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About
MAD MIKE – MAD INDEED
Mad Mike has always had a passion for all things extreme and fast, right from his first 3wheeled trike as a toddler he was never content with riding on the flat his mother Sue says he had to race down steep hills and over ramps!!
Mike raced motocross from the age of 6 and placed 2nd at the New Zealand 1997 Pro junior 85cc motocross champs. Preadolescence he also competed in BMX then eventually transitioned into the extreme sport of Freestyle Motocross to compete pro for 3yrs.
His 3 year stint had mixed results and many broken bones and concussions - earning his nick name 'Mad Mike'. He then made the switch to another form of motorsport which gave him that same rush of adrenaline but with the safety of a roll-cage and thus his DRIFTING career was born in 2007.
Now backed by some of the worlds biggest brands Red Bull, Mazda, Mobil1, Nitto, Rotiform, Holinger, KW suspension, Turbo by Garrett, Snap-On Tools, PWR Performance, & Wilwood to name a few. Mike competes in four pro drift spec Mazda rotary powered cars - all over the globe & every time he is behind the wheel and initiates his high speed drift he still experiences that same rush of adrenaline that keeps him hooked.
In early 2011 EA Games released - Need For Speed Shift Unleashed which features Mad Mike & his 2010 competition Mazda RX8.
Pushing the boundaries as an ambassador of the sport Mike has been privileged to take drifting around the world and be the first to drift at prestigious tracks and events. The list of countries is forever growing here are some to date: New Zealand, Australia, across United States of America, Canada, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Qatar, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Sweden & Norway.
Always a crowd favorite Mikes Mazda RX7 and RX8 have both been voted best looking drift cars worldwide through Speedhunters.com
With over 4.5 million views on you tube alone his ‘Conquer the Crown’ drift project was a huge success for both Nz Crown Range in Queenstown and drifting at large.
In 2012 Mike created and brought to life Red Bull Drift Shifters in downtown Auckland, New Zealand. The event is a world first with an electronically scored run, based from triggers and sensors on the track scoring drivers on proximity and successive triggering of sensors. Making what is known as High Octane Pin Ball.
The event was a hit and returned again to Auckland in 2014 bringing drivers from USA, JAPAN and Australia this time with Mike taking home top bragging rights. Stay tuned for more big news on Red Bull Drift Shifters!
Mike was also the first NZ Drift driver to receive an award from Motorsport New Zealand for Outstanding Achievement.
2015 saw the completion of the Mazda MX5 aptly dubbed ‘RADBUL’ which made it's debut outing in Formula Drift USA.
Feeding his creative desires Mad Mike also owns and operates a sign writing & graphic design company located in Auckland, NZ called CRE8GRAFX.
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Climate change and the future of our Pacific neighbours
The vulnerability of Pacific Island countries to climate change has been the subject of significant media coverage, including Kiribati’s recent request that its people be moved to Fiji to avoid rising seas.
However, despite this widespread awareness, until recently there has been limited reliable detailed scientific information available to these countries. A major new report recently released by the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO is helping to fill this gap. It provides the most comprehensive scientific analysis to date of climate change in the Pacific region.
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Five Tips to Prevent Jet Lag
You just arrived in India, where you’re excited to search for the endangered Bengal tigers. But you soon realize your grogginess and inability to sleep are making early morning safari drives more of a chore than a dream come true.
Jet lag—when external indicators do not match up with your circadian rhythm, which dictates your sleeping, waking and eating cycles—can affect even the most seasoned travelers. Grogginess, restlessness, dehydration, headaches, dizziness and insomnia are common symptoms. You may land in your new destination, but your body still feels as though it never left home.
Try following these tips, and the tigers won’t have to wait another day.
1. Be your own Father TimeYou can lessen the effects of jet lag beforehand by adjusting the times you wake up in the morning and go to sleep at night. Go to bed and wake up based on the time of your travel destination, adjusting one hour each day. A trip with a 12-hour time change will be hard to completely acclimate to beforehand, but adjust as much as you can without interfering with your schedule. Another tip is to adjust your watch based on the time difference in order to prepare yourself for the time change. Just don’t confuse the two; I’m sure your boss won’t be very understanding when you’re an hour late for that important meeting because you’re already on vacation time.
2. Bottoms up! ... or maybe notYou might want to lay off the cocktails at the airport bar before your flight. Try to avoid excessive alcohol or caffeine, and try to drink the daily recommended intake of water, all in order to prevent dehydration, which can result from the dry air of airplane cabins and worsen certain side-effects of jet lag. There is even such a thing as the “anti-jet lag diet,” which includes protein packed foods throughout the day, and a third meal of high-carbohydrates to make you feel tired. This will all help to adjust your circadian rhythm to the time difference.
3. Take melatoninMelatonin is a hormone produced by your body that helps regulate your cycle of sleeping and waking. The hormone can help lessen the effects of jet lag and help reset your biological clock, but is not proven to be an actual cure (there isn’t one). At what time you take the hormone and how much depends solely on if you are gaining or losing time. Be sure to ask your doctor before using the supplement.
4. Sleep it off, when the time comesYou get off the plane and want to take a nap, or you plan on hitting the sack well before its even dark out in your new location. But the best advice is to avoid naps on the first few days, and try going to bed at the appropriate time for the location you are in. Taking a flight that arrives in the late afternoon would be most helpful, since you’re likely to be tired from traveling.
5. Start vacation earlyIf you know that you’re traveling to a destination that has a significant time difference, a great option, if possible, is to arrive a few days earlier before the tour begins, giving you time to adjust and overcome jet lag.
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Infogrames FY losses grow to €226.1m
Infogrames has posted a loss of €226.1 million for FY 2008-2009 – an increase on the €51.1 million it suffered in its previous year.
The firm blamed ‘substantial write-offs and goodwill impairments’ on its publishing operations – as well as losses due to the exit of its distribution business in Europe and Asia.
However, excluding the costs of this transformation, Atari said its adjusted net losses for FY 2008/2009 amounted to €50.2 million, comparing more positively to its €55.1 million loss for the comparable period in FY 2007-2008.
The company’s total revenues grew by 51.0 per cent to €136.4 million. US distribution revenues almost doubled while European publishing operations grew by over nine per cent.
The firm said that the sale of its European and Asian operation to Namco Bandai would net it €30 million – and admitted that it had cancelled new projects.
It said: ‘To improve the cash position the Company has reorganised the business to focus on more cost effective mass-market games and online.
‘As such, the Company has cancelled projects which do not meet higher return on investment criteria and require significant working capital investments. Further, the Company is working on extending its credit line beyond December 2009.’
Infogrames reiterated its plan to re-brand its entire business under the Atari brand.
MCV is the leading trade news and community site for all professionals working within the UK and international video games market. It reaches everyone from store manager to CEO, covering the entire industry. MCV is published by NewBay Media, which specialises in entertainment, leisure and technology markets.
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An innovative program sought to transform the Army from within. Then reality intervened.
THE LATEST NEWS IN PICTURES
Jumping for Joy
Athletes gather in Moscow for the 14th IAAF World Championships in Athletics from August 10 through 18.
