárt, 2011). For example, mouse oocytes feature a dynamic cytoplasmic F-actin network required to position the nucleus (Almonacid et al., 2015), the meiotic spindle (Almonacid et al., 2014; Azoury et al., 2008; Schuh and Ellenberg, 2008), and to transport vesicles from the cell center to the cortex, including cortical granules to prevent polyspermy (Cheeseman et al., 2016; Schuh, 2011). While myosin II and myosin V motors have been involved in transporting the spindle and vesicles, respectively, filament dynamics appear to have a key role in these processes as well, regulated by Fmn2/Spire1/2 as well as cortical Arp2/3 nucleators, and other factors (Chaigne et al., 2013; Cheeseman et al., 2016; Holubcová et al., 2013; Pfender et al., 2011; Schuh, 2011; Yu et al., 2014).
Generally, while the mechanism of contractile force generation is well understood in sarcomeric-like assemblies, such as muscles or stress fibers, the mechanisms in disordered F-actin networks, such as the above quasi-2D cortical and 3D cytoplasmic networks, remains much more elusive (Lenz et al., 2012; Murrell et al., 2015). Additionally, computational models and theoretical work so far focused largely on disordered F-actin networks formed by non-dynamic filaments inspired by in vitro reconstituted contractile systems composed of stable filaments (Alvarado and Koenderink, 2015; Belmonte et al., 2017; Bendix et al., 2008; Köhler and Bausch, 2012; Murrell and Gardel, 2014). While it is true that these non-dynamic systems contract efficiently, it is also clear that filament dynamics has key contributions in vivo, as illustrated above. Indeed, although much less investigated, theoretical work has shown that F-actin dynamics is able to generate not only protrusive but also contractile stress (Sun et al., 2010; Zumdieck et al., 2007).
In the past, we discovered a prominent example of F-actin-driven intracellular transport in starfish oocytes, whereby a 3D F-actin network collects chromosomes scattered in the large oocyte nucleus and transports them to the forming microtubule spindle (Lénárt et al., 2005). This F-actin network forms in the nuclear region after nuclear envelope breakdown (NEBD), at the onset of meiosis, and is essential to prevent formation of aneuploid eggs (Mori et al., 2011). It contracts homogeneously and isotropically mediating long-range and size-selective transport of chromosomes sterically trapped in the network. While the contraction of the network is isotropic and homogeneous, connections of the network to the cell cortex provide directionality, resulting in transport towards the microtubule spindle, located at the cortex (Mori et al., 2011).
However, the mechanism underlying contraction of this 3D F-actin network remained unknown. To reveal it, we monitored contractile behavior using the chromosomes as natural probes combined with quantitative imaging of filament dynamics in live oocytes. In parallel, we developed physical models of different mechanisms of contraction, and compared the predictions of these models to the experimental system challenged by physical and chemical perturbations. We find that observations are well fitted by models in which contraction is driven by F-actin disassembly, but not by models of motor-driven contractility. Comparisons of experimental observations to in silico reconstruction of this contractile system reveal a novel and remarkably simple architecture to transport chromosomes, to prevent aneuploidy in the large oocyte.
As we showed previously, chromosomes are sterically entrapped and thereby transported by a contracting F-actin network (Mori et al., 2011). Chromosomes can thus be used as probes to monitor the network’s contractile behavior without potential artifacts associated with F-actin labeling. Therefore, we optimized the spatial and temporal resolution to image and track H2B-3mEGFP or -mCherry labeled chromosomes in 3D during actin-driven transport, 2 to 8 min after NEBD (Monnier et al., 2012; Mori et al., 2011) (Figure 1A,B). We reported previously that contractile activity is isotropic and while the network normally contracts to the animal pole, this merely results from passive anchoring of the network to the cell cortex (Mori et al., 2011). Thus, here we analyzed the pair-wise distances between chromosomes to characterize the network contraction rate, a measure that is independent of the location and even existence of the anchor (Figure 1—figure supplement 1).
Network contraction is characterized by a single rate.
(A) Maximum z-projections of selected time points through the nuclear region of live starfish oocytes expressing H2B-mCherry (cyan) to label chromosomes during actin-driven chromosome congression. n: disassembling nucleolus; AP: animal pole; VP: vegetal pole; right: pseudo-color time projection of z-projections. (B) 3D plot of chromosome trajectories derived from the data set in (A) during chromosome congression (2–8 min after NEBD highlighted in cyan). (C) Plot of pair-wise distances of chromosomes, d versus time for the same data set. The pair-wise approach speed was determined by a linear fit, as shown, and extrapolated to visualize ‘congression time’. (D) Pair-wise chromosome approach speeds depend linearly on the initial distance, d0 for all chromosome pairs. (E) Schematics for one pair of chromosomes while being transported to the AP with a constant speed and decreasing distance. Thus, the contraction rate, α is increasing through the process. (F) Contraction rates calculated for 2 min intervals from 2 to 8 min after NEBD and fitted with Equation 3 to determine the initial approach rate, α0. Best fit α0 is shown in solid line, α0 ± 5% is shown in dashed lines. Scale bars, 20 μm; time is given as mm:ss relative to NEBD. N indicates the number of oocytes.
Thus, we calculated the pair-wise approach rate, α(t) on 2 min intervals throughout F-actin-driven transport. As expected, it increases over time according to Equation 3, allowing us to determine the value of α0 (Figure 1F). The value of α0 derived by this method from a large number of oocytes provided a precise estimate of the remarkably invariable initial contraction rate; α0 = 0.085 ± 0.017 min−1 (N = 53 ± S.D.). Note that the reciprocal of this value, t0 = 1/α0= 11.76 ± 0.27 min is the ‘convergence time’, the time that would be required to transport the chromosomes from their initial position to the final meeting point.
Taken together, analysis of chromosome trajectories as probes embedded in the contracting network reveals a remarkably regular behavior indicative of a homogeneous and isotropic contraction characterized by a single parameter, the initial contraction rate, α0.
To visualize F-actin dynamics underlying this very regular contractile behavior, we expressed the fluorescent F-actin marker UtrCH (mEGFP3-UtrCH or mCherry3-UtrCH) in oocytes (Burkel et al., 2007). In addition, at the time of NEBD we spiked in a small amount of fluorescent phalloidin in a different color. Phalloidin bound rapidly and irreversibly to filaments present at the time of injection allowing us to distinguish the initial network present at NEBD from F-actin that polymerize later (Figure 2A).
Concomitant with network contraction new filaments polymerize along its boundary.
(A) A pulse of phalloidin-AlexaFluor 568 (red) was injected into the nuclear region ~2 min after NEBD in an oocyte expressing 3mEGFP-UtrCH (grays) to label the population of F-actin present at the time of injection. AP: animal pole; VP: vegetal pole. Selected sum-intensity z projections are shown. (B) Intensity profiles along the dashed line in (A) (2 μm wide, rolling average of 0.5 μm). Gray dashed lines indicate the position of the nuclear boundary; asterisks mark the edge of the phalloidin-labeled old network. (C) Kymograph-like plots of the region marked by a dashed rectangle in (A). (D) Similar to (A) except that chromosomes were additionally labeled by H2B-3mEGFP (cyan) in oocytes injected with phalloidin-AlexaFluor 568 (red). z-projections of selected time points are shown. (E) The diameter of the pulse labeled network (D as shown on (D)) decreases linearly during the F-actin-driven chromosome transport. Data were collected from five independent experiments. (F) Contraction speeds calculated by measuring network diameter corresponding to contraction speeds calculated from chromosome approach. Data were collected from two independent experiments. N indicates the number of oocytes. Scale bar: 20 μm; time is given as mm:ss relative to NEBD.
Analysis of these pulse-label recordings revealed that while the network in the nuclear region contracts, new filaments are polymerized on nuclear envelope remnants (NER) forming a new network filling up the space around the contracting initial network (Figure 2A,C, Video 1). Intensity profiles showed that polymerization occurred predominantly at the boundary defined by NER, and to a limited extent within the network (Figure 2B). Correspondingly, we distinguish the network initially filling the nuclear space at NEBD, referred hereafter as ‘old network’, from the ‘new network’ that is polymerized from the NER boundary after NEBD.
Pulse labeling of the contracting F-actin network.
Oocyte expressing 3mEGFP-UtrCH (gray) was injected with phalloidin-AlexaFluor 568 to label the population of F-actin present at the time of injection. Scale bar: 20 μm.
To quantify the rate of contraction of the old network, we fitted a circle to the phalloidin-labeled region and recorded its diameter, D over time (Figure 2E). This revealed that the old network contracted to approximately half of its initial size, and with a nearly constant speed. The rate of contraction derived this way was similar, although somewhat lower than the rate α0 determined by tracking chromosomes (compare Figures 1F and 2E). We then performed direct comparisons on a single cell basis combining phalloidin pulse-labeling with labeling chromosomes (Figure 2D). We found the contraction rate extracted from the pair-wise chromosome approach and the rate derived by measuring the diameter of the phalloidin-labeled ‘old network’ to correlate precisely (Figure 2F). Thus, similar contraction rates are derived by the two methods, however, it appears that phalloidin used to visualize the old network slightly slows contraction and increases variability, likely dependent on the amount of phalloidin injected.
Altogether, visualizing filament dynamics identified two major components in this contractile system: the contraction of the initial ‘old network’ and the polymerization of the ‘new network’ along the NER boundary, filling the space as the old network contracts. Chromosomes are embedded and transported by the old network, thus the contraction rate, α0 derived from pair-wise chromosome approach is a direct measure of the old network’s contraction rate.
Having identified the two main activities, polymerization at the NER and contraction of the network, we next wondered whether chromosome transport is driven by polymerization compressing the network, or contractile forces generated within the network. To distinguish these two possibilities, we ablated the F-actin network in a 3D volume using a pulsed infrared laser. We expected the network to collapse into the ablated region, were pushing forces generated by polymerization to dominate. Instead, a recoil response would evidence tension and thus active contractile forces within the network (Figure 3A).
Forces in the network, rather than pushing by polymerization generate contractility.
(A) Schematics illustrating the expected response to ablation in case of a ‘pushing’ mechanism vs. active contraction of the network. (B) Selected sum-intensity z-projections through the nuclear region of live oocytes expressing 3mCherry-UtrCH. Top row: untreated control; bottom row: injected with a large amount of recombinant UtrCH to stabilize F-actin. One frame just before and frames after 3D ablation along the animal-vegetal axis (red line) are shown. (C) Initial retraction distance as marked by red arrows in (B) in control and stabilized oocytes. Data were collected from three independent experiments. N indicates the number of oocytes. Mann-Whitney’s test, ****p<0.0001. (D) Cut regions outlined by dashed boxes in (B) are shown zoomed and for several time points. Scale bar, 20 μm. Time is given as mm:ss relative to NEBD.
We observed a prominent recoil response with the network rapidly retracting away from the ablated region (Figure 3B–D, Video 2). This shows that the network is under tension and suggests that pushing by polymerization does not have a major contribution. After retraction, the gap did not close, but was filled progressively by F-actin suggesting that in response to the perturbation, filament assembly may occur throughout the network (Figure 3B,D). The recoil response did not depend on the direction of the cut, consistent with isotropic contraction (Figure 3—figure supplement 1).
The response of the F-actin network to 3D laser ablation.
3D laser ablation was performed in oocytes expressing mCherry3-UtrCH without (left) or with recombinant UtrCH-AlexaFluor 568 nm (right) injection. Scale bar: 20 μm.
To test that the recoil observed after laser ablation is not an artifact, we also performed this experiment in oocytes where F-actin was stabilized by injecting a large amount of recombinant, fluorescently labeled UtrCH. Similar to mouse oocytes (Holubcová et al., 2013), high concentration of UtrCH effectively stabilized the network and prevented its contraction (Figure 3B–D, Video 2). Stabilization also prevented the recoil response confirming the specificity of laser ablation.
We thus conclude that production of F-actin at the NER boundary is not the major driver of contraction. Instead, our data show that active forces generated within the network drive contractility. Importantly, the dramatic effects of UtrCH stabilization, along with the minor slowing effect of phalloidin injection above, suggest that F-actin dynamics has a key role in contractile force generation.
Network contraction is correlated with its disassembly.
(A) Quantification of F-actin mass by measuring 3mEGFP- or 3mCherry-UtrCH intensities in the region corresponding to the old network (orange circle). Right: scheme illustrating extrapolation of the intensities measured in the imaging plane to the 3D volume. (B) Relative changes in F-actin mass (normalized between 0 and 1) over time calculated as explained in (A) for several oocytes. Equation 5 was used to fit the data (black curve). Data were collected from five independent experiments. (C) Filament size distribution at the start (cyan) and end (red) of the contraction process: filament length decreases as set by the depolymerization rate k0. (D) Schematic representations and equations for the two viscoelastic models, motor-driven (M) and disassembly-driven (D). (E) Fits of the two models, D in continuous line, M: dashed line to the contraction rates measured experimentally as shown in Figure 1F. N indicates the number of oocytes. Scale bar, 20 μm; time is given as mm:ss relative to NEBD.
where k0 is the initial rate of F-actin disassembly, λ’ the dispersion of the length distribution of F-actin and l(r,t) the normalized average length of F-actin (Figure 4B,C, see Supplementary file 1 for details). We found that Equation 5 fitted well the evolution of F-actin mass allowing us to extract the values of k0 and λ’ (Figure 4B,C). For untreated oocytes, we found k0 = 0.157 and λ’ = 0.6. These parameters are dimensionless as neither the length nor the number of filaments are known in absolute terms.
Next, we explored potential mechanisms that can explain contraction under the constraints of the observed filament dynamics. F-actin networks are commonly modeled as active viscoelastic gels (Hannezo et al., 2015; Hawkins et al., 2009; Julicher et al., 2007; Kruse et al., 2006; Marchetti et al., 2013). For example, this approach was successfully used to model F-actin contraction in droplets of Xenopus egg extracts, with size and time scales comparable to our experimental system (Lewis et al., 2014). Thus, we developed a similar model assuming that effects of filament orientation can be neglected (i.e. assuming isotropic stresses), which is justified especially when no large-scale ordering of the system is observed (Hannezo et al., 2015; Hawkins et al., 2014; Lewis et al., 2014). We further assumed that viscosity mainly arises from network rearrangements rather than viscous drag, or in other words, that the main factor opposing contraction is the unbinding kinetics of cross-linkers (Blanchoin et al., 2014; Salbreux et al., 2012).
We modeled the F-actin network as a viscoelastic gel in which viscous stress σv (originating from friction within the network) and elastic stress σω (originating from F-actin deformation) oppose the network contractile stress σc. We further generalized the model to allow viscosity and elasticity of the system to depend on F-actin concentration, noted A.
in which ω is the strain and G0 Ag is the elastic modulus, with g= 1 , 2 characterizing the power law dependence of elasticity on A.
where η0− Aμ is the viscosity, with µ = 1 , 2 being the power law dependence of viscosity on A.
where C is the contraction coefficient and m=1 , 2 is the power law dependence of contraction on A (Figure 4D).
in which γω k/l is the strain relaxation rate. We integrated Equations 10, 11, 12 and 13 numerically (see Supplementary file 1 for details), and from the solution vr,t, calculated αt using Equation 2. Since we could not find an analytical solution to the system of equations, we are unable to provide a simple formula for αt that is derived from first-principles. In addition, we defined the parameter ϵ describing adhesion at the nuclear boundary, such that the adhesive stress at the boundary is −ϵ C Am (see Supplementary file 1).
In the above framework of the active-gel theory, we first investigated whether a motor-driven (referred hereafter as model M) or a disassembly-mediated process (referred hereafter as model D) could possibly account for the observed decrease in F-actin mass during contraction. We determined the viscoelastic parameters by randomly sampling parameter values and fitting the integration results to the contraction rate α(t) measured experimentally (Table 1 and Figure 1F). We find that both models can recapitulate the observed behavior (Figure 4E). However, the models additionally predict the contraction rate to depend directly on disassembly in model D, whereas this dependence is indirect and additionally depends on motor activity for model M. Thus, it is expected that the dependence of contraction rate on disassembly rate will differentiate the two models. Motivated by this prediction, we experimentally manipulated motor activity and the disassembly rate k0 to assess whether model M or D can predict the observed contraction rate α0 in various perturbation experiments.
Dimensionless viscoelastic parameters for untreated oocytes.
If the contractile process is motor-driven, non-muscle myosin II (NMYII) is the prime candidate to mediate it, as myosin II is the only myosin type that is able to assemble into minifilaments and generate force by pulling filaments towards one another (Murrell et al., 2015; Sellers, 2000; Syamaladevi et al., 2012). Indeed, in whole-oocyte proteomics analyses we found NMYII to be abundant in the starfish oocyte (data not shown). Thus, to test the possible role of NMYII we inhibited its motor activity by the small-molecule inhibitor, blebbistatin. Further, we over-expressed myosin regulatory light chain (MRLC), which we found in starfish oocytes to enhance NMYII activity (Bischof et al., 2017). To our surprise, these perturbations did not affect contraction rates derived from pair-wise chromosome approach (Figure 5A,B). To confirm the effectiveness of the treatments, we followed the same oocytes until the end of the first meiotic division, when the polar body is extruded, accompanied by a global surface contraction wave driven by NMY-2 (Bischof et al., 2017). Consistent with our earlier results, the amplitude of the contraction wave was significantly decreased upon blebbistatin treatment, while it was increased in oocytes over-expressing MRLC (Figure 5C,D). Thus, chromosome transport and derived contraction rates were unaffected by NMY-2 perturbations, which were effective as assessed by their effects on surface contraction waves in the same oocytes. Consistently, we saw no effects on chromosome transport following inhibition of the two common pathways of NMYII activation through myosin light chain kinase and Rho kinase, by injecting ML-7 and Y-27632, respectively (Figure 5A–D).
Non-muscle myosin II perturbations do not affect the rate of contraction.
(A) Maximum-intensity z-projection through the nuclear region of oocytes expressing H2B-mCherry (cyan), either incubated for 3 hr with blebbistatin (300 μM), for 1 hr with ML-7 (100 μM) or Y-27632 (100 μM), or expressing MRLC-mEGFP, or treated with DMSO at a concentration corresponding to that of the blebbistatin treatment. Dashed circles represent the initial nuclear contour. Right: pseudocolored time projection of z-projections. Scale bar, 20 μm; time is given as mm:ss relative to NEBD. (B) Top: contraction rate over time for each condition with fits for determining α0 done as for Figure 1F. Bottom: box plots combined with dot plots of derived values of α0 for multiple oocytes. N indicates the number of oocytes. ANOVA: p<0.26. (C) Left: schematic of starfish meiosis to illustrate the relative times of NEBD, chromosome congression and surface contraction waves. Right: transmitted light frames at the maximum deformation during the surface contraction wave of oocytes treated exactly as for (A). (D) Quantification of the strength of the shape change (maximum variance of surface curvature) during the surface contraction wave performed on the same oocytes treated with blebbistatin, Y-27632 and ML-7 and injected with MRLC and corresponding DMSO control, confirming the effectiveness of the treatments. Dot plots of measurements on individual oocytes overlaid with box plots of the same data. N indicates the number of oocytes. ANOVA, p<0.0001. Data were collected from three independent experiments.
The only alternative scenario we could envisage is a mechanism similar to that driving long-range vesicle transport, nuclear and spindle positioning in mouse oocytes (Chaigne et al., 2013; Holubcová et al., 2013; Schuh, 2011). In this case, directional transport is thought to result from polymerization of actin filaments on vesicles by Fmn2/Spire1/2 nucleators and transport of vesicles on these filaments by myosin V motors. However, a similar mechanism is unlikely to function is starfish oocytes, as this mechanism is strictly dependent on vesicles and in the nuclear region of starfish oocytes we did not observe any membranous structures (Figure 5—figure supplement 1A), and the time scales do not match with the process running an order of magnitude slower in mouse as compared to starfish oocytes. Additionally, when we expressed a dominant-negative tail construct of myosin Vb (Schuh, 2011), we observed no effect on chromosome transport and derived contraction rates (Figure 5—figure supplement 1B,C).
As shown above, the mass of F-actin in the old network continuously decreases, and filament stabilization inhibits contraction, suggesting a direct link between F-actin disassembly and network contraction. To test this, we titrated in a stabilizing activity by injecting increasing amounts UtrCH using a quantitative microinjection method (Jaffe and Terasaki, 2004). Analysis of pair-wise chromosome approach showed that UtrCH slowed chromosome transport in a dose-dependent manner (Figure 6A,C). We derived the contraction rates for each condition as for Figure 1E,F, and using the contraction rate we calculated the size of the old network and the F-actin mass contained within, as for Figure 4A. Analysis of F-actin mass in the old network revealed that UtrCH slows net F-actin disassembly in a dose-dependent manner (Table 2, Figure 6B,D). Quantification of changes in mean UtrCH intensity in a fixed size region on the other hand revealed similar F-actin density despite the very different contraction rates (Figure 6E and Figure 4—figure supplement 1B, respectively). In other words, stabilization by UtrCH did not render the network denser or sparser, it merely slowed its contraction. As a result, contraction rates (α0) and decrease in F-actin mass were reduced in a correlated manner, indicating a direct coupling between disassembly and contraction.
Stabilization of filaments slows disassembly and contraction rate.
(A) Maximum-intensity z projections of the nuclear region of oocytes expressing H2B-mCherry (cyan) and injected with different amounts of recombinant UtrCH or PBS as control. Dashed circles represent the initial nuclear contour. Right: pseudocolored time projection of z-projections. (B) Selected confocal sections through the nuclear regions of live oocytes expressing mCherry3-UtrCH. The extrapolated size of the old network shown by colored dashed circles that were used for calculation of F-actin mass. Region of constant size shown by colored solid circles is used to calculate F-actin density. (C) Contraction rates (α0) were calculated as for Figure 1F. Box plots combined with dot plots. Kruskal-Wallis’ post hoc test, **p<0.008; ****p<0.0001. (D) Quantification of F-actin mass in the old network in the different conditions shown in (B) and calculated as illustrated in Figure 4A. (E) Quantification of F-actin density in a constant size region shown in (B). (F) Fit of observed contraction rates to motor- and disassembly-driven models of contraction (dashed and continuous lines, respectively). Scale bars: 20 μm; time is given as mm:ss relative to NEBD. N indicates the number of oocytes. Data were collected from at least three independent experiments.
Disassembly rates k0 (min−1) and dispersion of F-actin length distributions.
*The solvent, DMSO had an effect on the viscolelastic parameters even in controls (Supplementary file 3).
We next compared these quantitative observations to the predictions of models of motor- and disassembly-driven contractile mechanisms. We first determined the viscoelastic parameters from control experiments (i.e. oocytes injected with PBS; Supplementary file 2) that were very similar to those for untreated oocytes (Table 1). We then used the measured disassembly rate k0 and the dispersion of filament length λ’ to predict the contraction rate for each condition (without changing any other viscoelastic parameters) (Table 2). The two models, motor- and disassembly-driven, predicted very distinct behaviors in response to increasing UtrCH concentrations. For intermediate and high UtrCH levels, the motor-driven model predicted a fast increase of contraction rate, in contrast to the disassembly-driven model predicting contraction rate to remain nearly constant over time, well matching experimental observations (Figure 6F). Consistently, the initial contraction rate, α0 derived from the disassembly-driven, but not from the motor-driven model, predicted contraction rates in response gradual stabilization (Table 3).
Contraction rates α0 (min−1 ± S.D.) in response to increasing stabilization (UtrCH).
This is explained by the fact that in the disassembly-driven mechanism contraction and disassembly rates are inherently coupled. In the motor-driven model, decreasing disassembly rate caused an increase in F-actin concentration that resulted in more effective motor action, leading to the observed increase of contraction rate over time. Similar results were obtained with a purely viscous model (Figure 6—figure supplement 1 and Supplementary file 1).
To further test the active role of disassembly in driving contraction, we used Latrunculin A, a toxin that sequesters actin monomers. Therefore, Latrunculin A is expected to block actin filament assembly and to enhance depolymerization by reducing the effective monomer concentration (Spector et al., 1989). Thus, in a dynamically assembling and disassembling network the net effect will be shifting the equilibrium towards disassembly.
We observed a dramatic increase in contraction rate upon acute treatment with a high dose of Latrunculin A (Figure 7A, Video 3). Starting approx. 50 s after Latrunculin A addition, the network diameter begun to decrease at rates approx. three-fold higher than DMSO controls (Figure 7B). Quantification of F-actin mass in the rapidly contracting old network revealed that F-actin amount decreased at a correspondingly faster rate (Figure 7C, Figure 4—figure supplement 1C and Table 2).
Enhancing disassembly speeds up contraction.
(A) Selected frames from a time lapse of confocal sections through the nuclear region of live oocytes expressing mEGFP3-UtrCH (gray). Oocytes were treated with either Latrunculin A (2.5 μM) or a corresponding amount of DMSO ~2 min after the start of NEBD. (B) The size of the contracting network was calculated similar to Figure 2D. (C) Quantification of F-actin mass in the old network as described in Figure 4A. (D) Comparison of fits of motor- and disassembly-driven models to the observed network contraction rate (dashed and continuous lines, respectively). N indicates the number of oocytes. Data were collected from at least three independent experiments.
Contraction of the F-actin network accelerates upon acute treatment with Latrucunlin A.
Oocytes expressing 3mEGFP-UtrCH to visualize F-actin were acutely treated either with DMSO (left) or Latrunculin A (right). Scale bar: 20 μm.
Similar to above, we next determined the viscoelastic parameters of the network in the DMSO control (Supplementary file 3, note that this time αt was derived from fitting the network diameter since chromosomes escape and thus cannot be used for the analysis, Figure 7—figure supplement 1). We then used the measured disassembly rate k0 and the dispersion of filament length λ’ to predict αt by the two models (Table 2). While the motor-driven model predicted the contraction rate to change little upon increased disassembly, the disassembly-driven model predicts an increase in contraction rate closely matching experimentally observed values (Figure 7D).
In summary, the observed changes in contraction due to perturbations of motor activities, as well as stabilizing and destabilizing filaments, are well predicted by a model in which contraction is driven by disassembly, but not by a motor-driven model. While in many aspects the two models are similar (e.g. both models include the ‘fluidization’ of the network by disassembly), the principal difference is that in the disassembly-driven model disassembly and contraction are directly coupled.
Our data suggest that the F-actin network transporting chromosomes in starfish oocytes contracts by a mechanism mediated by filament disassembly. To explore the mechanism at the filament level, we implemented an agent-based model in the Cytosim software (Nedelec and Foethke, 2007). We based the model on recently published cytosim simulations, used to support a general theoretical framework of contractility in disordered filament networks, albeit in that case with static filaments (Belmonte et al., 2017). As in the published model, we used a circular 2D geometry, assuming a ‘nuclear region’ with a radius of 10 μm initially filled by filaments having the rigidity of F-actin. We then added a few features to model the starfish chromosome transport system: first, disassembly occurring at the same rate for all filaments throughout the network; and second new filament assembly at the boundary. We also introduced ‘chromosomes’, passive objects embedded in the network for the purpose of producing simulated trajectories.
We first tested whether the combination of disassembly and cross-linking could drive network contraction. Consistent with previous theory and experiments (Belmonte et al., 2017; Bendix et al., 2008; Braun et al., 2016), in the absence of molecular motors the disassembling network did not contract over a broad range of parameters (number of filaments, cross-linkers and their unbinding rates) tested (Figure 8—figure supplement 1A–C).
This suggested that contraction in our system either requires a molecular motor or a specific molecular activity that is capable of harnessing F-actin disassembly to produce contractile force. This latter can be a molecule capable of tracking the depolymerizing end of a filament and forming a connection to a neighboring filament at the same time (Zumdieck et al., 2007). Introducing such elements into the simulations, referred to as end-binding cross-linkers, resulted in robust large-scale contraction of the disassembling network in the absence of molecular motors (Figure 8—figure supplement 1A,B).
We then tested the effects of assembly of new filaments at the network boundary. This reproduced well the observed behavior, whereby newly produced filaments fill up the space left by the ‘old’ contracting network. Interestingly, we found that contraction rate is rather insensitive to the rate of filament assembly at the boundary: insufficient or excess filament production rates led to inhomogeneity in the network, but this did not significantly affect the rate of contraction (Figure 8—figure supplement 1D). This suggests that the contraction of the old network, and new filament assembly at the NER boundary do not necessarily need to be coupled, and this is consistent with experimental observations. First, we observed an accumulation of filaments at the boundary of old and new networks in oocytes in which contraction and filament production was imbalanced by UtrCH stabilization (Figure 8—figure supplement 1E). Second, in untreated oocytes we observed a gradual accumulation of filaments at the NER boundary from the vegetal to the animal pole. This can be explained by constant rate of filament production all along the boundary, and while these produced filaments are distributed to fill in the relatively larger gap at the vegetal pole, filaments accumulate at the animal pole where there is no gap (Figure 8—figure supplement 1E). Thus it appears that filament production does not contribute to force production; it rather serves to fill in the gap between the ‘old network’ and cytoplasmic F-actin networks, mechanically isolating the contractile system in the nuclear region from the cytoplasm (Figure 8—figure supplement 1E).
As the final step, we combined these components of the contractile system, and set the rate of global disassembly and assembly at the boundary to match experimental observations. We then simulated two scenarios: (i) contraction driven by an end-binding cross-linker harnessing depolymerization for generating contractile force; (ii) myosin II-like motor activity driving contraction of the disassembling network (in presence of cross-linkers, but without end-binding cross-linkers) (Figure 8A,B). Both simulations produced robust contraction. However, while contraction mediated by the end-binding cross-linker closely reproduced several key features of the experimental system, motor-driven contraction showed a distinct behavior not observed experimentally (Figure 8C, Video 4). First, the disassembly-driven mechanism invariably produces contraction with a constant speed, as observed experimentally, while motor-driven contraction typically accelerates (Figure 8C). Second, while a strictly quantitative comparison of the 2D simulations and the 3D experimental system is not possible, network density remains nearly constant during contraction in the disassembly-driven simulations, as in experiments, while during motor-driven contraction network density continuously increases (Figure 8D). Further, the simulations reproduce the fact that contraction rate for a disassembly-driven mechanism is tightly coupled to the rate of disassembly (Figure 8E).
In silico reconstruction of a disassembly-driven contractile system.
(A) Top: schematic representation of the mechanism by a hypothetical end-tracking cross-linker serving as ‘depolymerization harnessing factor’. Bottom: zoom on two filaments linked by such end-tracking cross-linker as implemented in simulations in (B). The blue ‘head’ corresponds to a binder subunit, the red head binds and tracks the depolymerizing end. (B) Snapshots of 2D Cytosim simulations for motor- and disassembly-driven mechanisms. Simulations start with 5000 filaments (red) of a length of 1.5 μm and a disassembly rate of 0.0015 μm/s for all filaments. New filaments (white) are added at the boundary at a constant rate of 12 filaments per second. Chromosomes attached to the network are shown in cyan. (C) Left panels: plot of pair-wise distances of chromosomes, d versus time derived from simulations in (B). Right panels: Contraction rates calculated for 2 min intervals, similar to Figure 1E,F, for different rates of filament production. (D) Filament density derived from the simulations shown in (A). (E) The radius of the contracting ‘old’ network was extracted from simulations similar to that shown in (A) testing the effect of disassembly rates in the disassembly-driven mechanism.
Cytosim simulations of motor- and disassembly-driven mechanisms to generate contraction.
Simulations show production of filaments (gray) while initially present filaments (red) are contracting to transport chromosomes (cyan).
Taken together, the simulations are consistent with the active gel theory, and additionally identify the ‘disassembly harnessing factor’ as the key component driving the contractile system. By searching the literature for molecular candidates for such factor with features predicted by the simulations, we found that a formin-like molecule may fit these requirements. It has been shown that in vitro and under specific conditions the formin, mDia1 is able to track depolymerizing ends and generate pulling forces on the disassembling filament end (Jégou et al., 2013; Mizuno et al., 2007). In addition, formins have been shown to have cross-linking activities on their own or by binding to other actin regulators such as Spire (Esue et al., 2008; Montaville et al., 2014). In this way a hypothetical formin may serve as an effective ‘harnessing factor’.
We tested this hypothesis by inhibiting all formin-like activities in the oocyte by SMIFH2, a small-molecule inhibitor of the FH2 domain contained and essential for the activity of all known formins (Rizvi et al., 2009), and which has already been evaluated in mouse and starfish oocytes (Kim et al., 2015; Ucar et al., 2013). We thus quantified the contraction rate and F-actin mass in oocytes treated with SMIFH2 and compared to DMSO controls (Figure 9A–D and Figure 4—figure supplement 1D, Table 2). Impairing formin activity led to a significant decrease of network contraction rate and a reduction of F-actin mass loss, similar to stabilization by UtrCH, and well predicted by the disassembly-driven model (Figure 9E; Table 4 and Supplementary file 4).
Inhibiting formin FH2 domain activity slows contraction.
(A) Maximum-intensity z-projection through the nuclear region of oocytes expressing H2B-mCherry (cyan), either incubated with DMSO or SMIFH2 (50 μM). Right: pseudocolored time projection of z-projections. Dashed circles outline the initial nuclear contour. Scale bar: 20 μm; time is given as mm:ss relative to NEBD. (B) Selected confocal sections through the nuclear regions of live oocytes expressing mCherry3-UtrCH. The extrapolated size of the old network shown by dashed circles is used for calculation of F-actin mass. (C) Left: contraction rate over time for each condition with fits for determining α0 as in Figure 1F. Right: box plots combined with dot plots of α0 for multiple oocytes. N indicates the number of oocytes. Mann-Whitney’s test, ***p<0.0005. Data collected from three independent experiments. (D) Quantification of F-actin mass in the old network calculated as in Figure 4A. (E) Fit of observed contraction rates to motor- and disassembly-driven models of contraction (dashed and continuous lines, respectively).
Contraction rates α0 (min−1 ± S.D.) in response to SMIFH2 treatment.
While these results suggest that a formin-like molecular activity may be harnessing the free energy originating from disassembly of actin filaments, unfortunately the experimental tools currently available in starfish oocytes are limited, and thus identification of this factor will remain a challenge for the future.
Animal oocytes typically have an exceptionally large nucleus storing nuclear proteins such as histones needed for early embryonic development. Oocytes also divide very asymmetrically in order to retain these nutrients in a single egg. The requirement for this highly asymmetric division constrains the size of the meiotic spindle. Therefore, across animal species, the meiotic spindle is small and this necessitates additional mechanism to collect and transport chromosomes scattered in the large nuclear volume to the forming microtubule spindle.
Here, we propose and reconstruct in silico a simple and robust architecture for an F-actin-based contractile system adapted to the essential function of transporting chromosomes in the large oocyte. First, the process is triggered by NEBD opening the previously inaccessible nuclear compartment to cytoplasmic actin, actin assembly factors and cross-linkers resulting in the rapid assembly of a cross-linked F-actin network in the nuclear region. As revealed by our simulations, the only additional components necessary are: (i) filament production along the boundary to separate the nuclear region from cytoplasmic F-actin networks allowing contraction towards the center, and (ii) overall filament dynamics shifted towards disassembly. In the presence of a ‘depolymerization harnessing factor’ this system undergoes robust contraction exhibiting features that closely match the experimental observations. These include constant speed, stable network density during contraction (well matched to the size of chromosomes [Mori et al., 2011]), and graded response to filament stabilization and destabilization, but no effect of motor inhibition. We find that the rate of disassembly is the key parameter controlling the rate of contraction, while contraction rate is broadly insensitive to filament production at the boundary. Finally, an additional elegant feature of the system is that the disassembling network will eventually release the transported chromosomes, as it loses connectivity and stops contracting. By contrast, in the absence of disassembly, a contracting network would necessarily densify, in which case the chromosomes would be surrounded by a tight meshwork of F-actin at the end of contraction, which would likely interfere with their capture by spindle microtubules.
In conclusion, we investigated here a contractile system adapted to transport chromosomes in large oocytes. Both experiments and simulations point to an F-actin disassembly-driven mechanism driving this process, as a simple and robust solution to the challenge posed by the size and geometry of the starfish oocyte. Network contraction can be seen here as a large-scale treadmilling system, where F-actin disassembles in bulk and is replenished by filaments polymerized at the NER boundary. However, the evidences lead us to conclude that de-novo filament assembly at the NER boundary does not participate in force generation, which rather originates in the bulk of the network.
Key questions remain open regarding the detailed molecular mechanism underlying disassembly-driven force generation. The first question is the exact source of free energy driving the process. While actin polymerization is well established to produce force, at cell protrusions, for example (Footer et al., 2007; Krause and Gautreau, 2014), force production by disassembly has so far only been evidenced in vitro for specific actin concentration (Jégou et al., 2013). It is clear that microtubule depolymerization can produce force (Grishchuk et al., 2005), that is harnessed for example to drive separation of sister chromatids in anaphase (Cheeseman and Desai, 2008; Westermann et al., 2006). Similar to tubulin, actin polymerization is tightly coupled to nucleotide hydrolysis driving the system out of equilibrium that may enable generation of force by depolymerization (Braun et al., 2016). Alternatively, entropic forces generated either by crowding agents surrounding filaments or by diffusible cross-linkers confined in filament overlaps could drive contraction (Braun et al., 2016), but we have not tested this possibility.
Another important question is the identity and nature of the factor harnessing the free energy originating from disassembly of actin filaments, and converting it into contractile force. Intriguingly, experiments in vitro and our initial experiments in starfish oocytes hint at formins as potential candidates for this function. These results need to be confirmed, since they rely on a small-molecule inhibitor, SMIFH2, which has been shown to inhibit formins in starfish oocytes (Ucar et al., 2013), but its specificity and selectivity profile is yet to be characterized. Secondly, the observed effect may be indirect resulting from the altered balance between other formin-driven actin assembly pathways and Arp2/3 nucleated structures, as recently showed in yeast (Burke et al., 2014). Finally, although Jégou and colleagues clearly demonstrated tracking of filament ends by mDia1 (Jégou et al., 2013), we are at present unable to assess how similar or different these in vitro conditions may be from those in starfish oocytes, where (dis)assembly dynamics at filaments ends is likely to be regulated by multiple, so far unidentified factors.
It will be very exciting to test in the future whether formins, so far primarily considered to promote polymerization, may be also involved in transmitting force at disassembling filaments ends in vivo. However, at this point we are not able to exclude other scenarios, such as rapid re-binding of a cross-linker to the shrinking filament end (Mendes Pinto et al., 2012). Further, the rate of disassembly could be affected by severing, generating more depolymerizing ends, and the actual rate of depolymerization at the end set by capping and depolymerizing factors. More elaborate models are necessary to explore these scenarios. In either case, the contractile 3D network we analyzed here, adapted to the task of transporting chromosomes in the large starfish oocyte, will continue to be a valuable system to further explore the important mechanistic details of the so far poorly understood motor-independent mechanisms of contraction.
Starfish (P. miniata, also known as Asterina miniata) were obtained from Southern California Sea Urchin Co., Marinus Scientific, South Coast Bio-Marine, or Monterey Abalone Co. and maintained in seawater tanks at 15°C at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) Marine Facility. Oocytes were isolated and injected using mercury-filled needles as described elsewhere (Jaffe and Terasaki, 2004). Recombinant protein markers were injected shortly (10–15 min) after initiation of meiosis, whereas mRNA injections were done the day before and incubated overnight at 14°C to obtain sufficient levels of protein expression. Meiotic maturation was triggered by the addition of 10 µM 1-methyladenine (ACROS Organics). NEBD typically started 25 min after hormone addition, and only oocytes starting NEBD between 15 and 35 min were analyzed. Oocyte centrifugation was performed at 2500 rpm for 20 min (Multifuge 3; Heraeus) at 4°C, as detailed elsewhere (Matsuura and Chiba, 2004; Mori et al., 2011).
H2B-3mEGFP, H2B-mCherry (Neumann et al., 2006), mEGFP3- and mCherry3-UtrCH (Burkel et al., 2007) and MRLC-mEGFP (Bischof et al., 2017) were subcloned into pGEMHE for in vitro transcription as described elsewhere (Lénárt et al., 2003). Mouse sequence of Myosin Vb Tail was used to search for homologs in the P. miniata transcriptome by BLASTP (Altschul et al., 1990). Hits were considered homologs when the e-value was < 10−20. Identified cDNA sequence was synthetized by GENEWIZ, fused to mEGFP and subcloned into pGEMHE for in vitro transcription. Capped mRNAs were synthesized from linearized templates using the AmpliCap-Max T7 High Yield Message Maker and extended with poly(A) tails using the Poly(A) Tailing kit (CellScript). mRNAs were dissolved in 11 µl RNase-free water (typically at 8–12 µg/µl) and injected to 1–5% of the oocyte volume. Histone H1 from calf thymus (Merck) was labeled with AlexaFluor 568 succinimidyl ester (Invitrogen) according to the manufacturer’s instructions, purified, concentrated by Vivaspin columns (10,000 MW, Sartorius) and was injected to 0.1% of the oocyte volume. DiIC16(3) (Invitrogen) was dissolved in vegetable oil to saturation and injected into oocytes as in (Lénárt et al., 2003). The methanol stock of phalloidin-AlexaFluor 568 (Invitrogen) was dried and dissolved in PBS (pH 7.2) and amounts corresponding to 10−5 units were injected directly into the nuclear region of oocytes ~ 1 min after NEBD. Utrophin CH domain (UtrCH) (Burkel et al., 2007) was subcloned into pET24d(+) for expression in E. coli. The recombinant protein was expressed for 1 hr at 37°C and purified on a Ni-NTA resin (QIAGEN). The purified protein was labeled by AlexaFluor 488 and AlexaFluor 568 succinimidyl ester (Invitrogen) according to the manufacturer’s instruction, purified by gel filtration (PD-10, GE Healthcare) and concentrated by Vivaspin columns (10,000 MW, Sartorius) before injection to oocytes. Fluorescently labeled recombinant UtrCH was injected 5–10 min prior to NEBD.
For drug treatments, oocytes were transferred into plastic dishes (Ibidi #80131). To inhibit myosin II ATPase activity, oocytes were incubated with a final concentration of 300 µM Blebbistatin (Abcam) for at least 3 hr before starting maturation; with ML-7 (Tocris) and Y-27632 (Enzo Life Sciences) at a final concentration of 100 µM for 1 hr. To induce acute F-actin depolymerization, oocytes were first matured and then treated with Latrunculin A (Abcam) after NEBD, as NEBD is known to depend on actin polymerization in starfish oocytes (Mori et al., 2014). To inhibit formin FH2 activity, we incubated oocytes with SMIFH2 (Tocris) at a final concentration of 50 µM for at least 2 hr.
Microscopy was done on a Leica SP5 or SP8 confocal microscope equipped with a fast Z-focusing device (SuperZ galvo stage) and using a 40x HCX PL AP 1.10 NA water immersion objective lens (Leica Microsystems). To record chromosome transport, starfish oocytes were imaged in 3D (a Z-step of 2 µm over 70 µm) over time (time step of 5 s) using a square frame of 256 × 256 pixels at a pixel size of 447 nm. To monitor F-actin network contraction, starfish oocytes were imaged in 3D centered on the median plane (plane of biggest surface) with a Z-step of 2 µm covering 10–20 µm over time (time step 10 s) using a square frame of 512 × 512 pixels at a pixel size of 223 nm. All imaging was performed at room temperature (20–22°C).
A pulsed two-photon laser (Chameleon, Coherent) was interfaced to a LSM780 confocal microscope (Zeiss) through a customized optical path aligned with the optical axis of the microscope. We sequentially imaged (a Z-step of 2 µm over 20 µm every 10 s) and performed 3D ablation (typical duration ~ 1 s) by imaging a stack of 1 × 50×60 µm, with a Z-step of 2 µm at 800 nm (30% laser power). Imaging was started ~ 1 min before the 3D ablation.
Image processing was done using Fiji (Schindelin et al., 2012). Figures were assembled in Adobe Illustrator. Data analyses were performed using Matlab (MathWorks). Image data are shown after brightness and contrast adjustment and application of a 2D Gaussian blur filter (sigma value: 0.2–1.0). Some image data were registered using the ‘StackReg’ plugin implemented in Fiji to correct for oocyte movements during experiments. Panels show either single Z-slices, maximum or sum intensity projections as indicated in the figure legends. Colored time projections were done using the TimeRGBcolorcode macro in Fiji. Chromosome tracking and data analysis were done by in-house routines written in Matlab. Segmentation and tracking algorithms are described elsewhere (Monnier et al., 2012). Pair-wise relative chromosome velocities were defined as the slope of the best-fit line (R2 > 0.9) to the separation distance between the pair versus time. Similarly, pair-wise chromosome approach rate was defined as the slope of the linear fit to the separation distance between the pair for every 2 min interval during the actin-driven transport phase (from 2 to 8 min after NEBD).
To control for photobleaching, we measured fluorescence intensity in a small region in the cytoplasm during the time course of the experiment. Oocytes in which the fluorescence intensity decrease exceeded 10%, were not included in further analysis.
To measure the mass of F-actin, a custom-written Fiji macro was first used to automatically segment the nuclear region based on either the DiIC16(3) fluorescence or the bright field channel. This pipeline included a FeatureJ Hessian filtering, followed by a 2D Gaussian filtering and automatic thresholding using the ‘Otsu’ or ‘Huang’ algorithm. The segmented area was then used on the F-actin channel to measure the density (‘mean’) (Figure 4A and Figure 4—figure supplement 1). To estimate the mass of F-actin within the contracting network over time, we used the initial outline of the nucleus at the onset of the actin-driven phase, and applied iteratively the function ‘Enlarge’ with a factor equals to -(α0) to extrapolate the area and further the volume of the contracting network. Thus, the mass over time was measured as the product of the density and the extrapolated volume at each time point. For Latrunculin A-treated oocytes, we proceeded in two steps: before the addition of Latrunculin A, we extrapolated the size of the old network using α0 derived from chromosome tracking. After drug addition, we measured the size of contracting old network, and derived the contraction rate similar to Figure 2E.
Surface curvature measurements were performed using an algorithm written in Matlab and described elsewhere (Bischof et al., 2017). The strength of surface contraction waves was defined by the maximum variance of the radius of curvature. The Matlab script is available in the Supplementary file 6. Statistical tests used were unpaired nonparametric tests (Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis) implemented in Matlab.
The contractile networks were simulated with Cytosim (Nedelec and Foethke, 2007) using a Langevin dynamics approach. Actin filaments are represented by incompressible bendable filaments of rigidity 0.075 pN.μm2 (persistence length of 18 µm) in a medium of viscosity 0.3 Pa.s (Belmonte et al., 2017; Gittes et al., 1993). Filaments have an initial length of 1.5 µm and are discretized into segments of 100 nm. Disassembly occurs from one end at a speed of 0.0015 µm/s. The other end is static. Cross-linkers are modeled as Hookean springs of 10 nm resting length and rigidity of 250 pN/µm with a binding rate kon = 10 s−1 (binding range of 0.01 μm) and an unbinding rate koff = 0.1 s−1 that is independent of the force exerted by the link. Motors are also Hookean springs of similar characteristics as cross-linkers, but motors additionally move on filaments with a speed of 0.02 µm/s, with a linear force-velocity relationship characterized by a maximal stall force of 6 pN. Chromosomes are modeled as point-like particles to trace the network evolution, but without a drag they do not affect its behavior. Chromosomes can bind a single filament with a binding rate kon = 10 s−1 (range of 0.1 μm) and a force-independent unbinding rate koff = 0.0001 s−1, and are also able to track the depolymerizing end of filaments. Actin disassembly, cross-linker and motor binding and unbinding events were modeled as first-order stochastic processes (Gillespie, 1977).
To limit the computational cost and focus on the effect of the mode of contraction, we limited the simulation to a circular two-dimensional system of constant radius 10 µm and we neglected the steric interaction between filaments. The disc was populated initially by 5000 filaments of 1.5 µm long, 20,000 cross-linkers and 20,000 motors for the motor-driven mechanism. For the disassembly-driven mechanism, we added 40,000 end-tracking cross-linkers to the simulated system. All filaments disassembled at the same rate from one end while the other end remained stable. The disassembly rate was set at 0.0015 μm/s to match the experimentally measured contractile characteristics. To simulate the polymerization of newly-assembled filaments at the edge of the nuclear region, filaments were added with an initial length of 1.5 µm at the boundary at a rate of 12 filaments per second. Because there is no edge or steric interactions, adding new filaments per se does not produce compressive force on the old network. Cytosim is an Open Source project hosted on https://github.com/nedelec/cytosim. The configuration file is provided as Supplementary file 1.
The Supplementary Material includes 7 figure supplements, 4 Supplementary Movies, 6 Supplementary Files including the detailed description of the viscoelastic model (Supplementary file 1), 3 tables (Supplementary file 2–4) and the configuration file for the Cytosim model (Supplementary file 5) to be run in Cytosim available at https://github.com/nedelec/cytosim (Nédélec, 2018; copy archived at https://github.com/elifesciences-publications/cytosim). The Matlab scripts used to analyze chromosome tracks is also available (Supplementary file 6).
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Thank you for submitting your article "Disassembly-driven contraction of an F-actin network transports chromosomes in starfish oocytes" for consideration by eLife. Your article has been reviewed by three peer reviewers, one of whom, Pekka Lappalainen (Reviewer #1), is a member of our Board of Reviewing Editors, and the evaluation has been overseen by Andrea Musacchio as the Senior Editor.
Contractile actomyosin structures are critical for many morphogenetic events and transport processes in cells. Recent studies demonstrated that a three-dimensional contractile actin network collects chromosomes and transports them to the forming microtubule spindle in starfish oocytes. However, the mechanism by which this network contracts has remained elusive. Here, Bun et al., provide evidence that myosin activity is not necessary for the network contraction, but that actin filament disassembly instead appears to drive the network contractility.
All reviewers found this study very interesting and stated that the experimental part is novel and convincing. However, because the experiments are not sufficiently well connected to the model (and the model was not rigorously tested experimentally), we cannot publish the manuscript, at least in its present form. However, if you can significantly strengthen the manuscript along the lines suggested by the reviewers, we will be glad to consider an adequately revised version of the manuscript for publication in eLife.
1) The first part of the study presents some high quality experimental work with the tools available in starfish, and the second part of the study presents an interesting model. However, the main weakness of this manuscript is that the model is not really constrained by the experimental work, and that the prediction of the model was not challenged by some additional experimental work (since the putative cross-linker was not identified). Thus, the study would be much stronger if the authors could experimentally test their model. At minimum, alternative models to explain the data, and the limitations of the study, should be extensively discussed.
2) A central argument for favoring a disassembly driven mechanism over a motor driven mechanism is the comparison of the fits in Figure 4F and 6F to a viscoelastic model assuming either motor-driving or disassembly. Since this is so essential, the authors should give an expression for the contraction rate α(t) for the two models in the main text and make clear which measured quantities go into the fit and what other parameters are fitted. Importantly they should also give the value of all the fitting parameters. The authors should compare these parameters wherever possible to measured or measurable values (e.g. for filament length and depolymerization rate). In the current version, it is unclear if and how much these parameters vary from fit to fit and if they are within reasonable limits.
3) Along this line: the Motor Model depends on the actin concentration. This concentration does not change a lot for various UtrCH concentration (Figure 6E). Yet, the fit of the 'low' to 'high' UtrCH concentrations (dashed red, green, blue lines, Figure 6F) is drastically different from the control (black dashed line). Where does this sudden change come from if the input is so similar?
4) It appears that the only difference between the two viscoelastic models (D versus M) is the σ_c term. For the Motor-driven model there is a linear or quadratic dependency of A (actin density), for the disassembly driven model there is a linear dependency of A. Furthermore σ_c^D depends on k_depol and <l>. At first sight it appears surprising how this could lead to the large differences in the fits in Figure 6F, but A (and perhaps also <l>?) are time dependent. It would be helpful to explain in more detail which variables are time dependent, and also to show <l> (t) in real units (i.e. micrometers). Is k_depol also a function of time?
5) Comparing the two models: Model M and D both get the actin concentration A as input (linearly or quadratically). However, in Figure 6F the two fits go into different directions. While in M the fit increases faster and gets a peak, the fit for model D becomes smaller in value and flatter. This suggest that the bigger effect on the fit of model D is given by the <l> and k_depol parameters. Again, it is important to give the value and potentially even plot these two parameters for the different cases. This would be also informative in the light of the claim that these quantities are gradually changed with the UtrCH injection.
Thank you for resubmitting your work entitled "A disassembly-driven mechanism explains F-actin-mediated chromosome transport in starfish oocytes" for further consideration at eLife. Your revised article has been favorably evaluated by Andrea Musacchio (Senior editor) and three reviewers, one of whom is a member of our Board of Reviewing Editors.
This is a revised version of a manuscript, which provides evidence that actin filament disassembly drives the contraction of a three-dimensional actin network that collects chromosomes and transports them to the forming microtubule spindle in starfish oocytes. The authors have satisfactorily addressed the majority of the previous concerns, and the manuscript is significantly improved. Also, the experimental and simulation details are much better clarified now.
However, the formin inhibitor data were not considered particularly strong, and therefore we feel that you should tone down the conclusions concerning the role of formin(s) as a cross-linker in this process (please, see specific comments below). All proposed changes can be addressed textually and do not require new experiments.
1) The authors used SMIFH2 for inhibiting formins. To justify the use of SMIFH2 inhibitor, they referred to (Ucar et al., 2013). However, characterization of the effects of the inhibitor in this study were not particularly thorough, and this should be considered in the Discussion.
2) Even if the inhibitor works against formins, the effect of the inhibitor on the observed actin dynamics could be indirect e.g. due to altering the balance between Arp2/3 complex and formin -driven actin assembly pathways (see e.g. Burke et al., 2014). This possibility should be considered in the interpretation of the results.
3) In subsection “In silico reconstitution of the contractile system predicts a ‘depolymerization harnessing factor’ essential to drive contraction”, the authors test if the combination of disassembly and crosslinking could drive network contraction. This has already been done on a dynamic actin network (see: Ennomani et al., 2016), and should be discussed in the manuscript.
4) In the same subsection, the authors mention that mDia1 is able to track depolymerizing filament ends. However, these in vitro experiments (Jegou et al., 2013) were performed under specific conditions, where the critical concentration of actin was below the barbed end Cc. Thus, this argument cannot be used here.
First, we explain more clearly how the parameters of the theory are constrained by experimental data (see also our response to the point below). We also changed the phrasing and expanded the text at several places to explain how developing the theory during this research has motivated experiments, and thus the model had a guiding virtue. Specifically, it motivated experiments in which we attempted to gradually increase and decrease disassembly rates.
Second, we now include new experiments aimed at identifying the ‘disassembly harnessing factor’ predicted by our simulations. We previously discussed that formin proteins in principle could be this factor as they do have the required activities. In the revised manuscript, we tested this experimentally by using a generic inhibitor of all proteins containing the conserved FH2 formin domain (SMIFH2). Intriguingly, this caused a significant reduction of disassembly rates and concomitant slowing of contraction, consistent with the predictions of the theory. In our view, these new findings constitute a significant advance and open a very exciting new perspective for a yet unexplored mechanism of contraction. However, the tools we have available in the starfish oocyte system are limited, and therefore identification of the specific formin-like protein is unfortunately not feasible in the frame of the present study. These limitations are now discussed explicitly in the manuscript.
We expanded the revised manuscript and provide an improved supplementary document in which we clarify the model assumptions and how experimental data constrained both models. We took special care listing all input as well as fitting parameters used to derive the contraction rate αt over time, and we now show all equations in the main manuscript text.
a) We derived the depolymerization rate, k from the total fluorescence in the network to quantify relative changes in polymer mass over time (Figure 4B; Equation 5; see Table 2).
b) We assume that filaments depolymerize with a constant speed from onset of contraction to the point at which the network would entirely vanish (Figure 1C). Assuming that the distribution of filament length follows a Gaussian distribution, we can calculate from this relation the mean length as a function of time, and also the number of filaments as a function of time.
We then solve the partial differential equations from active-gel theory, with either a stress that is produced by motors, or a stress that depends on disassembly. For each model, we first obtained fitting parameters compatible with αt observed in control experiments (Figure 6—figure supplement 1A, Tables 1 and Supplementary Files 2–4). We then used the depolymerization rate k measured in perturbations and the fitting parameters from the corresponding control experiments to obtain the predicted contraction rate, αt. This αt is then compared to the experimentally measured contraction rate (Tables 3 and 4). Unfortunately, all parameters of the model are renormalized, and we cannot evaluate experimentally the number of filaments, the length or the depolymerization speed. As a general evaluation of our theory, we show that similar results can be obtained by modeling the F-actin network as a purely viscous gel (Figure 6—figure supplement 1A).
The major difference arises from the term of contractile stress σc in the two models: this is proportional to A2 in model M, and proportional to A1 in model D (Equations 8 and 9). Since UtrCH gradually stabilizes the F-actin network and thereby hinders actin disassembly, the F-actin concentration A is increasing with increasing UtrCH amounts. Consequently, the contractility increases much faster in model M, where the stress depends on A2, as compared to model D, where the stress depends on A1. This difference is qualitative, and is not rooted in the particular parameter values determined by the fit performed on the unperturbed/control experiments.
We apologize for these omissions. In the revised manuscript, we define all variables and constants more strictly, and explicitly write for example A(r,t), l(r,t). The depolymerization rate k is an experimental measure derived from fitting the F-actin mass over time that does not depend on time except for Latrunculin A-treated oocytes. In response to acute Latrunculin A treatment, the depolymerization rate increases over time (Figure 7). As the reviewer points out, the main source of the differences seen on Figure 6F is the linear vs. quadratic dependence of stress on F-actin concentration.
The disassembly rate, k, the F-actin concentration, A and the normalized average length of F-actin l are given as inputs to the transport equations (Equations 11-13). The revised Supplementary File 1 offers a much-improved description of the theory. We describe the input parameters derived from experimental data as well as the fitting parameters used to derive the contraction rate αt over time. We provide tables to summarize the viscoelastic parameters used for both models M and D (Table 1 and Supplementary Files 2–4). We also provide values for the depolymerizarion rate k, derived from F-actin mass quantification in response to increasing amounts of injected UtrCH (Table 2, 4).
We agree that the characterization of the inhibitor could have possibly been more thorough, and we have amended the Discussion accordingly with a few words of caution. However, the phenotype, failure of cytokinetic ring closure, observed by Ucar et al. (and confirmed by us) is very typical for formin inhibition across animal species, due to the conserved, essential role of the formin, mDia in cytokinesis. Ucar et al. observed the same phenotype following perturbations of mDia by other means, further supporting their conclusions.
Generally, the FH2 domain targeted by SMIFH2 is extremely well conserved across species, consistent with the original report showing specific effects from yeast to mammals (Rizvi et al., 2009), as well as in mouse oocytes by others (Kim et al., 2015).
We fully agree with this comment, and we amended the Discussion accordingly, citing the above paper from the Kovar lab, as suggested. However, based on our previous data (Mori et al., 2014), we know that Arp2/3 is not primarily involved in nucleating filaments in the F-actin network transporting chromosomes.
Ennomani et al., 2016 took a similar approach and used the Cytosim software to study the contractile response of a network in absence of filament dynamics. I.e. all their simulations were carried out with filaments of fixed length (see Supplemental Experimental Procedures, page 7 within the publication). In our opinion this is a critical difference, and correspondingly we felt no need to modify our discussion at this point.
We fully agree with this comment, and we amended the Discussion accordingly. Unfortunately, we have no knowledge on the molecular composition, regulation and resulting properties of filament ends in the starfish oocyte. Therefore, it is difficult to evaluate whether and to what extent the findings under the specific in vitro conditions used by Jegou et al., 2013 are applicable to starfish oocytes.
We would like to acknowledge members of the Lenart lab for reagents and support, Johanna Bischof in particular for sharing plasmid constructs. We would like to additionally acknowledge the essential support of EMBL’s Advanced Light Microscopy Facility, Protein Expression and Purification Facility, IT support, and Laboratory Animal Resources, Kresimir Crnokic in particular. The work was supported by the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, and specifically by the EIPOD Interdisciplinary Postdoctoral Programme to PB and JB, co-funded by the Marie-Curie Actions of the European Commission. SD was in part supported by the Center for Modeling in Biosciences (BIOMS).
© 2018, Bun et al.
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I've never been hiking in such extreme situations, but if in the situation in the question, i.e. you're hiking in very cold weather and someone falls in (let's say so pretty much their whole body is under, and it's a lake not a river, so no current) what's the best course of action?
Specifically, how do you get them out safely without endangering yourself or others, and what do you do to minimise the risk of hypothermia and other related conditions when they're out?
Talk - Can you talk them out?
Reach - Are they close enough for you to reach, with a branch if necessary?
Throw - Do you have a rope or anything you can throw? This can include flotation devices - even if you don't have a rope this increases the likelihood of survival.
Row - If you have a boat, canoe or raft, row out to get them if it is safe to do so.
Go - If all else fails, pinpoint where the victim is and go for help.
You try to avoid going in the water yourself unless absolutely necessary, but the 5 options above should all be looked at in order.
Get dry clothes from someone's backpack (maybe the best option).
Borrow clothes from someone else (ie, strip off the wet clothes and take someone else's jacket, etc.). This, of course, now gives you two people who aren't properly dressed, so you really want to accelerate efforts to get the whole group to safety. Since this puts another person at risk, you'd want to be pretty cautious about employing it.
The whole idea of changing clothes is that your hiker will be lots more likely to be able to warm himself back up in dry clothes than in wet clothes, so you're looking for any reasonable option to help that happen.
Next, you need to assess your status and consider getting the whole group to safety as soon as possible. If you've been able to get your soggy hiker into some dry clothes (fully or partially), you may be able to just continue your hike. You'll generate some body heat by moving, which will help some. If you have a short distance to travel in order to reach shelter / warmth, this is probably your best bet.
If, however, it's cold enough that you're not going to warm up by hiking, or if you don't have dry clothes, or you had to borrow some clothes from someone (leaving two or more hikers under-dressed) I'd strongly consider getting a fire started in order to warm up and dry off. Some sort of reflective surface (tarp, rock wall, etc.) may help warm you a little more evenly. Dry out your clothes, but don't burn them!
Keep an eye on time vs. your itinerary. If stopping to build a fire will cause you to not be off the trail by nightfall, you'll need to decide if you're staying put overnight or sending someone out for help. All the usual wilderness first-aid guidelines apply here -- don't send anyone anywhere alone, and a group of four is a great deal better than a group of two or three. If you don't have a large enough group to send a capable party for help, I'd be inclined to stay put and keep the group together.
The whole idea here is to keep your head and use the resources of the group to avoid making the situation worse while you're trying to recover.
How cold the water is.
What gear they are carrying that prevents them swimming?
How muddy the bank / lake bed is - will you get stuck if you enter or approach the water?
I'd personally consider going in after someone just about the last option, and even then only when you've no extra clothing and other ready to aid you leaving the water safely. I believe you can likely be more use from the water edge than in trouble with them, even if its only to grab any wood or such that will float and get it as close to the person as possible to aid in keeping them afloat.
Is there ice? If so, the victim may be nowhere near the edge of the lake itself, and you need to consider how much weight that ice can take.
What do you have available? Assuming there is ice, anything that can spread your weight is useful, as is anything long. Bear in mind many people find gripping difficult in cold water due to shock, but any floatation device or improvised life aid should work.
Best case scenario in my mind is that they pull themselves out the water, either by swimming or by pulling themselves onto the ice and keeping their weight distributed on any ice. At that point you need to go through the steps to increase body core temperature, (by fire, drying clothes, getting out of any wind etc).
It's a pretty complicated question to answer, particularly in a short time span, which I'd imagine goes some way to contribute towards the numbers of people killed in bodies of water each year, and those that die trying to save them.
A couple of additional points which I think have not yet got the attention they deserve.
Time is of the essence. I've once seen a report that stated that the average swimmer can make it about 50 meters max in 4°C water before drowning. That is not a lot! Meaning, that if the person in distress cannot hold on to something which helps them stay afloat you have very little time at your hands.
Ice is incredibly dangerous. If the person in distress just broke through a layer of ice it will be almost impossible for them to rescue themselves, unless they have the right tools and experience (or the water is very shallow). It should also be obvious that it is very dangerous for yourself to go anywhere near the place where the ice was broken. If you cannot avoid this, try to spread out your weight, i.e. lie on your belly and spread all fours. Use whatever you can to extend your reach, such as a belt/jacket/backpack strap.
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged survival cold-weather emergencies hypothermia or ask your own question.
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For millinery fashion, see Draped turban.
Manmohan Singh, the former Prime Minister of India, wearing a Sikh turban. The turban is one of the most recognized symbols of the Sikh community.
A turban (from Persian دولبند, dulband; via Middle French turbant) is a type of headwear based on cloth winding. Featuring many variations, it is worn as customary headwear primarily by men. Communities with prominent turban-wearing traditions can be found in the Indian Subcontinent, Afghanistan, South Asia, the Arabian Peninsula, the Middle East, the Near East, Central Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, and parts of the Swahili Coast.
Wearing turbans is common among Sikhs, including women, who refer to it as a Dastar. In certain other faith communities, the headgear also serves as a religious observance, including among Shia Muslims, who regard turban-wearing as Sunnah Mu'akkadah (confirmed tradition). Greeks, in ancient times, wore a distinctive style of turbans.
The origins of turbans are uncertain. Early Persians in modern Iran and Phrygians in modern Turkey wore a conical cap (Phrygian cap) encircled by bands of cloth, which historians have suggested was developed to become the modern turban, but other theories suggest it was first widely worn in Egypt. An early attestation for knowledge of the turban is found in the Roman author Ovid's Metamorphoses, dating to the 1st century BC. Ovid recounts the myth that Midas king of the Phrygians, an Indo-European people of central Turkey, wore a royal purple turban to cover his donkey ears. A style of turban called a phakeolis continued to be worn in that region by soldiers of the Byzantine army in the period 400–600, as well as by Byzantine civilians as depicted in Greek frescoes from the 10th century in the province of Cappadocia in modern Turkey, where it was still worn by their Greek-speaking descendants in the early 20th century. The Islamic prophet, Muhammad, who lived 570–632, is believed to have worn a turban in white, the most holy colour. Many Muslim men choose to wear green, because it represents paradise, especially among followers of Sufism. In parts of North Africa, where blue is common, the shade of a turban can signify the tribe of the wearer.
Contemporary turbans come in many shapes, sizes and colours. Turban wearers in North Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia (including Sikh), and Philippines (Sulu) usually wind it anew for each wearing, using long strips of cloth. The cloth is usually under five meters in length. Some elaborate South Asian turbans may also be permanently formed and sewn to a foundation. Turbans can be very large or quite modest depending upon region, culture, and religion.
Turbans are part of the national dress in Afghanistan. They are used more widely here than elsewhere in the Muslim world, and are worn in a wide range of styles and colours. In the country's south-east, turbans are wrapped loosely and largely, whereas in Kabul the garment tends to be smaller and tighter. In traditional Afghan society, a related piece of extra cloth called a patu serves practical purposes, such as for wrapping oneself against the cold, to sit on, to tie up an animal or to carry water in the cap. Different ethnic groups in Afghanistan wear different lungees with different patterns, way of styling it, fabric, stripes, lengths and colouration. Some styles are, however, nationwide. The styles extend and overlap into western Pakistan.
In Greece, specifically the island of Crete, the men traditionally wear a turban known as a sariki. The headwrap's name is borrowed from sarık, the Turkish word for turban. Today, it may be more commonly known as a kritiko mandili (Cretan kerchief). It is not found commonly amongst the younger generation, but mostly worn by older men in remoter, mountainous villages. It is traditionally black, the color of mourning, but can also be found in white, for festive occasions such as weddings. It is very commonly found as a part of the standard Cretan costume worn by members of Greek dance groups. A similar head garment is also worn in various parts of Cyprus, and can be seen in various Cypriot shows depicting traditional Cypriot society, e.g. the comedy Aigia Fuxia.
Fijian chiefs and priests were known to have worn masi (barkcloth) coverings around their head similar to a turban, called an i-sala. However, most of the bulk and shape of the i-sala came from the bushy hair under the cloth.
On some Babuyan islands (Philippines) the head of the household wears a white turban, the younger males wear a red turban after their 13th birthday. The 3 chiefs all wear yellow turbans. It no longer has religious significance and the origin dates back to the end of the Tondo era (cira 900s - 1589) Most Babuyan settlers fled the Philippines in 1589 when Spain began to invade the Philippines. The turban was made from a type of bark cloth but now is made from cotton or silk brought over from the Philippines mainland. The turban style head dress is then cut and wrapped around the head, then tucked in front.
While it is true that Armenia is the first Christian country, much of its traditions and cultures reflect Middle Eastern origins. Because of that, men sometimes wear turbans, often bearded on any occasions, but they are usually worn for celebrations and festivals as part of their national costumes. However, before Armenia became a Christian nation, its people actually do used to wear turbans as their daily clothing, just like all other Middle Eastern countries do.
The men of many Islamic cultures wear or wore a turban-style headdress, often in emulation of Muhammad, who is believed to have worn a black or white turban. In Islam, the turban is a Sunnah Mu'akkadah (Confirmed Tradition). Head wraps that men wear are called several names and worn in different ways depending on the sect of Islam, region and culture. Examples include (Arabic: عمامة `emãmah) in Arabic, (Persian: دستار) in Persian.
In Shi'a Islam, a black head wrap around a small white cap is worn by descendants of Muhammad called Sayyids, and white turbans by other well-educated persons and scholars. In Sudan, large white headdresses connote high social status. Other sects of Muslims would wear a green head wrap around a small white cap or just the white cap alone.
In Pakistan the cap is called a topi. Women of Islam do not wear turbans, as it is considered part of a man's dress, while women cover their hair with a hijab.
In the Ottoman Empire, Muhammad's numerous descendants formed a kind of nobility with the privilege of carrying green turbans.
Al-Sayyed Ali al-Sistani, the spiritual leader of Many of Shia Muslims wearing a black turban.
The Hebrew word mitznefet (מִצְנֶפֶת) has been translated as "mitre" (KJV) or "headdress". It was most likely a "turban", as the word comes from the root "to wrap".
In the Hebrew Bible, the turban worn by the High Priest was much larger than the head coverings of the priests and wound so that it formed a broad, flat-topped turban, resembling the blossom of a flower. The head covering of the priests was different, being wound so that it formed a cone-shaped turban, called a migbahat.
The priestly crown (Hebrew tzitz צִיץ "blossom" "flower") was attached to the turban by means of two sets of blue cords: one going over the top of the head and the other around the sides of the head at the level of the ears (Exodus 39:31).
The Jews who lived under Arab rule during the Middle Ages, notably in Islamic Spain wore turbans and headwear not too different from their Muslim counterparts.
Members of the Bobo Shanti mansion of the Rastafari movement keep their hair and beards, mainly keeping their hair in dreadlocks, they have been wearing turbans over their dreadlocks protecting and keeping their dreadlocks clean, along with wearing robes since their founding in the 1950s, being a small population it makes them more distinctive in appearance in Jamaica and elsewhere.
Sikh young man wearing Patiala Shahi Turban.
The Sikh turban, known as the Dastar or a Dumalla or a "Pagg" cultural name, the turban is used to show others that they represent the embodiment of Sikh teachings, the love of the Guru and dogma to do good deeds, the turban also protects Sikh's long unshorn hair and keep hair clean. The turban is mandatory for all members of Khalsa (Initiated Sikhs) to wear. The Rajastani turban is also commonly called the pagari (in the West, many Sikhs who wear pagri are sometimes mistaken for Muslims or Arabs.).
Akali Turban Cotton over a wicker frame, Steel overlaid with gold. Lahore. Mid-19th century. "A tall conical turban provided convenient transportation for a number of sharp steel quoits - edged weapons hurled to lethal effect by the practised hand of the Akalis."
All Sikh Gurus since Guru Nanak have worn turbans. However, covering one's hair with a turban was made an official policy by Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Guru of the Sikhs. The main reasons to wear turban are to take care of the hair, promote equality, and preserve the Sikh identity. Sikh women may wear a turban if they wish.
The most common turban colors worn by Sikhs are blue, white and black, although other colors are very popular as well. Orange and yellow are particularly prestigious and tend to be worn on religious events such as Vaisakhi. Meanings of the turbans are that the white turban means a saintly person leading an exemplary life. The blue turban signifies a mind a broad as the sky with no place for prejudice. The black turban is a reminder of the British persecution of the Sikhs in 1919, and represents humility. The orange turban is representative of courage, and wisdom. Royal blue is usually worn who are those who are learned the Sikh religion. Akali Nihang Sikhs decorate their turbans or Dumalla by wearing small weapons known as shastars in them. The turban's color may reflect association with a particular group of Sikhs, although none of the popular turban colors are exclusive to any particular group. Turban colors are generally a matter of personal choice in Sikhism, with many Sikh men choosing colors based on fashion or taste, sometimes to match clothes. There are traditions associated with some colours, for instance orange and black are often worn at political protest rallies whilst red and pink turbans are worn at weddings and other celebratory events.
↑ "History and information on turbans". Retrieved 2016-12-03.
↑ Inter Islam. "The turban, topee and kurta - in the light of Ahadith and the practice of our pious predecessors". inter-islam.org. Retrieved 2014-02-10.
↑ "SeekersGuidance - Can Anyone Wear a Turban? Are There Styles Specific for Scholars? – Answers". seekersguidance.org. Retrieved 2014-02-10.
↑ "BBC - Religions - Rastafari: Bobo Shanti".
↑ "Why are turbans of different colours? - Quora". www.quora.com. Retrieved 2016-07-18.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Turbans.
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Do you know what its uses are?
As per the latest research, administration of medical marijuana drastically reduces neuropathic pain in patients. Earlier, marijuana was considered as a banned drug but due to various similar researches more and more medical practitioners are advocating the usage of medical marijuana. More and more countries are coming forward with liberal approach towards the usage of medical marijuana.
Leaving aside that the fact that the drug alleviates pain, it also enhances calorie intake in patients thereby rejuvenating their liver and digestive system. This enables patients with extremely low muscle mass to gain weight and renew the strength. This is a boon to patients who suffer from auto immune problems such as multiple sclerosis and others.
Medical marijuana is widely administered on cancer patients. Since cancer patients have to undergo long chemotherapy and radio therapy sessions; they are often left with a lot of fatigue, nausea and acute pain. Medical marijuana happens to be a perfect remedy in such a situation. Medical marijuana not only reduces the pain by manifolds but also induces sleep thereby, rejuvenating the patient. It also increases the appetite in patients and thus, has an overall positive affect on the body.
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To prevent echo, make sure you are listening to all Adobe Connect sessions through your headphones and NOT your speakers.
Click "Play Sound" and confirm that you can hear audio from your headphones or headset. If the audio is coming out of your computer speakers, then please follow the steps below to reconfigure your audio settings.
1. Go to system preferences>sound.
2. Click on the "output" tab and select your headphones as the default output device.
3. Run the "Audio Setup Wizard" again and confirm that you can hear audio out of your headphones.
1. Go to control panel>hardware and sound>sound.
2. Click on the "playback" tab and select your headphones or headset device.
3. Right-click and "enable" your headset, then click "set default" to make it your default.
5. Run the "Audio Setup Wizard" again and confirm that you can hear audio out of your headphones.
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they call every other day.
I got the following text: Hi, You've just been Selected to Test & Keep the New iPad3! Confirm yourSpot Right Now at http://1stwithipad3.com.
Just received a call from this number but no one spoke. We do not know anyone in Glendale, Tx.
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(CNN) – ISIS the main target of airstrikes being carried out by a U.S.-led coalition.
But what targets have been struck, and is the campaign working?
(CNN) – Lawmakers and military analysts have said boots on the ground will be necessary to defeat ISIS.
But the United States' Arab coalition allies are reluctant to put boots on the ground, so will the task ultimately fall to the U.S.?
"We need to be a little more clear about what U.S. troop presence we're talking about – advisers, special operators – it's not zero boots on the ground," said CNN political commentator Jay Carney.
(CNN) – The latest round of airstrikes in Syria are targeting ISIS-controlled oil fields, striking the terrorist group's cash flow.
U.S. surveillance had identified the targets over the last several weeks, said Sen. Saxby Chambliss, ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Hitting the oil installations "would cause the least amount of collateral damage, but yet seek to do really do damage to the infrastructure of ISIL," said Chambliss, using an alternative name for the group.
(CNN) - U.N. Security Council members on Wednesday unanimously approved a resolution to address the growing threat posed by foreign terrorist fighters, a measure that U.S. President Barack Obama applauded while insisting it "must be matched and translated into action" to have any effect.
"Resolutions alone will not be enough, promises on paper cannot keep us safe, lofty rhetoric and good intentions will not stop a single terrorist attack," Obama said.
(CNN) – The latest airstrikes in Syria appear to be part of an effort to cut off money flowing to ISIS, targeting oilfields under the terrorist group's control.
"This is a smart thing to do for several reasons," said CNN military analyst Lt. Col. Rick Francona.
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Did you get the following error message when trying to delete campaign members: Sbm.sbx_EmailRollups: System.LimitException: Sbm: Too many query rows: 50001?
it is likely because you were trying to delete campaign member records from more than one campaign at a time.
This error means that the total number of campaign members that need to be queried in order to delete the designated campaign members is greater than 50,000.
To get around this limitation, simply delete campaign members from one campaign at a time. Or, if multiple campaigns have less than 50,000 members in aggregate you can still delete campaign members from multiple campaigns at once.
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There seems to have been a long-running argument within the British Labour Party as to whether some factions within that party can be considered to be antisemitic. The current leadership of that party has been very strongly criticised by others in the party and elsewhere for not fully accepting the Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. For example, the Labour Party National Executive Committee (NEC) has taken the view that some examples of antisemitism given by the IHRA should be removed because they stifle the possibility of freely criticising the actions of the Israeli government. The examples removed from the IHRA definition include: accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel than their own nations, claiming that the existence of the state of Israel is inherently racist and comparing Israeli actions with those of the Nazis.
The furore created by all this seems quite intense. It's certainly not an academic argument over the definitions of words. It's deeply personal. For example, Labour MP Margaret Hodge, who had relatives who died in the Holocaust, reportedly angrily told the party leader: "You're a f****** anti-semite and racist".
What do you think? Is it antisemitic to compare actions carried out by representatives of the State of Israel to actions of the Nazis? Is it difficult to distinguish between antisemitism and criticisms of Israeli government policy? Could the current Labour Party leadership really be described as antisemitic?
What do you think? Is it antisemitic to compare actions carried out by representatives of the State of Israel to actions of the Nazis?
Of course not, jews can be fascists too.
Is it difficult to distinguish between antisemitism and criticisms of Israeli government policy?
It shouldn't be, I wouldn't expect a jewish fascist to admit that he is one.
We have a similar problem here in the U.S. - anyone critical of the Israeli Defense League is accused of being antisemitic. That's the political card they always play but it's transparent.
I'm getting fed up with been woken up every morning by my clock radio with news reports that keep using the words "problem", "antisemitism", and "Jeremy Corbyn".
The continual banging on and on and on, is yet another attempt by the media to hope that **** sticks.
The Labour party has around 400,000 members. There have been 70 complains about careless comments on social media arguments, which are mostly about criticisms concerning the human rights abuses of Palestinians by Israel.
The right wing have turned this into a media circus as they have very little of substance with which to criticise JC and his popular anti-austerity, anti-inequality movement which the establishment are **** scared of.
1) The Labour party have NO racist policies.
2) The Labour party have no antisemitic policies.
3) Many in Labour, including Jews, think that Israel is abusing human rights in Palestine.
4) Some in Labour would rather bring false accusations than allow JC and Momentum from getting power.
There is no doubt that amongst its 400k membership some can be defined as having antisemitic views.
This is only a 'problem' because the media want it to be.
I think there is a very significant problem when anyone feels they have to identify with one race or another.
When white people do it the inherent racism in having say a "white members club', or a "white person's literary prize".
How would you react if there was a prize for science that is restricted wholly to "whites only"?
Yet, Jews have all these things, but insist that such organisations are not racist.
The human "race" simply cannot afford the luxury of racism; positive or negative. When you reserve privileges to certain 'ethnic' groups, you are denying those to others.
When you decide to self identify with such groups, be they "white" or "black" "asian" or "jewish" you immediately tend to favour other members of that group. That is prejudice.
Jews seem to want all the honours and favours of their select group but are angry that they get excluded by others. This is how, once you believe that 'race' is a valid category, you reify the category and attract the suspicion of others who do the same from "other" races.
Some Jews might want to preserve whatever arbitrary differences that they think being a Jews entitles them to. Do they also want other races to ignore the fact that people like Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernancke, Paul Wolfowitz, the Koch brothers, George Soros - (those that have profited from austerity,) are Jews? Is it any surprise that people seeing the world's financial institutions being run by people of Jewish decent think that these people might help each other out? Might tend to favour other members of their group to the disadvantage of others.
There is NO DOUBT that "white" institutions demonstrate racism against black people.
And this is the point at which Labour members find themselves silenced. Labour members fear to mention basic facts about the operation of positive racism.
None of the above observations can be expressed by Labour members.
When Iain McNichol was chairman, several people (many of them Jews) were suspended without a hearing for thinking about these issues.
With him gone, people have been seeking justice for against the 'thought police', and that is now taken as a stick to hit JC with.
The above is a minefield of sensitive viewpoints.
But the main bone of contention is that there are thousands of people in the party - thought police that will also take exception to ANY criticism of Israel and accuse people of antisemitism. And the right wing of the party have pushed to extend the definition of antisemitism to include criticisms of Israel.
Is it antisemitic to compare actions carried out by representatives of the State of Israel to actions of the Nazis?
Not necessarily, but it's not necessary, either. Why drag out the old nazi comparison all the time? It's not the only-ever example of persecuting minorities or killing civilians. The UK does it; the US does it; Russia does it... pretty normal, really. But still bad.
Not for me, and not for Jews who disagree with that policy.
But it can be difficult for someone who does agree with the policy and is sensitive to criticism.
Could the current Labour Party leadership really be described as antisemitic?
I don't know them personally, so I suppose it's possible, but I doubt it.
There are several different issues here.
One is equating any opinion, approving or dissenting, with an "ism"; assuming that all opinion must be motivated by one's political allegiance, or tribal attitude - as if there were no other basis for judging other people's actions. In fact, I'm quite capable of recognizing a person's value and virtues, or a government's competency in other areas, and still disagree with, even condemn, some of their decisions.
Another, is taking all criticism personally - even by people who had no say in making the policy or taking the actions that are criticized. There is a tendency for members of some ethnic groups, as well as some vested interests and political factions, to take personally every comment regarding any member of their group - as if they were a single unit.
The most important in this context is deflection and misdirection. Leveling charges of prejudice against any and all detractors is a well-known stratagem used by both persons and factions who know they are in the wrong and intend to carry on acting badly. You can always disarm opposition by accusing it of being racist: a racist motivation invalidates everything they say and write, without any consideration whether it's true.
Perhaps a touch of antidisestablishmentarianism in the air with a new Labour party growing out of the old? (always wanted to use that word!). The conservatives probably need to split too - the Religious Armageddonists and Socially Progressive Capitalists.
Having a problem with criticism of military aggression by any nation, Israel or otherwise, is obviously not bigotry. Amazing the dumb manipulative BS these people sprout while paid by the taxes of workers. Much of foment is pushed along by the likes of the Koch and Murdoch parasites.
Long as it works, they will not only keep doing it, but keep escalating.
If this really were all about the right wing press concocting a story to unfairly discredit Jeremy Corbyn then it wouldn't be particularly interesting to me. It would be business as usual. But there seems to be some genuine anger within the Labour Party towards the leadership which isn't just invented. People like Margaret Hodge appear to be genuinely angry. Curious.
I agree with some previous comments that, on the face of it, comparing the actions of the State of Israel to the actions of the Nazis is not antisemitic. Whether or not it's accurate is a different question.
...But there seems to be some genuine anger within the Labour Party towards the leadership which isn't just invented. People like Margaret Hodge appear to be genuinely angry. Curious.
I don't know anything about your country's internal workings. But I would caution you to examine more closely this "genuine" anger. Anger is the political currency of the moment: like bitcoin, it's costly, destructive and deceptive. A lot of the genuine anger - of the working class, of the right, of the white, of the middle class, of the rural folk, of the nationalists, of the men - is cultivated and manipulated.
Ask how many of the angry comments come from Russian sock-puppet Twitter accounts.
Ask how the polls are taken.
Ask, most urgently: Cui bono?
No, the nazis should never come into any discussion, ever. It's a smoke-bomb. That reference instantly skews all arguments, distorts all facts, sabotages all reasoned consideration of present facts.
All extreme action is extreme; all dictators dictate; all bullies bully - in this, the comparison of any example with any other is accurate and valid.