The steeplechase is one of more than two dozen categories in which international athletes compete. The next competition will take place in Beijing in 2015.
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Dreaming Under The Sea
He loves me, he loves me not. Ariel dreams of a future with Prince Eric as Flounder and Sebastian float nearby. Jim Shore created this beautiful stone resin figurine to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Disney's "The Little Mermaid."
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Michigan lawmaker aims to fight human trafficking
Sen. Judy Emmons of Sheridan introduced legislation this week that would make the solicitation for prostitution of 16- or 17-year-olds a felony. It would also increase the penalties to no more than five years in prison or a fine of no more than $10,000, or both.
Emmons says her bill is going after "the root of the problem" by targeting those who solicit prostitutes. She adds that says that Michigan is a "hot spot" for human trafficking because of the state's international borders and waterways.
Emmons also introduced the legislation last session, but it died in the House.
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Pages
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Environmental Justice and Food Security
As I research environmental justice in the United States, I am drawn more and more to issues surrounding the lack of environmental benefits that communities experience, as opposed to direct environmental harms. Environmental justice encompasses both sides of the coin; while burdening communities with pollutants seems the more obvious injustice, lack of amenities such as green-space and parks or fresh food also plays a role in people’s quality of life, and is an environmental injustice to those communities who do not have access to such essential amenities.
Access to fresh food is sometimes characterized as a separate movement known as the community food security movement, despite its common goals with environmental justice. Both seek to ensure justice to communities lacking in equality, and both look at the big picture to recognize that there are many different factors contributing to the injustice. I think the issue of food security should be characterized as a subset of environmental justice. After all, our environment is more than the trees, air, and water around us. Our environment is made up of whatever surrounds and affects us. It not only involves where we live, but how we live, what we’re exposed to, how it benefits us or doesn’t.If you were enrolling your child in a new school, you would probably want to know about the environment…that doesn’t mean you are wondering if there are any trees around or whether the air quality is good (although in some cases, to be discussed at a later date, it may). What you are really wondering is if the school environment will enrich your child, allow him or her to reach their full potential, provide a safe place to learn, be encouraging and supportive, and ultimately serve the purpose for which it was intended. We need to look at communities the same way. The environment in which we live definitely involves trees, air, and water, but it is so much more than that; access to fresh food is a vital component of the quality of one’s environment, and lack of access to it is an injustice to that community.
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Top 5 Misconceptions with regard to Agile Methodology
Agile methodology can be defined as a software development methodology, which helps the software developers in their process. Though it is a software development methodology but it is used not only by the software developers but by project managers, team leaders, development managers, product managers, technical writers, QA engineers and managers engaged in delivering software to their organizations. For this reason, this methodology is used by a large number of industries and organizations all over the world to avail the advantages of shortening feedback loop, increasing collaboration between teams and delivering products faster.
In order to adopt this methodology, organizations have to move from traditional project management systems to Agile system but this transition was not as easy as it seems to be. The adoption of this methodology faced a number of hurdles and misconceptions like any other new approach or concept. In this write-up some of the top misconceptions attached to agile Methodology are discussed, in brief, to help you in understanding this concept more precisely.
No documentation is required: The statement of one of the agile manifestoes saying that people misunderstood the use of comprehensive documentation for working software. This misunderstanding supported another myth that the team working on agile methodology do not use or create any kind of documentation. This misconception is not true as the project teams using agile methodology use and create documentation as the teams using other methodologies. At every stage of agile methodology, documentation is essentially important as the product of every cycle has to be tested and improved. The documentation in each cycle is important to know the right and wrong developments in the product and improvements required for them. This documentation will help in testing and improving the product accordingly.
Agile models cannot work with other models: The incompatibility of agile methodology with the process models driven by other methodologies is another misconception, which is not true. On the contrary, agile methodology offers more flexibility to its users to include various aspects of traditional methods into it. Though the stages contained in the product development cycles of the agile method are shorter and multiple but they are complete like that of the other traditional methods. In this way, agile methods are extraordinarily compatible with the processes of traditional methods. The only way to combine agile method with a traditional plan-driven model like waterfall model is to use the sprints of the agile method within the linear structure of waterfall model to start work for next stage without completing the work of previous stage. The decision to combine agile methods with other methods and to what extent essentially depends upon the discretion of the project manager.
No planning is required for the projects: It is another very common misconception about agile methodology. This misconception is completely wrong as this methodology offers extensive flexibility to its users. Though it is true that the development process of agile is neither plan-driven nor has Gantt charts or WBS but still planning is done at a number of points like Dev Sprint Planning of formalized ceremonies including PO and PBR to address the goals and priorities of the project of the team. The stories of the ceremonies related to the owner of the product convey the details to the project team about their requirements and the project manager and the team establish their priorities to accomplish the task in a planned manner to plan build and run the project successfully. The establishment of the goals and priorities for a project helps in making a framework of the work stages which in turn helps in planning the tasks of the project and how to handle them effectively.
Role of management is eliminated in agile methodology: Another misconception regarding agile methodology is that it eliminates the necessity of clearly defining the order and roles due to the exceptional flexibility provided by it as compared to traditional plan-driven methods. It is again not true as the role of every person is defined in agile and the owner of the product works as the manager of the project. The supervision of the project including the goals and priorities of the project team and leading the team to accomplish the task is the responsibility of the product owner.
In agile projects along with the product owner, there is a Scrum Master who is responsible to make sure that the development teams of the project complete the tasks within each sprint by working in the best condition. The agile product development team includes everyone involved in the project and responsible to achieve the goals of the project by working on it continuously. In order to decide the number of tasks to be done in each sprint and how to organize them to accomplish the project as soon as possible the development teams work with the product owner.
Agile methodology is specifically for Software Development: Another false misconception about agile methodology is that it is specifically developed for software development. Though initially agile project management started with development of software but with the passage of time it emerged as a complete methodology, which can be used to the projects of various other types where potential of change and continuation is higher and feedback cycles are shorter.
A wide range of industries from technology to financial services uses this methodology, especially by establishing businesses, for launching new products and services. The analysis of the design, situation, verification, implementation, maintenance and deployment are the stages of agile project management which help it in using them in agile methods in the projects other than software development as per the needs of the project. In this way, agile methodology is useful for any type of project. Along with maintaining the stages of the work the agile methodology also helps in making quick changes in the project, without requiring much feedback, to make market sensitive products which can be changed as per the changes in the lifestyle. Thus, even after these misconceptions, agile methodology is considered as a useful development methodology for the developers in a wide range of industries all over the world.
About the Author
Eshna writes on PMP, PRINCE2, ITIL, ITSM, & Ethical Hacking. She has done her Masters in Journalism and Mass Communication and is a Gold Medalist in the same. A voracious reader, she has penned several articles in leading national newspapers like TOI, HT, and The Telegraph. She loves travelling and photography.
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Abstract
This paper is concerned with nonhomogeneous multipoint boundary value problems of second-order
differential equations with one-dimensional p-Laplacian. Sufficient conditions to guarantee
the existence of at least three solutions (may be not positive) of these BVPs are established.