In the particulars, they are all different. If you want to criticize an action, do so on its own particulars.
I love it when people put their finger right on the button. Yes, this game of outrage is rife.
Steve, all you need do is think of those angry MPs as engaging in the political equivalent of a Neymar dive and then all becomes more clear :). People are becoming better actors, less worried about being caught lying because there is no longer a social sanction for it. It's considered a fair tactic to achieve an end today while in the past it was treated as unforgivable.
As I always say, hominids developed big brains precisely for the purpose of deception, to gain advantages over the unaware, and this is just one more example.
Ho hum. This stuff isn't about races or racism or religion. It is tribalism when you scrape away the verbiage. Basically folks like to: 1. join groups and 2. act in their own self interest, and 3. like to play the victim.
Thus if I am an American jew, I tend to look favorably on the Israeli state and I use the antisemitic card against real and perceived criticism. If I am not Jewish, perhaps I dislike the actions of the Israeli government so I vocalise this. I can expect to be called antisemitic, my retort is to call my critics Nazi-like. In addition if I read about black Americans getting a different treatment in hiring, I cry reverse discrimination. I am then called a racist.
No one wants to feel like they are getting an unfairly substandard deal... especially those who have historically gotten unfairly excellent deals.
Greta wrote: Steve, all you need do is think of those angry MPs as engaging in the political equivalent of a Neymar dive and then all becomes more clear . People are becoming better actors, less worried about being caught lying because there is no longer a social sanction for it. It's considered a fair tactic to achieve an end today while in the past it was treated as unforgivable.
I do take both of your points and can see this process of what might be called "outrage hyper-inflation" in action. But in this particular case, in the case of at least some of these Labour MPs on this subject, I don't think those points apply. When an MP who has close relatives who died in the Holocaust accuses the Labour leader of antisemitism she may be wrong but I don't think it's a cynical political tactic. The feelings appear to me to be entirely genuine. I guess it just goes to show that this is still a very emotive issue, despite the fact that numerous other atrocities have been perpetrated by various groups against various other groups in the last 70 years.
I will watch the development of this particular News-thread with interest.
Basically folks like to: 1. join groups and 2. act in their own self interest, and 3. like to play the victim.
I go along with the other stuff, but take some exception to 3.
First, it's not always clear when someone is "playing" the victim and when they speak up against being victimized. An outsider doesn't always know who has done what to whom behind closed doors; whether an actual victim is under- or over-stating their own suffering, and to what end. For example, many abused women and nearly all abused men actively help their abuser to hide the real state of affairs. Siblings, parents and friends who are systematically taken advantage-of quite often make excuses and cover for the user. It does also happen that the user or abuser presents him or herself as the perennial victim. That's what makes situations difficult to judge.
I don't think most people like to play the victim; I think they would rather be seen as heroic, or at least competent.
What's unique about Israel is that the European Jews really were victimized (over a much longer time than just the Hitler era). Part of the reason was that their god segregated them, out of jealousy, just the same way an abusive husband cuts his wife off from friends and family, and keeps her for himself alone, (This isn't my opinion; it's in that famous book.) and they stayed apart, even when they were no longer an independent nation. Good way to preserve cultural identity; very bad survival strategy. But they're stuck with it now, and it was the key to getting a country again. Who wouldn't use that opportunity in the circumstances?
And who - which ambitious individual, which corporation, which interest bloc, which political party, which nation doesn't use whatever line of woo, whatever psychological advantage is in their possession to further their agenda? Israel would be stupid to waste the Victim card.
It's up to everyone else to recognize this and devise an appropriate response - instead of a knee-jerk one.
Then again, my family had some people gassed in WWII but we are not still feeling wildly aggrieved about it. My father's family was forced out of Austria by the Nazis, leaving everything they owned behind, and started again with nothing in Australia. I appreciate that some people hold grudges for longer than others but I do think the victim card is being played when it comes to politicians. Very, very few of them will miss opportunities for ethical reasons as far as I can tell.
It's like workers comp (which I worked in for a couple of years, worse luck). Almost all injuries seem to be genuine, but plenty of them are overplayed. Still, Jews must surely be getting jumpy now because genuine anti-Semitism is probably more widespread than any time for many decades.
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If during a ATP / WTA / Grand slam tennis tournament, rain falls consistently for the entire 2 weeks, would the tournament just be cancelled? Has this ever happened in a grand slam? Is there an actual rule to say when a tournament would be abandoned due to rain or would they just keep waiting till the rain stops?
Doubles competition at 1987 Dow Chemical Classic (Birmingham) was cancelled due to rain before completion of the first round matches.
Grand Prix tennis circuit was a predecessor of ATP Tour.
At 1974 Viceroy Classic (Honk Kong), neither singles nor doubles competition were finished. See Wikipedia page on 1974 Grand Prix.
Final of the 1980 Congoleum Classic (Indian Wells) was not played due to rain. Doubles competition was cancelled after the first round.
The 1981 Monte Carlo Open singles final was abandoned due to rain.
Both singles and doubles finals at 1987 Volvo International (Stratton Mountain) were cancelled due to rain. Sources: 1, 1a.
Doubles final at 1998 Stella Artois Championships (Queen's Club) was cancelled due to rain.
Final of the doubles competition at 1999 Heineken Trophy ('s-Hertogenbosch) was cancelled due to rain.
Singles final at 1973 Austrian Open (Kitzbühel) was cancelled due to rain. See also here.
Doubles final at 1991 Virginia Slims of Palm Springs was not played because of the rain.
In 1994 Eurocard Open (Lucerne), the doubles competition was cancelled after two of the quarterfinals. Sources: 1, 1a.
In 1997 Direct Line International Championships (Eastbourne) both singles and doubles finals were cancelled due to rain.
Doubles semifinals at 2000 Amelia Island were cancelled due to rain.
ATP/WTA tournaments last one week, only Grand Slam ones last two weeks.
Tournaments schedule are planned to manage weather problems, sometimes it happened that a player has played two singles match the same day.
In history never happened that a Grand Slam tournament was totally abandoned by weather. You can check the list of men and women winners.
No major (a.k.a grand slam) tournament has ever been cancelled due to bad weather. I've never heard of any standard one week tournament being cancelled due to bad weather, either. Since tennis tournaments are held all over the world, they tend to be scheduled during times when the weather is good in whatever part of the world the tournament is being held. For example - Paris in late May/early June for the French Open, where you might get a little bit of rain but it's generally good weather. Some other examples are the Australian Open in January during the Australian summer when it's hot and sunny - the same thing with the Indian Wells Masters series event in March in the southern California desert when the weather is nice and warm.
The US Open had a streak where for 4 straight years the men's final was delayed until the following Monday because it rained on the final Sunday. That is how most weather delays for majors are handled - the matches will just be delayed until the weather is good enough to play. It has, however, prompted the USTA to construct a roof over Arthur Ashe stadium recently because of the delays weather has caused over the years.
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ORIGINAL OWNERSIIIP OF THE SITE - NEWBERRY - JAYSBURG - WILLIAMSPORT LAID OUT - ADDITIONS TO THE TOWN PLAT - MICHAEL ROSS - ORIGIN OF THE NAME - THE FIRST IMPROVEMENTS - FIRST TAXABLES - FIRST STORES - SIXTY YEARS AGO.
The records show that on April 3, 1769, Paul Weitzel made application for 8, tract of 266 acres, which, according to data in the office of the city engineer, embraced what is now that portion of the city lying east of Penn street, and south of Wyoming street to the river. The warrant for this tract, however, was made to Thomas Grant, who received a patent, March 27, 1799.
What is known as the "Michael Ross tract" adjoined Grant on the west. Application for the land was made by George Gibson, April 3, 1769; he transferred his claim to Matthias Slough, February 26, 1770; Slough transferred the same to William Winter, May 2, 1786, and April 1, 1793, Winter sold to Michael Ross, who, May 7, 1794, received a patent in fee from the Commonwealth for 280 acres. In the application the tract was called "Virginia." It extended west from Penn to Hepburn streets; north to Brandon park, And south to the river. It was on a part of this land that Ross laid out the town of Williamsport.
The third tract on the west was applied for by Robert Galbraith, April 3, 1769, and it was called "Mount Joy." He disposed of his claim to Turbutt Francis, March 27, 1770, and he received a patent from the Proprietaries, June 2, 1772. It called for 300 acres. On the death of Francis his widow sold the land to Tench, Coxe, May 2, 1772, and Coxe sold it to Jonathan Mifflin, September 18, 1784; and he sold to John Hollingsworth, April 29, 1786.
The fourth tract, adjoining Mount Joy on the west, was applied for by John Nesbit, April 3, 1769; he transferred his application to Turbutt Francis May 1, 1770, and the Proprietaries granted him a patent in fee April 16,1772. Francis sold to Tench Coxe, and he sold to John Hollingsworth. This tract was called "Deer Park, "and contained 311 acres. The patents for these two tracts are the oldest covering any portion of the land lying within the city of Williamsport.
On the 3d of March, 1804, Hollingsworth exchanged these two tracts for 600 acres owned by James and William Hepburn, at Montoursville, afterwards known as the Charles Lloyd farm, the consideration being 5s. An interesting history of this exchange maybe found in Deed Book F, page 74. And it is distinctly stated in the deed that the Hepburns were to hold Deer Park and Mount Joy as "tenants in common, and not as joint tenants." These tracts covered all that portion of the city lying between what is now Hepburn and Susquehanna streets.
On the 6th of September, 1810, James and William Hepburn made amicable partition of these lands, William taking that part lying west of what is now Campbell street, and James that portion between Campbell and Hepburn on the east. The records show no further early land transactions by the Hepburns within the city limits, although they were concerned in speculations outside.
On the 1st of December, 1795, William Hepburn conveyed to Alexander Smith a tract of land called "Williamsburg," containing 157 acres and 147 perches, in consideration of $473.21. There were some buildings, a barn, and an orchard on this land, and it is supposed to have been located north of the city. Hepburn had obtained a patent for it, April 16, 1794.
All that territory lying between Susquehanna street and Lycoming creek had been surveyed on a warrant dated January 31, 1769, and a patent issued to Richard Peters, August 11, 1772, calling for 579 acres. It was called "Orme's Kirk;" and November 23, 1772, Peters sold to Turbutt Francis; January 19, 1775, Hawkins Boone purchased it. He died intestate, (killed at the battle of Fort Freeland,) and his administrators Robert Martin, Robert Arthur, and Jean Hardy sold 287½ acres to William Winter for £35O, "lawful money of Pennsylvania," July 11, 1791. William Winter died, June 29, 1794, and his executors sold the property to John Rose, October 6, 1801, for $9,200. The Rose purchase in after years came to be known as the "Grier farm," because Judge Grier married Isabella, the only daughter of John Rose, who inherited the farm. It was at the house of Mrs. Winter-which stood near the corner of Fourth and Cemetery streets-where a few sessions of court were bold in 1797, and where the hounds of Judge Wallis upset the dinner table and broke all the china dishes but two!
Amariah Sutton became the owner of that part of Orme's Kirk (287½ acres) lying next to Lycoming creek. It Was conveyed to him by Turbutt Francis, January 19, 1775, in Consideration of £210 17s, "lawful money of Pennsylvania." The patent to Francis was signed by Richard Penn, lieutenant governor. Sutton's deed is recorded at Sunbury in Book F, page 141. He was an Englishman, a brother-in-law of Winter, and settled there certainly as early as 1770. He was reputed to have had four wives and many children. His death occurred October 17, 1817. William Winter had two wives and nineteen children, and his neighbor, Judge Hepburn, had two wives and nineteen children also.
Sutton by deed dated September 3, 1808, (see Deed Book VI, page 275,) also, conveyed to Daniel Tallman, Jeremiah Tallman, William Tharp, Alexander Smith, Thomas Smith, William Collins, and John Forster, trustees of the Lycoming congregation of the Methodist Episcopal church, in consideration of $1, ten acres of ground on which to erect buildings for the accommodation of ministers of that denomination. The terms of the conveyance not being complied with, the land reverted. This ground is now occupied by the Demorest Sewing Machine Works.
Crossing Lycoming creek into what is now the Seventh ward of the city, we find that John Sutton, a nephew of Amariah, was the first owner of the land on which Newberry stands. He settled there about 1772, when the territory was known as "Indian land." Sutton staked out a claim, but during his absence, when the settlers were driven away, John Boak squatted there, but sold his right to Robert Arthur, July 10, 1776, for £35. When Sutton returned he appealed to the Fair Play committee, consisting of John Walker, Thomas Kompley, Brattan Caldwell, and James Crandon, and after hearing the case they decided, July 20, 1776, as follows: "We, the regulators of the Indian land, being met upon a case of dispute between John Sutton and John Beak, and having heard all that has been delivered in the matter between them concerning the land John Beak lived on, we do agree that John Sutton has the prior and best right of the two." The case was afterwards. arbitrated between Sutton and Beak, because John Dunlap and Dorothy Reeder put in a claim, which was disputed by Robert Arthur, and Beak was prevented from signing a release, the said Arthur claiming in right of Samuel Anderson, by a conveyance bearing date June 20, 1785. The arbitrators, after hearing the evidence. did "award and determine that John Sutton had the only just right and title of pre-emption to the land." There were six arbitrators and William Hepburn was one of the number. Arthur then signed a release to Sutton as the "assignee of Samuel Anderson," disclaiming any right to the land "from the beginning of the world. until the day of the date hereof," which was the 20th of October, 1785. This release, enabled Sutton to get a patent from the Commonwealth, September 2, 1786.
The original grant to Sutton, to be more specific, was a pre-emption warrant, dated October 26, 1785, for 300 acres, "including his improvement made before the year 1778, on the west side of Lycoming creek adjoining the same, bounded by lands of John Dunlap on the north, John Clark on the west, and Joseph Reeder on the south." The terms of the warrant were at the rate of £30 per hundred acres. At the time the warrant was granted he had a credit on the books for a payment of £90, and at the time of final settlement another credit of £6 14s 8d. The quantity of land returned was 321 3/8 acres and allowance. The consideration named in the patent is "the moneys paid by John Sutton into the receiver general's office of this Commonwealth at the granting of the warrant hereinafter mentioned, and of the sum of £6 14s 8d, lawful money since paid by him. "The £96 14s 8d was Pennsylvania currency, which reduced to dollars and cents would be about $257.98. The tract was called "New Garden."
In 1794 John Sutton employed William Ellis, the deputy surveyor, to lay out a town on his tract, which be called Newberry. A draft is recorded in the front part of Deed Book VIII, showing the lots, streets, and alloys. In a certificate Sutton declares that the plan is according to his "original proposition containing his proposals to adventurers and settlers in his said town,"and then adds in a postscript that "the two main streets Market and Diamond are fifty feet, and the street round the town thirty feet, and the alloys sixteen feet wide." He commenced the sale of lots at once. September 3, 1795, he sold one to William Ellis for £15, and on the 16th of August, 1796, one to Flavel Roan for the same price. The sales of other lots are also recorded, showing that he did a fair business for the time.
The first tavern opened in Newberry was by George Slone in 1795. It is now known as the Oberfell place. In those days it was a popular place of resort and was frequented by the prominent men of the time. Slone's old account book shows many curious entries. A "gill" cost 5½ d, and there are many charges of this kind. The old tavern was accidentally burned in 1817, but the neighbors felt the loss so, severely that they all turned in and assisted in rebuilding it.
Lying immediately south of Newberry was the town of Jaysburg. The first settler was Joseph Haines, about 1773, who made some improvements. After the land was acquired from the Indians William Paul made application for a tract. His warrant, which was dated October 26, 1785, granted him "district No. 1 of the New Purchase," and named the tract "Pleasant Grove. "Paul sold his land to Abraham Latcha, December 1, 1787; after his death his eldest son Jacob purchased the claims of the other heirs and had a town laid out early in the year 1795 by William Ellis, and named it Jaysburg. Although it was not as old as Newberry, it immediately boomed ahead in anticipation of becoming the county seat. The lots were arranged with a frontage of fifty-two feet and a depth of 208, on streets named Water, Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth, running east and west; with Market and Queen running north and south. The alleys were named Church, Rising, Pine, Court, Strawberry, and Spruce. Lots were sold, £15 and £20 being the ruling price, and buildings hastily erected. For a few years the outlook was very encouraging. John Dunlap opened a tavern, shops and stores were started, and everybody expected Jaysburg would be selected for the county seat. On the 13th of August, 1796, Latcha sold a lot for 55s to John Cammings and John. Stewart, trustees, for an English school house to be erected thereon. Rooms for a jail and court house were provided and the judicial machinery was set in motion.
But when the commissioners selected Williamsport as the place for the county seat, Jaysburg immediately went into decline and soon passed away.
No One was more anxious for the county seat being located east of Lycoming creek than the Hepburn brothers, who owned the Mount Joy and Door Park lands. They felt that it would greatly appreciate the value of their properties and they were not mistaken, although neither of them lived to witness the great improvements that followed. Judge Hepburn manifested the deepest interest in the scheme and urged Michael Ross to have a town laid out as speedily as possible. James Hepburn lived at Northumberland and was engaged in the mercantile business. In April, 1794, the firm was Hepburn & Cowden, but it dissolved June 4th of the same year, both continuing business individually. James Hepburn died, January 14, 1817, in the seventieth year of his age. Ross did not delay a moment. He employed William Ellis and Joseph Williams to lay out the town in 1795. It is not positively known what influences were brought to bear on the commissioners appointed by the Governor to select Williamsport as the county seat, but tradition says it was openly charged that lots in the new town were conveyed to them, or their friends, for making the selection. That there was some trickery in this business there is little doubt, and Jaysburg was beaten.
All the river front between Water street (now Front street) and low water mark, West street from Front to Fourth and Hepburn, to Hartman alley, thence to Market street, thence to the line of the present Philadelphia and Erie railroad, thence to East alley, thence to Fourth street, thence to Academy street, thence to Front street, and thence to the place of beginning.
Michael Ross evidently attached great importance to the river front, for in his deeds he reserved all "fisheries and ferries" unto himself; and it is an important fact that all the land between Front street and the river belongs to his heirs today.
Michael Ross, gentleman, to John Adlum, July 4, 1796, lots Nos. 182 and 183, for £50, size 104 by 208 feet, on East Third street and East alley.
Also lots Nos. 288 and 289, Third street and North alley; also lots Nos. 195 and 196, on west side of East alley and Tom alley.
On same day lot No. 61, for £37 10s, on Pine street and River alley and Center alley; also on same day lot No. 10, for £50, to John Courson, on Front street and River alley.
Also on same day to William Hepburn, Esq., for £182 10s, the following lots in Williamsport; Nos. 25 and 26, on Front and Market streets and River alley; also two other lots on the north side of the Diamond and Tom alley, numbered 186, 187.
Also on the same day lot No. 65, for £37 10s, on the south side of Second street, to John Titsworth.
Also on the same day lot No. 18, for £50, to John Kidd, Front street and Pine alley.
Also on the same day lots Nos. 15 and 16, at Front and Pine streets, to Evan R. Evans of Sunbury for £100.
The sale of other lots followed in rapid succession. It has already been shown when the lots for the public buildings were sold and the peculiar circumstances surrounding the transaction.
ADDITIONS TO THE TOWN PLAT.
There have been many additions of territory since the borough and city were erected. The first was by Thomas Grant in 1815. His land lay east of the Michael Ross farm. Soon after this Andrew D. Hepburn laid out a few lots west of Hepburn street, and called his addition "West Williamsport." In 1833 Jerry Church made an addition east of Academy street. An extensive addition east of Church's was made by John F. Cowen in 1850, and another by Lloyd & Updegraff, north of Church's and west of Cowen's. Among the important additions since that date have been J. and M. DuBois's, 1852; the Woodward, Vanderbelt, Hughes, Maynard, and Willard additions, 1853; the Scoville, Gilbert, Ross, Fleming, and Anthony additions, 1854; the Campbell and Armstrong additions, by Peter Herdic, 1855 and 1865, and the Hepburn, Maynard, and Woodward additions at various dates; Youngman's addition, 1858; Thompson's additions, 1867 and 1869, and the Watson addition, by Peter Herdic in 1873.
Vallamont is a now suburban district on the northern limits of the city, which was given to it by Hon. H. C. McCormick. A syndicate of gentlemen purchased the farm belonging to the heirs of Hezekiah B. Packer in 1890 and laid it out in lots and drive ways as an addition to the city. A portion of the ground extends up the hill to the summit, affording a very fine view of the city and valley. Fine drive ways have been built along the side of the hill and over the summit, and the grounds, which are timbered, have been cleared of underbrush, making the groves' very attractive to visitors and picnic parties. Neat cottage residences will be built on the most eligible sites, and other improvements made, which will make Vallamont a very desirable place. The grounds of the Athletic Association are near by, where base ball and other sports are indulged in.
Although Michael Ross, was the founder of Williamsport, comparatively little is known of his origin. It is claimed that he was living in Philadelphia in 1772 with his mother; that on the 11th of April of that year he and his mother entered into a written agreement with Samuel Wallis to accompany him to Muncy Farms. There he served until 1779, when he was in his twentieth year. Wallis owned large bodies of land, and Ross became a surveyor's assistant. At the close of his agreement Wallis gave him a high recommendation in writing and 100 acres of land, which probably was the foundation of his future fortune.
Mrs. Ross came with her son to the West Branch valley and died within the city limits. No papers or records have ever been found to show who the father of Michael Ross was the boy who was destined to found a town in the New World. That he was born in Europe seems to be, the opinion of his descendants, but whether his mother came as a "redemptioner" to this country is unknown. His name indicates Scotch origin, and, his mother was probably German.
After acquiring the tract of 280 acres from William Winter, on which the town was afterwards laid out, Ross found it necessary to locate here. He found a log house or cabin, which had been abandoned by a squatter, on the site of the present residence of L. L. Stearns, which he occupied for several years, or until about 1800, when he built a two-story brick house, which stood on the site of the present residence of J. V. Brown, East Third street. This was the second or third brick house in the new town, and it was deemed meet and proper that the proprietor should own and occupy such a mansion.
The wife of Michael Ross was Anne, daughter of Christian Courson, whom he married about 1793. They had two sons and three daughters. Michael Rose, the father, died June 20, 1819, in the sixtieth year of his age; Anne his wife, July 31, 1818, in her fifty-fifth year. William, the eldest son, died unmarried, December 23, 1818, in his twenty-fourth year, and soon after he had graduated at a medical college as a physician; John, the second son, also unmarried, died July 6, 1838, in his Thirty-Seventh year. Of the daughters, Elizabeth, the eldest, married Peter Wykoff Vanderbelt, and died July 8, 1828, in her Thirty-Seventh year; Margaret, the second, married James H. Huling, and was instantly killed by a locomotive while she was crossing the Philadelphia and Erie railroad track at Market street, Williamsport, July 25,1872. She was eighty years old; Anna, the, third, married Maj. Charles Low, and died, January 30, 1882, in her eighty-second year.
Michael Ross could not help being familiar with the long cherished scheme of the State authorities, for opening a channel for inland navigation to connect the eastern and western waters of the State by way of the Susquehanna river. The survey was made in 1790 by William Maclay, John Adlum, and Timothy Matlack, who made a voluminous report which was afterwards published by the State. No actual work was ever done excepting with occasional appropriations when some rocks were blasted out to allow the passage of arks and keel boats, until the fact was recognized that it could not be made a navigable river, after which the Pennsylvania canal was undertaken to accomplish the object by slack water navigation.
But Michael Ross lived before these latter day developments, and was a firm believer in the navigation of the river, so that he naturally expected to see his town become a United. States port of entry, and this sentiment was voiced in the familiar name given the village, "the Port," its earliest recorded name; and it may be here stated that for years after the prefix William was used, the name was written William’s Port, as two Words, and with capitals.
As to the word Williams, there is still more difference of opinion. The descendants of Michael Ross claim that the name was bestowed by him in honor of his beloved son William, for whose future he indulged the keenest ambition, and so called his town William's Port.
The friends of Judge William Hepburn claim, that as he was instrumental in having the new county erected and the county seat located, he being the State Senator from Northumberland county at the time, and the first president judge of the new county, that in recognition of his valuable services the citizens proposed to call the town Hepburn's Port, but that he modestly objected and suggested William's Port, which was finally adopted.
Again. There was a surveyor of local repute named Joseph Williams, who lived on our present High street at the intersection with the road leading to Wildwood cemetery, in a house that is yet standing, who was a highly esteemed friend of Michael Ross, and was engaged to lay out the new town. In his honor the street alongside the jail was called William's street. The descendants of Joseph Williams maintain that his name was the one prefixed to the word port to serve as the name of the town. The probability is that all three of the individuals named exercised an influence, perhaps without effort, in having the first name adopted for the modest little village that has grown into such importance as to extend over and absorb all the various localities that once aspired to the separate honor of being the county seat.
The first house in Williamsport was a log structure erected by James Russell in March, 1796. It stood on the corner of Third and Mulberry streets, and was 32x26 feet, the longest part fronting on Third street, and two stories in height. The first story was divided into four rooms; two rooms 15x13 feet fronting on Third street, and two, 15x11, looking northward into what was then a forest of timber. A large brick chimney ran up through the middle of the building, affording a fire place for each of the front rooms. The stairway ascended from the rear room next to what is now Mulberry street. The second story was divided into three rooms, and a large garret, which served as a store room and sleeping apartment. The house had a shingle roof put on with handmade nails. James Russell opened an "Inn" in his house, and it was the only place for some time where travelers could be entertained. This hastily constructed log building was not only the first house in Williamsport, but the first tavern, and remained as a landmark until it was destroyed by the great fire of 1871.
James Russell was an Irishman by birth and came to America in 1774. He died soon after completing his public house, leaving a young widow and six children, who conducted the inn for a short time. In 1804 she married Joseph Dumm, and they conducted the house for more than half a century. It came to be known as the "Affie Dumm House," because Miss Eva (better known as Affie) Dumm, by the second marriage, was born under the roof of the venerable "Inn," and she lived there until it was destroyed. She married a man named Auchey, but he died soon after; she was always known as Affie Dumm. She died, March 1, 1876.
After the erection of the Russell Inn other buildings soon followed. The second was on Third street nearly opposite the book store of A. D Lundy & Company. It was built in 1796 by John Moore for a hotel and was known by the sign of the White Horse. Its dimensions were 24x30 feet and two stories in height. Of course it was built of logs. Nicholas Gale and Joseph Hall were among the early landlords. About the year 1820 it was converted into a store and kept for a number of years by Ralph Elliot and his two brothers, John and Robert. Elliot sold it to Jasper Bennet, who occupied it as a store. Subsequently it was purchased by C. D. Eberman for a tobacco manufactory, but it was consumed by the fire of August 20, 1871.
The third building, also of logs, was erected about this time on the south side of Third street, between Pine and Market square. It was two stories high with two rooms in each story. It is not remembered who the builder was, but it subsequently became the property of Joseph Foulk, and then of Jacob Welper, who sold it to David Trainer.
The fourth house in the borough was a story and a half log building erected by Jacob Hyman, on what is now the northwest corner of Mulberry street and the canal. It was constructed of small round logs, and was built in the summer of 1797.
In 1801 Mr. Hyman erected the frame of a house on a spot adjoining his cabin, with the intention of building for his family a frame house; but before it was erected, he sold the frame skeleton to Mrs. Rebecca Low who had it moved, up to the north side of Third street, between Academy and Mulberry, and there completed.
About 1798, Mrs. Heston who subsequently became the wife of William Wilson built a large log house on the north side of Third street, opposite what is now the book store of A. D. Lundy & Company. From the deeds it appears that this house and lots Nos. 23, 25, and 27 were sold by Michael Ross to Sarah Whitacre, June 6, 1799, for £40; that July 29, 1806, she sold the property to James Winter for £750; and August 9, 1809, Winter transferred it to Sarah Whitacre and Rebecca Wilson for £750. The early history of this building, with a description of the same, are given in an advertisement which appeared in the Lycoming Gazette of December 20, 1809.
SIGN OF THE FOX CHASE.
To be sold or let. - A valuable public house in the borough of Williamsport, which has been occupied as such for a number of years past, and from its extensive accommodations and valuable custom, it is certainly an object to any person who is or wishes to be engaged in a public line; a store and tavern have heretofore been kept in it by the subscriber, and latterly a tavern by James Winter. Said house is two stories high, fifty-two feet front by twenty-nine deep, a kitchen one and a half story, good cellar, well of water, garden, etc., and stabling to contain twenty-one horses. Terms of sale or lease will be made known by the subscriber, in the borough of Williamsport, and possession given the 1st of April ensuing.
November 9, 1819, Rebecca Wilson and Benjamin Courson, executors of Sarah Whitacre, sold it to Henry Hughes for $2,000. In 1822 Hughes tore down the old log house and erected in its place the present two-story frame, which is now the property of his daughter, Mrs. Mary H. Toner, widow of Samuel Toner. The original log structure was probably the fifth house in the old borough. When kept by Mrs. Heston and subsequently by the Winter family, it was the main stopping place for the judges, lawyers and others, when court was in session. The rear part of a portion of the property is still used for stabling horses, and a public house is kept in the front part on the corner of the alley. Mrs. Toner uses the western end for a private dwelling. Henry Hughes kept a hotel for a long time in this venerable building, and he served as postmaster from April 20, 1819, to May 24, 1839, a period of over twenty years. The postoffice was in a corner of the bar room, in a little enclosure which presented a quaint appearance. The mail at that time was carried in a pair of saddle bags. Henry Hughes was a native of, County Derry Ireland, where he was born, January 23, 1782, and died in Williamsport, February 22,1846.
Some time in 1798 possibly earlier, Thomas Huston built a log house on the northwest corner of Third street and the square, and opened a tavern, which he conducted for several years. It was first known by the sign of the "Rising Sun." About 1811 Huston sold the hotel to a man named Pickle, who subsequently sold it to Jacob Heiveley, and it was afterwards known as the "Heiveley House." It was burned March 4, 1865.
The first birth in the settlement was that of William Russell, son of James Russell, keeper of the Russell Inn, born September 23, 1796. When he became a Young man he went to Canada, where he remained for thirty years, and then returned to the place of his nativity to die. The next birth was probably that of William Calvert, which occurred November 25, 1797, in Moore's tavern. At this time there were only four log houses in the town called Williamsport!
The first brick building within the original limits of the town was built in 1799 on Front street, between Market and Mulberry, by Andrew Tulloh, who used it for a short time as a law office. It is No. 31 Front street. A second story was added to it years ago. The bricks were manufactured on the banks of Grafius run where that stream crosses Hepburn street. A few months later another kiln was burned here for the brick house of Michael Ross. The second brick house within the limits was built by William Wilson, about the year 1810, on the south side of Third street, on what is now the site of the First National Bank. It was kept by Mr. Wilson as a hotel and was known by the "Sign of the Buck." Mr. Wilson was familiarly known as "Congress Billy," from the fact that he was a member of the Lower House of Congress. This house was subsequently kept by James Cummings and later by Thomas Hall. It was a popular place in early days and the leading men of the time stopped there. In April, 1842, it was burned, but was rebuilt by Mr. Hall the following year. After his death it was sold to Charles Doebler, who conducted it as the United States Hotel for some time, when he sold it to his son, Valentine S. Doebler. Under the management of "Tine," as he was familiarly called, it became the leading hotel in Williamsport. About the time of his death, (1866,) it was sold to the First National Bank, which institution still owns it.
When the borough was organized in 1806 there were sixty taxable inhabitants within its boundaries, ten of whom were single freemen, as follows: Richard Hays, James J. Nollis, John Kidd, Elias Winters, Samuel Coleman, Thomas Alexander, William F. Buyers, James Heylmun, Joseph Foulke, and Abraham Hooper. The list is certified by Joseph Foulke, who was clerk. The largest amount of tax this year was $7.70, which was paid by Michael Ross, the founder; the next was $4.25, paid by Andrew D. Hepburn. The smallest sum was four cents!
The tax duplicate for 1806-07, the first for the borough, shows that the assessment amounted to $86.70. It is important as showing the first taxable inhabitants of the town, and a transcript is herewith given: Thomas Alexander, William F. Buyers, Joseph Boone, Widow Biss, James Cummings, Elizabeth Calvert, Dr. Samuel Coleman, Robert Collins, Joseph Dumm, Amos Doan, John Doan, John Eldridge, Thomas Emmons, Joseph Foulke, Samuel E. Green, Jacob Hyman, Thomas Houston, Esq., Andrew D. Hepburn, Charles Houston, Thomas and Richard Hays, Mordecai Heylman, Conrad Haller, David Hunter, Elizabeth Freeman, John Kidd, John Levergood, William and Thomas Murray, John Murphy, James Moore, Robert McElrath, Robert McClure, Richard McEwen, Michael Ross, John Shaffer, Alexander Sloan, John Turk, Jerry Tallman, Richard Titus, Stacy Throp, Thomas Updegraff, Peter Vanderbelt, James Winter, Apollos Woodward, Jacob Waters, Ed. Wilkinson, James Watson, David Young.
In 1807 the tax amounted to $89.69½, and the following taxables were added: William Brindle, Peter Scates, Anthony Harris, Jonathan Steiner, John McConnell, Joseph Lenover, Nathan Bailey, George Strawbridge, William Pideock, John Calvert, John Murphy, and John Biss. Mordecai Heylman was the first clerk of council.
The first store east of Lycoming creek, before Williamsport was laid out, was opened by William Hepburn and Samuel E. Grier about 1790, on the Deer Park farm, at the foot of what is now Park street, near where Judge Hepburn afterwards built his brick residence, which is still standing.
William Wilson opened the first store in Williamsport in 1801. It occupied a site on Third street, at the corner of South alley. Andrew D. Hepburn was the second storekeeper. He commenced business June 2, 1802, when quite a young man. He was a son of James Hepburn, the owner of the Mount Joy tract of land on the western boundary of the town, and was born at Northumberland, March 10, 1784. He came here probably to look after the estate of his father. Andrew D. Hepburn became quite prominent in the town. He served as county treasurer from 1806 to 1808, and was frequently appointed by the court to serve on road views and as commissioner in the division of townships. In fact, the name of no one of the time appears oftener in the records. He married Martha Huston, by whom he had seven sons and four daughters. She died, February 6, 1852, and her husband followed her March 6, 1861.
The first druggist was Henry Lenhart, who, in 1815, opened a drug store on the southeast corner of Third and Pine streets, where, in 1811, he had his hat shop. There are twenty-two drug stores in the city now.
To show the progress that has been made it may be mentioned that in 1830 there were only ten brick buildings in Williamsport, including the courthouse. They were located as follows: Octagon building, adjoining the present residence of John B. Hall, on West Third street, which was built for an academy; the courthouse grounds had not been graded, but were inclosed by a high rough board fence, which was much dilapidated; a small brick on the corner of Pine and Willow streets; brick hotel, "Sign of the Buck," Maj. James H. Huling, proprietor, on the site of the present First National Bank; a small brick east of the hotel; two-story brick, Southwest corner of Third and Market; two-story brick on Mussina's corner, then owned by William Wilson; two-story brick on the corner now occupied by Kline's hardware store, and the little brick law office of Andrew Tulloh, on Front street. There were no three-story buildings with magnificent fronts, such as we see today; few pavements or walks were laid and pedestrians had to make their way through the streets as best they could. There were but two churches, both unfinished Pine street, and the stone church used by the German Reformed congregation. The Presbyterians hold services in the court house. Third street terminated at West street. Academy street was the eastern limit of the borough, and the woods extended to where the railroad now crosses East Third street. Buildings were scattered "and far between." A frame house stood on what is now the site of the "Old Eagle Hotel," and a small law office belonging to Robert Fleming was perched on the corner now occupied by the store of L. L. Stearns & Sons. This lot was afterwards occupied by the City Hotel, and at the time Fleming occupied it could have been bought for $300. The whole square had previously been purchased by Robert McClure for $400. Above this corner, on Pine street, there were very few buildings, and the street terminated at the Ross graveyard - all beyond this point were fields and timber. There were no public improvements, no saw or other mills nearer than Loyalsock and Lycoming creeks. The only saw mill was the one owned by Culbertson at what is now DuBoistown. It was a small affair and could only run two and three months in the year on account of water. At this time the tax laid for borough purposes was $250!
In October, 1830, Jacob L. Mussina began the jewelry business on the south side of Third street and Market square in a small frame shop. In 1831 he put up a one-story shop on Pine street, on the site of the West Branch Bank; and in 1845 he purchased a small brick building on the northeast corner of Market square, where he carried on business for thirteen years and prospered. In 1858 he took down the old building and erected the three-story brick which is still standing, and in which his son Sylvester now carries on a large jewelry business.
Mr. Mussina was a mechanical genius, a fine mathematician, a splendid workman, and greatly respected. He was of Polish origin, and was born in Aaronsburg, Centre county, Pennsylvania, April 29, 1807. Thrown upon his own resources at an early age, he learned the trade of a watchmaker, and followed it to the close. March 18, 1834, he married Jerusha P. Bailey, of Williamsport, and five sons and three daughters blessed the union. One of the sons, J. Wood, is now president of the Merchants' National Bank. When the telegraph was introduced in Williamsport Mr. Mussina became the first operator and sent the first message over the wires to Philadelphia, August 14, 1851. It contained twenty-seven words and cost thirty-seven cents. He also opened the first daguerreotype gallery in 1842. For many years he bold various positions of trust both in civil and religious lines. He was a justice of the peace for ten years, and for over thirty years trustee and secretary of the Pine Street Methodist Episcopal church, and for forty-three years he served as clerk to the return judges of the elections. He retired from business in 1866, and his death occurred January 8, 1888, in the eighty-first year of his age.
In 1831 Jacob C. Welper, noted for his eccentricities, erected a two-story stone building on what is now the site of Mayor Keller's hardware store. He had a red line about a foot wide painted around the house, just below the second story windows. This building was long used as a cigar manufactory, and it was a landmark until the march of improvement caused it to be removed for the present brick structure.
By act of April 11, 1840, Williamsport, for the first time, was authorized to have a licensed. auctioneer. Previous to this sales were conducted by any one who had tact for the business by public outcry.
On the 24th of July, 1841, John Wise, the famous balloonist, made an ascension from Williamsport which attracted the attention of the people for miles around. It was his thirtieth ascension and was witnessed by hundreds of spectators. The balloon rose gracefully to a great height and then sailed over Bald Eagle mountain and was soon lost to view. He descended in White Deer valley, landing in front of the house of Mr. Deeter, badly frightening two women, who were the only inmates. Mr. Wise succeeded in convincing them that he was not an evil spirit, when they came out and viewed the wonder. The inhabitants of the valley soon collected in force to gaze upon what was regarded as a great curiosity. After taking supper with Mrs. Shaffer the balloonist returned to Williamsport the same evening, followed by his airship on a wagon.
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0.99657 |
What makes a truly great fantasy/paranormal novel? Numerous things of course, but I filter it down to two key qualities. First, the reader becomes so invested in the characters that she lives and dies by their successes and failures. Secondly - and most importantly - by the end of the book, the reader has forgotten that the fantasy world is not real.
Daughter of Smoke and Bone definitely fulfills both of these qualities. You become totally immersed in a very foreign world that seems entirely believable and follow Akiva and Karou's every move with anticipation, excitement, and terror.
What makes this book so wonderful can be broken down into a few more subcategories. First, our leading lady Karou and leading man Akiva. Karou is everything you want in a teenage protagonist. Smart, artistically talented, brave, funny, independent, not obsessed with boys, and devoted to her friends and family. Akiva is haunted and angry, yet also resourceful, loyal, romantic, and fundamentally good. Their romance is a key part of the story, but Karou in particular exists without Akiva. While their relationship was a bit insta-love, the intensity fit the situation. The reader gets to know Akiva before Karou does. This sets a mysterious tone, but also downplays the speed of their romance. And what a romance it is. Laini Taylor has a knack for writing scenes between Akiva and Karou that make your heart race and keep you turning back the pages to re-read the romance.
Family and friends are a key part of Daughter of Smoke and Bone. I loved Karou's best friend Zuzanna. Their banter was hilarious and showcased how Karou both could and could not have a normal life. Most important was Karou's family, the chimaera who raised her: Brimstone, her "father," Issa, Yasri, Twiga, and Kishmish. Karou spends much of her life running errands for Brimstone - collection teeth. While Issa fusses over her, Brimstone is reserved with his praise and affection, but you know it's there. Brimstone is a character we slowly learn more about and come to truly admire and respect. In fact, one of the key differences I see between Akiva and Karou is how Karou's confidence and vivaciousness implicitly shows a girl who is well-loved. Even though Karou's family are absent for large portions of the book, their presence is always felt. It's wonderful to have a strong family plotline is a YA novel - a unique one but strong nonetheless.
Laini Taylor's writing is simply marvelous. Despite having rich, detailed descriptions, the book flows smoothly. The action, character development, and romance are spread evenly throughout the book so it never drags. I particularly loved how the world was slowly revealed to the reader. There's a fine balance between mystery and confusion. I hate books that keep me in the dark for three fourths of the story, but I didn't feel that way with this book. I was puzzled but intrigued. And I loved how the things that seemed inconsequential or confusing when I first read it made complete sense when I revisited them after I finished the book. A good book is one that is richer on the re-read than on the first go through.
The world building was just about perfect. The book is made up of seraphim and nephilim. Traditionally, these creatures are known as angels and devilish creatures. But these are not your harp strumming, robe wearing angels. Neither are the chimaera, despite their animal/human appearance, the thoughtless devils that we associate with legend. No. The seraphim and nephilim are locked in an eternal fight. Both sides have created their own mythology about who began the wars and who is at fault. Both creatures are fully described. Or at least as fully described as is necessary for a first book in a series. There was never an info dump, but I finished the book with a clear idea of the introduced creatures, their legends, and the physical world in which they lived. As for the human world, the setting in Prague was lovely. The ornate Eastern European city added to the book's decadence.
I can't recommend Daughter of Smoke and Bone enough. The characters are enchanting, the story rich and emotional, the romance sweet and hot. The book ends leaving you screaming for more.
Welcome to the fan club of this book. It rocked right? Great review!
This is a great review of the book, but unfortunately I didn't fall in love with the story as much as I hoped I would. I was SO caught up in Karou that when it switched to Madrigals, it through me off.
I'm planning on getting this really soon! I'm so excited to read it. Great review. It's making me too impatient to get it.
I can't believe I've put this one off for so long---you make it sounds so amazing! I definitely need to get to this one soon. Great review!
I agree with you. This is one of the BEST books I've read, not only this year, but ever. Great review.