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Abstract
Repeated social defeat (RSD) is a murine stressor that recapitulates key physiological, immunological, and behavioral alterations observed in humans exposed to chronic psychosocial stress. Psychosocial stress promotes prolonged behavioral adaptations that are associated with neuroinflammatory signaling and impaired neuroplasticity. Here, we show that RSD promoted hippocampal neuroinflammatory activation that was characterized by proinflammatory gene expression and by microglia activation and monocyte trafficking that was particularly pronounced within the caudal extent of the hippocampus. Because the hippocampus is a key area involved in neuroplasticity, behavior, and cognition, we hypothesize that stress-induced neuroinflammation impairs hippocampal neurogenesis and promotes cognitive and affective behavioral deficits. We show here that RSD caused transient impairments in spatial memory recall that resolved within 28 d. In assessment of neurogenesis, the number of proliferating neural progenitor cells (NPCs) and the number of young, developing neurons were not affected initially after RSD. Nonetheless, the neuronal differentiation of NPCs that proliferated during RSD was significantly impaired when examined 10 and 28 d later. In addition, social avoidance, a measure of depressive-like behavior associated with caudal hippocampal circuitry, persisted 28 d after RSD. Treatment with minocycline during RSD prevented both microglia activation and monocyte recruitment. Inhibition of this neuroinflammatory activation in turn prevented impairments in spatial memory after RSD but did not prevent deficits in neurogenesis nor did it prevent the persistence of social avoidance behavior. These findings show that neuroinflammatory activation after psychosocial stress impairs spatial memory performance independent of deficits in neurogenesis and social avoidance.
SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Repeated exposure to stress alters the homeostatic environment of the brain, giving rise to various cognitive and mood disorders that impair everyday functioning and overall quality of life. The brain, previously thought of as an immune-privileged organ, is now known to communicate extensively with the peripheral immune system. This brain–body communication plays a significant role in various stress-induced inflammatory conditions, also characterized by psychological impairments. Findings from this study implicate neuroimmune activation rather than impaired neurogenesis in stress-induced cognitive deficits. This idea opens up possibilities for novel immune interventions in the treatment of cognitive and mood disturbances, while also adding to the complexity surrounding the functional implications of adult neurogenesis.
In the RSD model, neuroinflammatory activation was localized primarily within the limbic system including the hippocampus (Wohleb et al., 2013). This is relevant because the hippocampus is a key area involved in neuroplasticity, behavior, and cognition (McEwen, 1999). Indeed, increased neuroinflammatory signaling augments neurobiological processes implicated in behavioral disorders involving neurogenesis (Koo and Duman, 2008) and metabolism of neurotransmitters (Miller et al., 2009; O'Connor et al., 2009). Corresponding with these findings, neuroinflammatory activation in the hippocampus may impair neuroplasticity and behavior after psychosocial stress.
Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate whether stress-induced neuroinflammation (e.g., microglial activation, cytokine induction, and monocyte recruitment) affected hippocampal neurogenesis, cognition, and mood. Here, we show that RSD enhances neuroinflammation in the hippocampus, causes transient deficits in memory recall, alters neuronal cell fate, and prolongs social avoidance. Moreover, hippocampal-dependent memory deficits were caused by neuroinflammatory activation, whereas social avoidance and impaired neurogenesis were not. Collectively, these studies demonstrate a dichotomy of behaviors that are dependent and independent of stress-induced neuroinflammation.
Materials and Methods
Mice.
Male C57BL/6 (6–8 weeks old) and male CD-1 retired breeder mice were purchased from Charles River and allowed to acclimate to their surroundings for 7–10 d before experiments. Mice were housed in 11.5 × 7.5 × 6-inch polypropylene cages. Rooms were maintained at 21°C under a 12 h light/dark cycle from 6:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M. with ad libitum access to water and rodent chow. All experiments took place between 8:00 A.M. and 11:00 A.M., unless noted otherwise. All procedures were in accordance with the National Institutes of Health Guidelines for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and were approved by the Ohio State University Institutional Laboratory Animal Care and Use Committee.
RSD.
RSD was performed as described previously (Wohleb et al., 2013). In brief, an aggressive male intruder CD-1 mouse was introduced into cages of established male cohorts (three per cage) of C57BL/6 mice for 2 h between 5:00 P.M. and 7:00 P.M. for 6 consecutive nights. During each cycle, submissive behavior, including upright posture, fleeing, and crouching, were observed to ensure defeat of the resident mice. If the intruder did not initiate an attack within 5–10 min or was attacked by any of the resident mice, a new intruder was introduced. At the end of the 2 h period, the intruder was removed, and the residents were left undisturbed until the following day when the protocol was repeated. Different intruders were used on consecutive nights. The health status of the mice was carefully examined throughout the experiment. Mice that were injured or moribund were removed from the study. Consistent with previous studies using RSD (Engler et al., 2004), <5% of mice met the early removal criteria. Control (CON) mice were left undisturbed in their home cages.
Minocycline treatment.
Minocycline (Sigma-Aldrich) was administered in vivarium drinking water. Solutions were prepared fresh daily and administered in opaque sipper bottles. Mice and water bottles were weighed daily to adjust dosage to 90 mg/kg. Oral minocycline treatment was started 1 day before the beginning of RSD and was terminated on the last day of RSD.
Immunohistochemistry and digital imaging analysis for Iba-1 and CD45.
Brain samples were collected after transcardial perfusion with sterile PBS, pH 7.4, followed by 4% formaldehyde. Brains were postfixed in 4% formaldehyde for 24 h and then in 30% sucrose for another 48 h. Fixed brains were frozen with isopentane (−78°C) and sectioned (30 μm) using a Microm HM550 cryostat. Brain regions within the hippocampus were identified by reference markers in accordance with the stereotaxic mouse brain atlas (Paxinos and Franklin, 2008). To label for Iba-1 or CD45, sections were placed free-floating in cryoprotectant until staining. Next, sections were washed in PBS and then blocked (5% normal goat serum, 1% BSA, and 0.5% Triton X-100 in PBS) and incubated with rabbit anti-mouse Iba-1 (1:1000; Wako Chemicals) or rat anti-mouse CD45 (1:500; Abcam) overnight at 4°C. Then sections were washed in PBS and incubated with a fluorochrome-conjugated secondary antibody (Alexa Fluor 488 or Alexa Fluor 594). Sections were mounted on slides, coverslipped with Fluoromount G (Beckman Coulter), and stored at −20°C. For each mouse, five to six representative images were taken at 20× magnification from the dentate gyrus (DG) of the hippocampus. Fluorescent images were taken with a Zeiss 510 Meta confocal microscope and analyzed using NIH ImageJ software. For CD45, cells with positive labeling were counted in each hippocampal section. Iba-1 labeling was analyzed using a digital image analysis system (Donnelly et al., 2009). In brief, a threshold for positive labeling was determined for each image that included all cell bodies and processes but excluded background staining. Data were processed by densitometric scanning of the threshold targets using NIH ImageJ software. Proportional area was reported as the average percentage area in the positive threshold for all representative images (Wohleb et al., 2013).
Spatial memory in the Morris water maze.
Spatial memory (Morris, 1984) was determined using a modified version of the classic Morris water maze (MWM; Morris, 1981). The apparatus consisted of a white 180-cm-diameter tub filled with a mixture of water and white paint (at room temperature). A clear plastic platform (12 cm diameter) was concealed 1 cm beneath the surface of the water and was placed in a position 20 cm away from the edge of the tub. The area surrounding the apparatus consisted of two distinct extramaze geometric cues and additional spatial cues inherent to the room. The experimenter and recording equipment were concealed behind a curtain during testing. The spatial memory assay involved a 5 d acquisition phase after RSD and a probe trial on day 6. Acquisition consisted of four trials per day, with the platform in the same position throughout the task. A 30 min intertrial interval was used throughout the acquisition phase. Maximum trial duration was 60 s. If the platform was not reached within 60 s, then the mouse was placed on the platform and a latency of 60 s was recorded. Mice were placed at one of four positions in a quasi-random balanced order. Latency and total distance to reach the platform and percentage time in the outer annulus of the tub were recorded. During the probe trial on day 6, the platform was removed, and total distance traveled and percentage time in each quadrant were recorded for 60 s. Behavior was recorded and analyzed using the Noldus EthoVision XT 8.0 Software.
Working memory in the MWM.
Working memory was determined in an adaptation of the MWM as was described previously (Sparkman et al., 2006). All conditions were the same as described above unless noted otherwise. There were three massed trials per day with an intertrial interval of 30 s and maximum trial duration of 120 s. Each trial lasted until the platform was reached or until the maximum trial duration elapsed. If the platform was not reached within 120 s, then the mouse was placed on the platform and a score of 120 s was recorded. In a pseudorandom and experimentally balanced manner, mice were placed in one of four quadrants ∼3 cm from the edge of the tub. The location of the platform was changed every day but remained in the same place during trials on the same day. Average velocity, latency to platform, distance to platform, and duration spent in the outer annulus were recorded and analyzed using the Noldus EthoVision XT 8.0 Software.
Spatial memory in the Barnes maze.
Hippocampal-dependent learning and memory recall were determined using a previously described Barnes maze paradigm with some modifications (Bach et al., 1995). The acclimation phase consisted of two trials: (1) mice were guided to the escape hole and allowed 2 min in the escape box; and (2), mice were guided to an incorrect or “dummy” hole and then guided to the escape hole and allowed 2 min in the escape hole. Trials were initiated 30 min apart for each mouse. After the acclimation day, the position of the escape box was shifted to its permanent location for the remainder of the paradigm for mice to learn overt stationary spatial cues to find the escape box. The acquisition phase consisted of four trials per day for 4 consecutive days. Mice were placed in the center of the maze under a semi-opaque container for 15 s. The trial recording began with the removal of the container. Each trial lasted 120 s or until the mouse entered the escape hole. If the mouse did not reach the escape hole in the allotted time, then it was guided to the hole. Speed, distance traveled, time to locate the escape hole, and the number of errors were determined. To evaluate immediate memory recall, mice were reexposed to the Barnes maze trial 24 and 48 h after RSD. For long-term memory recall, reexposure was performed on days 28 and 29 after RSD. Reexposure consisted of one 60 s trial during which the speed, distance, time to locate the escape hole, and the number of errors were determined. Mice in the acquisition phase and recall trial were tracked, recorded, and analyzed using the Noldus EthoVision XT 8.0 Software.
5′Bromodeoxyuridine and doublecortin labeling.
The proliferation of cells in the DG was determined using 5′bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) labeling. BrdU (10 mg/ml; Sigma-Aldrich) was dissolved in warm PBS and then filtered. On the last 3 nights of RSD (i.e., cycles 4, 5, and 6), mice were injected with 50 mg/kg BrdU at 4:00 P.M. (1 h before social defeat). Brains were collected for BrdU immunohistochemistry 14 h (0.5 d), 10 d, or 28 d after the last injection of BrdU. For quantification of BrdU-positive (BrdU+) and doublecortin-positive (DCX+) cells, every sixth section throughout the hippocampus was collected. For BrdU labeling, sections were washed, denatured in 2N HCl at 37°C for 30 min, and blocked (1% BSA/PBS, 5% NGS, and 0.1% Triton X-100). Sections were then incubated in primary antibody (mAb, 1:1000, rat anti-BrdU; AbD Serotec) at 4°C for 24 h and then secondary antibody (Alexa Fluor 488) at room temperature for 1 h. For DCX labeling, sections were washed, blocked (1% BSA/PBS, 5% donkey serum, and 0.5% Triton X-100) for 1 h and then incubated in primary antibody (mAb, 1:200, goat anti-DCX; Santa Cruz Biotechnology) at 4°C for 48 h, followed by secondary antibody (Alexa Fluor 594) at 4°C overnight. Sections were mounted on slides, coverslipped with Fluoromount G (Beckman Coulter), and stored at −20°C. Fluorescent images were visualized using a Zeiss 510 Meta confocal microscope, captured, and then analyzed using MetaMorph software. The total number of BrdU+ cells and DCX+ cells in the DG were extrapolated for the entire volume of the hippocampus. A previous study was used as a reference for morphological comparison of immature and mature DCX+ neurons (Zhao et al., 2006).
Fate mapping of BrdU+ cells.
For phenotypic analysis of BrdU+ cells at 10 and 28 d after injection, double labeling was performed with rat anti-BrdU (mAb, 1:1000; AbD Serotec), goat anti-DCX (1:500; Abcam), and rabbit anti-NeuN (1:1000; Abcam) or rabbit anti-GFAP (rabbit, 1:1000; Dako). Sections were collected at 10 and 28 d after injection of BrdU. Fluorescent samples were visualized using an epifluorescent Leica DM5000B microscope. Images were captured on the Leica DFC300 FX camera and then analyzed using NIH ImageJ software. The total number of cells with positive labeling in the hippocampus was counted and represented per brain section.
Social interaction.
Social avoidance was determined as described previously (Berton et al., 2006; Krishnan et al., 2007; Wohleb et al., 2014a). In Trial 1 (empty), an experimental mouse was placed into the arena with an empty wire mesh cage, and activity was recorded for 2.5 min. In Trial 2 (social), an unfamiliar CD-1 mouse was placed in the wire mesh cage, the experimental mouse was placed in the arena, and activity was recorded for 2.5 min. Activity in the social avoidance behavior test was video recorded and analyzed using Noldus EthoVision XT Software.
Statistical analyses.
Observations 2 SDs above and below the mean were counted as outliers and were excluded in the subsequent analyses. To determine significant main effects and interactions between main factors, data were analyzed using one-way, two-way, or repeated-measures ANOVA using the general linear model procedures of SPSS statistical software (IBM). Specifically, Barnes maze and MWM data were averaged across trials on the same day. Data with repeated trials were tested for sphericity using Mauchly's test and were then analyzed with repeated-measures ANOVA to determine the effect of day, trial, or experimental condition. In the event of a main effect of experimental treatment, differences between group means were evaluated by an F-protected t test. Post hoc analyses are presented graphically in the figures. All data are expressed as treatment means ± SEMs.