Reading your review makes me want to read it real bad, I've heard great things about this book and can't wait to read it myself!
I'm going to be reading this one soon. I've read only positive reviews about this one.
"There's a fine balance between mystery and confusion.
I loved this book too and such great characters . Brimstone made this book for me. He was mysterious and yet watched over her.
Completely agree! I've been trying to come up with a review that matches how awesome this book is but I fail every time. I absolutely loved this book and can't wait to read more. Lovely review, Alison.
I love this review so much because it explained so eloquently why I enjoyed the book. It's definitely one of my favourites I've read so far this year. I love this statement especially, "A good book is one that is richer on the re-read than on the first go through" because it's so true! I loved the feel of family in this book too, most of YA books disregard it or it's there simply for the sake of being problematic but you can tell everyone genuinely loved each other. This book made me want to go to Prague so much!
Agreed! This book was so amazing. I loved Karou and the writing definitely was fantastic. Awesome review, and so glad you enjoyed it :).
"the reader has forgotten that the fantasy world is not real."
Fantastic review Alison, absolutely agree with everything you said! I loved how important family, even a dysfunctional one, was in this book!
This is a beautiful review. You hit on so many points that I look for in books (worlds that feel real, characters I'll care about, family, the way the romance progresses--those re-readable romance scenes!) Now, finally, I think I'm warming up to the idea of getting over the hype and reading this book. Thank you.
I have this on my shelf...I really need to read it because I have heard such great things about it!
I'm so glad you enjoyed it. I want to read this one so bad, I like how you broke everything down.
I'm really glad you like this book. I wish I could have like it more. Nice review!
This is a remarkable review for Daughter of Smoke and Bone. I am so glad that you liked it. It is one of my favorites for the year.
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0.914272 |
Where has Mubarak stashed his millions?
This house (pictured left) in Knightsbridge, central London, is believed to belong to Hosni Mubarak's son, Gamal.
(CNN) -- Global efforts are intensifying to seize assets belonging to Egypt's former president, Hosni Mubarak, following the revolution in the north African nation.
The former Egyptian leader may now be residing in Sharm el-Sheikh following his flight last week from Cairo -- but where is his fortune?
What moves have been made to track down Mubarak's assets?
Switzerland's government said Friday it had moved to freeze assets in the country's banks that might belong to Mubarak or his family. The Swiss Cabinet had frozen all funds belonging to Mubarak or "his circles," according to a statement from the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.
The British government has not yet moved to freeze any assets held in the UK, but the Serious Fraud Office told CNN that they were preparing in case they are asked to do so.
Where is Mubarak, where is his money?
--Nicholas Shaxson, Chatham House analyst.
One UK opposition politician on Sunday urged the government to do more. "I think it would be a very prudent thing to do to freeze suspicious accounts here because it will take a new government quite a while to mount some kind of legal claim on them," said Mark Malloch Brown, a minister in the last Labour government.
"It would be a real pity if when they did the money had gone. I think it would be great for the reputation for the City of London if those accounts were frozen now."
What is the true value of Mubarak's assets?
It is widely believed that Mubarak and his family are extremely wealthy, but estimates as to his total net worth vary widely and haven't been confirmed. Nicholas Shaxson, a Chatham House analyst with specialist knowledge of both Africa and tax havens, suggested to CNN that a conservative figure might be between $1 and $2 billion, although he cautioned that no one outside the family really knows.
Global Financial Integrity, a Washington DC-based research and advocacy group, said $57 billion flowed out of Egypt between 2000 and 2008, lending to widespread speculation that some of that money went to corrupt leaders. "The exercise of power is an expensive business in corrupt countries and a dictator will have many supporters to pay off," said Shaxson. "Without wanting to minimize the amount of money allegedly plundered from Egypt by Mubarak, they should be chasing his supporters too."
The idea that Mubarak did anything illegal is pure speculation at this point.
How do dictators take money out of their countries?
It's rarely the case that looted assets are removed from a country in the form of cash in a suitcase, said Shaxson, adding that it's fairly easy to plunder a country when you control the whole political system. What's more likely to happen is that cash is removed through commercial trade deals.
"If you buy machinery for instance worth $1 million, you pay $2 million, and the trader might agree to put $1 million into a bank account in a tax haven," explained Shaxson, author of "Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men Who Stole the World."
"In that way you can effectively disguise the theft."
Where are Mubarak's assets now held?
Many of his assets are likely to be in the form of real estate such as property or yachts, Shaxson added. "Mubarak's assets are likely held in places where his family visit and feel comfortable, such as London, Singapore or Dubai. He is also likely to own property in the United States and Switzerland."
The family may now be trying to liquidate those assets, according to one author of a book on Mubarak. "I know that some people in London are filing petitions for the freezing of the family's assets," Aladdin Elaasar, author of The Last Pharaoh: Mubarak and the Uncertain Future of Egypt in the Volatile Mid East told The Sunday Times.
How successful will attempts to seize his assets be?
"The UK, the U.S. and Switzerland are the three main countries where 'dirty money' is laundered, and those countries will want to be seen to be doing something," said Shaxson.
"But the bigger picture is the wholesale looting of Egypt. If Switzerland and the UK get away with saying we've found a few hundred million, that disguises the real issue which is the complicity with which Western countries help corrupt leaders in developing nations to loot their citizens, especially by using secretive offshore tax havens, such as Jersey or the Cayman Islands."
What problems will investigators face?
The main problem in tracking down Mubarak's assets is the many layers of secrecy that disguise ownership. "His houses will not be owned under the name H. Mubarak Esq," Shaxson said. "They might be owned by a trust registered in Cyprus, run through Switzerland for example. There might be up to five layers of secrecy, and devices known as "flee clauses" that the immensely wealthy use to throw investigators off the scent and hinder attempts to seize illegally obtained assets."
Have assets belonging to other dictators ever been seized?
Yes. Up to $700 million belonging to the family of former Nigerian president Sani Abacha was returned to his own country by Swiss authorities after his death in 1998, according to pressure group Tax Justice Network. Up to $684 million was recovered from the family of Ferdinand Marcos after he was ousted from the Philippines in 1986, it added.
But these are drops in the ocean when compared to the total amount looted from developing countries, according to Shaxson. "The UK and Switzerland should not be allowed to get away with saying we've found a few hundred million dollars and leading people to think they are acting against 'dirty money.' Look how quickly Swiss authorities said they were closing down Mubarak's assets: It means they always knew where it was, and they're only doing something about it now because he's in the news."
"These countries are complicit in allowing the developing world to loot their citizens."
What can be done to clean up the system?
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, an agency at the forefront of a global crackdown on money laundering, is trying to set up a system of exchanging information between tax havens. However Shaxson said the whole system was riddled with holes, as it was only signed between developed countries, not the developing countries from where most money is being looted.
"Perhaps more will happen because of the publicity surrounding Mubarak's money though," he said. "There is more of a climate that money laundering is unacceptable now. Because the UK has such huge influence in offshore tax havens it could reform the political system if there is political will."
UK Business Secretary Vince Cable told the BBC that his government would act against any British bank involved in helping Mubarak improperly move funds but said London would not act alone.
"I wasn't aware that he (Mubarak) had enormous assets here but there clearly needs to be concerted international action on this," Cable told the BBC.
"There is no point in one government acting in isolation but certainly we need to look at it. It depends also whether his funds were illegally obtained or improperly obtained."
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0.941834 |
As a general rule of thumb, the Institue of Medicine of the National Academies recommends that children and adults consume 14 grams. of dietary fiber for every 1,000 calories of food eaten. Given the summary dietary fiber and calorie information presented above, there would be about 0.0 grams of dietary fiber per 1,000 calories of Cheese, low-sodium, cheddar or colby.
So, based on this information, can we consider Cheese, low-sodium, cheddar or colby to be a high fiber food? The answer is No - definitely not.
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0.942294 |
Although the atmosphere may seem uniform when we look up at the sky, it changes dramatically from the lowest level near the ground to the highest region near outer space.
The troposphere is the atmosphere's lowest layer. It contains about 4/5 of the atmosphere's total mass. It varies in size, reaching all the way to about 11 miles (18 kilometers) above ground level at the equator. At the poles, the troposphere extends to only about 5 miles (8 kilometers).
Most of the water vapor in the Earth's atmosphere is in the troposphere, and the troposphere is where weather happens.
In the troposphere, as altitude increases, the density of the air decreases and temperature decreases. At high altitudes, people can become deprived of oxygen because the lower air pressure makes it harder for oxygen to get pass through the lung membranes. Some people whose ancestors have lived in very high mountains, such as the Himalayas and the Andes, for a long time have developed physical adaptations to their respiratory and circulatory systems to account for the lower oxygen pressure.
The upper boundary of the troposphere is known as the tropopause. The temperature here is about -71 degrees Fahrenheit (-57 degrees Celsius).
Above it is the stratosphere, which reaches up to about 31 miles (50 kilometers) above the surface of the Earth. The troposphere contains the ozone layer. The ozone layer absorbs ultraviolet radiation and produces heat. Because of this, in the troposphere, temperature increases as altitude increases. At the stratopause, the upper boundary of the stratosphere, the temperature is around 14 degrees Fahrenheit (-10 degrees Celsius).
The jet streams, strong winds that rotate around the Earth, are located in the upper part of the troposphere and the lower section of the stratosphere. The jet streams move from west to east and are much more regular than winds closer to the Earth's surface. When planning flights by air, the movement of jet streams is always taken into account, as flight times can be greatly decreased or increased, depending on whether the aircraft flies with or against a jet stream.
Jet streams have a strong influence on weather near the ground in temperate zones.
Above the stratosphere is the ionosphere, which extends from about 30 to 300 miles (50 to 500 kilometers) above the Earth's surface. The ionosphere is constantly blasted with ultraviolet radiation, solar X-rays and cosmic rays. All of this radiation changes the molecules of gas in the ionosphere into electrically charged particles. These particles are known as ions. When streams of charged particles from the sun ionize gases in the ionosphere, striking, colorful displays known as The Aurora Borealis and the Aurora Australis are created. Also known as the Northern and Southern lights, the Auroras are usually seen only near the poles.
The lower region of the ionosphere, which extends to about 56 miles (90 kilometers) above the Earth's surface, is known as the mesosphere. The upper part of the ionosphere is the thermosphere.
In the mesosphere, gases become thinner and temperatures decrease with altitude.
Gases are even thinner in the thermosphere, and get less dense as height increases. However, temperature increases with height because a layer of molecules in the thermosphere absorbs solar ultraviolet and X-rays, generating heat. Temperatures at the top of the thermosphere can reach 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit (2,000 degrees Celsius).
Above the ionosphere is the exosphere. It reaches up to 6,2000 miles (10,000 kilometers) above the Earth. This is the highest part of the Earth's atmosphere, and the boundary between Earth and outer space. The exosphere is very thin and contains atoms of hydrogen, helium and oxygen.
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0.998742 |
An economy is usually made up of three distinct, yet overlapping, sectors: the public sector including all levels of government, the private sector and the civil society. In the broadest sense, public sector creates a favorable political, legal and economic environment; the private sector creates economic opportunities; and the civil society ensures mobilizing peoples’ participations.
Speaking of the third sector, the civil society, alternatively called the voluntary sector, is an aggregate of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), non-profit organizations (NPOs), charities, foundations, activist groups, academia, professional associations, trade unions and so on. Although, all of these are collectively labelled as the civil society; in reality the third sector organizations have been traditionally functioning as disparate entities, operating in isolated siloes with little or no interface with each other. Perhaps, the only common characteristic- all of them operate in the space between the public and the private sector.
Of late, a new and interesting paradigm of identifying, organizing and managing the third sector of the economy has come to the fore- called as “social economy”. As a result the civil society has been increasingly referred to as the social economy. However, important to realize, the concept of social economy is something way above and beyond a mere change of nomenclature. It involves a 360 degree integration, transformation and reorganization of the civil society, before it could be truly rechristened as social economy.
Social economy is the entire segment of the economy that is composed of third sector entities, seamlessly integrated and working as an unified whole to increase social inclusion and reduce inequalities, while simultaneously creating economic value.
Coming to the crucial question, how does the third sector transform into a social economy? There is no single answer. Governments around the world are making incremental contributions tailored as per their specific social, economic and political environments to transform their third sectors into social economies. Some of these contributions include changes to the regulatory frameworks within which social economy organizations operate including: beginning with classifying them according to development themes like livelihood, heath, education and so one; standardization of the services provided by each of them under the respective themes; introduction of a range of funding approaches supporting the delivery of such defined services; creating investment funds; and expanding the range of organizations that can provide public services.
Moreover, social economy organizations like social enterprises and co-operatives provide a model of enterprise that explicitly blends social with economic aims. The success and growth of these models within the market is contagious and in the long run will have humanizing effects on the operations of the market as a whole. This at least is the hope. In fact, the adoption of corporate social responsibility practices by firms and the recent trend toward sustainable development are possible examples of this effect. Hence, the social economy framework has often been argued as a means to proposing an alternative to the limits and inequalities of a market-driven economy.
Placed in this context, the social economy, rather than operating in siloed spaces between the public and private sector, in fact, can essentially augment and supplement both the public and the private sectors. It has all the potential of contributing to employment, social inclusion, provision of public services, facilitating democratic participation and community building.
However, much remains to be done so as move beyond the “civil society” and into the social economy– to create the necessary enabling environment and an overarching framework to support the evolution and development of social economy organisations and to mainstream the sector in economic and social policies in order to maximise its impact on the economy.
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0.996845 |
Public speaking is difficult for many people. When you add the sorrow of losing a loved one and the pressure of trying to honor the legacy of someone you admire, it can feel like an impossible task. Here are five tips to help you get through this difficult time and deliver a speech that will celebrate the life of your friend or family member.
1. Get your head right.
Before you sit down to start writing a eulogy, it is vitally important that you are calm. Losing a loved one can trigger many strong feelings, positive and negative, which will come out in your writing as over-the-top praise, selfish anger or overwhelming sadness. Often these feelings come and go quickly, especially if your loss was unexpected. You may write one thing in the morning and not still feel the same way at the end of the day. Taking the time to work through your feelings makes writing an honest and endearing eulogy much easier.
2. Start with a story.
Ideally a funny one. Delivering a eulogy will always be sad and reflective, but there is no reason that the entire speech needs to be in this tone. If you start the speech with an anecdote about the person’s life that is both funny and representative of the better traits of the person, you will instantly connect with the audience. Stories are also easier for people to follow because in our day-to-day interactions we almost always speak in stories, telling our friends or family what happened to us during the course of the day.
If you can’t think of a funny story or a meaningful story about the person’s life, it is also a good bet to grab and hold people’s attention.
3. Stick to the greatest hits.
Every situation is different, but generally speaking your eulogy shouldn’t take too long. You risk losing the audience and, more importantly, failing to highlight the truly great accomplishments of the loved one you are remembering. I suggest picking the three greatest qualities of the person you are remembering and figuring out a way to highlight them in your speech with meaningful personal stories that represent these qualities.
4. Write short simple sentences.
Delivering a eulogy is emotional. It is easy to get choked up at points. Sometimes, your mind wanders while you are speaking. Short simple sentences will be easier to say when these difficult moments arise. They also sound better spoken out loud, when compared to a longer sentence that is likely better constructed for reading quietly.
5. Stick to the script.
No one will be upset if you read from a script when you are delivering a eulogy. Style points are really a thing in this setting. Public speaking experts will tell you that you should look around the room and try and make eye contact with people, which is fine if you are comfortable doing so, but at a memorial service or a funeral people are there to honor your loved one and they want to listen to what you have to say. I suggest using a large font to help you read, printing out your speech on one-sided paper so it is easier to track your place, and numbering the papers with a colored marker in the upper right hand corner to make sure you don’t get lost in in your script.
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0.966337 |
Can a student participate in the Honors Program while in the Three-Year Graduation Program?
Yes, a student may participate in the Honors Program as well as the three-year program. While Honors Program students have a study abroad requirement, this can be met during an extended summer session rather than a semester abroad. Also, while Honors Program students are required to participate in a Senior Seminar, each student will be allowed the opportunity to complete this requirement during the third year.
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I'm trying to decide whether to pay cash or finance a new car purchase in a few months. I have good credit so I shouldn't have any trouble getting financing, but I would only want to use a loan if I could get 0% interest for three years or thereabout. I am hoping to get an idea ahead of time. Thanks in advance for your help!
Do not assume 0% is always good.
First to answer your question, look, listen and read the ad's for a zero interest loan. "VERY WELL qualified purchaser". Meaning in at least the 700's probably 750 or above.
Now, do not always assume that zero percent interest is the way to go. Although vehicles are not this cheap anymore, lets pick a $15,000 vehicle.
The dealership offers a $2000 rebate OR zero percent interest on a three year loan. Take the rebate....... pay the interest, use the rebate.
$15,000 / 36 months = $417 per month. Total = $15,000 paid.
$15,000 - 2,000 = $13,000 financed @ 4.5% = $387 per month = $13,922 paid. (still 36 months).
You saved over a thousand dollars by paying the interest plus your monthly payment is about $30 per month cheaper. Crunch the numbers, what sounds good is not always good. The dealership lost $2,000 but the finance company made $922. They will like you even more and increase your credit score.
Again, these are fictional numbers. Crunch your numbers, interest, and time of the loan plus rebate.
Valuable information. Thanks for the info and the breakdown of everything; VERY Helpful advice.
Wow, Personally, I appreciate knowing this strategy in car buying. Will remember this when my credit score improves and I'm shopping again in the future.
Your numbers are wrong in the second example. You forget the interest is an ANNUAL percentage and your loan is a 3 year loan, therefore you need to compound the interest amount by 3 for the length of the loan. In other words....$13000 financed @4.5% is $585 per year, multiply that by 3 years and the total interest is $1755 making the monthly payment $409.86. Therefore this method only saves about $6.81 per month or $245.16 for the full loan term of 36 months.
I am no math wiz, but in your equation above total for 0% is $15,000, where as financing is the $13,922 + $2,000 that was up down so total is actually $15,922. No matter what you finance you will always pay more with increased interest.
The amount that you put down actually decreases your monthly payments, but not significantly, usually month dollars to $20 max really, unless you jump from 2k down to 5k down. Best thing to do is if you have to finance is to make a spilt monthly payment just like with a house loan, it cuts the interest monthly.
The dealership cannot offer a rebate. The rebate comes from the manufacturer. When you take a rebate the dealership loses nothing as the manufactuer covers the rebate. The dealership can offer a discount but not a rebate.
Typically, the offer is zero percent financing or the rebate. Often, they even out over the life of the loan. That means the interest saved using the zero percent versus the going rate is often about the same as the rebate. The manufacturers know math.
Your example is skewed. These days the rate offered by the captive financing, manufacturer's finance arm, is much lower than 4.5 percent when offered in conjunction with a rebate. Typically the rate is around 2 percent. For folks with great credit.
Using your $15,000 number, which is usually too low for a car which would have a $2,000 rebate, the total interest paid on a 36 month loan at 2 percent would be $480. At 36 months the total interest would be $780. Therefore, using the $15,000 in your example the best choice would be to take the $2,000. As you noted.
A better price for a $2,000 rebate is more like $25,000. For a 36 month loan at 2 percnt the total interest paid would be about $776, at 60 months to total interest would be $1,280. Still better to take the rebate.
And Cemoore is wrong. You do not pay the same amount of interest every year on a car loan. Every month the loan balance drops due to your car payment. Interest is comuted monthly on the loan balance. The loan balance is the amount of the loan reduced by the amount of the loan paid. The monthly payment includes a payment of the loan as well as interest. Each month the loan balance decreases and the amount of interest paid decreases as well.
On a car loan the interest is not compounded. The interest is paid each month. No compounding.
Using his example, $13,000 over 36 months at 4.5. percent, the monthly payment is about $387. The total interest paid over the full 36 months is about $932, not $1,755.
No, his calculations are correct. Total paid $13922. The reason is that the principal decreases monthly, so with each payment less interest is charged. Interest is not calculated up front in a lump sum as you did. It is typically compounded monthly even though they call it APR. [For more info, Google "Effective Annual Rate"] CK has an Amortization Calculator you can use to test out paying $15000 @0% for 36 months vs. $13000 @4.5% for 36 months.
The Amort. Calculator also is a useful tool to show you how powerful making a downpayment is, especially on longer loans.
This was very informative and valuable! Will take it into consideration on my next vehicle purchase. Thanks!
I know this post is 2 years old, but I have to correct cemoore1225's incorrect math. That is NOT how you calculate interest. You are reducing your outstanding principal each month you make a payment, thereby reducing the amount for which interest is charged each month. You do not pay interest on principal that you have already paid down over the course of a loan. The math of the orignal poster is correct and your monthly payment would be $387.
Money depreciates over time, so I was alwasy told to do the 0% or only very, very low interest rates and skip downpayments. Money now is worth more than what it will be worth in the future. (And it's better to grow money now.) That's what I was taught, though math & finances is not my strong front.
I worked dealerships for 25 years and most are scumbags their strategy is to get you excited about the vehicle then wear you down with all the negotiations and NEVER LET THEM KNOW YOUR A PAYMENT BUYER then they can do just about anything they want behind the scenes and you will be sure to pay at least $50 more on the payments.
Okay now that you are tired and hungry they finally send you into the lion's den called finance department were they will use every term to baffle you into thinking they are your friend and working hard for you to get you the very best deal possible but trust me when I say they are the worst con artist in the company. Their whole job is to get every single penny they can squeeze out of you!!!!!
This includes getting the zero percent, just because you get that they will try to add in all kinds of other services like remote entry, security system and my favorite the paint or desert protection package.
Do not be afraid to walk away at anytime also do not give up your keys to your trade in until the deal is done and your happy. They will come up with excuses to keep you there like holding your trade hostage so they can reason with you.
great post Jimbo, I am planing on purchasing a luxury vehicle and after all the research everything points towards geting a loan from a bank and not the dealer. ie getting the money for the car from the bank and paying the car cash at the dealer and then paying off the loan payments with the bank. would you say thats a better idea?
Very helpful and glad to hear from someone with such experience in the industry!
I don't know what is required for 0%, I always assumed you needed perfect credit.
I never looked into low finance offerswhen my credit was perfect. I always had alot of equity in my trades and the rebates in lu of 0% made more sense to me. Domestic pickup rebates can be $4000-$9000.
My credit recently took a large hit down to 680. So when i was shopping for a new truck, I checked with aaa, to see what i would qualify for before going to the dealer.AAA aproved me for 2.49% for 4 years.
After settling on a price at the dealer, They included a $500 rebate to use chrysler capital.When they came back with 4.99% this seamed fair with the rebate. I did the math and decided aaa was the better option. When I told them this they weren't happy, but came back and matched the 2.49% and a total of $7,000 in rebates including $500 for taking the %2.49 ( I also got $3,500 off the sticker price as well).
My point is I never thought i would qualify for this rate but prequalifying before i went in gave me the confidence to push the dealer and get a great deal.
when you check into what you were "pre-qualified" for, did they hit your credit score with a hard inquiry?
This was valuable infomation. I hear a lot about pre-qualifying for a loan prior to going to the dealer and have yet to use this method! I will be using it in the near future for best results now. Thanks!
I check with my bank or loan company before I buy a car EACH and EVERY time. I have used that strategy more than once to buy my car. Works every time. Car company and finance company both want your business. Just have to be prepared to throw a rate back at them to match.
Enter Your Reply Thank you for the info! Wow! That just gave me confidence!
Very helpful! Convinces me to wait until credit score reaches that point before attempting to finance for the 0% financing or rebates that most dealers offer now.
FYI. Car dealerships make a lot of money on the finance end of car deals.
They submit your information to the lenders. They get the approval back from the finance company/lender with your interest rate also. Unfortunately, many times that is not the interest rate you actually pay. The finance department then, can and will, add a point or two to make money for their department. You will never know the difference.
They will try, but that is why you need to goin prepared by being prequalified at a bank or credit union. Last vehicle I bought we went in knowing we has a 3% rate at the credit union. The dealership finance girl said "Great news! We can get you a 6% rate!", I said no thank you we are already qualified for 3%. She was quite miffed that I knew what rates were and kept pressing for us to take her offer, recalculating and gradually lowering the rate until it was within a quarter percent. I didn't budge on the rate and said I'd come back with a check.
The department manager even got in on it at the end and tried to push for us to pay the slightly higher rate. When I brought up that they were going to profit from the rate, he acted almost offended and declared they wouldn't make much. I then told him I don't care if he isn't going to make much from the financing, it's going to cost me more every month and I don't see a reason to pay it when I have cheaper financing already lined up. An extra $10 doesn't seem much, but over 60 months it adds up to $600!
Bad rates and high pressure tactics. And these people wonder why buyers are apprehensive and later talk bad about used car salespeople!
First of all, get away from a bank. Join a credit union, loans are less, interest on credit cards and car loans are much less. You do have to have a good credit score, but you and always open a saving account. After a year of so open a checking account. All your "bank" issues will go away.
We are in the market for an auto and are looking at the Toyota 0% financing for 36 months. Just curious who has qualiifed for this and what your score was?
Zip I did ask my dealer how to qualify and here is what they replied.
- Percentage of income dedicated to new loan.
Hope this helps. Anyone else with credit score info that can help would be greatly apprecaited!!
I can say that it's what's in your credit file that also counts. Being responsible to handle credit will count more than you think. You can have a 700 score and still get 0% financing. They want to see that you can handle credit wisely. When I started using this site I had a mtg & a used car payment with 1 Cap One card. It's been 3 yrs and I now have a new car lease (with the payments I wanted), a motorcycle loan, and yes, 18 cc's!!! Never, ever pay anything late, and alway keep utilization at no more than 30% or pay in full every month. You can learn a lot on here and how they want you to handle your credit.
Very helpful and informative information here! Thanks!
Yeah, "right".........I would have to disagree with that statement.
but try to negotiate the price on the vehicle as well,assuming your credit is great,you can get a low interest plus rebates plus negotiations. Remember now,rebates are offered from the manufactuer to the dealer,dealer loses nothing on rebates. The price is still negotiable,plus rebates. In the end whats going to save the most money is having a lower price and paying more than minimum per month assuming the interest is at a low rate. Don't forget taxes are thrown into financing,as other fees.
The other math was too basic.
Heres what the 0 percent would look like vs the 2000 rebate inculding taxes and 250 in fees of registration etc.
Now It shows the savings. But you can negotiate that rebate with interest price as well,plus go to local credit unions and pre qualify for say maybe a 1.99 or 2.5 rate. Remember now,those 0 percent offerings are through the actual manufacturers bank.
I would choose the very last option,just due to not that much more in interest,having a lower payment,and being able to pay extra whenever you want.
If you can afford the very first option,then surely the last would make sense.
Negotiate,shop around for rates,and if you have money down,thats even less interest.
Im wondering how your situation sorted out.
To be honest with you , there is no tried and true response. I worked at one of the big three finance companies and I saw contracts where two people with the exact same credit score where given entirely different rates. If you are able to pay cash for your vehicle , then you are in a better position to determine the price you are going to pay. If you don't have to use a dealer's financing options, then you are in charge of the deal. Don't accept the price they are giving you, there i the sticker price and then there is the dealer price and trust me, you can get closer to the dealer price if you can pay cash for your vehicle out right. hope this helps.
Actually paying cash for a vehicle often results in a higher price. The reason being dealers view a cash buyer as one who will not offer addtional profit in the back end, the F&I office. Deales will often sell at a lower price if they believe they will make profit through financing or from those various products they sell in the F&I office.
Even if a buyer is paying cash, there is no need to disclose this when negotiating the price. It is usually better to have the dealer believe the buyer will finance.
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How important is a single artwork within the artist's body of work? At Artsy we try to answer this question by extracting and scoring a set of features across roughly one million artworks. We call it an iconicity score and we calculate that in Apache Spark for the entire dataset in under 5 minutes.
First, we retrieve artwork features (eg. artwork size or number of users that liked the work), artist features (eg. number of users following an artist), the origin of the work (eg. the work is in a museum) and art genome data (eg. an art historically important sculpture) from HDFS using Hive. Here's a subset of the query.
Some features are binary and others require minor transforms. For example, the fact that the work belongs to a museum scores 1, and otherwise scores a 0.
Features are packed in a vector to become usable by the built-in Spark functions.
Since having 10,000 artist followers doesn't make a work 10,000 times more important than the fact that it belongs to a museum, we must normalize them for unit variance across the entire data set. This is also a good time to weigh some features more than others according to our understanding of the art world.
The score is just the sum of the normalized and weighted features.
We write this data in JSON format to S3, then load it in a system that serves the Artsy API.
In our dataset this creates a nice distribution. Here's an example of iconicity across works by the street artist Banksy.
We notably sort works by iconicity in search results and in the carousel on top of artist pages. We also have made it available in our public API.
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Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an inflammatory condition of the joints affecting 690,000 people in the UK.
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an inflammatory condition of the joints affecting 690,000 people in the UK. It affects three times as many women as men.
Rebecca Wallersteiner speaks to Jane Tadman from Arthritis Research UK and two RA patients: 22 year old dancer, Stephanie Knowles, and retired engineer, Martin Hills about diagnosing and treating the condition.
Although RA can strike at any time, the most common age for symptoms to appear is 30 to 35.
It often begins with pain in your hands, especially in the knuckles. Stephanie was 19 and bartending to support her drama school studies when she started experiencing severe pain in her feet, which made serving customers and walking difficult.
Her physiotherapist suggested she may have RA.
A year later, after seeing doctors and undergoing tests and scans, she was diagnosed with the illness.
'I'd like to raise people's awareness that RA can affect young, fit, non-smoking and healthy people, as well as those who are older.
'If you suspect you have this illness visit your GP before unpleasant pain makes your life difficult,' she advises.
Stephanie agrees: 'I initially developed pain in my feet and knuckles, but put this down to typical dancer's injuries.
Martin started suffering from severe swelling and crippling pain in his muscles and joints around two years ago. 'After forty years of regularly playing squash I was devastated not to be able to continue,' he says.
'Improved drugs enable patients with RA to live normal lives once symptoms are under control,' assures Jane Tadman.
If you are diagnosed with RA your GP will need to see you regularly to monitor your illness and may prescribe a combination of drugs to treat the disease itself as well as the pain and inflammation.
Stephanie currently takes sulfasalazine, hydroxychloroquine and leflunomide.
'Taking these drugs eases my pain, making it possible for me to live a relatively normal life. I've been able to resume mixing cocktails and serving customers,' she says.
Martin's sudden onset of aggressive RA prevented him from playing sports for ten months. 'Thanks to a cocktail of medications, including sulfasalazine, hydroxychloroquine, methotrexate and Enbrel, I am now in remission.
'I am relatively pain-free and able to play golf and be active again.
'However, I still struggle to write as the pain in the inflamed knuckle of my right hand makes this difficult,' explains Martin.
Stephanie says that changing her diet helped her to tackle the disease. 'Taking cod liver oil and including lots of vegetables and olive oil in my diet seems to boost my immune system and ease joint pain.
Martin eats healthily too and takes capsules of full-spectrum omega supplements for his joints.
Research shows that including omega-rich oily fish in your diet and taking glucosamine sulphate supplements helps reduce inflammation.
Stephanie is now in remission and coping with her symptoms. She has been able to return to working as a self-employed dancer and singer. 'I try to use my left hand more than my right one, which still feels painful,' she explains.
Martin is also thankful that he is feeling better. 'Taking my daily medication, combined with a gentle exercise regime of walking and cycling helps build my muscle strength and has enabled me to resume playing golf and lead as normal a life as possible.
'If you have rheumatoid arthritis, keep as active as possible and gently move your painful joints and muscles,' he recommends.
RA sufferers frequently struggle with tiredness, which is often worse in the mornings.
'I don't think that I've enjoyed a complete night's sleep since being diagnosed. Some nights I manage six hours sleep and others almost none. I rest if sleep isn't possible,' says Martin.
'Warmth helps ease my joints. I've worked as a singer, in Cyprus, where the heat made me feel a lot better,' says Stephanie.
'The pain of arthritis is so much worse than just occasional aches and pains as you get older - but through a combination of drugs and keeping active I've been able to resume an active life,' says Martin.
Researchers from Kings College London are currently running a human clinical trial to test whether a protein infusion could trigger a patient's own immune system to fight RA.
'If [the trial] works as we expect, a single dose [of the protein] should be sufficient to put patients into remission for months,' says Professor Gabriel Panayi from Kings.
Initial results of the trial look promising. For more information, visit Arthritis Research UK and the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society websites.
It happened to me... coeliac disease: Coeliac disease is an autoimmune condition that affects the lining of the gut.
Arthritis: What arthritis is and how it is treated.
Treatments for arthritis: In this section you'll find information about the different medicines for arthritis.
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Albania, officially the People's Socialist Republic of Albania, was a Marxist-Leninist government that ruled Albania from 1946 to 1992. From 1944 to 1946, it was known as the Democratic Government of Albania and from 1946 to 1976 as the People's Republic of Albania.
Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Cameroon's coastline lies on the Bight of Biafra, part of the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean. Although Cameroon is not an ECOWAS member state, it is geographically and historically in West Africa with the Southern Cameroons which now form her Northwest and Southwest Regions having a strong West African history. The country is sometimes identified as West African and other times as Central African due to its strategic position at the crossroads between West and Central Africa.
Yaoundé is the capital of Cameroon and, with a population of more than 2.8 million, the second-largest city in the country after the port city Douala. It lies in the Centre Region of the nation at an elevation of about 750 metres (2,500 ft) above sea level.
Niue – A state in free association with New Zealand.
East Timor was invaded by Indonesia in 1975 and forcibly annexed into it in 1976, but this was not recognized by the United Nations.
Estonia was incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940, but the legality of the annexation was not widely recognized. The Baltic diplomatic services in the West continued to be recognised as representing the de jure state.
Latvia was incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940, but the legality of the annexation was not widely recognized. The Baltic diplomatic services in the West continued to be recognised as representing the de jure state.
Lithuania was incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940, but the legality of the annexation was not widely recognized. The Baltic diplomatic services in the West continued to be recognised as representing the de jure state.
The Saudi–Iraqi neutral zone was a strip of neutral territory between Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
The Sovereign Military Order of Malta was an entity claiming sovereignty. The order had bi-lateral diplomatic relations with a large number of states, but had no territory other than extraterritorial areas within Rome. The order's Constitution stated: "The Order is a subject of international law and exercises sovereign functions." Although the order frequently asserted its sovereignty, it did not claim to be a sovereign state. It lacked a defined territory. Since all its members were citizens of other states, almost all of them lived in their native countries, and those who resided in the order's extraterritorial properties in Rome did so only in connection with their official duties, the order lacked the characteristic of having a permanent population.
West Berlin was a political enclave that was closely aligned with – but not actually a part of – West Germany. It consisted of three occupied sectors administered by the United States, the United Kingdom, and France.
↑ The name "Argentine Nation" was also used for the purposes of legislation.
1 2 3 The Monarchy of Iran was abolished on 11 February 1979. The Islamic Republic was proclaimed on 1 April 1979.
↑ Zimbabwe Rhodesia reverted to British rule on 12 December 1979.
↑ Rwanda's official French name was "République rwandaise". "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-06-22. Retrieved 2006-08-27. CS1 maint: Archived copy as title (link) . It could be translated into English as "Rwandese Republic" s:CIA World Fact Book, 2004/Rwanda, "Rwandan Republic" , or "Republic of Rwanda" .
↑ Rogan-Finnemore, Michelle (2005), "What Bioprospecting Means for Antarctica and the Southern Ocean", in Von Tigerstrom, Barbara, International Law Issues in the South Pacific, Ashgate Publishing, p. 204, ISBN 0-7546-4419-7 "Australia, New Zealand, France, Norway and the United Kingdom reciprocally recognize the validity of each other's claims."
↑ Chapter General of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta (1998-01-12). Constitutional Charter and Code of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes, and of Malta, promulgated 27 June 1961, revised by the Extraordinary Chapter General 28–30 April 1997, Article 3 "Sovereignty," Paragraph 1 (PDF). Rome: Tipografia Arte della Stampa. p. 11.
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Bowe Bergdahl's Sentence: No Prison Time : The Two-Way Bergdahl, who walked off his military post in Afghanistan in 2009 and was held by the Taliban for five years, was dishonorably discharged and will lose his rank and forfeit pay.
Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl (center) arrives at the military courtroom facility for a sentencing hearing at Fort Bragg, N.C., on Friday.
The judge, Col. Jeffery Nance, had wide discretion in determining a sentence for Bergdahl, who walked off his military post in Afghanistan in 2009 and was held by the Taliban for five years. He could have given him anything from no prison time to life in prison.
Prosecutors had been seeking 14 years in prison, while defense lawyers had asked for no prison time and a dishonorable or bad conduct discharge.
"The judge didn't explain his reasoning; he didn't explain the mitigating factors," NPR's Frank Morris reported from the court.
The military court heard testimony from three current and former service members who were wounded while searching for Bergdahl. Prosecutors argued that he deserved a significant prison sentence because those service members were injured as a result of his actions; the defense said that he did not intend for anyone to get hurt and that it was the Taliban that actually injured them.
In a tweet after the sentencing, President Trump said, "The decision on Sergeant Bergdahl is a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military."
Trump's comments on Bergdahl have been a factor in the case. While on the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly called Bergdahl a traitor and suggested that he should be executed. He highlighted those comments again at a recent press briefing, on the same day that Bergdahl pleaded guilty to the charges.
That led Bergdahl's defense to file a motion to dismiss, saying that Trump's remarks amounted to unlawful command influence. Nance ultimately decided that he wouldn't throw out the case, saying that he was "completely unaffected" by the remarks and would still be able to rule fairly.
Bergdahl's dishonorable discharge strips him of his veteran's benefits. However, as Frank reported, that will automatically go to appeal with another military judge. That judge is able to mitigate the existing sentence, Frank said, but is not allowed to impose a harsher one.
"I was sitting in back of Bowe Bergdahl. He was stressed, he often looks stressed though," Frank said. "You could see a big vein snaking across his temple. He was trembling a little bit after the sentence was announced."
Bergdahl has been stationed at a base in San Antonio, and Frank says that now he has "a job waiting for him at an animal shelter in San Antonio. ...He's earned a reputation as someone who is amazingly good with feral cats."
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British Ceylon (Sinhala: බ්රිතාන්ය ලංකාව, Britanya Lankava; Tamil: பிரித்தானிய இலங்கை, Birithaniya Ilangai), known contemporaneously as Ceylon, was a British Crown colony between 1802 and 1948. At first the area it covered did not include the Kingdom of Kandy, which was a protectorate from 1815, but from 1817 to 1948 the British possessions included the whole island of Ceylon, now the nation of Sri Lanka.
In the late 18th century the Dutch, weakened by their wars against Great Britain, were conquered by Napoleonic France, and their leaders became refugees in London. No longer able to govern their part of the island effectively, the Dutch transferred the rule of it to the British, although this was against the wishes of the Dutch residing there.
The rule of the king Sri Vikrama Rajasinha was not favoured by his chieftains. The king, who was of South Indian ancestry, faced powerful chieftains and sought cruel measures to repress their popularity with the people. A successful coup was organised by the Sinhala chiefs in which they accepted the British crown as their new sovereign. This ended the line of the kingdom of Kandy and King Rajasinhe was taken as a prisoner, ending his hope that the British would allow him to retain power. The war spelt the end of a most cruel tyrant who tortured Sinhala aristocracy at will in one of the most cruel ways. The Kandyan treaty which was signed in 1815 was called the Kandyan Convention and stated the terms under which the Kandyans would live as a British protectorate. The Buddhist religion was to be given protection by the Crown, and Christianity would not be imposed on the population, as had happened during Portuguese and Dutch rule. The Kandyan Convention is an important legal document because it specifies the conditions which the British promised for the Kandyan territory.
The British also brought a million Tamils from British India and made them indentured labourers in the Hill Country. This was in addition to the several hundred thousand Tamils already living in the Maritime provinces and another 30,000 Tamil Muslims. Thus the seed of ethnic discord was sown in the British era. The linguistically bipolar island needed a link language and English became universal in Ceylon.
Censuses in Ceylon began in 1871 and continued every ten years. The Censuses of 1871, 1881, 1891 and 1901 had shown Ceylon Tamils and Indian Tamils of Sri Lanka grouped together. By 1911 Indian Tamils were shown as a separate category. The population statistics reveal that by 1911, Indian Tamils constituted 12.9 per cent, whereas Sri Lankan Tamils formed 12.8 per cent of the population of 4,106,400; in 1921, 13.4 per cent and 11.5 per cent; in 1931, 15.2 and 11.3; in 1946, 11.7 and 11.0; in 1953, 12.0 and 10.9; in 1963, 10.6 and 11.0; in 1971, 11.6 and 11.2; and in 1981, 5.5 per cent and 12.7 per cent respectively. The census show that during a large period of time in the history of Ceylon, Indian Tamils outnumbered Ceylon Tamils until between 1971 and 1981 where more than 50 per cent of the Indian Tamil population were repatriated as Indian citizens back to India. However, many Indian Tamils were also granted Sri Lankan citizenship where upon declared themselves as Sri Lankan Tamils.
This page was last modified on 3 December 2015, at 11:44.
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When siblings fight, should parents intervene?
Rescuing children from conflict doesn't prepare them well for life, but there may also be times you need to step in.
Depending on the inflection and how long the vowel sound lasts, I can usually predict what type of comment or concern is headed my way. It’s the “mom” with two syllables, often spoken in a whiny voice, that alerts me to the inevitable: a sibling dispute.
Whether it’s the petty arguments among siblings at play or the all-out brawls that we cringe to witness as parents, all of us can agree that dealing with disagreements and fighting is one of our greatest challenges. To intervene or not to intervene, that is the question.
Because toddlers and preschoolers are less adept at communication, it’s inherently important to assist them in developing good methods of sharing their feelings. With seven children under the age of 12, I know this can be exhausting. At a recent gathering, I was engaged in a conversation among a group of friends when my 3-year-old son began crying because his brother squirted him with a water gun without permission. Not only did he resort to screaming at his brother, he also yelled at me. I knelt down next to him, and reminded him first to say, “Excuse me, mom.” After hearing both sides and modeling positive communication, our 5-year-old apologized and understood that his younger brother did not want to get wet and was happy to aim the water at his already drenched older siblings. Had I not taken the time to address the behavior and help the boys use the right words in a calm way, I’m certain the cycle would have continued.
There can be a negative outcome, however, if you rescue a child from every compromising situation. Some research suggests that such helicopter parenting an increase social anxiety and depression, as well as make it difficult to handle conflict. We want our children to be able to handle conflict because it’s an inescapable part of life. So, no matter how hard it is to see our children upset, we must let them manage it at times and deal with the consequences.
When our toddlers saw their older siblings leaving for an outing with their grandparents recently, you would have thought it was the end of the world of Paw Patrol. Amidst the screams of jealousy, I was tempted to hand them an ice cream cone to compensate (and selfishly to stop the crying). But I knew I didn’t want to establish a cushion to expect in times of uneasiness, so I was sure to acknowledge their sadness, but quickly moved on.
As busy parents, we simply don’t have the time to take care of all the conflicts between our children. We don’t need to feel guilty about this because we’re helping them more by giving them the training and confidence to confront obstacles on their own. In fact, systematic ignoring has consistently shown to be an effective tool for parents.
My 11-year-old twins were recently in a heated argument about who was going to finish the dishes, as there were leftover dishes from both of their assigned duties. Although my motherly instinct wanted to fix the problem and be done with it, my better judgment knew they were completely capable of figuring out a plan. It took a couple of hours, some tears and anger, but the dishes were completed and to my pleasant surprise, the following day they worked together to clean the kitchen without being asked. It usually doesn’t happen this quickly, but there is much truth in the saying that failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.
There are two types of situations when I do intervene. The first is if one child is being taken advantage of or manipulated by another sibling. Recently our 7-year-old, when his younger brother wouldn’t share his food that was rightly his, told him he would not play stuffed animals with him anymore. He needed to understand that coercing for your own good is not charitable and can be damaging to the relationship, so I stepped in. My other rule of thumb for any aged child is that if it gets physical, there will be a consequence. Our kids have learned that hitting is the surest route to earning a bucket of water and a scrubbing pad.
Let’s face it, our kids don’t have a “Good Moral Behavior” button, nor do we adults if I recall. C.S. Lewis gives a great justification for this in Mere Christianity. So the next time I get frustrated with my children’s poor decisions and have to face that big question, “To Intervene or Not to Intervene,” I need to remind myself of Lewis’s explanation that God gave us free will so that we could choose to love Him eternally. For if we were programmed on auto to do good, we could not fully love. And this is where we as parents come in.
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Intuition describes those moments when you just know something. Even before you have given it any thought. Intuition is also referred to as having a “gut feeling, a “hunch,” or a “sense.” Like that time when you were introduced to the person you automatically knew was going to be a friend. The time when you were about to get on the road and then changed your mind, and soon after that a storm hit. Or the car you decided not to buy because you had a bad feeling about it. Times when you are presented with a decision and just know what you should do, even without thinking about it, can be chalked up to intuition.
Some people seem to be more intuitive than others. Is it because they have a special gift? Maybe. Or maybe they have learned to listen to that inner voice – their gut – and take it seriously.
Which leads me to the next question: Why should you care about intuition?
Listening to your intuition can help you to take the best care of yourself. Intuition may present itself in the form of thoughts, images, and gut feelings, when you have a choice to make that may affect your health. Intuition is your unconscious mind’s way of helping you to make the healthy choice. Here are some examples: An intuition that your food craving is more about boredom than it is hunger. A gut feeling that a person you have met has had similar experiences so that you could be a support for each other. Or a sense that an activity you are considering could be really beneficial if you took the plunge and got involved in it. Intuition can also help you to recognize situations that might threaten your self-care in some way (e.g. something you shouldn’t be eating or drinking, a negative person or situation, or an activity that might be detrimental to your health). You might even have found that, the longer you have been living with your chronic condition, the stronger your intuition has become.
What about you? How’s your intuition working for you? Most likely, you have lots of examples of times in which you had an intuition about what you could be doing to enhance your own emotional or physical health. But did you recognize that intuition at the time? Or did it slip by you, only to be remembered after the fact? And if you did recognize the intuition, did you trust your intuition enough to follow it?
Intuition is a gift from your unconscious mind. You can learn to recognize those moments of intuition and make use of them to live a healthy life.
Tune in. I often refer to intuition as the “small voice” inside of us. Learn to tune into that small voice, by spending some time each day being quiet and still. Be aware of how you’re feeling, what’s ahead for the day. Review what you need to do to take the best care of yourself. If you do this, you’ll be planting positive intention in your mind. Intuition can blossom from positive intentions.
Practice listening to yourself. Make a conscious decision to listen to your unconscious side. Be more attuned to thoughts and images that pop into your mind. Instead of pushing them out of the way, and letting your mind take over, give yourself a moment to contemplate what might be your intuition at work. It’s as simple as telling yourself: “Wait a second. What was that about?” Don’t try to explain or talk yourself out of those moments of intuition. Instead, let the intuition in and just experience it.
Be aware of your body. Intuition can also present itself through physical sensations. You might feel a change in the way you breathe. Your stomach might clutch or you might feel butterflies (after all, that’s why we call intuition a gut feeling). You might feel your shoulders or another part of your body tensing up. Ask yourself: “Hmmm… is my body trying to tell me something?” Listen to what your body has to say to you.
Go out of your mind. Try to turn off that need to analyze and judge. Focus on what you can learn from an intuition, and less on whether it makes sense or not. What seems logical may not be so logical at all.
Practice. The way your intuition expresses itself is unique to you. Your intuition may come to you in thoughts or ideas. You may get a visual image. It may come to you in physical sensations. Or a combination. As you practice tuning into your own intuition, and listening to it, you’ll also get better at recognizing your own intuition and become more comfortable following it. Be patient with yourself.
Learn to discern. You may be questioning whether what feels like an intuition might instead be wishful thinking or your own fear getting in the way. To be honest, it’s not always easy to tell. After all, humans are pretty good at talking themselves in, or out, of just about anything, and intuition can be as good excuse as any. To help you to know if an intuition is real, look back at past experiences when you had an intuition that you acted on and benefitted in some way. What did the intuition feel like? How was it different from times when you really, really wanted something and talked yourself into going for it, whether it was a good idea or not, or when your fear factor kicked in and you avoided something that might have benefitted you?
Learn to trust. You’ve probably heard this expression before: “Trust your gut.” I’ve said it to myself a few times, and I said it to friends and clients as well. It might take some time and – again – practice to become more comfortable trusting your gut. You might start by trusting your gut in smaller decisions, like introducing yourself to someone, signing up for an exercise class, or choosing what to eat. But not, for example, if you have an “intuition” about quitting your job or buying a sports car. One baby step at a time.
Let go of negativity. When you’re caught up in negative feelings like resentment and anger, your intuition is likely to fail you. That’s because your intuition can’t get through the cloud that negative emotions create in your mind. When you decide not to dwell on whatever is causing the negative feelings, and focus on staying calm and open, you’ll again have access to your intuition.
Open up to your own intuition. Learn to listen. Learn to trust. And then put your intuition to work!
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the 85mm f1.2L II vs 135mm f2.0L??
hi, I just got Canon's 5D and want to buy a fixed lens for headshots and glam/beauty shots; i'll be shooting in a studio. I wanted to know if any of you have experienced either lenses. (obviously I need a nice fast lens. and nothing too distorting).
I don't specifically have experience with theses fixed focal length lenses but I would say that the quality of these lenses isn't what should be in question but the angle of view and how you tend to show. Oh, also how much room you have when you shoot. I love shooting with longer lenses but when I set up a studio I don't always have that much room to scoot back. Of course, if you have another lens you will use for full body shots, I guess this would probably be more for head and shoulders, 3/4, or headshots? If I had to go further I think I would go for the 135mm because 85mm isn't too far from 50mm but it's also a little wider than what I like to use for portraits. Personally, I don't think I'll be getting one of these lenses anytime soon because they are kinda pricy haha. Also, don't let the max aperture be a large deciding factor if you shoot a lot in the studio as you can control lighting but you probably know that. Also, I am generally able to shoot at something other than max aperture even with a 2.8 lens.
i actually have pretty decent space to shoot in (about 3 feet worth of subject to background, and about 2 feet from subject to camera), and yes I certainly will be doing many types of shots including face, 3/4, and full-lengths. hence my inquiry on the 135mm lens.
Andrew is correct; you should be paying more attention to angle of view (prospective).
Your Canon is a full frame digital meaning the chip sensor is about the same size as the standard frame size of a 35mm film camera. This frame size is 24mm height x 36mm length and diagonal measure is 43.3mm. The diagonal measure is important because years ago it was determined that the best focal length for all-around picture taking is a lens with a focal length about equal to the diagonal. In the case of the 35mm film camera and your digital, the accepted normal focal length is the diagonal rounded up to 50mm. This give an angle of view of about 53 degrees, considered about the same as the human experience.
As to studio work, portraits and ¾ head shots, with your diagonal measure, it has been determined that a lens with a focal length of 105mm is best. Actually this is the minimum; a longer focal length is OK too. Why 105mm or better? Too short a focal length distorts the portrait prospective. A 35mm equipped with the standard 50mm, when used for portraits, causes the nose to reproduce slightly enlarged and the ears to be reproduced slightly too small. People tend to look at their portrait when taken with too short a lens and say, “I don’t photograph well”. Actually they have a mental picture of what they look like. This is their view from their make-up or shaving mirror. The 105mm on a 35mm camera duplicates this prospective. Shorter lenses do not so duplicate.
As an artist you are free to use whatever lens and technique you choose. There are no laws or standards for art. I am just telling you what is known to be within acceptable limits, and what sells if you plan to draw income (money) from your photo work.
i understand that this is a bit hard for me, as i'm still very much all in the learning process and discovering the lovely advantages of renting too. but for this next lens I want to purchase, I plan to do everything from headshots to full-length fashion glam to portraits. (i have for now the 24-70mm zoom I use for candids, and plan to also get the 100mm macro for providing super close-ups for the makeup artists).
would the 135mm really distort *that* much? (Canon *does* have the 100mm, but i'm willing to spend for better quality glass as in a pro lens).
Myself, I always heard that you wanted at least an 80mm lens for portraits though I think 80 would be good for full body shots and then for anything closer you could use longer, like 100mm or more. I think a new lens was released that was targeted for people buying the 5D but I'm not sure. I thought it was something like the 24-105mm f/4 L IS. It's not as fast but being L glass, I'm sure it's great. I mean, I have a Sigma brand 24-70mm f/2.8 lens similar to the Canon lens that you have and I can get some pretty good shots out of it when I stop down and don't use the ultra wide angle 24mm and f/2.8. Of course, I usually use this lens on my 20D as well but it also works quite well on my 35mm Canon.
Anyway, my main point that that I always heard that 85mm was a good portrait length though longer won't hurt, you'll just have to get further away. Also, if you shoot a lot of females, it's usually good to shoot just a little bit above them and if you have too long of a lens, you'll have to get higher up from further back to get full length shot. Personally, I would go for a really good zoom that includes 80-135. There is the Canon 28-135 that I've heard is very good. It's a little on the slow sie in terms of max aperture but it's also got Image Stabilization. Plus like I said, if you use studio strobes, you'll usually be over f5.6 anyways.
Alan N. Marcus Hi againg mai and hellow to Andrew, Again mai, your camera is of the full frame 35mm size. Be careful of advice coming from others with experiences that stem from cameras with other size sensor chips.
Again the diagonal measure of your sensor chip determines what lens is normal and what lens is wide angle and what is telephoto. On your camera, 50mm is normal. Shorter is wide angle and longer is telephoto.
For your camera, the 105mm I talked about, considered ideal for portraiture and ¾ head shots. It is about 2.5 times longer than the diagonal measure of your sensor chip. This is a fact of physics and should be considered gospel.
Andrew, the Canon 20D has a sensor chip that is smaller by a factor of 1.6 than the 5D. This means the normal lens for thie 20D is about 30mm. For portraiture and ¾ head shots, the ideal for the 20D would be 2.5 times 30 or 75mm or rounded up, ideal is about 80mm.
Mai, why do you think a lens like a 135 distorts? Nothing could be further from the truth. Short lenses appear to distort when the resulting print is viewed from the wrong viewing distance. Long lenses appear to compress when the print is viewed from the wrong viewing distance. When image viewing distance is incorrect, a short lens appears to distorts by causing the nose to be too big as compared to the ears. A long lens seem to compress (telescope) distance. As an example, when photographing a distant automobile with a long lens, the rear bumper appears too close to the front bumper. This is called compression. The picture can appear weird but the image is actually true to life. The print is just being viewed from the wrong viewing distance.
Correct viewing distance is the focal length of the taking lens times the magnification used to make the final print (image). I know this is too complicated for you just now. Fpr now, know that you have lots to learn and years to do it in.
I know that my camera's sensor is smaller but I DID start out with a 35mm slr so I, myself, know how this all works. I have heard I dont' know how many times on here that anywhere from 80mm to 135mm in the 35mm or fullframe digital format is a good good focal length for portraits. 80mm doesn't really distory. You can use this for full body shots and you can get closer and not have distortions for headshots. 135 definitly will keep you further away and will compress the field of view more but you will definitly have success with the 85 in terms of compression/distortion.
Either will do you well though the 85 will let you stay closer for full body and 3/4 shots though you will have to get a little closer that what you or the model might be comfortable with.
80-135 applies to full frame and normal 35mm.
i had the 20D for a short period (w/the 18-70mm zoom I think). but i'd 'outgrown' my 1st digital which was the nikon D70. and had that nikon for over a yr--all too familiar w/the annoying factor adjustment tho LOL.
thanks, yes there *is* much still to learn for me lol. thanks, I do understand the focal lengths and the whole 'correct viewing' vs final print viewing. i'm also still *working* on that lol.
(btw, i've had *alot* of fun doing experimentals in distorting subjects w/my zoom @ 24mm and producing some really interesting effects: very editorial IMO).
the distortion I was referring to is that, I was told by another photographer who also shoots glam, that too long of a telephoto lens will stretch the subject too much causing the "head too big while body too thin". kwim? but I understand here what you're saying too, and will definitely look into Canon's 100mm lens (the closest Canon has).
ANDREW - the only lens the 5D canNOT take are the ones designed for the factor adjustment, since the 5D is full-framed already and doesn't need any RE-adjusting. kwim? other than that, it can certainly take any of Canon's low-end or L lens.
yeah I know :) I'm pretty familiar with Canon's cameras. Good luck on your decision! See if you can try them out of course. Use the salesperson as a trial subject in the store! haha.
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What do Liechtensteiner people eat?
Traditional Liechtensteiner meals include cheese, meat and bread. A main source of diet is Rebi made with cornmeal or a mixture of half cornmeal and half semolina and usually served with the main dish. Because French influences were very well adapted in Liechtensteiner cuisine cheese remained an important ingredient mostly if it’s cooked after local recipes as Saukerkas, a local cheese. Other original dishes include Hafalaab, a dish made from wheat flour and cornmeal dumplings, with smoked Bacon or Ham in a broth. As well schnitzels, smoked Pork and sauerkraut stews; cheese, meat, vegetable fondues, as asparagus which is one of the most popular vegetable, and a number of delicious deserts such as fruit-filled pancakes, rich pastries and cakes are some of the delicious Liechtensteiner recipes which make its cuisine very interesting and very tasty. Although there are numerous recipes adapted after main central European cuisine, Liechtensteiner cuisine is seems to be original and mouth watering.
The Principality of Liechtenstein; German: Fürstentum Liechtenstein, is a doubly landlocked alpine microstate in Western Europe, bordered by Switzerland to the west and south and by Austria to the east. Its area is just over 160 km² (about 61.7 square miles), and it has an estimated population of 35,000. Its capital is Vaduz; the biggest town is Schaan.
What do Libyan people eat?
What do Lithuanian people eat?
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The Dingo (plural: dingoes or dingos) is a mammal found in Australia and South-East Asia. Dingos are similar to domestic dogs. Dingoes were brought to Australia from South-East Asia about 4000 years ago. They are not found in Tasmania as the sea levels cut the island off from mainland Australia about 10,000 years ago. Most dingos in the wild are no longer purebreed dingos. Their scientific name, Canis lupus (wolf) dingo, changed recently from Canis familiaris (dog) dingo. This was to show it is related to the white footed wolf which lives in Asia.
Dingoes are usually between 117cm to 124cm in length. Their tail is about 30cm in length. They usually weigh between 10kg and 20kg. The colour of their fur is usually yellow-ginger, but can sometimes include tan, black, white or sandy colours. They live for about 14 years.
Dingos live in packs of between 3 and 12, but they can be seen alone as well. The leaders are the alpha male and the alpha female and are usually the only pair to breed. Young dingos are called "cubs". The breeding season is in March and April. After a gestation of 63 days, the adult females usually give birth to 4-5 cubs in a litter. Mothers will regurgitate food for the cubs to eat. They become independent of their mother after four to eight months of age.
Dingos do not bark like other dogs, but they do howl.
Dingos are carnivores and eat other animals such as kangaroos, wallabies, wallaroos, rabbits, rodents, lizards, sheep, calves, poultry and carrion. It believed to have hunted several animal species to extinction including some species of bandicoots and rat kangaroos. They often hunt in packs.
While some people keep dingos as pets, they are regarded as a pest by farmers. They are controlled by trapping, shooting, poisoning (with Sodium monofluoroacetate), and fences. The dingo fence which runs through South Australia, and then along the New South Wales border through to central Queensland is the world's longest fence. Dingos are protected in national parks and reserves.
It is illegal to have a dingo as a pet in South Australia, Queensland and Tasmania. In Victoria and the Northern Territory you have to have a special permit to keep a dingo. The dingo can be a dangerous animal and have attacked people at times. On April 30, 2001, a nine year old boy was attacked and killed on Fraser Island by a dingo. A dingo is believed to have killed a baby, Azaria Chamberlain, at Uluru in August, 1980. This became a world famous case when her mother was sent to jail for murdering the baby. She was later found innocent and released. Evil Angels, a book about Azaria by John Bryson, was made into a movie starring Meryl Streep.
↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Discovering Wildlife - The Ultimate Fact File. International Masters Publishers BV MMV. 2002. p. 181.
↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "The Dingo". Native Animal Fact Sheets. Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water. Retrieved 2009-11-14.
↑ 3.0 3.1 "Australian Dingo". Retrieved 2009-11-14.
↑ "Dingoes". Creature Features. ABC. 2009. Retrieved 2009-11-14.
↑ Sinclair, John (May 2, 2001). "Dingos of Fraser Island". Retrieved 2009-11-15.
↑ Marks, Kathy (6 May 2001). "Fear of the dingo returns to Australia in wake of boy's death". The Independent. Retrieved 2009-11-15.
This page was last changed on 5 December 2018, at 12:08.
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In June 1922, the first electric trams came up from Leith, which had come within the Edinburgh boundary in 1920, and by 1924 routes extended to most of the city. From then on plans were made to extend the tramways and by February 1937, when the Corstorphine route reached Maybury Road, this proved unexpectedly to be the last extension opened, as the outbreak of World War II caused plans to be put aside. There were 28 routes, all of which ran along or touched Princes Street, and 4 depots, and the system worked well until new housing areas appeared beyond the tram routes in1950, when bus services began for those areas. In the same year, it was proposed that 25% of the system be scrapped in favour of buses and there began a gradual withdrawal of routes.
In June 1922, the first electric trams came up from Leith, which had come within the Edinburgh boundary in 1920, and by 1924 routes extended to most of the city. From then on plans were made to extend the tramways and by February 1937, when the Corstorphine route reached Maybury Road, this proved unexpectedly to be the last extension opened, as the outbreak of World War II caused plans to be put aside.
There were 28 routes, all of which ran along or touched Princes Street, and 4 depots, and the system worked well until new housing areas appeared beyond the tram routes in1950, when bus services began for those areas. In the same year, it was proposed that 25% of the system be scrapped in favour of buses and there began a gradual withdrawal of routes.
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WWR Article Summary (tl;dr) One of the shop's most popular T-shirt designs is their "Butte America" design, which sports a simple logo on the front and the Orphan Girl headframe on the back.
One clothing company in Butte is taking apparel design a mile high and a mile deep.
Underground Clothing Co. opened December 2017, and co-founder Shelby Carver says it's a brand that draws on Montana's sense of hometown pride.
Carver and her husband Robert operate the company from a small retail space at 1120 E. Front St., where they offer apparel printed with in-house designs. But from that modest location the couple has big ideas for their brand.
The company specializes in Montana- and Butte-themed T-shirts, hoodies, tanks, hats and more that sport simple yet evocative prints, capturing everything from the headframes of Butte to the outlines of buffalo.
The store offers clothing for men, women and kids, and there's also a few onesies for the little ones.
Carver said the company got its start when her father, who owned Gillam's Furniture Emporium, located directly next to Underground Clothing Co., was liquidating his store. Her dad had some extra clothing, which Carver thought she could sell from the empty commercial space next to her dad's shop.
"We really weren't sure what we were going to open a store as," explained Carver. "I just always wanted to have a store, so we were cleaning this area and trying to fix it for several months before we figured out what we wanted to do."
Carver said it was her husband's idea to start designing T-shirts.
At first she thought it was a terrible idea, but she started to come around.
According to Carver, some of the shop's most popular designs include their "Butte America" design, which sports a simple logo on the front and the Orphan Girl headframe on the back, "The Sportsman," "Last Best Place" and their St. Patrick's Day logo, which features the Travona headframe inside a shamrock.
Incidentally, Carver said the first year they rolled out the St. Pat's design their first order sold out almost completely in one day. Luckily, they were able to print another order in time for the big day.
Neither Carver nor her husband have long-term design experience, but both liked to draw while they were growing up.
Carver says she used to like to draw cartoon characters and that her mother was very encouraging.
"I would draw these really dorky cartoons and she just loved them so much," said Carver, laughing. "I made this big, human-sized cutout of a cartoon and she kept that thing forever."
In her education, Carver has tried on numerous hats.
In college she started out as a business major because she wanted to be an entrepreneur. But what she found at the university she attended was curriculum geared more toward "climbing the corporate ladder," in her words, rather than how to run a business. Next she majored in art, at which time she did learn a little design, and later she studied education.
Today Carver works full time at Youth Dynamics in Uptown Butte, and she says creating Underground has given her a chance to get back in touch with her artistic sensibilities.
"I've never had any job where I got to use my creative side," she said. "This is a good balance."
Robert Carver, meanwhile, works full time at FedEx.
He and his wife design the company's logos together using a combination of computer programs and hand drawing. They don't always agree on everything, Robert said, but collaborating on the store and coming up with the designs has brought them closer.
"It's really exciting and we really love seeing people wearing our stuff," said Robert, describing the experience.
Carver describes herself as the doer in the relationship and often likes to rush ahead, while her husband is more of a perfectionist. It turns out to be a match made in heaven, she said, because they balance each other out.
In addition to their store on Front Street, Underground apparel can be found at Butte Copper Co. and Kidz Klozet in Butte, and at Montana Woolen Shop in Bozeman. Similarly, the Carvers have done a few pop-up shops and have set up booths during Butte's St. Patrick's Day celebration.
Although the shop is small, behind its back wall there is plenty of space to expand.
When Carver and her husband started working on the space, which now boasts an outdoorsy vibe, it looked a bit like a giant closet filled with a hodgepodge of stuff. Carver set a goal of opening in December 2017, so they worked nights and weekends to open in time for the holidays. In all, the renovation took 6 months.
Because the couple works, they are open just three days a week with the help of two employees, but they hope to expand their operations.
Robert said one day he'd like to see the store become a full-time business and distribute wholesale throughout Butte and the state. But for now, he said, they're starting small and hope to build a strong foundation.
When asked to describe their brand, Carver said Underground Clothing Co. is all about Butte and Montana roots.
"My husband and I talked so much about how we've lost so many stores in town," said Carver. "(So) we really just wanted to have clothes that were in town that we wanted to wear."
"We love Montana and we love the outdoors and we love Butte, so that's what we've been focusing on," she added.
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"Marches" redirects here. For the commune in France, see Marches, Drôme. For other uses, see March (disambiguation) and Marche (disambiguation).
A march or mark was, in broad terms, a medieval European term for any kind of borderland, as opposed to a notional "heartland". More specifically, a march was a border between realms, and/or a neutral/buffer zone under joint control of two states, in which different laws might apply. In both of these senses, marches served a political purpose, such as providing warning of military incursions, or regulating cross-border trade, or both.
Just as counties were traditionally ruled by counts, marches gave rise to titles such as marquess (masculine) or marchioness (feminine) in England, marquis (masculine) or marquise (feminine) in France and Scotland, margrave (Markgraf i.e. "march count"; masculine) or margravine (Markgräfin i.e. "march countess", feminine) in Germany, and corresponding titles in other European states.
The word "march" derives ultimately from a Proto-Indo-European root *mereg-, meaning "edge, boundary". The root *mereg- produced Latin margo ("margin"), Old Irish mruig ("borderland"), and Persian and Armenian marz ("borderland"). The Proto-Germanic *marko gave rise to the Old English word mearc and Frankish marka, as well as Old Norse mörk meaning "borderland, forest", and derived form merki "boundary, sign", denoting a borderland between two centres of power.
It seems that in Old English "mark" meant "boundary" or "sign of a boundary", and the meaning only later evolved to encompass "sign" in general, "impression" and "trace".
The Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia took its name from West Saxon mearc "marches", which in this instance referred explicitly to the territory's position on the Anglo-Saxon frontier with the Romano-British to the west.
During the Frankish Carolingian Dynasty, usage of the word spread throughout Europe.
The name Denmark preserves the Old Norse cognates merki ("boundary") mörk ("wood", "forest") up to the present. Following the Anschluss, the Nazi German government revived the old name 'Ostmark' for Austria.
After some early setbacks, Charlemagne's son Louis ventured beyond the province of Septimania and took Barcelona from the Moorish emir in 801. Thus he established a foothold in the borderland between the Franks and the Moors. The Carolingian "Hispanic Marches" (Marca Hispánica) became a buffer zone ruled by the Count of Barcelona. It had its own outlying territories, each ruled by a lesser miles with armed retainers, who theoretically owed allegiance through the Count to the Emperor or, with less fealty, to his Carolingian and Ottonian successors. Such territory had a catlá ("castellan" or lord of the castle) in an area largely defined by a day's ride, and the region became known, like Castile at a later date, as "Catalunya". Counties in the Pyrenees that appeared in the 9th century as appanages of the counts of Barcelona included Cerdanya, Girona and Urgell.
In the early ninth century, Charlemagne issued his new kind of land grant the aprisio, which redisposed land belonging to the Imperial fisc in deserted areas, and included special rights and immunities that resulted in a range of independence of action. Historians interpret the aprisio both as the basis of feudalism and in economic and military terms as a mechanism to entice settlers to a depopulated border region. Such self-sufficient landholders would aid the counts in providing armed men in defense of the Frankish frontier. Aprisio grants (the first ones were in Septimania) emanated directly from the Carolingian king, and they reinforced central loyalties, to counterbalance the local power exercised by powerful marcher counts.
But communications were arduous, and the power centre was far away. Primitive feudal entities developed, self-sufficient and agrarian, each ruled by a small hereditary military elite. The sequence in Catalonia exhibits a pattern that emerges similarly in marches everywhere. The Count is appointed by the king (from 802), the appointment settles on the heirs of a strong count (Sunifred) and the appointment becomes a formality, until the position is declared hereditary (897) and then the County declares itself independent (by Borrell II in 985). At each stage the de facto situation precedes the de jure assertion, which merely regularizes an existing fact of life. This is feudalism in the larger landscape.
Certain of the Counts aspired to the characteristically Frankish (Germanic) title "Margrave of the Hispanic March, a "margrave" being a graf ("count") of the march.
The early History of Andorra provides a fairly typical career of another such buffer state, the only modern survivor in the Pyrenees of the Hispanic Marches.
Steiermark (Styria), the margraviate ("border county") of Styria was established under Charlemagne from a part of Carantania (Carinthia), erected as a border territory against the Avars and Slavs.
The province of France called Marche (Occitan: la Marcha), sometimes Marche Limousine, was originally a small border district between the Duchy of Aquitaine and the domains of the Frankish kings in central France, partly of Limousin and partly of Poitou.
Its area was increased during the 13th century and remained the same until the French Revolution. Marche was bounded on the north by Berry, on the east by Bourbonnais and Auvergne; on the south by Limousin itself and on the west by Poitou. It embraced the greater part of the modern département of Creuse, a considerable part of the northern Haute-Vienne, and a fragment of Indre, up to Saint-Benoît-du-Sault. Its area was about 1,900 square miles (4,900 km2) its capital was Charroux and later Guéret, and among its other principal towns were Dorat, Bellac and Confolens.
Marche first appeared as a separate fief about the middle of the 10th century when William III, duke of Aquitaine, gave it to one of his vassals named Boso, who took the title of count. In the 12th century it passed to the family of Lusignan, sometime also counts of Angoulême counts of Limousin, until the death of the childless Count Hugh in 1303, when it was seized by King Philip IV. In 1316 it was made an appanage for his youngest son the Prince, afterwards King Charles IV and a few years later (1327) it passed into the hands of the family of Bourbon.
The family of Armagnac held it from 1435 to 1477, when it reverted to the Bourbons, and in 1527 it was seized by King Francis I and became part of the domains of the French crown. It was divided into Haute-Marche (i.e. "Upper Marche") and Basse-Marche (i.e. "Lower Marche"), the estates of the former being in existence until the 17th century. From 1470 until the Revolution the province was under the jurisdiction of the parlement of Paris.
The Germanic tribes that Romans called Marcomanni, who battled the Romans in the 1st and 2nd centuries, were simply the "men of the borderlands".
Nordmark, the "Northern March", the Ottonian empire's territorial organisation on the conquered areas of the Wends. In 1134, in the wake of a German crusade against the Wends, the German magnate Albert the Bear was granted the Northern March by the Holy Roman Emperor Lothar II.
the Krain or March of Carniola, also Windic march and White Carniola (White March), in modern Slovenia.
three marches were created in the Low Countries: Antwerp, Valenciennes, Ename.
Altmark ("Old March"), the western region of the former margraviate, between Hamburg and Magdeburg.
Mittelmark ("Central March"), the area surrounding Berlin. Today, this region makes up for the bulk of the German federal state of Brandenburg, and thus in modern usage is referred to as Mark Brandenburg.
Neumark ("New March") since the 1250s was Brandenburg's eastern extremity between Pomerania and Greater Poland. Since 1945, the area is a part of Poland.
Uckermark, the Brandenburg–Pomeranian borderland. The name is still in use for the region as well as for a Brandenburgian district.
Ostmark ("Eastern March") is a modern rendition of the term marchia orientalis used in Carolingian documents referring to the area of Lower Austria that was later a markgraftum (margraviate or "county of the mark"). Ostmark has been variously used to denote Austria, the Saxon Eastern March, or, as Ostmarkenverein, the territories Prussia gained in the partitions of Poland.
For the modern Italian region, see Marche.
From the Carolingian period onwards the name marca begins to appear in Italy, first the Marca Fermana for the mountainous part of Picenum, the Marca Camerinese for the district farther north, including a part of Umbria, and the Marca Anconitana for the former Pentapolis (Ancona). In 1080, the marca Anconitana was given in investiture to Robert Guiscard by Pope Gregory VII, to whom the Countess Matilda ceded the marches of Camerino and Fermo.
In 1105, the Emperor Henry IV invested Werner with the whole territory of the three marches, under the name of the March of Ancona. It was afterwards once more recovered by the Church and governed by papal legates as part of the Papal States. The Marche became part of the Kingdom of Italy in 1860. After Italian unification in the 1860s, Austria-Hungary still controlled territory Italian nationalists still claimed as part of Italy. One of these territories was Austrian Littoral, which Italian nationalists began to call the Julian March because of its positioning and as an act of defiance against the hated Austro-Hungarian empire.
Marche were repeated on a miniature level, fringing many of the small territorial states of pre-Risorgimento Italy with a ring of smaller dependencies on their borders, which represent territorial marche on a small scale. A map of the Duchy of Mantua in 1702 (Braudel 1984, fig 26) reveals the independent, though socially and economically dependent arc of small territories from the principality of Castiglione in the northwest across the south to the duchy of Mirandola southeast of Mantua: the lords of Bozolo, Sabioneta, Dosolo, Guastalla, the count of Novellare.
In medieval Hungary the system of gyepű and gyepűelve, effective until the mid-13th century, can be considered as marches even though in its organisation it shows major differences from Western European feudal marches. For one thing, the gyepű was not controlled by a Marquess.
The Gyepű was a strip of land that was specially fortified or made impassable, while gyepűelve was the mostly uninhabited or sparsely inhabited land beyond it. The gyepűelve is much more comparable to modern buffer zones than traditional European marches.
Portions of the gyepű were usually guarded by tribes who had joined the Hungarian nation and were granted special rights for their services at the borders, such as the Székelys, Pechenegs and Cumans.
The Hungarian gyepű originates from the Turkish yapi meaning palisade. During the 17th and 18th centuries these borderlands were called Markland in the area of Transylvania that bordered with the Kingdom of Hungary and was controlled by a Count or Countess.
In addition to the Carolingian Marca Hispanica, Iberia was home to several marches set up by the native states. The future kingdoms of Portugal and Castile were founded as marcher counties intended to protect the Kingdom of Galicia from the Cordoban Emirate to the south and east respectively.
Likewise, Córdoba set up its own marches as a buffer to the Christian states to the north. The Upper March (al-Tagr al-A'la), centered on Zaragoza, faced the eastern Marca Hispanica and the western Pyrenees, and included the Distant or Farthest March (al-Tagr al-Aqsa). The Middle March (al-Tagr al-Awsat), centred on Toledo and later Medinaceli, faced the western Pyrenees and Asturias. The Lower March (al-Tagr al-Adna), centred on Mérida and later Badajoz, facing western Asturias. These too would give rise to Kingdoms, the Taifas of Zaragoza, Toledo, and Badajoz.
Denmark means "the march of the Danes".
In Norse, "mark" meant "borderlands" and "forest"; in present-day Norwegian and Swedish it has acquired the meaning "ground", while in Danish it has come to mean "field" or "grassland".
Markland was the Norse name of an area in North America discovered by Norwegian Vikings.
The forests surrounding Norwegian cities are called "Marka" – the marches. For example, the forests surrounding Oslo are called Nordmarka, Østmarka and Vestmarka – i.e. the northern, eastern and western marches.
Telemark ("the borderlands of the Þela tribe" ).
See Welsh Marches and Scottish Marches.
The name of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom in the midlands of England was Mercia. The name "Mercia" comes from the Old English for "boundary folk", and the traditional interpretation was that the kingdom originated along the frontier between the Welsh and the Anglo-Saxon invaders, although P. Hunter Blair has argued an alternative interpretation that they emerged along the frontier between the Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria and the inhabitants of the River Trent valley.
Latinizing the Anglo-Saxon term mearc, the border areas between England and Wales were collectively known as the Welsh Marches (marchia Wallia), while the native Welsh lands to the west were considered Wales Proper (pura Wallia). The Norman lords in the Welsh Marches were to become the new Marcher Lords.
The title Earl of March is at least two distinct feudal titles: one in the northern marches, as an alternative title for the Earl of Dunbar (c. 1290 in the Peerage of Scotland); and one, that was held by the family of Mortimer (1328 in the Peerage of England), in the west Welsh Marches.
The Scottish Marches is a term for the border regions on both sides of the border between England and Scotland. From the Norman conquest of England until the reign of King James VI of Scotland, who also became King James I of England, border clashes were common and the monarchs of both countries relied on Marcher Lords to defend the frontier areas known as the Marches. They were hand-picked for their suitability for the challenges the responsibilities presented.
Patrick Dunbar, 8th Earl of Dunbar, a descendant of the Earls of Northumbria was recognized in the end of the 13th century to use the name March as his earldom in Scotland, otherwise known as Dunbar, Lothian, and Northumbrian border.
Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March, Regent of England together with Isabella of France during the minority of her son, Edward III, was a usurper who had deposed, and allegedly arranged the murder of, King Edward II. He was created an earl in September 1328 at the height of his de facto rule. His wife was Joan de Geneville, 2nd Baroness Geneville, whose mother, Jeanne of Lusignan was one of the heiresses of the French Counts of La Marche and Angouleme.
His family, Mortimer Lords of Wigmore, had been border lords and leaders of defenders of Welsh marches for centuries. He selected March as the name of his earldom for several reasons: Welsh marches referred to several counties, whereby the title signified superiority compared to usual single county-based earldoms. Mercia was an ancient kingdom. His wife's ancestors had been Counts of La Marche and Angouleme in France.
In Ireland, a hybrid system of marches existed which was condemned as barbaric at the time.[a] The Irish marches constituted the territory between English and Irish-dominated lands, which appeared as soon as the English did and were called by King John to be fortified. By the 14th century, they had become defined as the land between The Pale and the rest of Ireland. Local Anglo-Irish and Gaelic chieftains who acted as powerful spokespeople were recognised by the Crown and given a degree of independence. Uniquely, the keepers of the marches were given the power to terminate indictments. In later years, wardens of the Irish marches took Irish tenants.
The specific subdivisions of Armenia are each called marz, մարզ (pl. "marzer, մարզեր"), a loanword from Persian.
See Krajina and Military Frontier.
In their initial development during the later Zhou dynasty, the commanderies (jùn) functioned as marches, ranking below the dukes' and kings' original fiefs and below the more secure and populous counties (xiàn). As the commanderies formed the front lines between the major states, however, their military strength and strategic importance were typically much greater than the counties'.
Over time, however, the commanderies were eventually developed into regular provinces and then discontinued entirely during the Tang dynasty reforms.
The European concept of marches applies just as well to the fief of Matsumae clan on the southern tip of Hokkaidō which was at Japan's northern border with the Ainu people of Hokkaidō, known as Ezo at the time. In 1590, this land was granted to the Kakizaki clan, who took the name Matsumae from then on. The Lords of Matsumae, as they are sometimes called, were exempt from owing rice to the shōgun in tribute, and from the sankin-kōtai system established by Tokugawa Ieyasu, under which most lords (daimyōs) had to spend half the year at court (in the capital of Edo).
By guarding the border, rather than conquering or colonizing Ezo, the Matsumae, in essence, made the majority of the island an Ainu reservation. This also meant that Ezo, and the Kurile Islands beyond, were left essentially open to Russian colonization. However, the Russians never did colonize Ezo, and the marches were officially eliminated during the Meiji Restoration in the late 19th century, when the Ainu came under Japanese control, and Ezo was renamed Hokkaidō, and annexed to Japan.
Ukraine, from the Moscow-centric Russian viewpoint, functioned as a "borderland" or "march" and gained its current name, which is derived from a Slavic term of the same meaning (see above for similar in Slovenia, etc.), ultimately from this function. This, though, was merely a continuation of a semi-formal arrangement with the Poles, before escalating feuds, political infighting in Poland, and religious differences (mainly Eastern Orthodox vs. Roman Catholic) saw a loose coalition of Ukrainian lords and independent landowners collectively known as the Cossacks shift allegiance to the Russian Empire.
The Cossacks became a significant part of Russian military history in their role as military border/buffer-troops in the Wild Fields of Ukraine. The Tatar slave raids in East Slavic lands brought considerable devastation and depopulation to this area prior to the rise of the Zaporozhian Cossacks. As settlement advanced and the borders moved, the Tsars transferred or formed Cossack units to perform similar functions on other borderlands/marches further south and east in (for example) the Kuban and in Siberia, forming (for example) the Black Sea Cossack Host, the Kuban Cossack Host and the Amur Cossack Host.
^ The styling marquis or marquess is a peculiarity of each title.
^ a b "Online Etymology Dictionary". www.etymonline.com.
^ Chisholm 1911, pp. 689–690.
^ a b c Chisholm 1911, p. 690.
^ Carleton, D., & PHILLIPPS, T. (1841). Sir Dudley Carleton's State Letters, during his Embassy at the Hague, AD 1627. now first edited by TP (Thomas Phillipps.). Typis Medio-Montanis, impressit C. Gilmour.
^ Lydon 1998, p. 81.
^ Neville, p. [page needed].
^ Gwyn, p. [page needed]; Moore, p. [page needed]; Otway-Ruthven, p. [page needed].
Lewis, Archibald R. (1965). "Chapter 5:Southern French and Catalan Society (778-828)". The Development of Southern French and Catalan Society, 718-1050 (Prin ed.). University of Texas Press.
Lydon, James F. (1998). The Making of Ireland: from ancient times to the present. p. 81.
A. Thomas, Les États provinciaux de la France centrale (1879).
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Marche". Encyclopædia Britannica. 17 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 688–689. . See sections 2 and 3.
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0.999994 |
Everyone pays for their own college. So everyone pays $X$ dollars.
Everyone pays for their children's college. So everyone pays $3X$ dollars, but then they do not have to pay for their own college since their parent paid for theirs.
Why does 2 cost more than 1 even though they are equivalent in outcome?
The population is constantly growing. Having the older generation pay for the next generation concentrates the cost. Having the younger generation pay for its own education spreads out the cost.
There are less people in that generation to pay the same cost.
Imagine generations a, b, and c have each paid the required money in this society.
Paying results in $3+9+27=39$ paid educations.
Paying results in $1+3+9=13$ educations paid for.
They are accomplishing two different tasks, because the burden is shifted.
Imagine we have situation 2.
Then, consider - not a single parent, but the group of the parent and their kids.
In situation 2, the parent pays 3X. The children pay nothing, so the total cost is 3X.
In situation 1, the parent pays nothing. The children each pay X, so the total cost is 3X.
We see that the cost of college is the same either way, it is just more disperse in 1.
It is more expensive because it includes a storage of extra money.
The world changes and finds college to be useless.
Nothing happens. They just live with no expectation of going to college.
Every person in the youngest generation finds themselves with X as bonus spending money that has been saved up for them!! Woo hoo!!
The additional cost of scenario 2 is funding the rolling global piggy bank that is passed down each generation.
The outcome is not the same!
In the first case, one pays for their own college (current generation's college). So, everyone's got to work to earn their own college education.
The second case is about being born with a guaranteed, fully paid-for college education and they don't need to work to earn it. Of course, they still need to earn three times as much (plus inflation-adjustment) later by the time the kids are ready for college but that is not quite the same; it is about paying it forward.
Most efficient way to travel home for the Holidays?
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0.970704 |
Complete each sentence with the correct auxiliary verb.
The train dodoeshavehas just arrived.
They dodoeshavehas been learning English for two years.
My uncle dodoeshavehas not eat fish.
I dodoeshavehas not live here.
DoDoesHaveHas anybody rung up for me?
She dodoeshavehas not play the piano.
How dodoeshavehas we get there?