Results
Increased inflammation and presence of CD45+ myeloid cells in the hippocampus after RSD
It has been reported previously that RSD activated microglia and promoted monocyte trafficking to the brain (Wohleb et al., 2013). Moreover, these events contributed to an enhanced inflammatory profile, activated IL-1 signaling in the brain, and affected the development of prolonged anxiety-like behavior. Stress-induced monocyte trafficking and inflammatory signaling was localized within the limbic system (including the hippocampus). This is relevant because the hippocampus is critical in neuroplasticity, behavior, and cognition (McEwen, 1999). Therefore, the objective of this study was to determine the effects of RSD on hippocampal-dependent memory and neuronal plasticity.
In the first experiment, mice were exposed to six cycles of social defeat, and mRNA expression of several inflammatory mediators and growth factors were determined in the hippocampus immediately after the last cycle. Fig. 1A shows that RSD increased mRNA expression of IL-1β (p < 0.0001), IL-6 (p < 0.05), and TNFα (p < 0.05) in the hippocampus immediately after RSD. These data are consistent with our previous findings (Wohleb et al., 2013). In addition, mRNA expression of NGF (p < 0.05) and VEGF (p < 0.01) were also increased in the hippocampus immediately after RSD. The expression of genes coding for BDNF and IGF-1 were unaffected by RSD.
Increased inflammation and presence of CD45+ myeloid cells in the hippocampus after RSD. Mice were subjected to six cycles of RSD or left undisturbed as CONs. A, The mRNA levels of several inflammatory mediators (IL-1β, TNF, IL-6, and arginase) and growth factors (BDNF, VEGF, NGF, and IGF-1) were determined in the hippocampus collected immediately after RSD (n = 6). In a related experiment, mice were subjected to six cycles of social defeat, and mice were perfused and fixed with 4% paraformaldehyde 14 h later. Brain samples were postfixed, frozen, and sectioned, and Iba-1 or CD45 expression was determined (n = 6). B, Representative images of Iba-1 labeling are shown in the DG. The arrows show the Iba-1+ cell depicted in the inset. C, Quantification of Iba-1 labeling for the entire volume of the hippocampus with rostral–caudal distinction. D, Representative images of CD45 labeling are shown in the DG. The arrows show the CD45+ cell depicted in the inset. E, Quantification of CD45+ cells per hippocampal section. Data represent mean ± SEM. *p < 0.05, means are significantly different from CON.
Next, microglial Iba-1 immunoreactivity and the presence of CD45+ monocytes were assessed in the DG of the hippocampus. Figure 1B shows representative images of Iba-1 labeling of microglia in the DG. RSD promoted changes in microglial morphology marked by larger soma size and shorter, thicker processes. These morphological changes, associated with an inflammatory profile, resulted in an overall increase in Iba-1 proportional area across the caudal and rostral DG (F(1,19) = 11.66, p < 0.05; Fig. 1C) that was significantly augmented in the caudal hippocampus compared with the rostral hippocampus after RSD (p < 0.05). Figure 1D shows representative images of CD45+ monocytes in the DG of CON and RSD mice. There was a significant increase in the number of CD45+ cells in the caudal and rostral DG after RSD (F(1,20) = 4.76, p < 0.05; Fig. 1E). Additional differentiation of the DG into caudal and rostral regions showed that the increase of CD45+ monocytes with RSD was more pronounced in the caudal hippocampus (p < 0.05) of the RSD mice. Overall, these data indicated that RSD elevated proinflammatory cytokine levels in the whole hippocampus and increased microglial Iba-1 immunoreactivity and number of CD45+ monocytes that was more pronounced in the caudal hippocampus.
Impaired performance on the working memory version of the MWM was related to thigmotaxis
Prolonged exposure to inflammatory cytokines may negatively affect hippocampal-dependent spatial memory (Sparkman et al., 2006; Hein et al., 2010). To test this idea in RSD, mice were exposed to six cycles of social defeat, and working memory was assessed for 5 d using an adapted version of the MWM (Fig. 2A). In this design, mice were trained to locate the hidden platform that changed location on each day of testing (Fig. 2B). Figure 2C shows the representative search patterns of CON and RSD mice on day 3 of testing in the MWM. RSD did not affect swim velocity during the 5 d of testing (F(1,22) = 0.71, p = 0.794; Fig. 2D). A repeated-measures ANOVA revealed that RSD did not significantly affect performance across all 5 d on either latency (F(1,22) = 1.02, p = 0.331; Fig. 2E) or distance (F(1,22) = 1.00, p = 0.335; Fig. 2F). However, there was a significant main effect of stress when analyzed across the first 3 d on both latency (F(1,22) = 5.82, p < 0.05) and distance (F(1,22) = 5.21, p < 0.05). Post hoc analysis indicated that RSD tended to increase latency and distance to reach the platform on each of the first 3 testing (D7–D9) days (p ≤ 0.1 for each; Fig. 2E,F). By days 4 and 5 of testing (D10–D11), latency and distance traveled were no longer affected by RSD. In addition, there was significant increase in performance across days on both latency (F(4,19) = 23.66, p < 0.001) and distance (F(4,19) = 16.87, p < 0.001) to reach the platform independent of stress condition. This temporal pattern is indicative of learning. It is important to note that there was a main effect of RSD on time spent in the outer annulus of the maze (F(1,22) = 9.25, p < 0.01; Fig. 2G). Post hoc analysis confirmed that RSD mice spent more time in the outer annulus on D7–D9 compared with CON mice (p < 0.05 for all 3 d). This search strategy resembles an anxiety-like thigmotactic behavior, and it was readily apparent in the representative search paths in Figure 2C. This altered anxiety-like search strategy may explain the increased time and distance to reach the escape platform observed after RSD. Consistent with this, there was a significant correlation between the average percentage time in the outer annulus and average latency (r = 0.632, p < 0.001) and average distance (r = 0.638, p < 0.001) across the first 3 testing days. Moreover, thigmotaxis is a significant covariate between stress and latency (F(1,22) = 6.75, p < 0.05) and stress and distance (F(1,22) = 7.11, p < 0.05) on the first 3 d. When thigmotaxis is controlled for as a covariate, the effect of RSD on latency (F(1,22) = 7.22, p = 0.405) and distance (F(1,22) = 6.46, p = 0.531) is no longer apparent. Together, RSD caused a modest and transient impairment in performance on this working memory version of the MWM that was likely attributable to an anxiety-like or thigmotactic search strategy.
Impaired working memory after RSD. A, Representative time line of working memory assessment in the MWM. Mice were subjected to six cycles of RSD or left undisturbed as CONs. Working memory was examined for 5 d (D7–D11) after completion of RSD (n = 10). B, In this paradigm, the escape platform was moved to a different quadrant each testing day. C, Representative paths for CON and RSD mice in the MWM on day 3. Velocity (D), latency to the platform (E), distance traveled (F), and percentage time in the outer annulus (G) were determined for all 5 testing days. Graphs represent the mean ± SEM. *p < 0.05, means are significantly different from CONs; #p = 0.06–0.10, means tended to be different from CONs.
RSD impaired spatial memory recall but not acquisition in the MWM
To further assess cognitive functioning, learning and spatial memory recall were examined using another variation of the MWM (Fig. 3A). In this experiment, mice were trained on the MWM to acquire the location of the hidden platform on the first 5 d (acquisition phase, D7–D11) after the six cycles of RSD (Fig. 3B). Then, memory recall was probed by removing the hidden platform on day 6 after RSD (D12). During the 5 d of acquisition, performance was not significantly affected by stress on either latency (F(1,24) = 1.264, p = 0.273; Fig. 3C) or distance (F(1,24) = 0.156, p = 0.697; Fig. 3D) to reach the escape platform. In addition, regardless of stress treatment, performance on the MWM significantly improved across acquisition days on latency to the platform (F(4,21) = 19.12, p < 0.001; Fig. 3C) and distance traveled (F(4,21) = 24.68, p < 0.001; Fig. 3D). This observation confirmed that both groups learned the location of the platform during the acquisition phase. However, during the probe trial, CON mice outperformed the RSD mice in memory recall. Representative paths from the probe trial are shown for CON and RSD mice in Figure 3E. Mice exposed to RSD spent significantly less time in the target quadrant compared with CON mice (p < 0.05; Fig. 3F) during the probe trial (D12). Reduced time in the target quadrant during the probe trial was not attributable to alterations in total distance traveled (p = 0.811; Fig. 3G). Collectively, these results demonstrate impaired spatial memory recall in mice exposed to RSD.
Impaired spatial memory recall in the MWM after RSD. A, Representative time line of learning and memory recall assessments in the MWM. Mice were subjected to six cycles of RSD or left undisturbed as CONs. Learning was examined after the completion of RSD for 5 d (D7–D11), and then memory recall was tested (D12; n = 8). B, In this paradigm, the escape platform remained in the same location each testing day of the acquisition phase but was removed during the probe trial. During the acquisition phase, latency to the platform (C) and distance traveled (D) were determined each of the 5 d of testing. E, Representative search paths of CON and RSD mice during the probe trial (D12). Spatial memory recall was assessed during the probe trial, and distance traveled (F) and percentage of time in the target quadrant (G) were determined. Graphs and bars represent the mean ± SEM. *p < 0.05, means are significantly different from CONs.
Impaired spatial memory recall in the Barnes maze after RSD was not associated with anxiety, impaired encoding, or deficient memory consolidation
Because RSD-induced anxiety-like behavior persists for at least 8 d (Wohleb et al., 2014a), it is possible that decreased time spent in the target quadrant of the MWM was attributable to increased anxiety-like behavior. Moreover, because mice were trained on the maze after exposure to RSD, the apparent impairment in spatial memory may be indicative of deficient encoding rather than impaired recall. To circumvent the possible anxiety- or encoding-related deficits, spatial memory recall was assessed in the Barnes maze. In this design, mice were allowed to learn the location of the escape hole for 4 d before the beginning of RSD. Next, mice were exposed to RSD for 6 d, and memory recall was tested for 2 d either immediately after RSD (D7 and D8) or 28 d later (D34 and D35; Fig. 4A).
Impaired spatial memory recall in the Barnes maze after RSD. A, Representative time line of cognitive assessment in the Barnes maze after RSD. Mice were trained on the Barnes maze to acquire learning before social defeat (Pre-Con and Pre-RSD). Next, mice were subjected to six cycles of RSD or left undisturbed as CONs, and memory recall was determined on D7 and D8. Escape latency (B) and total errors (C) are shown before and after RSD exposure. In a related experiment, mice were used as above, and memory recall was determined at 34 and 35 d. Escape latency (D) and total errors (E) are shown before and after RSD exposure. Lines represent the mean ± SEM. *p < 0.05, means are significantly different from CONs; #p = 0.06–0.10, means tended to be different from CONs.
There were no differences between the groups in escape latency (F(1,17) = 0.005, p = 0.946; Fig. 4B) or number of errors (F(1,17) = 0.115, p = 0.739; Fig. 4C) during acquisition before RSD (pre-CON and pre-RSD). In addition, mice exhibited a day-dependent learning effect on both latency (F(3,15) = 19.72, p < 0.001) and errors (F(3,15) = 9.63, p < 0.001) to find the platform during the acquisition phase. Memory recall was then assessed for 2 consecutive days after the sixth cycle of social defeat (D7 and D8). Across both days, RSD mice showed increased latency to find the escape hole (F(1,17) = 10.82, p < 0.005; Fig. 4B) when compared with the CON mice (p < 0.05; for each day). RSD also increased the number of errors (F(1,17) = 5.96, p < 0.05; Fig. 4C) to reach the escape hole on D7 (p < 0.1) and D8 (p < 0.05). There were no significant day × stress interactions on either latency (F(1,17) = 0.885, p < 0.361) or errors (F(1,17) = 0.588, p < 0.454) during the testing phase (D7 and D8). Together, these data indicate that RSD disrupts short-term memory recall in the Barnes maze.
Next, a similar paradigm was used to test performance in the Barnes maze 28 d after RSD. Mice were allowed to acquire the location of the escape platform for 4 days before RSD. Again, the CON and RSD mice showed no differences in escape latency (F(1,23) = 0.172, p = 0.683; Fig. 4D) or the number of errors during the acquisition phase (F(1,23) = 0.172, p = 0.683; Fig. 4E). In addition, mice exhibited a day-dependent learning effect on both latency (F(3,21) = 42.87, p < 0.001) and errors (F(3,21) = 18.75, p < 0.001) to find the platform during the acquisition phase. Twenty-eight days after the completion of RSD, memory recall was assessed at two time points (D34 and D35). No detectable differences were observed in escape latency (F(1,23) = 0.589, p < 0.453; Fig. 4D) or the number of errors (F(1,23) = 0.219, p < 0.645; Fig. 4E) between the CON and RSD mice. It is important to note that all mice retained a strong memory of the location of the escape hole even 28 d after learning. For instance, performance was improved significantly on D34 and D35 compared with D1 on both latency and distance (p < 0.001 for all). Collectively, these data indicate that RSD caused transient deficits in spatial memory recall in the Barnes maze that were not associated with anxiety-like search strategies, impaired encoding, or deficient consolidation.
The number of proliferating progenitor cells and young neurons in the hippocampus was unchanged 0.5 d after RSD
Cognitive impairments after stress have been associated with inflammation and impaired neurogenesis (Ben Menachem-Zidon et al., 2008). Therefore, the effects of RSD-induced inflammation on neurogenesis were examined. To label proliferating neural progenitor cells (NPCs) in the DG of the hippocampus, BrdU was injected on the last 3 days of RSD, and BrdU+ cells in the DG were determined 0.5 d after the completion of RSD. Figure 5A shows representative images of BrdU labeling in the DG. The total number of BrdU+ cells in the DG did not differ significantly between RSD and CON mice 0.5 d after stress (Fig. 5B).