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0.960134 |
Samurai were the social group which developed at the turn of the seventh and eighth centuries AD, probably during the Yamato period. The changes in the Japanese political system at that time may constitute their genesis. In 702, the Taihō Code was created and it stated that the emperor's power covers the whole country, so the lands which had been possessed by particular clans before, were given to him. Then, the feudal structures (shōen) with the governors at the helm started to emerge. As the time went by, the influence of the emperor's power was weakening. It was the time when warrior troops submitted to the owner appeared and they were supposed to defend his properties in case of any danger.
Samurai first arose in the Eastern North part of Japan, especially on the Kantō lowland, as numerous bloody mutinies and rebellions took place there. In 1871, after the Meiji Restoration, all the samurai titles were cancelled. Ignoring numerous protests, the judicial liquidation of the samurai class was applied.
The samurai were distinguished by their haircuts for instance, as they shaved the front part of their hair (above the forehead) and pinned up the rest of it at the top of their heads. Their attire included hakama trousers, kamishimo waistcoat with a kamon emblem representing a given clan or family and also accessories, such as a luck amulet worn at the neck. The samurai armor was called Ō-yoroi and it consisted of numerous segments, made mainly of metal and endowed with lacquered leather coverings. They were joined together with thick silk straps and also leather. Those straps were given bright colours in order to additionally decorate the armor.
The most significant laws were defined by the bushidō code, as it taught the basic rules of a warrior. The samurai rules were included also in other masterpieces, such as The Book of Five Rings or Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai. It was particularly crucial to serve the master faithfully and to be subordinated to him entirely. Both during a battle or while committing suicide (seppuku), a samurai was not allowed to fear death. Capitulation in the fight also was forbidden, as it was considered to be a highly dishonorable solution. The samurai education was focused on the best knowledge of bushidō. They were taught to write, read and create calligraphy. They were also educated in the field of music, rhetoric, literature, law, mathematics and medicine. What is more, the samurai were obliged to know the traditional tea ceremony, as well as the Japanese and Chinese poetry.
Katana is a Japanese samurai sword. Its curved, single-edged blade measured over 60 cm and the foible was truncated or rounded.
The first samurai swords emerged in Japan between 710 and 794 AD, in the so-called Nara period. They were called kara-tachi at that time, what stood for Chinese swords. At the very beginning, they were not so amazingly decorated and did not have a plaque guard. In the Muromachi period, the uchi-gatana ("a striking sword") appeared and this one already resembled the katana sword remarkably. At the end of this era, the samurai began to consider it to be their favourite weapon. At that time many variants of this sword were created, but they only slightly differed from each other.
The sword production was not systematized until the Edo period (1603-1868). It was the time when the legal rules of carrying and using the weapon were stated. Moreover, daishō emerged, which was the specified set of swords. Katana became a specialization of some armorer families. It was then when the main traditional names started to be used.
The tachi and katana swords differ to a great extent in the way of being carried. Tachi was attached to ashi, which were two straps, with the sharp side of a blade placed downwards. It was used together with an armor most commonly. Katana was fastened to a regular attire, without any straps, but only fixed behind the belt (kaku-obi) with the sharp blade placed upwards. The outfit (koshirae) was to a great extent formed accordingly to the way how the particular samurai sword was carried. The same concerned the sheath (saya), which was endowed with additional rings when it was made for tachi. The shape of the blade also depended on the method of carrying the sword, as in the case of tachi it was more curved.
When the Haitōrei edict entered into force in 1876, all the Japanese citizens (apart from the police and army) were prohibited to own a weapon. The skills of using a sword were vanishing and took only the forms of fencing as a kind of sport (kendō) or meditation (iaidō). Up to 1933, not a single new traditional katana sword was created. However, at the time of World War II, the Japanese officers fought with the guntō swords, which remarkably resembled katana from the Edo period.
Wealthy peasants often owned wakizashi, because unlike katana sword, they were legally allowed to have it. Both weapons included the daishō set, which could be carried only by the samurai.
A sword constituted the crucial element of the samurai culture, as it was said to be the embodiment of the warrior's soul. There were numerous rituals associated with it, sometimes very complex, and they appeared as early as in the process of its production. Before starting his work, an armorer was obliged to undergo the purification ceremony and while creating a samurai sword, in some moments he had to wear the festive attire. The smithy was decorated with motifs originating from the shintō religion and served as protection against evil forces. The rituals were associated even with clay, fire and water, used for hardening the sword.
In order to prevent the blade of a samurai sword from chipping, the armorer had to forge the hardest cutting edges possible. At the same time, they had to be very flexible, because otherwise the weapon could crack. It was an incredibly difficult task to make it, performed with repeatable re-forging iron, tempering the metal and other methods, which were created over the centuries and carefully guarded. Dealing with a sword was subject to many rules. One of them stated that if a samurai pulled out this weapon from a sheath, he had to immerse it in the human blood. For this reason, if a noble person, that should not be refused, asked for presenting the sword, a samurai had to cut himself before hiding it back.
A samurai sword had to be conserved regularly by rubbing the blade with an ointment made of the Japanese mint.
If you are looking for the highest-quality replica of samurai sword, our shop is the best place to order it. We offer only the most carefully made copies, precisely following the originals. They will allow you to feel the real atmosphere of the Japanese past.
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Sega Corporation is a multinational video game software and hardware development company, and a home computer and console manufacturer headquartered in Ota, Tokyo, Japan. The company had success with both arcades and home consoles, but on January 31, 2001, officially left the consumer console business and began concentrating on software development for multiple third-party platforms.
Sega's main offices, as well as the main offices of its domestic division, Sega Corporation (Japan), are located in Ota, Tokyo, Japan. Sega's European division, Sega Europe Ltd., is headquartered in the Brentford area of London. Sega's North American division, Sega of America Inc., is headquartered in San Francisco, California; having moved there from Redwood City, California in 1999. Sega Australia's headquarters are located in Sydney, New South Wales. The company also has offices in France, Germany and Italy.
On November 1st, 2000, Sega changed it's company name from Sega Enterprises, Ltd to Sega Corporation.
In 1954, another American businessman, David Rosen, moved to Tokyo and established the company Rosen Enterprises, Inc., in Japan to export art. When the company imported coin-operated instant photo booths, it stumbled on a surprise hit: The booths were very popular in Japan. Business was booming, and Rosen Enterprises expanded by importing coin-operated electro-mechanical games.
Rosen Enterprises and Service Games merged in 1965 to create Sega Enterprises. Within a year, the new company released a submarine-simulator game called Periscope that became a smash-hit worldwide.
In 1969, Gulf+Western purchased Sega, and Rosen was allowed to remain CEO of the Sega division. Under Rosen's leadership, Sega continued to grow and prosper. In 1976, they released a big screen TV, Segavision (not to be confused with their upcoming portable game system, Sega Vision).
In the video game arcades, Sega was known for games such as Zaxxon and Out Run. Sega's revenues would hit $214 million by 1982 and in 1983, Sega would release its first video game console, the SG-1000, the first 3D arcade video game, SubRoc-3D, which used a special periscope viewer to deliver individual images to each eye, and the first laserdisc arcade game, Astron Belt.
In the same year, Sega was one of the victims of the video game crash. Hemorrhaging money, Gulf+Western sold the U.S. assets of Sega to famous pinball manufacturer Bally Manufacturing Corporation. The Japanese assets of Sega were purchased for $38 million by a group of investors led by Rosen and Hayao Nakayama, a Japanese businessman who owned Esco Boueki (Esco Trading) a arcade game distribution company that had been acquired by Rosen in 1979. Nakayama became the new CEO of Sega, and Rosen became head of its subsidiary in the United States.
In 1984, the multibillion dollar Japanese conglomerate CSK bought Sega, renamed it to Sega Enterprises Ltd., headquartered it in Japan, and two years later, shares of its stock were being traded on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. David Rosen's friend, Isao Okawa, the chairman of CSK, became chairman of Sega.
In 1986, Sega of America was established to take advantage of the resurgent video game market in the United States.
On January 23, 2001 a story ran in Nihon Keizai Shimbun that said Sega was going to cease production of the Dreamcast and develop software for other platforms After the initial denial, Sega Japan then put out a press release confirming they were considering producing software for Playstation 2 and Game Boy Advance as part of their "New Management Policy". Then on January 31, 2001, Sega of America officially announced they were becoming a third-party software publisher.
The company has since developed primarily into a platform-neutral software company, known as a "third-party publisher", that creates games that will launch on a variety of game consoles produced by other companies, many of them former rivals, the first of which was a port of Chu Chu Rocket to Nintendo's Game Boy Advance.
Arcade units are still being produced, first under the Sega NAOMI name, and then with subsequent releases of the Sega NAOMI 2, Sega HIKARU, Sega Chihiro, Triforce (in collaboration with Nintendo and Namco) and the Sega Lindbergh.
By March 31 2002, Sega had five consecutive fiscal years of net losses. To help with Sega's dept, CSK founder Isao Okawa, before his death in 2001, gave the company a $695.7 million private donation, and also talked to Microsoft about a sale or a merger with their Xbox division, but those talks failed. On February 13, 2003, Sega announced plans to merge with Sammy, but plans fell through. Discussions also took place with Namco, Bandai, Electronic Arts and again with Microsoft.
With this shift to software development, this affected Sega's Australian operations. Sega Ozisoft ceased to operate in its current form with Sega Enterprises selling its share in Sega Ozisoft and was bought over by Infogrames in 2002. This led to Infogrames having an Australian presence for the first time but decided to change the company name for its Australian operations to GameNation. Sega then went to find an Australian distributor, and made a deal with THQ Asia Pacific, who at the time until 2006 had deals with Capcom. In 2003 GameNation was changed to Atari Australia and then challenged THQ Asia Pacific to the distribution rights to Sega's IP's in Australia but failed. In early 2008 Sega Corporation announced that Sega would re-establish an Australian presence, effectively ending THQ's distribution of Sega's products in Australia and would be a subsidiary of Sega of Europe, rather than being a separate local subsidiary like Atari Australia, Nintendo Australia and THQ Asia Pacific.
In August 2003, Sammy bought the outstanding 22% of shares that CSK had, and Sammy chairman Hajime Satomi became CEO of Sega. With the Sammy chairman at the helm of Sega, it has been stated that Sega's activity will focus on its profit-making arcade business rather than its loss-making home software development. In late December, Sega released Sonic Heroes selling over 2 million copies. It was the first Sonic game to be on both the Xbox and the PlayStation 2.
During the middle of 2004, Sammy bought a controlling share in Sega Corporation at a cost of $1.1 billion, creating the new company Sega Sammy Holdings, one of the biggest game manufacturing companies in the world. With the merger, Sega reabsorbed its second party studios and began to reorganize them. Tetsuya Mizuguchi, father of Sega Rally and Space Channel 5, cited the changes in the corporate culture after the Sega-Sammy merger.
On January 25, 2005, Sega's Visual Concepts, a studio Sega dubbed a "1.5" developer, was shut down by Take-Two Interactive. Sega used the parlance "1.5" as a mid-point of sorts between first-party and second-party developer status: that is, a wholly owned studio that would otherwise be known as a first-party developer, but was outside of internal development teams. Visual Concepts was known for many Sega Sports games including the ESPN NFL Football series, formerly NFL2K. The sale also came with Visual Concept's wholly-owned subsidiary Kush Games. Take Two subsequently announced the start of the publishing label 2K Games because of this purchase.
That desire to have a more Western appeal for Sega was shortly followed up by Sega acquiring British developer Sports Interactive after a successful run of publishing Football Manager 2005 and 2006, in which they managed to sell 1.5 million copies, the deal was said to be worth in the region of £30 million ($52 million) by Miles Jacobson, Sports Interactive’s Managing Director. This was, however, not the only developer Sega acquired, as they also purchased American developer Secret Level. Although the terms of the deal were not disclosed, Secret Level had begun work before being bought by Sega to “recreate a classic Sega franchise" for the PS3 and Xbox 360 in July 2005, which was revealed to be Golden Axe: Beast Rider later that year.
While Sega continued its expansion in the West, on May 8, 2006, it was announced Sega of Japan begun helping famed Sega developer and Sonic Team head Yuji Naka (known for being the main programmer for the original Sonic the Hedgehog games and Nights into Dreams...) to start up his own company titled "Prope" (Latin for "beside" and "near future") in which Sega helped provide 10% startup capital and have the option to publish games produced from the studio if they wished to.
Due to the continued success of Sega’s software sales, the company reported on May 17, 2006 a 31% rise in net profits from that of the previous year of the period ending March 31, 2006, being posted at ¥66.2 billion ($577 million), as well as an increase in operating profit growing by 13% from the previous year, being posted at ¥553.2 billion ($4.82 billion). Notable titles to have helped Sega increase profits in the West, such as Shadow the Hedgehog (which sold over a million copies) and Sonic Riders, whilst in Japan, games such as Yakuza, Mushiking and Brain Trainer Portable continued to have strong sales.
Although Sega seemed poised to continue increasing profits, the company reported a massive drop of 93% profits for the period ending June 30, 2006 compared to the same period the previous year. Net income for the company dropped from $98.3 million (a year earlier) to $7.12 million for this period as well as total sales dropping from $926.5 million to $809.1 million, Sega reported that the decrease in profits was due to no significant big releases by its slot machine division.
Despite this, Sega reported in November a massive 52% rise in profits for the periods between April and September 2006, compared to the same period last year. Software sales for the company had also increased with 5.75 million. Of those units, 1.76 million were sold in Japan, 1.59 million in Europe, 2.36 million in the US and 30,000 in other regions. a number of titles were said to have performed well, in particular Super Monkey Ball: Touch & Roll for the Nintendo DS and Football Manager 2006 for the Xbox 360 having sold well. While Sega performed better in 2006, they had slashed their forecasts for the year ending March 2007 by 20% with an anticipated profit of $536.7 million, down from the initial profits of $656.7 million.
On August 26, 2007, IGN Australia announced that Sega would re-establish itself in Australia, ending THQ Asia Pacific's distribution of Sega products in Australia. Sega Australia has a very close relationship with Nintendo Australia, despite Sega Ozisoft and NAL previously being rivals in the Australian gaming market. Sega Australia currently do not distribute in New Zealand, instead like most other Australian publishers, they opt to let retailers take care of the distribution e.g EB Games Australia and K-Mart.
Continuing to prepare more games for the Western market, Sega was able to bridge a partnership with New Line Cinema in September to develop a game for the movie tie-in game The Golden Compass and also partnered themselves with Fox to develop two new games based on the Alien franchise. Sega then assigned critically acclaimed developers Gearbox software to develop a first person shooter (Aliens: Colonial Marines) and Obsidian Entertainment to develop an RPG based on the popular film franchise for the Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and PC. The latter was cancelled for undisclosed reasons by Sega. However Aliens: Colonial Marines is still in production by Gearbox and has an expected release date of 2010. Sega has also been publishing games from independent studios (such as Platinum Games), and is currently considering turning them into franchises.
Sega has also designed an online flash game site dubbed "PlaySEGA," which includes both original games and ports of classic games, with retro Sonic games being promised in the long run. Users of this site earn various amounts of "PlaySEGA Rings," which they can use to customize and house their avatar or enter weekly cash drawings.
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Rotator cuff injury can cause severe pain. You can try home remedies to reduce pain and inflammation. See your doctor when necessary.
The rotator cuff is basically a group of tendons and muscles that work together to stabilize your shoulder joint. It consists of muscles (infraspinatus, teres minor, subscapularis, and supraspinatus) that connect your shoulder blade to the upper arm. These tendons provide stability, and the muscles let you rotate your shoulder with ease. You may experience shoulder pain for different reasons; however, a rotator cuff injury is usually the most common cause of concern.
Rotator cuff injuries usually lead to three common conditions, including rotator cuff impingement syndrome, rotator cuff tendonitis, and a rotator cuff tear. Depending on your condition and symptoms, your healthcare provider may treat you with anti-inflammatory drugs, painkillers, steroid injections, and physiotherapy. Surgery is another option to consider.
X-Rays: The test usually helps identify bone spurs or broken bone after an injury to your shoulder. A rotator cuff tear doesn't appear on any X-ray though.
Ultrasound: The test involves using sound waves to produce images of smaller structures in your body, including soft tissues such as tendons and muscles.
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI): The test involves using radio waves and a powerful magnet to produce more accurate and detailed image of bones and soft tissues.
You don't usually have to do much to fix a minor injury. If the pain is not severe, you can always try certain home remedies to trigger healing.
If it is a repetitive injury, take a break from what caused the pain in the first place. Limit overhead activity and heavy lifting until your pain subsides.
Using an ice pack will help reduce pain and inflammation. You should put ice on your shoulder for 20 minutes or so and repeat it every 3-4 hours. Once the inflammation reduces, you can use hot packs to relax sore muscles.
Consider taking OTC pain relievers such as naproxen, ibuprofen, or acetaminophen to deal with pain.
In addition to these, you should also consider performing range-of-motion exercises to improve the functionality of your shoulder. Working with a physiotherapist is a good idea because they will help you understand how to stretch and strengthen the muscles around your shoulder using proper exercise moves.You can always start with some of the following exercises, but consult your doctor if the pain persists or aggravates.
Exercise 1: Lie on your stomach on a bed and put your right arm out at your shoulder level while bending your elbow to 90 degrees. Now, raise your right hand slowly while keeping your elbow bent. Stop when your hand comes to the shoulder level. Return to the starting point and repeat with the left arm.
Exercise 2: Place a rolled-up towel under your left armpit and lie on your right side. Stretch your left arm right above your head while keeping your right arm at your side. Make sure the elbow is at 90 degrees and your forearm is against your chest. Now, slowly roll your left shoulder out and raise your left forearm until you reach the shoulder level. Lower it slowly and repeat with your other arm.
Exercise 3: Lie on your left side while resting your right arm on the upper side of your body. Bend your elbow while keeping the left forearm resting on the ground and roll your left shoulder in. Now, raise your left forearm slowly until it reaches your chest. Return to the starting position and repeat the same with the other arm.
Exercise 4: Start from a standing position and take your left arm at least halfway between the front and side of your body. Keep your thumb down and raise your left arm until it forms a 45 degrees angle. Don't lift further if it hurts. Lower your arm slowly and repeat the same with your right arm.
You can try several other exercises as well. You can opt for an exercise that stretches your shoulder, such as anterior shoulder stretch, posterior stretching, wall stretches, or pendulum exercise. You can also do exercises to strengthen your shoulder, such as internal or external rotation exercise with band, wall push-ups, isometric shoulder exercises, and shoulder blade retraction with or without tubing. The following video will help you learn more about some exercises to fix your rotator cuff.
For minor rotator cuff injuries, it is usually enough to take rest and use ice and physical therapy to relieve the symptoms. You may need a combination of medication and therapy to deal with a severe injury.
You may have to take a steroid injection if conservative treatments don't seem to work in your case. A steroid injection is usually the option when the pain starts interfering with your daily activities, sleep, or exercise. You will have to take an injection into your shoulder joint, and it helps with the pain, but it may weaken the tendon if not used judiciously.
There are different situations when you'll have no choice but to go for rotator cuff surgical procedures.
Bone Spur: Your pain can be due to an overgrowth of bone that irritates your shoulder cuff. You will have to undergo a surgical procedure to remove the excess bone and fix the damaged tendon.
Tendon Replacement and Repair: A surgical procedure is necessary to fix a torn rotator cuff tendon, but if it is seriously damaged and cannot be attached back to the arm bone, your surgeon may consider replacing it with a nearby tendon.
Shoulder Replacement: Severe rotator cuff injuries may call for serious measures, and you may even have to go for a shoulder replacement surgery. The reverse shoulder arthroplasty is a common choice to improve the stability of the artificial joint.
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Is it okay for Christian women to wear pants?
In some Christian traditions, women are told they cannot wear pants. The concerns usually have to do with dressing modestly or with the idea that wearing pants could make a woman look like a man. According to the Bible, is it okay for women to wear pants?
To be clear, pants were not a part of biblical cultures (In fact, modern jeans as we know them became popular in the 1800s.). Instead, we look at Scripture for what principles may apply. First, Paul clearly notes, "Women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works" (1 Timothy 2:9-10). The focus in this passage is modesty.
In 1 Peter 3:3-4 we also find, "Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear—but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious." Again, the focus is on the inward beauty of a woman rather than a focus on external clothing. In both cases, a woman who wears pants could both be modest and not focused on external clothing.
Some who advocate against wearing long pants use Deuteronomy 22:5 that says, "A woman shall not wear a man's garment, nor shall a man put on a woman's cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God." But there are some problems with the application of this passage. First, this command was to the Israelites living under the Law of Moses and does not directly apply to Christians today. Second, wearing pants is not viewed by Western culture as only a male piece of clothing, but as something both men and women commonly wear.
Two additional aspects may also be considered. First, Romans 14 discusses the issue of a stumbling block to other believers. In some cultures, a woman who wears pants may be seen as a stumbling block to other people. In other words, wearing pants in some contexts could cause the focus to be on the people rather than on helping people grow in Christ.
A second area is in situations in which parents teach their girls to wears skirts or dresses instead of pants. Paul wrote, "Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord" (Colossians 3:20). As a young person, you will need to obey your parents in this area even if it otherwise is not a biblical requirement.
Women can clearly wear pants in most situations without it being a concern. The Bible's focus is on serving God, dressing modestly, and using clothing in ways that do not cause others to stumble. In the case of children, we are also called to live in obedience.
Is it okay for a Christian man or woman to wear earrings?
It is possible to be a Christian feminist? Is feminism against the Bible?
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Is this crazy weather the result of mankind's continuous interference in the environment? Or is it simply the normal cycle of climate changes through the ages? No one seems to know for sure, but the fact is that natural phenomena such as tornadoes and hurricanes have been hitting our country with more force and frequence than in past decades.
One tornado has just hit Silverado Farm, a cattle and milk producer, and made havoc. The barn roof was torn, several trees were uprooted, the farm truck was overturned... But the worst thing is that the tornado destroyed several sections of the fence that surrounded the property. The fence was very well built, with concrete posts every two meters, and barbed wire enclosing the whole farm perimeter (the perimeter, in meters, is an even number, making the fence perfectly regular).
Now several posts are broken or missing, and there are gaps in the fence. To prevent the cattle from getting out of the property, the fence must be restored as quickly as possible. Reconstructing the fence to its original form, with concrete posts, will take a long time. In the meantime, the farm owners decided to close the gaps with a temporary fence, made with wooden posts. Wooden posts will be placed in exactly the same spots where missing/broken concrete posts were/are. However, in order to make the temporary reconstruction faster and less expensive, the owners decided to use fewer posts: a wooden post will be used to replace a missing/broken concrete post only if the length of the barbed wired needed to close the distance to the next post (wooden or concrete) exceeds four meters.
Given the description of which posts are missing/broken, you must write a program to determine the smallest number of wooden posts needed to close all the gaps in the fence, according to the owners' decision.
The input contains several test cases. The first line of a test case contains one integer N indicating the number of original concrete posts in the fence (5 ≤ N ≤ 5000). The second line of a test case contains N integers Xi indicating the state of each concrete post after the tornado (0 ≤ Xi ≤ 1 for 1 ≤ i ≤ N) . If Xi = 1 post i is in good condition, if Xi = 0 post i is broken or missing. Note that post N is next to post 1. The end of input is indicated by N = 0 .
For each test case in the input your program must produce one line of output, containing an integer indicating the smallest number of wooden posts that are needed to restore the fence, according to the owners' decision.
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The share of agriculture in Austria in the Austrian economy declined steadily after World War II, agriculture continues to represent an important element of the economy because of its social and political significance. The Chamber of Agriculture remains on an equal level with the chambers of commerce and labor, although its members produce only a fraction of the GDP that industrial and commercial workers produce.
In Austria, as in most other eastern countries, the government has played an important role in agriculture since the end of War World II. The government has concentrated on mitigating social, regional, economic, and even environmental consequences of the sector's decline, as well as delaying the decline itself.
Agricultural policy has been carried out with different objectives and with different laws and policies depending on the times. at the early postwar years, the most important objectives were survival and self-sufficiency. As a poor country, Austria needed to be able to feed itself if its population was to survive.
By the 1950s, however, the policy was changing to a more global perspective, while keeping intact the traditional farm economy. The government wanted to protect domestic production, stabilize agricultural markets, protect farmers' incomes, and improve the sector's ability to compete in Austria and abroad. Increasingly, the government began to believe in the importance of maintaining rural society as an objective in its own right, for social reasons, and to protect the environment and encourage tourism. Because of these aims, agricultural policy, more than any other economic policy, reflects a mixture of economic and noneconomic objectives and concerns. The principal aim, however, is to preserve the existing number of farms as much as possible.
Within the structure of the social partnership, various organizations work to maintain farm incomes and thus farm existence, among them the Grain Board, the Dairy Board, and the Livestock and Meat Commission. These organizations set basic support prices, taking into account domestic costs and local supply and demand, with only weak linkages to world market prices.
The boards and commission use a variety of measures to achieve their broad purposes. Among these measures are import restrictions, such as border controls and entry controls—some of which may be bilaterally negotiated—and variable import duties. If import restrictions are not sufficient to maintain prices because of excess production, the surplus is exported at subsidized prices (with the subsidies usually coming from federal or provincial authorities). Authorities also apply production controls, such as sales quotas or limits, on the size and density of livestock holdings. Quotas exist for many different products, with the quotas usually fixed on the basis of past production. Price and quality controls and limits also exist, especially with respect to different prices for different grades of wheat or milk. The government can also pay direct income supplements, but these payments are generally restricted to certain mountain farming zones and other equally disadvantaged areas. Subsidies are mainly paid by the federal government but may in some instances be paid by provincial governments.
Because of the complex system of price supports and market access limitations, the exact share of subsidy costs to the government and to consumers is virtually impossible to calculate. Experts estimate that the total cost to the federal and other governments for agricultural and forestry support during the late 1980s was approximately S16 billion a year, a level that would have been roughly at the same level as that of many other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) governments but slightly higher than the EC average.
The economic research institute Österreichisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (WIFO) estimated after a major 1989 study that about 71 percent of the cost of agricultural support was borne by consumers in the form of higher prices, with the taxpayers carrying the remaining 29 percent through such different programs as direct and indirect federal and provincial subsidies or various kinds of market regulation.
Austria's decision to enter the EU will have certain effects on its agriculture and forestry. Support prices in Austria are higher than those set under the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), although the two systems are in many ways similar. Austrian government-borne subsidy costs are at about the same level as those in the EU, but consumer-borne subsidy costs are higher, so food prices in Austria average about 30 percent higher than those in the EU. Full integration into the EU will thus compel a number of adjustments in Austria. These adjustments may be even more severe if they become effective at the same time that some East European countries with lower production costs enter the EU. Much depends, of course, on any reforms that may take place in the CAP.
Despite the government's efforts to sustain agriculture, not one province had as much as 10 percent of the population involved in agriculture and forestry by 1991. At the beginning of the 1970s, all but two provinces (Vienna and Vorarlberg) had more than 10 percent of their populations involved in farming. This contrasted markedly to the situation in 1934, when all but those same two provinces had more than 30 percent of their populations working in agriculture. Over this period of two generations, the decline in the Austrian farm population was as fast as any in the Western world.
Of Austria's total area of almost 84,000 square kilometers, about 67,000 square kilometers are used for farming and forestry. Roughly half of that area is forest, and the remainder is arable land and pasture.
Agriculture and forestry accounted for about 280,000 enterprises in 1986, with the average holding being about twentythree hectares. There were about 4,500 corporate farms. Beyond those farms, however, only a third of all farmers were full-time farmers or farming companies. Over half the farming enterprises were smaller than ten hectares; nearly 40 percent were smaller than five hectares. Just as the number of farmers has long been in decline, so also has been the number of farms.
Family labor predominates, especially in mountainous areas and on smaller farms. Only a third of all farm and forestry enterprises were classified as full-time occupations in 1986. A full half of these enterprises are spare-time, that is, less than half of household labor is devoted to farming or forestry. The remainder are part-time. Farms up to ten hectares are more often tended by part-time and spare-time farmers rather than by full-time farmers. For most farm owners and workers, nonfarm income is as important, if not more important, than farm income.
Despite the decline in the number of farmers and agriculture's share of GDP since 1960, agricultural output has risen. As of the early 1990s, Austria was self-sufficient in all cereals and milk products as well as in red meat. This gain was achieved because of the considerable gains in agricultural labor productivity.
This page was last edited on 11 August 2017, at 16:05 (UTC).
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In the immediate aftermath of the 1973 coup, a semiformal umbrella group, the National Intelligence Directorate (Direcci�n Nacional de Inteligencia--DINA), was formed, ostensibly to coordinate the activities of the intelligence services of the army, navy, air force, Carabineros, and Investigations Police. From the beginning, DINA functioned as a secret police and was engaged in the repression of dissidence within the state and the exaction of revenge on its enemies without. So notorious were its activities that of 957 identified "disappearances" of enemies of the Pinochet regime, DINA was blamed by the Rettig Commission on human rights abuses for perpetrating 392.
DINA has also been linked by prosecutors in the United States, Italy, Argentina, and Chile to the murder of General Carlos Prats, the former commander in chief of the army, in Buenos Aires in 1974; the attempted murder of Bernardo Leighton, the Christian Democratic leader, in Rome in 1974; and the assassination of Orlando Letelier, a former member of the Allende administration and ambassador to the United States under the Popular Unity (Unidad Popular) regime, in Washington in 1976. DINA was abolished in 1977 and replaced by a new organization known as the National Information Center (Centro Nacional de Informaci�n--CNI).
The functions of the CNI combined those functions carried out by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), FBI, and Secret Service. Although human rights abuses abated significantly after the abolition of DINA, its successor continued to draw criticism and was disbanded upon the return of civilian government in 1990. Most of its approximately 2,000 operatives were absorbed either by army intelligence or by a new coordinating body for military intelligence, operating under the aegis of the National Defense Staff and known as the Directorate of National Defense Intelligence (Direcci�n de Inteligencia de la Defensa Nacional-- DIDN). The DIDN concerns itself primarily with defense rather than with internal intelligence.
The Aylwin government relied mainly on the Investigations Police to combat terrorist groups. Technical assistance has been obtained from Italy and Germany. The Carabineras created a new countersubversive intelligence body in May 1990, the Directorate of Carabineros Political Intelligence (Direcci�n de Inteligencia de Carabineros--Dipolcar). Its previous unit was implicated in human rights violations. In early 1993, the government was finally able to enact new legislation, after more than a year of congressional delays in approving the project, creating the Directorate of Public Security and Information (Direcci�n de Seguridad P�blica e Informaciones). The new directorate is under the Ministry of Interior and allows the ministry to coordinate the intelligence and anticrime and antiterrorist activities of the Carabineros and Investigations Police.
NOTE: The information regarding Chile on this page is re-published from The Library of Congress Country Studies and the CIA World Factbook. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Chile Internal Security Intelligence Organizations information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Chile Internal Security Intelligence Organizations should be addressed to the Library of Congress and the CIA.
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I'd like to pose questions about what others feel or think about truth.What is truth?Is it relative or is it constant?Are there any real universal truths?Can believing something make it true?
I think I have discovered some universal truths.Let me know how and what you think about them.
1.Life is unfair,There is no inherent fairness in the world.Good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people.
3.Love is the giving and sharing of our time and energy towards wants and desires.
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What are the conscious and the unconscious mind?
So you need a quick guide for the trainee hypnotherapist on what are the conscious and the unconscious mind?
In short the conscious mind can be said to be everything which we are currently aware of. The unconscious is everything that makes us who we are that we are not aware of. This could include such things as memory but it could also extend to our awareness of our physical self.
A common way of explaining the relationship between the conscious and the unconscious is the metaphor of the iceberg.
As most people know, when you see the tip of the iceberg you are only seeing 10% of what is there. The rest is below the surface. It is often argued that the conscious mind is like the tip of the iceberg, it shows but is only a small proportion of what is actually there.
Memory is a good example of both the conscious and the unconscious mind. A memory will often be stored in out long term memory (unconscious) but can be transferred into our awareness and thus become conscious.
Unconscious assumptions can effect the way we do things. A lot of psychological therapies rely on the concept of bring unconscious events (memories) or learnings from those events (cognitions) into conscious awareness so they can be challenged and altered. Hypnotherapy also looks to implant, through the medium of verbal suggestion and imagery, new unconscious beliefs about the world.
The concept of the pre-conscious.
The pre-conscious is a useful concept. The preconscious is the transference from unconscious to conscious awareness. This may be familiar from when you have had the feeling that you know something but are not quite there yet. This feeling usually indicates that something is in the preconscious and can be brought to conscious awareness, often by ignoring it and allowing the process of transfer to occur naturally.
The conscious mind is everything that you are currently aware of , be that thoughts, feelings or memories.
The unconscious is everything which you are not currently aware of which is you (psychologically) and you (physically).
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The Republic of Vietnam (RVN) (1954-1975; commonly called South Vietnam (SVN)) is the political entity created by the Geneva Accords of 1954 that partitioned French Indochina. The Republic of Vietnam ended in 1975 at the end of the Vietnam War.
This article needs a description of the political geography of South Vietnam.
While the government of the Republic of Vietnam could be characterized as republican, it was more definitively "anti-communistist." Despite being called a republic, the nation was initially led by an "emperor" (Bao Dai). Following the removable of the emperor, the nation was led by a Confucianist authoritarian Ngo Dinh Diem, who gave preference to a Catholic minority (of which he was a part). Following the assassination of Ngo, the government was led by a series of military governments. Widespread democratic institutions never evolved and there remained, regardless of the leadership, an endemic problem with government corruption. It is not clear, despite its name, that the national government ever gave sovereignty to its people.
Vietnamese (not necessarily South Vietnamese) and American goals were not always in concert. The principal U.S. goal was the global containment of Communism. There was a Vietnamese nationalist goal of interest both to the North and South; the issue was how this nationalism was to be implemented.
For the South Vietnamese approach to nationalism to prevail, or at least for South Vietnam to present a unified defense as did South Korea, there needed to be stable South Vietnamese government, with adequate legitimacy to the populace. Legitimacy, however, did not necessarily equate to U.S. ideas of democracy. While public American statements pushed the democratic ideal, these were often for U.S. domestic political ears and did not necessarily reflect the internal discussions of U.S. decisionmakers.
One of the challenges for South Vietnam was that a government seen as too much of a client of the United States would have trouble with its own legitimacy, but, at least in 1964-1965, needed U.S. military support if it was going to continue to exist. Another aspect of legitimacy, however, involved perception of the government as helpful to the people, which was incompatible with some leaders' desires for personal power and enrichment. Filipinos are not culturally Vietnamese and Vietnamese are not culturally Filipino, but large-scale elimination of corruption, as implemented in the Philippines by Ramon Magsaysay, with the assistance of Edward Lansdale, would almost certainly have improved the legitimacy and popular support of the Southern government. The Philippines, as it dealt with its Communist problem, was not also dealing with frequent internal coups and political crises.
Ngo Dinh Diem was a Vietnamese who, while he had worked as a civil servant in French Indochina, had strong credentials both as a nationalist and anti-communist. Indeed, he left Vietnam between 1950 and 1954, in part, due to credible Communist threats on his life. . He also distrusted the Bao Dai proto-state relationship with France, although returned to become Premier in the last parts of the Bao Dai government.
Diem moved into control, first through appointment and balancing of power groups, then through a questionable election, but in a country where there was no tradition of national democratic elections.
While Diem was not a charismatic leader, charisma is not necessarily the first requisite for a Vietnamese leader. As with Ho Chi Minh, organizational ability is important, as well as a perception of moral authority. Since he was not a leader by national consensus, he had considerable conflict with South Vietnamese non-communist power blocs. He was a Catholic in a country with a Buddhist majority and a number of important sects. He was also from Central Vietnam (i.e., Annam), where the power blocs had tended to be northern or southern.
He directed the resettlement of refugees from the North in 1954-1955, including a land reform program. Land reform, and the later Strategic Hamlet Program, was run by his brother and closest adviser, Ngo Dinh Nhu. Nhu was especially conspiratorial, and, while charismatic in his way, also engendered enmity. Nhu directed a semisecret political movement, the Can Lao, and the broader "Blue Shirts" or National Revolutionary Movement.
Diem did want the support of well-to-do farmers and landowners, although he broke up some of the largest holdings, some French-owned. He never found an ideal balance between developing broad peasant support and keeping his landlord supporters; the traditional balance between the peasantry and the smaller landlords was, indeed, complex.
In 1955, he cracked down on the Binh Xuyen, which had some aspects of being a sect but was more of an organized crime syndicate. This was one of the aspects in which, without elegance, he tried to create something of a national identity. Under the French administration, the Montagnard tribal groups of the Central Highlands had been fairly autonomous; his land reform programs, to some extent, forcibly integrated Montagnards with lowland Vietnamese.
A year later, he ordered that approximately 1,000,000 Chinese-identified people of Vietnam, who dominated much of the economy, including half-million Vietnamese-born men known as "uncles", "Vietnamize", including changing their names to a Vietnamese form. The order barred "foreigners", including Chinese, from 11 kinds of businesses. His vice-president, Nguyen Ngoc Tho, had the operational responsibility for the Chinese.
Diem faced constant coup plotting, and several attempted ones, until the one that removed and killed him in 1963.
After the overthrow of Ngo Dinh Diem, a first military government, the Military Revolutionary Council (MRC) lasted until January 1964; the military council, led by Duong Van Minh, oversaw a Provisional Government under Diem's Vice President, Nguyen Ngoc Tho. On January 29, 1964, Nguyen Khanh ousted Minh's MRC in a second military, but violence-free coup; Tho was allowed to retire.
Had the NLF leadership wished to do so, it could have used its impressive struggle machine to launch in the name of the Buddha a nation-wide struggle movement that conceivably could have ended with its long-pursued General Uprising...Knowledgeable Vietnamese attributed its refusal to act an unwillingness to involve itself in an alien struggle movement. The NLF and the communists, ran the argument, avoid activities over which they do not exercise total control.... The Buddhist leadership made it clear it did not seek NLF help since it wished at all costs to avoid the Communist stigma. Another popular explanation for the NLF's "sit-tight" policy during the Buddhist troubles was that the NLF was going to allow the bourgeois revolutionary forces to succeed in toppling Diem, after which it would capture the Revolution as the Kerensky Government was captured in the Russian Revolution. ... A slanderous but widely bandied explanation among Vietnamese at the time was that the NLF did not want Diem removed, that he and his brothers and sister-in-law were far more valuable to the NLF in office than out. In truth, the NLF posture during this period remains something of a mystery.
According to Robert McNamara, however, the Minh group had been following a strategy, but underestimated the insistence on the U.S. of having an anticommunist government. Minh described his group as noncommunist rather than anticommunist, which Minh described as an important distinction. They apparently sought incremental political improvements with the NLF, but this appears to have been the last chance, as coup after coup followed, of a neutralist solution. McNamara saw Ho Chi Minh also in favor of a neutral solution.
A coup against Khanh failed in early February 1964, but he left the country within a few weeks, with the Armed Forces Council back in charge. Just before Khanh left, the Council did set up a new civilian government headed by Phan Huy Quat. INR saw the Quat government as evidence of a temporary stability between the military and the Buddhist, but one that could be broken by a power play of factions on either side.
In August, after a controversial call to "go north", Khanh removed Minh and assumed the presidency, resigning it two weeks later. Khanh, Minh and Tran Thien Khiem formed a triumvirate, althugh Khanh was reported "ill" a week later. Nguyen Xuan Oanh, an economist, was then named to run a subordinate civilian government, over Buddhist calls for all-civilian government.
Under Khanh, the start of a civilian government, called the High Legislative Council, started in September, with Pham Khac Suu as head of state and Tran Van Huong as Premier and head of government. This Buddhist-dominated government may have wanted a neutral Vietnam as a solution. INR, however, did not believe this council would gain traction unless it was perceived as representative by both the populace and the military. Phan Quang Dan was ousted from the cabinet, and arrested, for suggesting more negotiation. A coup against the Council was attempted on September 13, 1964 but put down by Nguyen Cao Ky, Vietnamese Air Force (VNAF) commander.
Khanh dissolved the council in December, in the face of new demonstrations, although he temporarily retained Suu and Huong, dismissing them in December. Khanh, according to INR, created a new tension with the Buddhists that Huong had not, and also may have been approaching Hanoi much as he had accused Minh. On January 27, 1965, Khanh took effective control of the government, removing Premier Tran Van Huong and replacing him with Oanh.
Ky's success in office came, in part, from being able to walk a delicate line between being able to work with the U.S., but also not to interfere with the powerful Corps commanders and province chiefs. Prior to the Honolulu meeting, it was understood he would resign in favor of an elected government, but deferred doing so.
This triggered opposition, including from the Buddhist activist Tri Quang, who was allied with Gen. Nguyen Chanh Thi, II Corps tactical zone commander. In March, Ky fired Thi, triggering the Buddhist crisis of 1966.
The September 11, 1966 elections took place, with a 80.8 percent turnout. INR interpreted this not so much as support for the GVN, but more of the absence of a serious challenger to Ky, a situation that changed in 1967.
Phan Khac Suu was elected Speaker of the GVN Constituent Assembly on October 26. The GVN Constituent Assembly approved, on December 23, the first three articles of the new constitution, providing for popularly-elected President, and a Prime Minister and Cabinet appointed by the President. The NLF failed to disrupt the national legislative election of 1966, or the presidential elections of 1967, which consolidated Thieu-ARVN control over the GVN.
Minh but he did have many of the characteristics needed. Unfortunately he lacked vision. He was shortsighted in vision . He was also very flat in terms of charisma. He wasn't a person that engendered loyalty and great admiration.
He forced Ky out of office at the wns October 1967, replacing him, successively, with Nguyen Van Loc, and then Tran Van Huong again, into 1969.
The Revolutionary Council, on September 26, named Phan Khac Suu as Chief of State, with Tran Van Huong, who had been mayor of Saigon, as Premier. Khanh retained control of the military.
Huong was Prime Minister until January 1965, although he later held the role in May–August 1969, and was President for one week before turning over to Duong Van Minh, who was head of state at the fall of South Vietnam in 1975.
Military control returned, when President Phan Khac Suu ended Premier Phan Huy Quat's government. The Quat government was replaced, on June 17, 1965. by a National Leadership Council. The chairman of the Council was Nguyen Van Thieu, who also acted as Chief of State. Nguyen Cao Ky, vice-chairman of the Council, became Prime Minister on June 19.