Number of proliferating progenitor cells and young neurons in the hippocampus remain unchanged 0.5 d after RSD. Mice were subjected to six cycles of RSD or left undisturbed as CONs. BrdU was injected during the last three cycles of social defeat. BrdU+ and DCX+ cells were determined in the DG 0.5 d later (n = 6). A, Representative images of BrdU labeling in the DG for CON and RSD mice. B, Quantification of BrdU labeling in the DG for the entire volume of the hippocampus. C, Representative images of DCX+ neurons in the DG for CON and RSD mice. D, Quantification of DCX labeling in the DG for the entire volume of the hippocampus. E, Representative images of mature and immature DCX+ neurons. F, Quantification of immature DCX labeling and mature DCX labeling. Bars represent the mean ± SEM.
In a related study, the number of cells expressing DCX, an early neuronal marker, in the DG was also determined. Figure 5C shows representative images of DCX labeling in the DG of CON and RSD mice. At 0.5 d after RSD, there was no difference in the number of DCX+ cells between the treatment groups (Fig. 5D). Next, morphological analysis of the DCX+ cells (Zhao et al., 2006) was used to differentiate cells by maturity (i.e., mature vs immature DCX+ cells). Representative images of a DCX-labeled mature and immature neuron are shown (Fig. 5E). Again, there was no significant difference in the number of immature or mature neurons between RSD and CON at 0.5 d after RSD (Fig. 5F). These results indicate that the total number of proliferating cells and the total number of young neurons in the DG were unaffected by RSD at 0.5 d.
Reduced young neurons in the hippocampus 10 d after RSD
These findings indicated no initial difference in the number of new BrdU+ cells 0.5 d after RSD. Nonetheless, the fate of the NPCs may differ with time after RSD. Therefore, to assess the effects of RSD on the phenotypic fate of the hippocampal NPCs, mice were injected with BrdU on the final 3 days of social defeat, and the expression of DCX and BrdU was determined in the DG 10 d after the completion of RSD (Fig. 6).
Reduced proliferating neurons in the hippocampus 10 d after RSD. Mice were subjected to six cycles of RSD or left undisturbed as CONs. BrdU was injected during the last three cycles of social defeat. BrdU+ and DCX+ cells were determined in the DG 10 d later (n = 6). A, Representative images of BrdU/DCX double labeling in the DG are shown. The insets represent a BrdU+/DCX+ cell (yellow) and BrdU+/DCX− cell (green). B, Percentage of BrdU+ cells that were also DCX+ in the DG. Bars represent the mean ± SEM. *p < 0.05. means are significantly different from CON.
Figure 6A shows representative double labeling of BrdU and DCX in the DG 10 d after RSD. The insets highlight a DCX+/BrdU+ cell from a CON (left) and DCX−/BrdU+ cell from an RSD (right) mouse. The proportion of BrdU+ cells that colocalized with DCX+ was reduced in mice exposed to RSD compared with CON mice (p < 0.05; Fig. 6B). Similar to the 0.5 d results, the total number of BrdU+ cells was unaffected by RSD (data not shown). Together, RSD significantly reduced the proportion of NPCs that upregulated the early neuronal marker DCX at 10 d after injection.
Because there was a reduction in the number of BrdU+ cells that co.-localized with the early neuronal marker DCX 10 d after RSD (Fig. 6B), it was possible that RSD may have reduced the neurogenic capacity of the hippocampal NPCs. To test this idea, mice exposed to RSD were injected with BrdU during the last three cycles of social defeat, and the brain was collected and processed 28 d later. This time point allowed enough time for the BrdU-labeled NPCs to fully express mature phenotypic markers (Brown et al., 2003), such as NeuN (mature neurons) or GFAP (astrocytes). BrdU+ cells from sections collected 28 d after RSD were labeled for NeuN (Fig. 7C) and GFAP (Fig. 7E). The total number of BrdU+ cells at this time point was not different between CON and RSD groups (Fig. 7A,B). Nonetheless, the number of BrdU+ cells in the caudal and rostral DG that colocalized with the mature neuronal marker NeuN was reduced in mice exposed to RSD (F(1,18) = 96.54, p < 0.05; Fig. 7C,D). Moreover, this reduction in NeuN+/BrdU+ cells 28 d after RSD was more pronounced in the caudal hippocampus (p < 0.05). No differences were detected in the number of BrdU+ cells that colocalized with GFAP (Fig. 7E,F). Overall, these findings indicate that the neuronal differentiation of NPCs that proliferated during RSD was impaired.
Impaired development of hippocampal NPCs into mature neurons 28 d after RSD. Mice were subjected to six cycles of RSD or left undisturbed as CONs. BrdU was injected during the last three cycles of social defeat. BrdU+, NeuN+, and GFAP+ cells were determined 28 d later (n = 6). A, Representative images of BrdU labeling are shown in the DG. B, Quantification of BrdU+ cells per section of the hippocampus. C, Representative images of NeuN/BrdU labeling are shown in the DG. The arrows show the cell depicted in the inset. D, Quantification of NeuN+/BrdU+ cells per section of the hippocampus with rostral–caudal distinction. E, Representative images of GFAP/BrdU labeling are shown in the DG. The arrows show the cell depicted in the inset. F, Quantification of GFAP+/BrdU+ cells per section of the hippocampus. Bars represent the mean ± SEM. *p < 0.05, means are significantly different from CON.
Social avoidance was maintained 28 d after RSD
Results from the neurogenesis studies here indicate significant reduction in the maturation of NPCs in the caudal hippocampus after RSD. Existing literature on hippocampal anatomy indicates that the caudal hippocampus is involved in emotion and behavior regulation (Fanselow and Dong, 2010). Furthermore, afferents from the ventral hippocampus have been found to regulate depressive-like behavior, as marked by increased social avoidance (Bagot et al., 2015). In line with this finding, previous work from our laboratory and others has shown that RSD increases social avoidance (Wohleb et al., 2013; Donahue et al., 2014). Therefore, to examine the long-term role of RSD-induced impaired neurogenesis on affective functioning (depressive-like behavior), mice were tested on the social avoidance task 28 d after RSD (timeline depicted in Fig. 8A). The test consisted of two trials. Trial 1 consisted of an empty cage (Empty Trial), whereas Trial 2 consisted of a cage housed by a social conspecific (Social Trial; Fig. 8B). There was a significant trial × stress interaction effect on both duration in the interaction zone (F(1,27) = 7.39, p < 0.05; Fig. 8C) and duration in the corner zone (F(1,27) = 9.89, p < 0.01; Fig. 8D). These trial × stress interactions were characterized by significant reduction in social behavior in the RSD group during the Social Trial. For instance, RSD significantly reduced interaction duration (p < 0.05; Fig. 8C) and increased corner duration (p < 0.05; Fig. 8D) during the Social Trial. These results demonstrate RSD-induced social avoidance that persisted at least 28 d after RSD.