Thieu held elections in 1967, which he won with Ky (as the Armed Forces Council) was formed after initially trying to ban Ky from an election; internal U.S. documents emphasized the need to include opposition. Phan Quang Dan, Tran Van Huong, and Nguyen Luu Vien were specifically mentioned. Thieu, however, failed to eliminate the systematic internal inefficiencies and corruption the ARVN.
The main ground force of the RVN was commonly called the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). There were smaller separate Air Force and Navy branches. Airborne, Ranger, and Marine units served as strategic reserves and as "fire brigades" without clear identities as services. To varying extents, the leadership of the ARVN came from officers trained in the French colonial military or from those that resisted the World War II Japanese invasion. Vietnamese Special Forces did have a conceptual politico-military and village-oriented function similar to United States Army Special Forces, but, especially under Diem, they acted as a political police and not as a nation-building organization. Even so, there were competent individuals that improved specific situations.
Throughout the republic's existence, there were a number of factions that maintained light military forces of their own. In contrast to the anti-government forces (discussed below) these groups often acted in concert with the government or along parallel lines. Most prominent of these factions were the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao, which were essentially religious groups. The Binh Xuyen were ofter described as pirates who would sometimes enter into tactical alliances with other sectarian groups or the government itself. The Montagnards, or tribal groups of the Central Highlands, were often described as technologically primitive with a strong warrior culture. With guidance and leadership, such as by the United States Army Special Forces, they could be excellent light infantry within missions suited to their skills. Last, were the Nungs of Chinese origin who were often called "mercenaries". They provided good and loyal service when fairly and promptly paid but did not have the long history with as specific national employer as, for example, the Gurkhas of India.
In addition to the government and sectarian military forces, there were other forces, either Communist or communist-dominated, that operated in opposition to the government. These forces were formed as opponents to both the French or Japanese colonial occupation and were known collectively as the Viet Minh. Some Viet Minh later became regular members of the Northern or Southern militaries. In the Republic of Vietnam, the Viet Minh organized popular resistance to the government eventually transforming itself into the military wing of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (better known as the National Liberation Front). By the late 1950s, these anti-government forces were generally called the Viet Cong. During the 1960s, Central Office for South Vietnam operated anti-government military forces in South Vietnam.
This page was last modified 22:05, 25 August 2013.
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The Alexander Technique is an educational method used worldwide for over 100 years. It’s primarily concerned with increasing the sensitivity of the sensory mechanisms by eliminating interference within the nervous system, often caused by faulty movement & muscular holding patterns. Equally important is the Alexander Technique’s study of the automatic reactions (habits) to the various stimuli of life. In effect it enables improved mobility, posture, performance and alertness along with relief of chronic stiffness, tension and stress.
The Alexander Technique is also commonly used to enhance performance. Athletes, singers, dancers, and musicians use the Technique to improve breathing, vocal production, speed, and accuracy of movement.
Additionally, people study the Technique to achieve greater conscious control of their reactions.
Activities in the lessons usually begin with relatively simple (and very habitual) tasks such as sitting down and standing up from a chair, walking, & climbing stairs. From there you can take the skills learned in easier tasks and apply them to more complicated activities such as playing the violin, or horseback riding. Workers with repetitive stress injury and/or carpel tunnel syndrome often experience great relief when applying the Alexander Technique to their work.
Is there scientific proof of the Alexander Technique’s effectiveness?
Yes. Visit the Research page to see various studies and endorsements from the medical and academic communities.
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People care more about dogs than cats—if the dogs don't act like cats.
One of the easiest ways to start a heated debate is to raise the issue of whether dogs or cats are better and more satisfactory pets. There actually is some scientific data which has been collected on this issue, and it suggests that, although both dogs and cats provide joy and companionship to their humans, dogs are more emotionally satisfying, and dogs are also more universally preferred.
Confirmation that dogs are valued more than cats shows up in a variety of different statistics. For example, among American pet owners, dogs are taken to the vet twice as frequently as cats (even though there is no medical justification for this difference). Furthermore, the emotional investment that we have in dogs shows up in the fact that dog owners are more likely than cat owners to follow their veterinarian's medical care recommendations, and dogs are more likely to receive preventative care, such as vaccinations, regular physical examinations, and dental treatment. It is also the case that dogs are more likely than cats to be given premium and organic food, and also are more frequently given special treats and gifts.
Although the data showing that our emotional attachment to our pet dogs is greater than that to our pet cats is clear, up to now there has been little scientific data to answer the question as to why dogs are more valued. However, a recent set of studies by Colleen Kirk, at the New York Institute of Technology in New York City, provides an attempt to shed some light on this question. The theory that she offers is an extension of a concept that has become popular in marketing, management, and occupational psychology and it is based on the idea of "psychological ownership."
To put it simply, psychological ownership refers to a feeling that "It's mine!" A number of studies have suggested that psychological ownership is strongly associated with emotional attachment. In other words, we care more about the things that we feel belong to us. We can develop psychological ownership through three different routes. Feelings of ownership are generated when we have control over something, or when we have invested ourselves in something, or if we have come to know that thing very well.
So what does this have to say about our feelings toward dogs and cats? Here it appears that the greatest influence comes from that first pathway leading to a sense of psychological ownership—namely the idea of control. It is universally accepted that dogs are more controllable than cats. That's why, when someone finds that it is difficult to control the behavior of people, they are apt to complain, "It's like trying to herd cats!"
Our belief about the differences in the ability of humans to control the behavior of cats and dogs has resulted in many popular sayings, such as: “Dogs come when they're called; cats take a message and get back to you later”; or "You can keep a dog, but cats keep people, because they think humans are useful domestic animals"; or "A dog is a man’s best friend. A cat is a cat’s best friend." All such observations suggest that dogs are more controllable and are more attentive to humans.
Kirk suspected that these behavioral differences might affect our feelings toward cats and dogs. To study this, she conducted three different experiments. In the first, she simply wanted to verify that dogs were more valued than cats, and to see whether this had any association with psychological ownership. Psychological ownership was determined by questions where the participant had to express an opinion on the truthfulness of statements like: "My pet lets me be in control," or "I feel like this is 'my' pet." There were also questions about how affectionate, friendly, or loving the participant's cat or dog is. The value put on the cat or dog was measured by how much each participant was willing to spend on veterinary care if their pet required a life-saving operation.
The results of this first study were quite clear. People felt a higher degree of psychological ownership for their dogs than their cats. People were also willing to spend twice as much for life-saving medical care for their dog than for their cat (the average was $10,689 for dogs versus $5,174 for cats).
The second study again looked at the concept of control, but also added a second factor, namely the personal investment which we have in our pets. Kirk reasoned that "it is likely that even if an individual is able to control the behavior of a pet, if they attribute the pet's behavior to the efforts of someone else who trained the pet, rather than to the pet's own volitional response, their psychological ownership of the pet may be dampened." So she basically replicated the procedures used in the first study, but instructed half of the participants, “Now, for the rest of the survey, imagine that your pet had originally lived with someone else. Imagine that the pet's behavior as you know it is entirely the result of any training that someone else did before you got the pet.” She also added two additional measures of the value people put on their pet: one was how much the person might pay for a personalized food bowl, and the second dealt with spending money to purchase a painting of the pet.
In the final study, participants were asked to describe their feelings towards their pet by rating how accurate certain words were in portraying their animal's behavior. The words tested included: “loving,” “connected,” “bonded,” and “attached." In addition, they were asked to respond to the question: “Is the behavior of the pet you are imagining more like that of a typical dog, or that of a typical cat?” Once again, the willingness to spend money on veterinary care or on items connected to their pet served as the measure of attachment.
The fascinating thing about this last experiment is that it found that dogs who behaved like cats were less valued, and that cats who behaved more like dogs were perceived as more psychologically owned and brought out more of an emotional attachment. This was again reflected by how much the participants were willing to spend on their pet's health and other matters.
According to this set of studies, the reason that we value dogs over cats has to do primarily with the amount of control that we have over our pets, which, in turn, influences our sense of psychological ownership. The ideas that "Dogs have owners, cats have staff" or "You own a dog; you feed a cat" clearly indicate that we feel that dogs belong to us, while cats have a more distant and apathetic relationship to us. Because dogs respond to us and usually comply with our demands, we have a stronger emotional bond with them and feel that they are deserving of more care, love, and friendship. The relatively aloof, antisocial, and uncooperative nature of the cat lowers its value in comparison to dogs. As the writer Aldous Huxley said, "To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs."
Did the dog owners have more disposable income than cat owners?
I'm not sure what buying a painting of your dog shows. I've spent a lot of money on my dogs and would never buy a paining of them.
I suspect that the references to willingness of certain creatures accepting “controlling” is alternatively for political correctness glossing over a preference of people for those other creatures with human-like congenial behavioral attributes.
The author of this piece is obviously a cat-a-phobe. There are some people who never warm up to cats and call themselves "dog persons." They tend to be the type that have to have something they perceive as lesser than themselves over which to exercise dominion. They are more likely to be spouse beaters. And some of them beat their dogs, too. A cat person, on the other hand, will bring a cat into the family fold for the sheer joy of having him or her around. Not to say that many who bring a dog into the home do not do so for the same reason. One does not dominate a cat. Cats have hilarious personalities, which is borne out by the sheer number of cat videos on the net. I have had two dogs and two cats in my life that I loved beyond all reason. I guess that makes me a dog and cat person.
I have loved some of my cats FAR more than I have loved some of my dogs. it depends on the individual animal and just how much emotional support AND pleasure each animal gives to you.
I agree with Jennie my all time favorite pet was a cat. The reason for this is that she loved me like no other pet ever has. She seemed to sense my feelings and would act accordingly.
Cats surpassed dogs as favored pets decades ago.
Now go walk Fido. Bring gloves and a poop bag.
Did this study take into account that cats are masters at hiding illness? Could people spend less on vet care because they don't realize that their cat is sick? Did they control for owner personality and income?
I would also point out that vets tend to know more about dogs than cats, and cats are studied less often. We generally know more about dogs than cats.
I guess this worries me a bit. I currently have a foster dog who I'm training, and I don't want him to be less loved just because I gave him basic training and not his forever family.
His forever family will not love him less because you gave him basic training. In the first study, she used a life threatening situation to calculate the average amount of money a dog owner will spend on their dog. In the second one, she used a designer dog bowl and painting to calculate how much money dog owners are willing to spend. I would NEVER buy my dog a painting or a designer dog bowl, but I would spend everything I could to save my dog's life.
The study is just flawed. I love my adopted dog, who we got at two years old and was trained by someone else, more than any dog I've raised myself.
Also, thank you for fostering! Don't let this article worry you. It's complete bogus to say that training a dog makes you love them more.
Bizarre and poorly designed study.
Cats react to veterinary trips and to being medicated entirely differently than dogs.
Dog owners tend to be extroverted, which is a more common personality trait in the US than is introversion.
I'd spend my life savings to keep my cat alive. But not, as I learned the hard way, at the expense of making him miserable.
I'm completely the opposite than what this suggests! I'm a cat lover and have been since I can remember. I like that cats are low maintenance! My cats are super loving and affectionate too! They follow me EVERYWHERE and I take them on walks..we play, 'll kinds of good stuff! Without house training and slobber and tearing out trash and cleaning poop out the yard and barking and dead grass and dug holes! Lol..thats way too stressful for me! My cats are chill, yet loving and fun! Cats rule dogs drool..lol..heck the Egyptians worshiped their cats and took them tothegrave with them. That's cool..ya gotta admit!
I'm a dog person, but this article is a load of hooey.
Maybe cats see the vet less often because they don't express pain as clearly?
Maybe cats see the vet less often because it's a nightmare to get them into a pet carrier.
What does it even mean to say, "a dog that behaved more like a cat", or vice versa?
I need an eye rolling icon!
"...life-saving medical care...the average was $10,689 for dogs versus $5,174 for cats.
$5000 for a cat?!! That can't be true.
Do Dogs Love People More Than They Love Other Dogs?
Do Our Dogs Really Love Us More Than Our Cats Do?
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I have a question regarding performance of 2-opt and 3-opt algorithms.
I tried implementing the 3-opt and 2-opt algorithms and most of the time 3-opt outperforms the 2-opt algorithm around 5%.
Surprisingly, in few cases my 2-opt algorithm outperforms the 3-opt algorithm. I am wondering, is it some kind of error or it may happen that the 2-opt algorithms sometimes end in the better local optimum?
Your experiments show that 2-opt could outperform 3-opt. The reason is that there are many local optima, and some of the are better than others. Local search guarantees reaching a local optimum with respect to the moves being considered, but it doesn't provide any guarantee beyond that. It could be that one point which is locally optimal with respect to 2-opt is better than another point which is locally optimal with respect to 3-opt.
You can modify your algorithm to first try local search with respect to 2-opt and then with respect to 3-opt, and take the better solution. You could improve this by running a 3-opt local search starting at the 2-opt local minimum.
There are other degrees of freedom in the local search algorithm: for example, when there are several possible local improvements, which do you choose? A uniformly random one? The first one you found? The one which results in the best improvement? A random one chosen in proportion to the improvement? And so on. Each of these could result in a different solution. If you use a randomized strategy, each single run using the same heuristic could result in a different solution, so it makes sense to run local search many times.
An even more drastic option would be to replace local search with simulated annealing, which sometimes allows taking a local change which worsens the situation a bit. This might fare better on some instances.
Best algorithm to make a smooth route through a raw set of GPS-points with some errors?
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A mother is usually also a wife, and has the management of a family and a direct influence over subordination to her head, has the seat of authority and wields the sceptre of government. From a position of entire dependence, she has risen to power and rank, and though her throne may be in a cottage, and her dominion the little work of household affairs, yet is she not the less really responsible, than is that youthful queen who now sways a sceptre over the four quarters of the earthWith this comparison to Queen Victoria, the author conveys the importance that he or she believes a mother's role holds within her own household. While the author says women have risen "from a position of entire dependence," her role, according to this analogy, is one of "authority" and "power and rank" and the author argues that mothers are as responsible for their charges as a monarch is over the territories under his or her command. Launching the article with such a statement makes mothers seem powerful, indeed, and would make it difficult for anyone to question their authority or their power to influence their children in the desired ways.. But for what is she responsible?
She is responsible forThe author repeatedly begins paragraphs with the phrase "She is responsible for..." This kind of matter-of-fact statement to open each paragraph makes the author's point sound irrefutable. If he or she had written these statements differently ("I believe a mother is responsible for..." or "A mother may be considered responsible for...") they would not have nearly the same strength. the nursing and rearing of her progeny; for their physical constitution and growth; their exercise and proper sustenance in early life. A child left to grow up deformed, bloated, or meagreThe author frequently closes paragraphs with a statement that suggests that women have it within their power to control whatever the topic of the paragraph may be. In the case of children's physical constitution, the author says that children who are not physically strong show "maternal negligence;" In the section on habits, the author says that the mother can identify a child's tendencies, good or bad, and "repress or bring them forth;" In the section on principles, the author compares the mother to a gardener who can weed out negative character traits while nurturing positive ones; In discussing temperament, the author says that even though women may not be able to control the constitutions that their children are born with, "for regulation or correction of these passions, a mother is responsible;" In the paragraph on education, the author says that a mother must "see that her sons and daughters have all benefits" of an education within what their circumstances will allow; And in the final section on religious education, the author notes that teaching these ideas is "within the ability of every parent" and asks if children grow up ignorant of spiritual matters, "what mother... can expect them to rise up and call her blessed?" By not only opening each section with a statement that a mother is responsible for a given set of traits but also closing each section by saying that women have complete control over those traits and can influence their children in these ways, the author argues quite forcefully that these are responsibilities that mothers can and must attend to., is an object of maternal negligenceCertainly words like "negligence" are highly emotionally charged. By suggesting that a mother whose child is in poor physical condition is negligent in her duties, the author may inspire guilt or anxiety among mothers who fear being judged if their child had a physical problem. Similarly, the author later uses other emotionally charged words ("parental disregard" or "odious productions") to try to make his or her point..
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Semi-Tough is a 1977 American comedy film directed by Michael Ritchie and starring Burt Reynolds, Kris Kristofferson, Jill Clayburgh, Robert Preston, Lotte Lenya, and Bert Convy. It is set in the world of American professional football.
The plot involves a love triangle between the characters portrayed by Reynolds, Kristofferson, and Clayburgh. Semi-Tough also includes a parody of Werner Erhard's Erhard Seminars Training (est), depicted in the film as an organization called "B.E.A.T."
The film is based on the novel of the same name by Dan Jenkins. It was adapted for the screen by writer Walter Bernstein and director Ritchie, who added a new storyline that included a satire of the self-help movement and new religions.
Semi-Tough follows the story of pro football friends Billy Clyde Puckett and Marvin "Shake" Tiller, who have a third roommate, Barbara Jane Bookman. A romance develops with Shake until he becomes self-confident after completing a self awareness course called "B.E.A.T." led by Friedrich Bismark that he insists Barbara Jane try, at which point Billy Clyde slyly makes a play to win her for himself.
The film received mixed receptions. Some reviewers praised its parodies of the est training, Erhard and other new age movements such as Rolfing. Others criticized the script and direction, noting that some of director Ritchie's previous films had more of a personal tone. Still other reviews lamented the film's departure from the novel Semi-Tough, which dealt more with football and less with the new age movement.
Wide receiver Marvin "Shake" Tiller and running back Billy Clyde Puckett are football buddies who play for a Miami pro team owned by Big Ed Bookman (Preston). Bookman's daughter Barbara Jane is roommates with both men, and the film depicts a subtle love triangle relationship between Barbara Jane and her two friends. She initially has romantic feelings for Shake, who has become more self-confident after taking self-improvement training from seminar leader Friedrich Bismark. The program is called Bismark Earthwalk Action Training, or B.E.A.T. After Shake completes his course, Barbara Jane and he sleep together and start a relationship. Barbara Jane is not a follower of B.E.A.T., and Shake is warned by his leader Bismark that "mixed marriages don't work."
Barbara Jane is determined to make it work, so she attends B.E.A.T. in an effort to "get it." At the end of the training session, she is worn out from Bismark's "sadistic abuse, pious drivel, and sheer double talk." Barbara Jane also feels guilty that she did not "get it." Shake is insistent that the training has had proven results for him, noting that he has not dropped a football pass since completing B.E.A.T. Billy Clyde also has feelings for Barbara Jane and enrolls in B.E.A.T. to understand what she is going through. In the training, Billy Clyde is shown coping with the seminar rules forbidding going to the bathroom. For a time, Puckett pretends he underwent a conversion to Bismark's way of thinking. While Barbara Jane and Shake are at the altar about to be married, the minister turns to Bismark and gives him some advice on how he can avoid capital gains tax in his business. Billy Clyde ends up exposing the movement's shallow side, and rescues Barbara Jane from both B.E.A.T. and her impending marriage to Shake. After leaving the wedding together, Barbara Jane and Billy Clyde reveal their feelings for each other.
Roger E. Mosley as Puddin Patterson Sr.
Semi-Tough is based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Dan Jenkins, and the screenplay was written by Walter Bernstein. Bernstein and director Michael Ritchie used parts of Jenkins's novel and added parodies of self-help groups, new religions, and the human potential movement. Ritchie was partially influenced by Adam Smith's book, Powers of Mind. Though the screenplay altered his original work, Dan Jenkins wrote that Semi-Tough "wasn't a horrible movie in my opinion". Jenkins later commented that the film adaptation of his book Baja Oklahoma was: "a lot more faithful to the novel than Semi-Tough ever was".
Burt Reynolds began training with Kris Kristofferson to get in shape before film production. Before work began on the film, actor Bert Convy attended one of Werner Erhard's est training sessions to prepare for his role as B.E.A.T. seminar leader Friedrich Bismark. Pro football stars were hired to give realism to the film, including John Matuszak, Paul Hornung, Joe Kapp, and Ed "Too Tall" Jones. The football scenes were shot at the Cotton Bowl.
Bernstein and Ritchie's modified screenplay based on Jenkins' book includes a storyline with "satiric jabs" at new religions, self-improvement, and the human potential movement. A form of Rolfing is also parodied in the film by Lotte Lenya, whose character Clara Pelf is seen as a spoof of "a Rol-like masseuse". Big Ed Bookman is seen crawling around on all fours practicing something called "creep therapy" or "movagenics". Movagenics is seen in the film as a way for individuals to find their "lost center of consciousness". Big Ed Bookman is also shown proselytizing for "Movagenics", a fictional group in the film which TIME referred to in its review as both a cult and a new faith.
The film includes a parody with B.E.A.T. as a stand-in for est. In American Film Now, Friedrich Bismark is simply described as "the Werner Erhard character". The Grove Book of Hollywood describes Bert Convy as a "Werner Erhard-lookalike", in his portrayal of Friedrich Bismark. Barbara Jane Bookman's guilty feelings for not "getting it" after completing her B.E.A.T. seminar are seen as a reference to: "how creeds like est put nonbelievers on the defensive". The book also notes: "The film captures the peculiar mixture of spirituality and pragmatism that surrounded est", and also describes the minister's capital gains tax advice to Friedrich Bismark at Shake's wedding as "sardonic". A 1977 review in TIME refers to Friedrich Bismark's B.E.A.T. as "an est-like movement", and notes: "the Ritchie-Bernstein version of an est seminar is done with marvelous malice". Psychiatry and the Cinema characterizes the film as a "devastating parody" of the est training.
After Semi-Tough's release in 1977, Bert Convy was contacted by a number of est followers, as well as by Werner Erhard. After Convy appeared on The Tonight Show and discussed his experiences attending Erhard Seminars Training in preparation for his role as Friedrich Bismark, he received a letter from Erhard stating: "it would be great for us to get together". Of the est seminar itself, Convy recalled that when another attendee complained of a headache during the course, the group leader told him to "experience it", and when another attendee wet his pants, he was told to "experience the warmth". In a scene from the film, a woman exclaims to Friedrich Bismark in the middle of a seminar: "I peed in my pants and it felt good." During actual filming on Semi-Tough, Convy received a late-night phone call from actress Valerie Harper, known in Hollywood as a devoted student of Werner Erhard. She related to Convy that Erhard was "pleased" with the role, and she wished him success in the film. Convy suspected that her real reason for calling was to subtly pressure him to go easy on his parody of Erhard in the film. Harper is mentioned by name in the completed film.
The film grossed $37,187,139 at the box office. Semi-Tough was later developed as a pilot episode for a potential television series on a similar theme, and was a candidate to be picked up in the fall of 1980. The 1980 pilot episode starred Bruce McGill playing Burt Reynolds' original role, with co-star David Hasselhoff. The film has since been released in both VHS and DVD formats.
In 1978, Walter Bernstein received a nomination for a WGA Award from the Writers Guild of America in the "Best Comedy Adapted from Another Medium" category, for his adaptation of Dan Jenkins' novel.
Burt Reynolds, 1991: Leonard Maltin wrote that Reynolds' charm made up for deficiencies in the script of Semi-Tough.
The press disagreed on the satire of Erhard in the film, some praising it, some not. The Wall Street Journal criticized the film, save for its satirical nature: "The movie isn't much - an erratic ramble - but it has some pleasant moments, and a delicious send-up of the self-improvement guru Werner Erhard." The Charlotte Observer praised Bert Convy's portrayal of the self-help guru Frederick Bismark, and called Convy: "… a hilariously smug consciousness-raiser with a more than passing resemblance to EST's [sic] Werner Erhard". Magill's Survey of Cinema described the film as a chiding of American "religious fads and philosophies", and The Grove Book of Hollywood called it a "cheeky film" that poked fun at the "est" craze and other human potential fads. TIME called the film one of 1977's best comedies, and also noted that it was: "without a doubt the year's most socially useful film".
The film did not receive a positive review in Variety, where the reviewer commented: "Semi-Tough begins as a bawdy and lively romantic comedy about slap-happy pro football players, then slows down to a too-inside putdown of contemporary self-help programs." Variety noted that stars Burt Reynolds, Kris Kristofferson, and Jill Clayburgh were "excellent" within the "zigzag" script and poor direction they were given. Michael Costello of Allmovie also criticized the script, and wrote: "While much of this is quite predictable, a number of the jokes score, Burt Reynolds works his charm overtime, and Jill Clayburgh and Kris Kristofferson are effective as comic foils." In American Film Now, author James Monaco commented on director Michael Ritchie's directing style in Semi-Tough, stating that in the film Ritchie was "speaking in a professional voice". Monaco noted that Ritchie's prior films evoked a more personal tone, and had more of a sense of wonder than Semi-Tough.
Chapman's In Search of Stupidity characterized the film as: "Possibly one of the best movies ever made by Burt Reynolds", and described the film's parody of est as accurate and amusing. Leonard Maltin criticized parts of the script, stating that Reynolds' charm filled in for the film's other deficiencies. Hunsberger criticized Ritchie's screenplay adaptation in his work The Quintessential Dictionary, complaining that the game of football should have supported the film as a plot device, but was instead left to the side in favor of other stories.
^ a b "Semi-Tough, Box Office Information". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved June 24, 2012.
^ Wakeman, John (1988). World Film Directors. H.W. Wilson. p. 890. ISBN 0-8242-0757-2.
^ Bergan, Ronald (1982). Sports in the Movies. Proteus. p. 52. ISBN 0-86276-031-3.
^ a b Rollins, Peter C. (2003). The Columbia Companion to American History on Film. Columbia University Press. pp. 365–368. ISBN 0-231-11222-X.
^ Giannetti, Louis D. (1987). Understanding Movies. Prentice-Hall. p. 48. ISBN 0-13-936329-7.
^ Staff. "Semi-Tough, section, Plot Synopsis". Allmovie. All Media Guide, LLC. Retrieved 2007-10-24.
^ a b c d e Staff (January 1, 1977). "V Film: Semi-Tough". Variety. Reed Business Information. Retrieved 2007-10-24.
^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Silvester, Christopher; Steven Bach (2002). The Grove Book of Hollywood. Grove Press. pp. 555–560. ISBN 0-8021-3878-0.
^ a b c d e f g h Schnickel, Richard (November 21, 1977). "Good Ole Boys". TIME Magazine. Time Inc. Retrieved 2007-10-25.
^ Wakefield, Dan (1999). How Do We Know When It's God?: A Spiritual Memoir. Back Bay. p. 30. ISBN 0-316-91719-2.
^ a b c d e Monaco, James (1984). American Film Now: The People, the Power, the Money, the Movies. Zoetrope. p. 359. ISBN 0-918432-64-2.
^ Jenkins, Dan (1989). You Call It Sports, But I Say It's a Jungle Out There. Simon & Schuster. p. 311. ISBN 0-671-69021-3.
^ Staff (January 24, 1988). "Jenkins praises `Baja Oklahoma'". Chicago Sun-Times.
^ Reynolds, Burt (1994). My Life, by Burt Reynolds. Hyperion. p. 222. ISBN 0-7868-6130-4.
^ Cech, Jim (2005). Oak Creek: 50 Years of Progress. Arcadia Publishing. p. 29. ISBN 0-7385-3392-0.
^ a b Costello, Michael. "Semi-Tough, section, Review". Allmovie. All Media Guide, LLC. Retrieved 2007-10-24.
^ Gordon, William A. (1995). Shot on This Site. p. 167. ISBN 0-8065-1647-X.
^ a b Magill, Frank; Stephen L. Hanson; Patricia King Hanson (1981). Magill's Survey of Cinema. Salem Press. p. 395. ISBN 0-89356-230-0.
^ Mulligan, Pat (2006). The Life and Times of a Hollywood Bad Boy. AuthorHouse. p. 94. ISBN 1-4259-5008-6.
^ Gabbard, Glen O.; Krin Gabbard (1999). Psychiatry and the Cinema. American Psychiatric Pub, Inc. p. 128. ISBN 0-88048-964-2.
^ Taylor, Charles (March 26, 2004). "'Dogville': Lars von Trier's Depression-era fable has been labeled 'anti-American,' but it's even worse: It's anti-human". Salon. Archived from the original on November 27, 2007. Retrieved 2007-10-26.
^ Staff (April 21, 1980). "Arts Gratia Arfis: TV's candidates for the fall". TIME Magazine. Time Inc. Retrieved 2007-10-24.
^ Laurence, Robert P. (October 2, 2006). "Network guilty of piling on". SignOnSandiego.com. The San Diego Union-Tribune. Retrieved 2007-10-26.
^ a b Maltin, Leonard (1998). Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide. PENGUIN Group (USA) Inc. p. 1206. ISBN 0-451-19582-5.
^ Staff (May 27, 2005). "Our Reynolds Rap -- Burt Is Inert;". The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company.
^ Staff (January 25, 1987). "Videos Bring Back Grit, Grime, Romance of Football Movies". The Charlotte Observer. The McClatchy Company.
^ Chapman, Merrill R. (Rick) (2006). In Search of Stupidity: Over 20 Years of High-tech Marketing Disasters. Apress. p. xxix. ISBN 1-59059-721-4.
^ Hunsberger, I. Moyer (1978). The Quintessential Dictionary. New York City: Hart Pub. Co. p. 103.
This page was last edited on 9 March 2019, at 05:15 (UTC).
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Could someone please explain to me how the paleo diet can benefit someone who's suffering from gout? I understand that gout is one of the illnesses that fall under syndrome x, and that paleo can eliminate almost all of those illnesses, but how?
Does paleo inhibit or alter the production of uric acid?
@Matt: of course metabolic syndrome is at the bottom of it. This is mainly a result of overeating and being sedentary, not fructose. Dogma about eating red meat and fat is not a helpful course of treatment for gout.
They get results by reversing metabolic syndrome which is the underlying condition behind gout symptoms.
Gout is a symptom of an underlying metabolic disorder. Simply avoiding attacks doesn't address the dysfunction.
By the way, I agree 100% with your baking soda therapy. It works. I know people who even became gout-free. You can come out of gout 4-5x faster than drinking just plain water. Go to the site icuredmygout.org. What he tells is absolutely true. Because I've seen it work. Sounds too good to be true, I know. And I can't explain it. Chris Kresser pooh-poohed it but he doesn't know that it works in gout sufferers. There is something to this alkaline-acid thing. When your pH is alkaline, it's very hard get gout.
The best solution is a high carb Paleo diet. Short-term causes are uric acid volatility from eating purine-rich meats, alcohol, stress, hypothermia, acidity, etc. Your refuge is rice, tubers and dairy; once under attack, that's what you're left with. But the long-term triggers of gout are being weight, excess fructose consumption, and hyperuricemia.
Actually the Kitavans suffer from gout disproportionately. If there was a group that is gout-prone, it would be Polynesians. But after being on a Western diet. But this doesn't have to do with high fructose consumption; they're actually high glucose consumers (i.e., sweet potatoes). Yes, they eat fruit. But it's hard to overeat fruits in their natural states, unless you juice it. They're 70%+ carbohounds burning clean glucose (not fructose) from their tubers. So how are they getting excess fructose into their system that sparks gout?
This is an old thread, which exemplifies Atkins paleo-tard thinking at its worst.
This thread is like the "worst of paleo". People eating fatty meat diets with gout might get some minimal benefit from reducing their fructose consumption. But because they need all that red meat and fat to stay in ketosis, they use fructose avoidance as a way to avoid dealing with what would help the most. Stupid self-justification that denies the obvious.
Thank you for some common sense on this issue. Fructose is offensive to Atkins acolytes who use it as a smokescreen for the best treatment: avoiding fatty red meat.
Total crapola is Taubes trademark. Read his recommendations, do the exact opposite, and watch your heal improve.
This is hocus pocus bro science. Fructose is NOT the cause of gout.
If you have gout you need to avoid eating all that meat and butter. Paleo is not synonymous with Atkins.
So what protein sources do you eat?
Do you eat anything like nutritional yeast or drink beer? Both of them raise uric acid. Your liver should be able to tolerate fresh fruit, so my guess would be that there is something else in your diet that is raising uric acid and that the fruit is pushing it over the edge. Vitamin C intake increases uric acid excretion, due to their overlapping antioxidant roles, but I'm not sure if that would necessarily help here. In short, the liver is a robust organ that regenerates rapidly when given the chance, so I doubt that you wouldn't be able to return to fruit after a uric acid washout period.
I had a huge foot when I ate a lot of candy and mostly vegetarian - vegan. If only I would have read this back then, I wouldn't have lost 6 months realizing vegetarianism was destroying me slowly.
from http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa035700: (which is the first hit on http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=HK+Choi+gout) Conclusions Higher levels of meat and seafood consumption are associated with an increased risk of gout, whereas a higher level of consumption of dairy products is associated with a decreased risk. Moderate intake of purine-rich vegetables or protein is not associated with an increased risk of gout. I thought others reading this might find that study interesting.
Maybe fructose is addictive because our ancestors needed to fatten themselves up in the late summer and fall to prepare for winter, and they did it by consuming seasonal fruit. Nowadays we have the option of dispensing with fruit consumption altogether, or perhaps we should mimic temperate zone paleoman's seasonal consumption pattern, and just skip fruit for 9 months of the year. Maybe it takes 9 months to recover from 3 months of fructose consumption.
I think there are two issues here: what causes gout and what to do once you have it.
It is pretty clear that fructose is the major villain, as Peter at Hyperlipid and Taubes so amply demonstrate. Some extensive research on gout has been done by HK Choi.
However, neither of them speak to the problem of treating gout. Obviously, eliminating fructose is the first step, but elevated uric acid levels have a tendency to stick around even after reducing or eliminating fructose from your diet.
A potential problem with a paleo approach is that, according to Lyle McDonald in his Ketogenic Diet book, ketones compete with uric acid for elimination through the kidneys. So, if one is eating a VLC paleo diet, ketones in the urine could mean less uric acid elimination.
I had my first gout attack in April 2009; my uric acid levels were 7.8 mg/dL. I was eating paleo at the time, and fairly LC (less than 75g/day); I think the attack was triggered by exercise (I had just started some HIIT).
I continued to eat LC, and went VLC (20 g or less per day) for about two months before my test in November 2009. The result: uric acid level of 9.6 mg/dL! To be fair, uric acid levels are supposed to be lower after an attack, but I didn't expect that kind of jump.
One issue that is pertinent here is the acid/alkaline issue. A lot of it is new agey, vegetarianism hokus pokus, but some of it isn't. Uric acid is a weak acid, and more soluble in a alkaline environment, making it easier for elimination.
I read about this study on PubMed, and started taking sodium bicarbonate in water, once in the morning and once at night (1/2 tsp each dose). I also made my own magnesium bicarbonate water (recipe here) to limit sodium intake and increase magnesium. I did this for about a month before my last test.
Results: uric acid levels have come down to 8.2, not quite as low as after my first attack, but definitely headed in the right direction.
Long story short: if you have gout, eat paleo and monitor (and adjust) urine pH.
Maybe you should check Gary Taubes's take on gout. To sum it up in one sentence: gout is caused by sugar.
Petro Dobromylskyj or "Peter from Hyperlipid" as he is generally known has a written a thorough explanation of how fructose drives uric acid production by depriving the body of phosphate needed to make ATP, ultimately leading to gout. A paleo diet limits fructose to sane quantities by eliminating all the High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) and sugar used to sweeten everything in the SAD. I suspect it also makes phosphate more available for the production of ATP through other means (mitochondrial rehabilitation, Vitamin D3 normalization, perhaps) but that is just my speculation.
Richard J. Johnson MD (chief of nephrology, hypertension, and transplantation at University of FL in Gainesville; former chief of nephrology and director of renal transplantation at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston) has been studying - and proving - the fructose-uric acid connection for much of his more than 25 year career, mostly in the areas of hypertension and kidney disease. I'm now reading his book "The Sugar Fix." He's not Paleo - by a long shot - but amply proves his case against fructose.
Fructose, as we're now learning, is really just incredibly toxic - magnitudes more harmful than starch, which is glucose. High blood pressure, gout, coronary artery disease, obesity, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, fatty liver disease, etc. etc. It even wrecks insulin sensitivity for all other carbs and sugars and shuts down satiety signals to your brain. When you eat fructose, it doesn't satisfy and you uncontrollably want to eat more and more.
Whether the fructose comes from high-fructose corn sryup, fruit, or the small amount of sucrose in the dark chocolate I sometimes enjoy makes little difference. I'm taking a hard look at how much fruit and berries I've been eating, thinking that they were Paleo because they weren't grains or legumes. An apple has almost 16 times as much fructose as a Russet potato, for crying out loud! Even a cup of blueberries has over twelve times as much. Yikes.
And protein metabolism increases the excretion of uric acid from the kidneys, while fructose doesn't.
Maybe fresh fruit/fructose in larger doses would be fine if it not for residual liver damage. If memory serves right the study (Univ of MD?) that did the big study on 2 sets of rats with identical diets and environments -1 on sucrose the 2nd of HFCS only ran for 6 months. And in that 6 months the HFCS rats showed significant liver scarring and damage. What about in humans who've been eating it (unknowingly in many cases) for decades? What kind of livers damage do we have? If I'm not mistaken fructose has to go through the liver to be processed. Maybe the sensitivity we're seeing with fruit fructose is for those whose livers are still healing.
Have you considered using a uric acid meter to keep track of how diet changes can affect the uric acid level in your blood?
It was most informative. I'm going to try the baking soda mentioned.
Some of the statements here about fructose are amazing. Surely the Hadza or the inhabitants of Kitava, who eat fruits in great amounts, all suffer from gout. The longest living people in the world, the Okinawans, likewise eat fruits in great amounts. I myself eat six apples a day, plus some other fruits every day, six months a year and watermelon and other fruits the rest of the year. My father in law eats about six apples a day and is very active at 80. Yes, my pressure is quite low. Perhaps all of you meant "refined sugars" ?
All you need to do to beat gout is in here: http://goutandyou.com/ Make sure to eat 80% carbs (frutis, vegetables and grains) 10% protein in lean meats and scale fish and 10% fat in dairy products, why? Because carbs burn clean and don't need that much work from the kidneys to break it down, so less uric acid is produced. Obviously, eating cherries, taking vitamin C, turmeric, alfalfa, drinking coffee and green tea are very popular ways in beating gout. Also make sure to limit alcohol and sugar especially HFCS (high fructose corn syrup), furthermore adding baking soda and apple cider vinegar in a glass of water is a very popular home remedy in relieving the gout sufferer of a gout attack and/or to lower uric acid levels in their body.
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This database query took 36.3 milliseconds.
Output 32: This output is included in 4 transaction input(s).
Output 75: This output is included in 3 transaction input(s).
Output 109: This output is included in 4 transaction input(s).
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Do you have an idea on what the 10 best LED desk lamps are? If you don’t then you should read on to know what they are and why go for them. The popularity of LED desk lamps is on the rise as people seek for convenient, energy-efficient and dependable light sources for use in a small space.
This comes at a period when most of us spend lots of time reading, writing, drawing, or using handhelds devices on the desk. However, at times, we only need to light up a small area so as not to disturb other people, improve the lighting and also to conserve the lighting. These are some of the reasons that brought about this review.
Brightness: It should produce the right light that is just perfect for the need at hand. Not too bright and not too dull.
Stands: A good choice will come with easy-to-fix stand that don’t require too much effort or using special tools. The stands will also be flexible, adjustable and firm.
Stylish: Desk lamps not only provide lighting but also influence the elegance of the desk and surrounding. It’s desirable to go for trendy and stylish ones that complement the furniture, wall, and other accessories.
Energy Efficiency: It’s critical to choose a product that produces maximum lighting, consumes minimum energy and also produce minimal heat.
Adjustability: Always go for types whose height, position, angle and light intensity can be adjusted.
Ambertronix has gone out of its way, to offer eye relief lighting. This LED desk lamp, has simulated natural light which is enhanced. It has been designed with 4 different lighting modes, 5 levels of brightness, and a dimmer which is touch sensitive. It comes in a modern design and does not require much space. You can even fold it down, and place it aside. You will be very pleased, with its automated 1 Hour Auto-Off Timer as well.
he lamp can be recharged through any device that features a USB port. These include power adapters, computers, powerbank and more. The desk lamp however does not work with 220 volt power.
he led desk lamp doesn’t contain any toxic chemicals or produce ghosts but unfortunately does not work with batteries.
The led lamp by Light Ever consists of a solid arm and head made from aluminum. The head’s ability to turn for 270 degrees and the base 340-degree rotation angle make adjusting the angle and brightness easy.
This is boosted by the 7 Dimming Levels and the flicker-free and non-glare LEDs. Some users argue that the hinge that holds the 8-watt lamp tends to become loose over time.
KEDSUM desk lamp consists of bright leds that produce 7 watts and offer 3 levels of dimming. It comes with a friendly clamp that can easily be adjusted to a height variance of up to 2.5 inches.
Many users appreciate its white light which is ideal for reading and writing and also love the touch-sensitive control section. And since the light doesn’t flicker or emit any ghosts, cases of aching, tired or red eyes are minimal.
The TaoTronics LED desk lamp is fit for writing, drawing, reading and other a uses. It comes with 6-watt leds and is made using fairly strong but light aluminum metal and has a wide head for good light dispersion.
The 3 levels of dimming, touch-sensitive mechanism and superior LED that doesn’t create ghost images guarantee you of quality lighting. Unfortunately, it’s suitable for small spaces only.
When it comes to this lamp design, Fugetek is the only company which offers patented recessed LED’s. This is another excellent option, for people who don’t want lighting that’s hard on the eyes. Other LED options often have visible LED’s, which make can frustrate sensitive eyes. It comes in a space saving design and has a UL Certified Power Adapter. This is one of the most economic and reliable options you could go for.
TaoTronics TT-DL01 led lamp is suitable for most types of desks and comes with powerful led that can last for as many as 25 years. It features 4 lighting modes, 5V/1Amp USB, 5 brightness levels and doesn’t flicker.
Selecting the desired mode is done using the Touch-Sensitive control panel while the anti-glare characteristics protect your eyes.
The black-colored LAMPAT Led desk lamp is made of 27 leds and comes with 5 levels of brightness. It feature 4 lighting modes, consumes no more than 11 watts and provides up to 530 lumens of brightness making it one of the brightest.
Although adjustable, the 2500-7000K led lamp only moves vertically and not horizontally.
TaoTronics is an official Member of the Philips EnabLED Licensing Program. This shows you the level of performance you will get, when you start using it. I would recommend this for individuals with eye problems. It has been designed to be flicker-free and very gentle on the eyes. You can use it for studying, reading and even working. You will get to customize the kind of illumination you want. The LED lamp has 5 color modes, with 7 brightness levels for that purpose.
A closer examination of all the features desk lamps shows that they come with user-friendly designs and are easy to install/mount or remove, they don’t require lots of time or effort, and produce adequate light for most types of desks.
They also are well-designed and will look elegant on the desk and come with energy-efficient leds that are not only bright but will last for many years. In fact, most allow you to adjust the light intensity or brightness and also the angle.
The above summary on the 10 best LED desk lamps should help you make a better decision when looking for quality and reliable led lamps.
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Create, maintain, and manage a continual cybersecurity incident response program using the practical steps presented in this book. Don’t allow your cybersecurity incident responses (IR) to fall short of the mark due to lack of planning, preparation, leadership, and management support.
Surviving an incident, or a breach, requires the best response possible. This book provides practical guidance for the containment, eradication, and recovery from cybersecurity events and incidents.
The book takes the approach that incident response should be a continual program. Leaders must understand the organizational environment, the strengths and weaknesses of the program and team, and how to strategically respond. Successful behaviors and actions required for each phase of incident response are explored in the book.
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Individual responses to injury vary among soccer players, but they tend to go through three stages. Sports psychologists can help.
Following an injury, a variety of psychological reactions ensue. As coaches, we must know about these responses and recognize the signs that a player is negatively affected. Successful rehabilitation depends on dealing with the many psychological factors that can affect the quality and speed of a player's recovery. Although individuals vary in their reaction to injury, most soccer players to go through three stages of psychological response—injury-specific processing; emotional turmoil and sensitive behavior; and positive attitude and management.
At first, players tend to focus on the pain, the extent of the injury and any negative consequences or immediate setbacks it may have caused. They question how the injury happened and ask what they could have done differently to avoid it. Depending on the severity of the injury, the player may experience episodes of fear about the uncertainty about their soccer future, the ability to fully recover, future injuries and regaining their position in the team.
Emotional responses to a soccer injury can include denial, disbelief and self-pity coupled with mood disruptions due to increased stress, anxiety and depression.
Sports medicine professionals and sport psychologists can assist athletes in coping with their reactions to soccer injuries. They do everything from professional rehabilitation and education to helping players explore other aspects of their personalities. In particular, sport psychologists assist athletes with goal setting. They help to determine injury rehabilitation goals that are ambitious but still realistic and within reach. Such goals should be intrinsically motivating for the soccer player. Most sports psychologists set intermediate and short-term goals that are process-oriented and build towards the overall goal in stages. It is extremely important that injured players seek help from sports medicine professionals to recover and return to their sport with a healthy body and mind.
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Instruction: Slightly press the middle portion or your tongue to the top of your mouth. More pressure should be on the side of the tongue than the center as you press the top portion of your mouth. Then blow air outward through the small opening.
"He bought some lettuce to make salad for dinner"
"The massive tornado only left a few number of houses standing"
"The small green house was on a large piece of land"
"The zebra was too quick for the lion"
"The game will resume after a brief intermission"
"The cozy house had a beautiful rose bush in the backyard"
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A delicious recipe for Strawberry Quinoa Breakfast Bars from Building Our Story.
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare a large baking pan by lining it with parchment paper.
2. Prepare the bag Success® Quinoa as directed on the box.
3. While Success® Quinoa is boiling begin combining all of the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
4. Dry ingredients include: oats, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, and pecans.
5. In a small mixing bowl combine the mashed bananas, egg, butter and honey. Whisk together until completely combined.
6. Drain the prepared quinoa and add to the "dry ingredient" bowl and mix together.
7. Carefully pour the wet ingredients into the oats and quinoa mixing bowl and mix everything together completely.
8. Fold in strawberries. Batter should not be runny!
9. Transfer the batter into the prepared pan and smooth with a spatula.
10. Bake bars for 35 minutes at 350 degrees.
11. Let cool completely before cutting into squares.
12. Enjoy immediately or keep in an airtight container.
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What solids go through sublimation?
You may already know that are three main “states” of matter: gases, liquids, and solids (there are really four, but that is besides the point). Your question is asking which solids undergo the solid-to-gas transition, sublimation.
Whether or not a solid will sublime depends on a number of factors. Sometimes, a solid will favor going to the liquid state before the gaseous state and other times a chemical reaction will occur before the temperature can be raised high enough to get the original molecules in the gas state. There is a subject called thermodynamics that allows us to find the temperatures at which solids will turn into liquids and gases and the temperatures at which chemical reaction can occur. If a chemical reaction does not occur and the liquid state is not favored over the gas state as you raise the temperature, the solid will sublime.
Consider a couple of solids: ice, which is made out of water molecules, dry ice, made from carbon dioxide molecules, and wood, made from cellulose molecules.
First, imagine we take a piece of ice and set it outside on a sunny day. We notice that the ice begins to melt and eventually all we have left is a pool of water. If we wait even longer we see that the pool of water has disappeared.
Essentially, ice prefers to change into the liquid state first before evaporating into the gaseous state. (*Note this is not completely true! Even ice and snow sublime to a certain extent before changing in the liquid state!) Now imagine we take a piece of dry ice and lay it outside on a sunny day. If you’re not sure what dry ice is, you might want to youtube dry ice. In this case we see that the dry ice begins to vaporize directly from the solid state!
Finally, we lay the wood outside on a sunny day. Nothing happens of course and, being the scientists we are, we decide that we must heat the wood even more to try to make it into a gas. However, as soon we heat the wood, for instance with a match or a lighter, we see that the wood catches fire. This is an example of a chemical reaction, where cellulose molecules in the wood and actually being converted into among other things, carbon dioxide, the stuff of dry ice and what we breathe out.
Examples of solids that sublime are dry ice (solid carbon dioxide), iodine, arsenic, and naphthalene (the stuff mothballs are made of). This is a great question that is more difficult to answer than you would suspect. If you are interested in learning more, please free to ask.
Any solid may be sublimed if its temperature and pressure are below its triple point. For example, if you were to freeze water into ice and cool it further and then reduce the pressure, you could get ice to sublime. Some other examples include: Dry ice (solid CO2) which sublimes at atmospheric pressure and -78 C, and C60 (buckyballs) which sublimes at atmospheric pressure at around 800 K.
Some common solids go through sublimation at standard pressure (1 atmosphere). Carbon dioxide sublimates at -78.5 °C (-109.3 °F), and we use this “dry ice” for cooling purposes. Iodine is another substance that has been observed to sublimate at room temperature and pressure. Naphthalene, a chemical with numerous applications, sublimates at approximately 80 °C (176 °F). A substance which normally doesn’t sublimate (i.e. water) at standard pressure can be made to sublimate at lower pressures. The phase relationships of a chemical are expressed on a phase diagram with pressure and temperature as the two axes.
A number of solids are capable of sublimating at normal temperatures and pressures, including snow, iodine, arsenic, and solid carbon dioxide (dry ice). Sometimes other materials can be made to sublimate by creating low pressure conditions.
If you take a materials science class in the future (probably in college), then you will learn to read "phase diagrams," which are basically graphs that show what temperatures and pressures are required to have solid, liquid or gas phases for a material. You can see from these diagrams whether or not there is an available transition directly from solid to gas for any material. This tells you whether or not a material is capable of sublimating.
Almost all solids can go through sublimation, under certain conditions. This just means the solids go straight to gasses without becoming liquids first. Typically solids undergo sublimation at low pressures (under vacuum). At standard, atmospheric pressure, a few solids which will sublime are iodine (at slightly higher than room temperature), carbon dioxide (dry ice) at -78.5 degrees Celsius, as well as naphthalene (used in mothballs) and arsenic.
All solids sublime. The rate of sublimation depends on temperature, air pressure, and the solid in question. Water ice is the one that we think of that sublimes most readily.
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Have you ever noticed how much of life is about just showing up.? Can you think of good things in your life that happened because you just showed up?
Some of my best photographs happened because I dragged myself out of bed and down to the lake before 6 AM to watch the sunrise. Some of the best conversations have come from chance meetings with friends or complete strangers because we happened to be in the same place at the same time. I even met my husband by taking a chance and showing up for a new job.
Be open to life, show up and hang on. You are in for an adventure.
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If you wish to pursue a career in federal law enforcement, you will need a new degree. Most federal positions now require at least a bachelor’s degree, and many of the better-paying positions require at least a master’s degree. The best degree for the job can vary from position to position, but these degrees must come from accredited schools.
Becoming a federal law enforcement officer takes time and effort, and the proper education is a necessity for those following that path. Degrees in criminal justice and law are often a necessity, but many also seek degrees in accounting and computer science. Federal law enforcement jobs include not only catching criminals on foot, but doing the necessary research to make sure that criminals go to jail for their crimes.
Most entry-level positions in federal law enforcement require an undergraduate degree. The best undergraduate degrees are those that put future officers in a position to understand the law and their specific role in maintaining it. Good bachelor’s degrees typically include degrees in criminal justice and pre-law, but an increasing number of individuals are hired with degrees in accounting and computer science. Classes in the former fields focus on understanding the law and its applications, while the latter tend to focus on very specific applications. Understanding basic accounting principals or the functioning of computers can be a necessity for those that want to work in the financial or technical parts of a federal organization, while understanding the law may be better for field officers.
The best master’s degrees are those that prepare a future officer for greater positions of authority. The FBI, for example, has a tendency to hire individuals with master’s degrees in criminal law. This course load helps individuals to understand the applications of federal law as well as an agent’s role within it, and helps to show the agency that an individual is dedicated to law and order. Other good master’s degrees include those in computer science, accounting and business, as they do help to provide specialized information that some employees may need. Those these degrees are less likely to result in a field position, they are quite valuable for those that play support roles in the federal agencies.
The best online degrees for federal law enforcement tend to be those related to criminal justice. These degrees are fairly common online, and the top online degree programs do tend to offer such degrees. These courses of study are perfect for those already in law enforcement, as one can attend class without interrupting work. It is fairly easy to find an applicable online program, and most students that wish to work in federal law enforcement will find these degrees to function in the same manner as a traditional degree.
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Most scientists think humans spread east from Taiwan to the Pacific.
But an international team, including Professor Alan Cooper of Australia's University of Adelaide, says the pattern of humans moving out of Southeast Asia with their animals is more complex.
The researchers report their DNA study of domesticated pigs today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Humans have been domesticating pigs as a source of meat for so long that Cooper says tracking their movement is a good substitute for human migration routes.
Cooper, an expert in ancient DNA, and colleagues analysed mitochondrial DNA from pigs in a number of Southeast Asian countries.
They then compared it with the DNA of pigs that historically populated the Pacific.
Cooper says the oldest pig DNA they studied came from the tooth of a pig found in the hobbit cave on the Indonesian island of Flores, dated to 6000-7000 years old.
Previous studies have found genetic similarities between Southeast Asian pigs and Pacific ones, suggesting the pigs moved from one to the other.
But Cooper says this latest research has identified the exact route they took.
"Pigs which go out across the Pacific and become the Polynesian pig, appear to originate around Laos, Cambodia and southeast China," he says.
"We can actually see them coming down the Malaysian peninsula and across the Sunda island chain [Indonesia and New Guinea]."
Cooper says while most scientists think humans spread to the Pacific from Taiwan, this pig DNA evidence suggests they have a more complex origin.
"The trouble is we don't find any pigs from Taiwan going east," he says. "So we've got quite a different route."
He says the findings support other theories that suggest Pacific was populated by humans from a number of places.
"There does seem to be a diversity of movements involved in this system and it's not going to be as simple here as they went from Taiwan out to the Pacific," says Cooper.
Where did the rats go?
Cooper says preliminary evidence from a similar DNA study of rats, an animal that is also closely associated with humans, supports this argument.
The rat study suggests humans moved out into the Pacific east from Taiwan but also took a southerly route, he says.
Cooper says animals such as pigs and rats that move with humans are a much better indicator of human movement than humans themselves.
It's easier to study ancient DNA from animals because there are more animals than humans and they are easier to get access to, he says.
Also, when studying ancient human DNA, there is the problem of contamination with genetic material from modern humans.
Use these social-bookmarking links to share Pigs and humans trekked across the Pacific.
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The absolute value of a number is the distance of the number from zero, meaning that the absolute values of 6 and -6 are 6.
Because the argument of an absolute value function may be positive or negative, we have to satisfy both cases: when x > 0 and x < 0.
Because we are looking for the limit as x approaches 2, it falls into the first case since 2 > -3/2. Therefore to find the limit, we have to plug 2 using |2x + 3|. The limit is |2*2 + 3| = 7.
Find the limit of each absolute value function if it exists.
Since 4 > - 3/2, we evaluate the expression 2x + 3 at x = 4.
|2(4) + 3| - 3 = 11 - 3 = 8.
Since -3 < - 1, we evaluate -(x + 1) at x = -3.
-(-3 + 1) + 3/(-3) = -(-2) - 1 = 2 - 1 = 1.
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Wish to save time and money, find the cheapest plane tickets to your desired destination, compare different airlines, track airfare changes in real time and get the best deals?
Booking from legitimate and trustworthy air ticket websites is the best way to avoid the risks of being exploited, overcharged, scammed or ripped off.
This list provides information about airline ticket booking sites approved by the Better Business Bureau, after being thoroughly reviewed by the national consumer organization and successfully meeting all their strict requirements.
With so many factors to explore and carefully consider, searching for a domestic or international flight can be overwhelming and for a very good reason.
Travelers need to take into consideration many important aspects like dates, departure and arrival times, ticket availability, airport location and the number of stops.
Some people may also consider issues like airline reputation and safety record, economy class seat legroom, baggage allowance, ability to use frequent flyer program points or in-flight Wi-Fi.
However, the primary factor that influences most consumers’ priority is pricing, and most do their best to find the lowest fare for their desired flight.
The industry’s leading metasearch engines, aggregators, booking portals and online travel agencies enable consumers to use powerful research tools that help them compare airlines, airfare, takeoff and landing times and class options.
These useful search tools provide a one-stop-shop experience that help flyers plan their trip and find the lowest price for their air travel needs.
Just like any other sector that involves consumers, businesses, and money that switches hands, the airline ticket market also has its fair share of scammers, fraudsters and cybercriminals that operate online and look for potential victims.
Scammers use a variety of illegal, unethical or dishonest ways to trick and take advantage of unsuspecting air travelers, who want to find cheap flights.
Some fraudsters run fake flight booking websites that use phishing as a method to steal credit card information from users.
Such bogus travel sites lure victims by offering air tickets at unrealistic heavily discounted fares.
In such cases, the consumer gets nothing when the transaction is “approved” or receives either counterfeit, duplicated or invalid electronic tickets not honored by the air carrier when he shows up at the airport.
Other low-end internet providers are infamous for providing unreliable service which may come in tickets that get cancelled arbitrarily (even at the last minute), prices that dramatically change after the booking process is completed (usually due to lots of well-hidden fees), “system errors” or “computer glitches” that always leave the consumer on the losing end or other reservation nightmares.
Avoid making reservations with unfamiliar companies.
These websites are often filled with too-good-to-be-true deals that may turn out as the most blatant form of scam.
Under all circumstances, tickets should never be bought with payment methods that are not safe, such as wire transfer.
With fraudulent activity, credit cards typically offer better consumer protection and better ways to track the criminals behind a scam.
Check the flight website’s record on the Better Business Bureau’s website.
On the other hand, if the online air ticket booking service is certified as a BBB Accredited Business, it’s an important positive signal.
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Can we lose weight by getting morning sunlight?
Well, it can't hurt to get out and get a morning walk in the sunlight. Heck, it might even help!
"Doc, will I lose more weight if I cut out diet soda?" I've heard this question many times, and this topic has been ALL over the internet since last week, when a new study came out about diet soda and weight loss. I realized it's time for me to blog about the Great Diet Soda Debate.
Diet soda (and artificial sweeteners) have become an emotional topic for some, and everyone needs to calm down, take a deep breath, look at what the study actually said, and then decide for themselves what they would like to do!
The new research was published May 27 in Obesity, the journal of The Obesity Society, and was co-authored by James O. Hill, who is well-known for his work with the National Weight Control Registry. http://www.nwcr.ws/people/Hill.htm To briefly summarize, researchers took a group of 303 people who were ALREADY DRINKING DIET SODA on a regular basis, and then told half the group they could continue diet soda, and instructed the other half to switch to water. They then followed them for 12 weeks, treating them with an 'aggressive' behavioral weight loss program, with intense counseling and guidance on nutrition, journaling, exercise, and behavioral strategies.
At the end of 12 weeks, they compared the amount of weight lost in each group - Group A who continued to drink their favorite diet soda, and Group B who quit diet soda, and switched to water. The results were surprising, to say the least. Lo and behold , Group A - those who continued to drink diet soda - actually LOST MORE WEIGHT than Group B - those who had stopped the diet soda and switched to water! Group A lost an average of 13 pounds, while Group B lost only 9 pounds. Group A - the diet soda drinkers - lost 44 % more weight!
How could this be? And why? Well, first of all, NO ONE thinks that diet soda is a magic weight loss trick. And second of all, it's important to remember that Group A, the 'bigger losers' did not ADD diet soda to their diets, they were already drinking it in the first place - they were just allowed to continue it. So, the suspicion is that Group A performed better, and lost more weight, because they were feeling content, satisfied that they could continue a favorite treat, so they AVOIDED A SENSE OF DEPRIVATION. Group B likely felt deprived of their favorite treat, and research shows that if people feel deprived, they are less likely to adhere to a healthy overall plan.
"The most likely explanation was that having access to drinks with sweet taste helps the (artificially-sweetened beverage) group to adhere better to the behavioral change program."
Saw a significant reduction in serum triglycerides."
And "Additional research published in 2009 on weight loss maintenance, drawn from the National Weight Control Registry, found that successful weight loss maintainers drank three times more diet beverages than those who had never lost weight."
So, what to do? It appears that if you are ALREADY using diet soda, and this is an important 'treat' for you, then it's probably not the best idea to try to cut this treat out while you are just starting a new healthy diet/exercise/behavioral weight control program. The sense of deprivation may weaken your willpower, and you might find it harder to stay on track with the rest of your healthy choices. Later, once you're "on a healthy roll" with your program, you may want to cut out diet soda to gain additional possible health benefits (such as a possible lower risk of kidney disease).
But if you find that cutting out your diet soda leaves you feeling deprived, and then you go off the rest of your healthy routine, you might want to add back in the occasional diet soda treat, if it's important to you! I just had a patient come in with this very problem. She had been doing REALLY well with healthy diet, exercise, and weight loss, but derailed herself when she stopped diet soda and ended up feeling deprived. She hadn't even heard about the recent study, but was feeling frustrated and angry at herself, and wanted to know what to do. We talked it through, and she is going to re-add the occasional diet soda - the 'risk' is certainly outweighed by the 'benefit' in her case!
Remember, the goal is PROGRESS NOT PERFECTION when it comes to healthy lifestyle. The goal is to be GOOD ENOUGH to get the health benefits we seek - NOT perfect. If you try too hard to be perfect, and you fall short, you might end up giving up ALL the healthy changes you've already made - and that would be a disaster! NO ONE is perfect (no one I've met anyway) and we have to pick and choose key healthy changes, and focus on those which are going to give us the 'biggest bang for the buck' in terms of health benefit. Remember - "don't let perfection become the enemy of the good" - to misquote Voltaire.
And don't let a SENSE OF DEPRIVATION DERAIL YOU!
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Schematic of our approach to N-of-1 cancer clinical trials. Our goal is to identify existing FDA-approved and investigational compounds that could quickly be tested for effectiveness in blocking master regulators responsible for tumor maintenance.
Clinical genetics has become widely used in cancer diagnosis, but it is still limited in its ability to help the majority of people with cancer. Although genome sequencing can tell whether or not a patient’s tumor contains certain known oncogenes, many patients suffer from a disease that does not correspond to a known subtype. And even when oncogenes are known, effective drugs are rarely available to target them. Moreover, cancer genomes mutate quickly, meaning that targeted therapies directed at a single mutation often do not kill all of the cells in a tumor, enabling cancer to return.
As our lab’s research has shown, network-based approaches that identify master regulators of cancer maintenance and progression can reveal points of vulnerability in the cellular machinery of tumor cells. In the past, we have repeatedly showed that identifying master regulators of particular cancer subtypes and targeting these bottlenecks therapeutically can effectively kill tumor cells.
Recently, we have begun to explore whether master regulator analysis of individual patients’ tumors could potentially offer an effective strategy for more accurately diagnosing and potentially treating disease. In a collaboration that spans basic and clinical research departments at Columbia University Medical Center, we have launched a new kind of clinical trial, called an “N-of-1 trial,” to investigate this hypothesis.
Traditional clinical trials investigate whether a particular diagnostic method or treatment is safe and effective. Typically, a carefully selected group of patients undergoes the same procedure, and doctors measure its effects in comparison to those seen in others who receive the current standard of care.
N-of-1 clinical trials are based on the growing awareness that grouping patients in this way is limited in its ability to address the extreme genetic variability seen in cancer. Conducted in one patient at a time, N-of-1 clinical trials do not begin with a specific treatment in mind, but are exploratory in nature. Using methods for elucidating regulatory networks developed in our lab, Columbia’s N-of-1 clinical trials aim to identify the specific genetic and molecular factors that are essential for cancer’s growth in a single patient. We have good reason to believe that the results of an N-of-1 study can enable a more precise diagnosis than other standard-of-care methods and may even make it possible to predict which personalized therapeutics are most likely to be effective.
During the clinical trial, tumor tissue removed from patients undergoes whole genome DNA sequencing and RNA expression analysis. Researchers in our laboratory then analyze this information within the context of models of gene regulation that are specific to that tumor type. This enables us to identify the distinctive master regulators that are required for the cancerous activity in that specific patient’s tumor.
We then search for existing FDA-approved drugs — or drugs currently at advanced stages of clinical testing — that are known to target those master regulators. Suitable drugs are immediately tested on the patient’s tumor sample, either in cell culture or after being implanted into a mouse model (technically called a patient-derived xenograft), to determine if the compound stops tumor growth. If treatment is effective, it may be investigated further in a more traditional clinical trial.
Providing patients with clinical treatment is beyond the scope of this current round of N-of-1 clinical trials, but if actionable information is found for an individual patient, it may be shared with his or her physician.
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Is it the right time to invest in gold?
Gold prices have fallen from their peak of around Rs 30,000 per 10 grammes reached in July 2016 to around Rs 26,500 currently. In fact, gold prices had tumbled down to less than Rs 25,000 in December 2016 post demonetisation.
Gold prices have fallen from their peak of around Rs 30,000 per 10 grammes reached in July 2016 to around Rs 26,500 currently.
In fact, gold prices had tumbled down to less than Rs 25,000 in December 2016 post demonetisation, a fall of more than 17% from the highs in July 2016. Gold prices have recovered some lost ground in the last three months,so is it the right time to go for gold now?
The impact of demonetisation was severe on gold prices as the government placed several restrictions on buying gold in order to flush out black money. Now, four months after the demonetisation drive, the impact seems to be wearing off and gold prices have started moving northwards from the lows reached in December 2016.
Considering that the economy will put up strong performance now that the impact of demonetisation is wearing off, there is likelihood that the gold prices will move up going forward.
Also, the dollar has been gaining against the Indian rupee and since gold prices go up with fall in the value of India rupee as domestic gold prices are based on US dollars, the chances of gold prices appreciating are high. In view of these macro-economic and market factors, it is likely that gold prices in India may surge higher and may even surpass the levels reached in July 2016.
Hence, it would be a good idea to invest in gold now to reap the benefits of appreciation in gold prices in future.
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Lock-On Technology is a unique feature found on Sonic & Knuckles cartridges for the Sega Mega Drive that allowed a player to connect an older game to the cartridge's pass-through port for extended or altered gameplay.
The lock-on technology was actually a way of making up for the fact that the developers could not meet the deadline for Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Originally, Sonic 3 was to be released with Knuckles as a playable character, and with all the Sonic & Knuckles levels playable (the level select screen in Sonic 3 features inaccessible Sonic & Knuckles levels and music). Time constraints forced the game to be split in two, and Sonic 3 was released while work continued on the uncompleted ones, plus Super Emeralds, and the lock-on gimmick was also added. Indeed Sonic the Hedgehog 2 had once run into similar problems, resulting in the original Hidden Palace and several other levels being removed.
To utilize the lock-on technology the hatch on top of the Sonic & Knuckles cartridge must be flipped open and a second game connected to the pass-through port. Unlike other methods of connecting cartridges (for example, in the Game Genie cheat device), Lock-On works by using special circuitry that combines multiple ROM chips into a single address space, depending on which game is inserted into the cartridge's slot. The result is that the console thinks that one big cartridge is plugged in. Devices such as the Game Genie worked in an entirely different way, running first the device's internal program, then running the inserted cartridge separately. Lock-On technology made Sonic & Knuckles 'the only backwards-compatible game cartridge', as the advertisements of the time claimed.
When Sonic 2 is connected, the cart combines the Sonic & Knuckles ROM, the Sonic 2 ROM, and a 256K ROM chip to boot into a new game entitled Knuckles in Sonic 2. This chip contains 'patch code' such as object placement data (for example, adding a 1-Up to the top of a building in the Chemical Plant Zone), Knuckles sprites and mappings, all code needed for the game to function, and some Casino Night Zone collision data. This chip alone is available in 'dumped' form; however, it is unplayable in emulators, as it is not a complete game in and of itself, being more analogous to an IPS patch.
Multiple prototypes of this patch chip were released in the February 23, 2008 Proto Release.
A game later titled Blue Sphere is enabled upon pressing , , and simultaneously on the No Way screen.
When a non-Sonic game is plugged in, the result is a single stage of Blue Sphere, produced randomly from information in the inserted cartridge's ROM header, along with the stage's 'code' for use in the full Blue Sphere. If Locked-On with a game larger than 2 Megabytes, it will boot to Sonic & Knuckles on real hardware, as the Sonic & Knuckles cart's mapper will map the last 2MB of the locked-on ROM instead of the first 2MB. Locking-On with a game that uses a battery pack erases saved games. Most games made after Sonic & Knuckles was released are larger than 2MB and thus will not work with its lock-on feature. There are only a few games made before Sonic & Knuckles that do not work, such as Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium & Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers.
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9 out of the box jquery plugins not to miss 1. Hatchshow Hatchshow is a typesetting plugin for jQuery that balances measures, auto-fitting type to the column width. It’s great for complex typographic layouts, as each line’s code can be handled differently. 2. jCalculator jCalculator ia an awesome jQuery plugin for calculator inputs. 3. Circliful plugin show Infos as Circle Statistics, no images used. 4. MatchHeight is more robust equal heights plugin that correctly handles mixed padding, margin, border, box-sizing, rows, groups. 5. Croppic is an image cropping jquery plugin that will satisfy your needs and much more. 6. jQuery Vibrate The Vibration API is an API specifically made for mobile devices as they are thankfully the only devices that have a vibrate function. 7. Effortlessly re-map click events to touch events on touchscreen UIs 8. Touchy is a highly configurable jQuery plugin. 9. MixItUp is a jQuery plugin providing animated filtering and sorting.
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The Inca Empire is famous throughout the world as an ancient people who held thousands of square miles of land. They ruled the Andes mountain range in South America for many centuries. Their art and culture was spread throughout their empire and many of their subjects embraced it as their own. Incan artists were famous for their carving skills in many different materials. Their metal working skills were some of the best any ancient culture produced.
When the Spanish sailed to South America, they were intent on conquering the native populations and gaining the riches of these people. Not all Spanish came to conquer and run. Some of they came to stay and they brought their art and culture with them. Once they had settled down to colonial life, they began to spread their arts and cultural values. What happened over the centuries was a fusion of native works of art and styles with the Spanish culture and artistic values.
Western South America was largely dominated by the Inca Empire. They were the native group that took the brunt of the Spanish invasion. The Spanish conquerors saw in their nation a way to oversee a large continent with a small investment. The Inca people and artisans impressed the Spanish with their art, their culture and their ability to control an empire. The Spanish learned much from the natives, and a great deal of their art was brought back to Spain.
There is still a viable fusion between the two influences of Incan and Spanish art. Brightly colored ceramics were a hallmark of the Spanish culture, even in colonial times. The Incas excelled at metal working and carving. While they did have pottery and basic ceramics, these two forms were enhanced by Spanish influences. Today, artists in the western regions of South America have a rich tradition of art and a culture that combines the best of the Inca and the Spanish.
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Is there anything more fun than waking up in the morning and thinking about going to the gym to lift weights or jog on the treadmill? After a hard days work, the gym is one place you don't even want to think about. Sometimes, even the thought of exercising at home with your own equipment can be less than desirable. Sometimes, just trying to get and stay motivated to exercise on a regular basis can be a challenge. No matter how you look at it, exercise can be downright boring and even tedious at times. So, you may be wondering just how you can get the motivation you need to exercise on a regular basis. If you've been wondering what you can do to make exercise more fun, you'll find some ideas below that just may help to make exercise more fun and a little bit easier.
First things first, you should exercise with a friend. You can challenge each other, help each other out, keep each other motivated and on track, make each other laugh or just make a game out of your exercise programs. You can also try something different. If you go to the gym each and every day and use the same piece of equipment or use the same piece of equipment at home, you should try mixing things up. Reverse your routine or just change the order of your exercises. Go to a city park that has playground equipment and use the slide, climb on the monkey bars, do pull-ups, hang from your knees, just let your imagination guide you.
You don't always need to follow a strict routine, just get out there and have fun working your muscles. An outdoor circuit in the park is also something you can try. There are some parks that have circuit courses set up with a planned course where all you have to do is walk or jog to each station and then follow the instructions. If there isn't a planned course, then you should do a combination of jogging and walking, picking a distance of a couple hundred feet.
Jog 100 feet then drop and do a couple of pushups, walk the next 100 feet and then drop to do sit ups. You can also ride a bike around your neighborhood or hike on a hiking trail. A walk in the park or around your neighborhood is also a great way to get some exercise. Doing yoga in the park or on a beach is also a nice and relaxing way to exercise both your body and your mind. Playing a competitive sport is also something you can try.
A lot of cities have team activities such as softball, volleyball, tennis, soccer, and so on. These types of activities will not only provide you with good exercise but they will also help you to meet new people as well. When you exercise, try to picture your muscles getting bigger. Research has shown that if you focus all of your thoughts on the muscles that you are working, they will respond better.
Try to watch them work with each repetition as your muscles contract and relax. When you exercise, try to picture your muscles getting bigger. Research has shown that if you focus all of your thoughts on the muscles that you are working, they will respond better. Try to watch them work with each repetition as your muscles contract and relax. As you can tell, there are plenty of ways you can make exercise more fun and interesting.
You don't need to follow the same routine day after day, as you can do many other things to get in some exercise. The important thing is that you should always try to incorporate exercise in any various form into your everyday life and make these habits the kind of habits that will last a lifetime.
Read more on Bodybuilding workouts. Check out for exercises workouts and biceps workouts.
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Bidu Sayão (Rio de Janeiro, May 11, 1902 - March 12, 1999) was Brazil's most famous opera singer and one of the great stars of the Metropolitan Opera for fifteen years (1937-1952). She was born Balduína de Oliveira Sayão to a cultured family in Botafogo, Rio de Janeiro. Her father died when she was five years old and her mother struggled to support her daughter's costly pursuit of a singing career. At the age of only eighteen, the gifted Bidu Sayão made her major opera debut in Rio de Janeiro. Her acclaimed performance led to an opportunity to study with the famous Elena Teodorini, first in Brazil and then in Romania; and then to study with the renowned Polish tenor and tutor, Jean de Reszke, in Nice. During the mid 1920s and early 1930s, she performed in Rome, Buenos Aires, Paris, as well as in her native Brazil. While at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome, she met impresario Walter Mocchi (1870-1955). After his wife, soprano Emma Carelli, died in 1928, the two became romantically involved and were married. However, it did not last and in 1935 Sayão married the Italian baritone, Giuseppe Danise (1883-1963).
In 1930, she debuted at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, and in the next year she sang a successful Juliette in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, at the Paris Opera. In the same year, she gained a great success with her debut at the Opéra Comique as Lakmé. She soon became one of the leading lyric coloratura sopranos in Europe, especially in Italy and France. Her repertoire included Lucia di Lammermoor, Amina in La Sonnambula, Elvira in I Puritani, and Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos.
In 1936 Bidu Sayão made her debut in the United States with the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall singing La Demoiselle élue by Debussy. Her performance was under the baton of Arturo Toscanini who would become her greatest supporter and lifelong friend. She sang her first performance at the Metropolitan Opera as Manon on February 13, 1937, replacing the Spanish soprano Lucrezia Bori. The critics, including Olin Downes of the New York Times, raved about her performance and within a few weeks she was given the lead in La Traviata, followed soon thereafter by Mimí in La Bohème. She also contributed to the Mozart revival at the Metropolitan Opera, becoming the preëminent Zerlina (Don Giovanni) and Susanna (Le Nozze di Figaro) of her generation.
As the favorite singer of Brazilian composer Heitor Villa Lobos, she had an artistic partnership with him that lasted many years and made a number of recordings of his compositions, including a famous recording of the Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5.
Following the death of her husband in 1963, Bidu Sayão lived a quiet life at her home in Maine. She returned to visit Brazil a last time in 1995, for a tribute to her during the Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, and died a few years later at the Penobscot Bay Medical Center in Rockport, Maine. Her ashes were scattered across the Bay in front of her home.
Bidu Sayão's portrait hangs in the lobby at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City.
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Chinese Kung Po pork recipe for the best chinese food.
Regional culture differences vary a lot within China, showing the different styles of food across the nation. There are eight main regional Foods, or Eight Great Traditions (八大菜系): Anhui, Cantonese, Fujian, Hunan, Jiangsu, Shandong, Sichuan and Zhejiang. Sometimes four of the Eight Great Traditions are given Larger emphasis (四大菜系), and are considered to be the Main culinary heritage of China. They are notably defined along geographical lines: Sichuan (Western China), Cantonese (Southern China), Shandong (Northern China), as well as Huaiyang Cuisine (Eastern China), a major style derived from Jiangsu cuisine and even viewed as the representation of that region's cooking.
These days, Beijing cuisine and Shanghai cuisine on occasion are also put along with the classical eight regional styles as the Ten Great Traditions (十大菜系).
In most dishes in Chinese cuisine, food is prepared in bite-sized pieces, ready for picking up and eating. In traditional Chinese cultures, chopsticks are used at the table.
Traditional Chinese cuisine is also based on opposites, whereby hot balances cold, pickled balances fresh and spicy balances mild.
1.Pound the pork with the back of the Knife or Meat hammer to tenderise it. Then dice it into ½inch cubes. Marinate with the marinade for 20 minutes (remember to pre-mix the marinade first).
2.While marinating the pork, prepare the seasoning sauce, chop the ginger, and cut the dry red peppers into 1" long pieces.
3.Heat up the wok on high, then pour in 3 cups of cooking oil. Deep fry the pork cubes for 20 seconds. Remove the pork, and drain off the oil.
4.Heat up the wok on high again, and pour in 2 Tablespoons of cooking oil. Fry the dry red peppers for a few seconds, or until dark brown.
5.Immediately add the ginger and the pork. Quickly stir fry for a few seconds. Then pour in the seasoning sauce. Mix thoroughly until the sauce thickens.
6.Transfer the content onto a serving plate. Add the roasted peanuts on top, and it is ready to serve.
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Text: “But now, as to whether there will be a resurrection of the dead—haven’t you ever read about this in the Scriptures? Long after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had died, God said, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ So he is the God of the living, not the dead.”- Matthew 22:31-32, NLT.
Introduction: The life of Abraham has always fascinated me since I was a young believer. At first, I greatly admired such a man who had the faith to leave all he knew and headed out to a place with which he was unfamiliar, only in obedience to God’s call. I marveled at his willingness to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice to God. In fact, sometimes, I despaired somewhat – if Abraham is the father of all those who have faith in Christ (Romans 4:11), how in the world am I supposed to live up to a faith like his?
However, I missed the essence of the story. All the while, in reading the patriarchal story, I was focused on the wrong person. I missed the whole essence of the Abrahamic story. My focus was on the man, the ‘great’ man of faith. Perhaps, because I am a product of our celebrity-driven, personality-worshipping culture? We have been trained to look up to the great founders and builders of our nation, our religion, our society. We talk about the grace of God, but in an age of self-help mania, we not only admire people of great success but also tend to worship them, in our own 21st-century-way, of course. Leaders and pioneers of faith are no different, in our own judgement. Even more, they deserve our respect and admiration for their huge accomplishments. Therefore, we hold up our faith leaders in such high esteem that many only despair of never achieving that level of holiness and ‘accomplishment’. However, the irony does not appear obvious to us, just like it was not obvious to me too – that a man or woman of faith really cannot and does not do anything of himself, except through the power and grace of the One in whom he or she has trusted.
The story included Abraham at the center of it all but it is not about Abraham. It is about the God of Abraham. All along, the story has been about God and his purposes. The main story is the God who identified Himself in terms of a mere mortal, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Exodus 3: 6, Matthew 22:31-32). Not even a righteous, God-worshipping mortal for sure; but possibly an idol worshipper (Joshua 24:2) just like his fathers and neighbors. The story is about the God of recovery and redemption. The One who, of his own accord, has decided to begin the work of recovery for a fallen humankind. Moreover, his choice was Abraham. Not an Enoch or Noah, but an Abram to begin with. It is about the God who originates grace and salvation, and works insistently on his chosen instrument until His will is done. No wonder, Jesus also refers to Him as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as proof of the resurrection as well. He does not pick an Abraham and discard him from the work of redemption he initiated with him. In the resurrection, there will be Abraham standing tall, not because of his faithfulness, though he was faithful, but because of the God who is so committed to redemption that he resurrects his Abrahams. Abraham is alive today in God's glorious kingdom, not because of his greatness, but because of the God of resurrection - the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Therefore, in Abraham’s story, God shines ever more brightly.
This series is inspired in part by brother Watchman Nee’s Changed Into his Likeness. Copyright 1967 by Angus I. Kinnear.
The more we understand GRACE (The person of Jesus Christ), AND HIS grace (workings of Grace in us) the more we come to realise, it is not about any man. Indeed the Church is wrong to focus on any man or woman of God. Its all about CHRIST. Paul said, 1 Corinthians 15:10 'But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me"
Before I use to see a great man / woman of God. But now I see only a man / woman of a GREAT & mighty GOD, awesome.
Lola, thanks for your insights!
Mr. Francis, how are you my brother? Abraham is revered in both Judaism and Christianity, to me Abraham always seems like the benchmark for faith, yet despite how much we elevated him we must remember Abraham's faith was a process. Before he achieved this "pinnacle" of faith we must remember this is a man who lied about Sarah being his sister, had a child with Hagar and on and off we can go about his failures. Abraham learned to trust God, eventually trust God enough to offer Isaac. He trust God therefore it was credited to him as righteous. Not because he was but he looking toward the future. He was looking at the finished work of Christ. Jesus said to the Pharisees Abraham rejoiced in my days. God always honor obedience, it was never about Abraham. He learned obedience, it was always God. Instead of us try to be an Abraham we need to turn our heart and devotion to God. It's interesting you mentions Abraham as who you look up to, which is a noble goal, yet Christ must be our prime focus. Likewise mine is always man like Paul, Moses, Daniel or secular figures like Alexander the Great, Mandela, Ghandi,Lincoln, MLK, to name a few.
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0.999997 |
do most vegetarians return to eating meat?
Over the past years there has been an interesting trend towards increased meat eating. This might not seem like news to some of you, especially if you’ve always been meat-eater! But there has been a shift: many people choose to live their ethics by abstaining from meat and becomming vegetarians. But in the past few years many companies have responded to the demand for more humanely raised meat and/or natural meat offerings, which has allowed some vegetarians to justify the transition back to meat because their concern for animal welfare is not now as pressing at it was previously.
Most people understand (whether they acknowledge it or not) the current system of animal agriculture is unethical by any moral code: confinement, force-feeding, antibiotics, unsafe slaughter, and general health dangers to society because of this system. There are now many options out there for those that want to eat meat while remaining concerned about the welfare of the animals and the ecological impacts of industrial agriculture.
But there are other reasons people to return to eating meat, too. According to this article from Psychology Today, many vegetarians return to meat eating because of declining health. Many cite anemia, low energy, and general weakness. I’ve had many friends surrender vegetarianism in light of newly diagnosed soy or wheat allergies, which limit options as a vegetarian. Others simply say they miss the flavor of meat (bacon is usually the gateway meat). Still others say that it was a hassle to dine out or share family meals. This is not usually a problem with friends, and it has become much easier in the past ten years because of a general shift to healthier eating options; but I will reluctantly admit that my vegetarianism does sometimes strain the decision making process when trying to decide what to eat with the family.
Another trend is the adoption of a mostly-vegetarian-but-meat-eater-sometimes. This comes in many forms: some follow Meatless Mondays, cutting out meat just one day a week, while others eat like Mark Bittman: vegetarian before 6pm, and a meat-eater afterwards. The Paleolithic eating argument is also continuing to gain traction in the foodie community. Those eating a paleo, primal, or traditional diet (all are generally similar) include vegetables, fruits, nuts, and lots of meats and animal products while avoiding grains, sugars, and processed foods. Proponents of this way of eating claim that our primal ancestors lived this way and that our bodies are optimally designed for this type of eating. However, recent studies are contradicting this theory. According to this article, while our forebears didn’t eat the amount or type of grains that we consume today, they didn’t eat as much meat as we’d like to think, either. In fact, many arguments now state that our ancestors received most of their calories from plant foods and only a small to medium percentage from animal foods.
So what’s the ‘right’ diet for you? The truth is, there might be many styles of eating that will work for your body. If you think you might have a food allergy- often feeling bloated, gassy, or foggy-headed, check with a doctor and get testing for gluten, dairy, soy, or other allergies. Some people are happy, healthy vegetarians for 20 years (that’s me!), and others simply can’t be well without meat. Tune into your body, focus on your foods, and find what feels best for your body AND your ethics.
needed to lighten up this serious post with some cuteness.
What about you- what’s your eating style?
Are you a long-time vegetarian or a newbie?
Are you a veg who has given up vegetarianism in favor of meat?
How have your politics changed as you’ve gotten older- or as the food system has changed?
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0.964035 |
Is there a better summer drink than a fruity sangria?? Perfect for summer! We gave it a little twist by adding stone fruit, that pairs beautifully with the floral passion fruit taste. Add Ice cubes right before serving the sangria.
If you plan ahead you can make orange juice ice cubes and add them to the sangria instead of plain ice cubes.
Allow the sangria to sit for a few hours in the refrigerator before serving.
In a large pitcher combine wine, orange juice, lemon juice and sparkling water.
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