Social avoidance behavior was present 28 d after RSD. Mice were subjected to six cycles of RSD or left undisturbed as CONs, and social interaction was determined 28 d later (n = 14). A, Representative time line of the experiment is shown. B, Interaction paths are shown for the Empty (Trial 1, top) and Social (Trial 2, bottom) trials. C, Time spent in the interaction zone during the Empty and Social Trials. D, Time spent in the corner zone during the Empty and Social Trials. Bars represent the mean ± SEM. *p < 0.05, means are significantly different from all other groups.
Our results indicate that microglia activation, monocyte recruitment, and neuroinflammatory signaling are temporally associated with spatial memory impairments and co-occur in brain regions that mediate spatial learning and memory. Thus, minocycline, an anti-inflammatory agent and purported microglia inhibitor (Henry et al., 2008), was used to determine the role of neuroinflammation in each of these stress-induced events. First, to assess the effect of minocycline on neuroinflammatory signaling in the DG, microglial Iba-1 expression was determined. In vehicle-treated mice, RSD altered microglia morphology that was characterized by increased soma size and thickened cell processes (Fig. 9A). This change in morphology was associated with a significant increase in Iba-1 proportional area. For instance, there was a significant main effect of condition on Iba-1 proportional area (F(2,9) = 6.79, p < 0.05) that was characterized by a significant increase in vehicle-treated RSD mice (p < 0.05; Fig. 9B) that was not detected in minocycline-treated RSD mice (p = 0.765). Thus, RSD increased Iba-1 proportional area that was blocked by minocycline.
Minocycline intervention attenuated RSD-induced microglia activation and monocyte recruitment. Mice were subjected to six cycles of RSD or left undisturbed as CONs. Minocycline (90 mg/kg) was administered in drinking water throughout the 6 d of RSD. A, Representative images of Iba-1 labeling in the DG are shown. B, Proportional area quantification of Iba-1. C, Representative images of CD45 labeling in the DG are shown. B, Quantification of CD45+ cells. E, A coronal brain section was collected 14 h after the last cycle of stress, and the mRNA level of IL-1β was determined. Bars represent mean ± SEM. *p < 0.05, means are significantly different from CON.
Because previous work has implicated RSD-induced microglia activation in the recruitment of inflammatory monocytes to the brain (Wohleb et al., 2014b), the effect of minocycline on the presence of CD45+ monocytes in the brain was determined next. As reported here previously, RSD appeared to increase brain monocytes in vehicle-treated mice (Fig. 9C). Consistent with this finding, there was a significant effect of condition on CD45+ cell number (F(2,17) = 3.63, p = 0.052; Fig. 9D), with a significant increase in vehicle-treated RSD mice (p < 0.05) that was not detected in minocycline-treated RSD mice (p = 0.886). Next, IL-1β mRNA was determined in the brain after RSD. There was a significant main effect of condition on IL-1β mRNA (F(2,24) = 6.12, p < 0.01; Fig. 9E), with a significant increase in vehicle-treated RSD mice (p < 0.01) that was not detected in minocycline-treated RSD mice (p = 0.564). These results indicate that minocycline inhibited microglia activation and prevented monocyte recruitment to the brain after RSD.
Minocycline prevented spatial memory impairments after RSD
Next, the effect of minocycline treatment on stress-induced memory deficits was determined. To do this, mice were trained on the Barnes maze for 4 d before being exposed to RSD with or without minocycline treatment. Mice were then tested for spatial memory recall at 1 and 2 d after RSD (Fig. 10A). The groups showed no difference in latency (F(2,19) = 0.621, p = 0.549; Fig. 10B) or errors (F(2,19) = 518, p = 0.606; Fig. 10C) during the acquisition phase. However, during the testing phase, there was a significant effect of condition on latency (F(2,19) = 5.606, p < 0.05; Fig. 10B) and errors (F(2,19) = 4.079, p < 0.05; Fig. 10C), in which vehicle-treated RSD mice exhibited increased latency and errors on all testing days (p < 0.05 for all) but minocycline-treated RSD mice did not (p > 0.40, for all). These data show that inhibition of neuroinflammatory activation by minocycline prevented RSD-induced spatial memory recall deficits.
Minocycline prevented spatial memory impairments after RSD. Mice were trained on the Barnes maze to acquire learning before social defeat (Pre-Veh CON, Pre-Veh RSD, and Pre-Mino RSD). The Pre-Mino RSD group received minocycline (90 mg/kg) in drinking water 1 d before RSD and continued throughout the RSD period. Mice were subjected to six cycles of social defeat (Veh RSD and Mino RSD) or left undisturbed as CONs (Veh CON), and memory recall was determined on D7 and D8. A, Representative time line of cognitive assessment in the Barnes maze after RSD (n = 6–9). Escape latency (B) and errors (C) are shown before and after RSD exposure. *p < 0.05, means are significantly different from CON mice; #p = 0.06, mean tended to be different from CONs.
Minocycline did not prevent persistent social avoidance or long-term deficits in NPC differentiation
We show that RSD has a long-term effect on social avoidance and neuronal cell fate. Therefore, we next sought to determine whether minocycline blocked the effects of RSD on social behavior and NPC differentiation. To do this, mice were administered minocycline during RSD and were injected with BrdU over the last three cycles of social defeat. Then, social behavior was determined 28 d later, and brains were collected for BrdU immunohistochemistry (Fig. 11A). As reported previously (Wohleb et al., 2014a), there was a significant effect of trial on interaction time (F(1,20) = 6.214, p < 0.05; Fig. 11B), in which CON mice spent significantly more time in interaction in the Social Trial compared with the Empty Trial (p < 0.05). This social preference was not detected in either vehicle-treated (p = 0.833) or minocycline-treated (p = 0.594) RSD mice. Thus, treatment with minocycline did not prevent reduced social preference in RSD mice. Next, hippocampal brain sections were labeled for BrdU and NeuN. As shown previously, the majority of BrdU+ cells in CON mice started expressing the mature neuronal marker (NeuN) by this 28 d time point, and this neuronal differentiation appeared to again be attenuated by RSD (Fig. 11C). Analysis of these differences revealed a main effect of condition on the percentage of BrdU+ cells that were NeuN+ (F(1,19) = 5.287, p < 0.05; Fig. 11D), in which both vehicle-treated (p < 0.05) and minocycline-treated (p < 0.01) RSD mice showed significant reduction compared with vehicle CON mice. Thus, long-term deficits in social behavior and NPC differentiation after RSD were not prevented by minocycline treatment.
Minocycline did not prevent persistent social avoidance or long-term deficits in NPC differentiation. Mice were subjected to six cycles of RSD or left undisturbed as CONs. Minocycline (90 mg/kg) was administered in drinking water throughout the 6 d of RSD. All mice received BrdU injections (50 mg/kg) during the last three cycles of RSD. Then, 28 d later, social behavior was determined (D34). A, Representative time line of experimental manipulations (n = 6–9). B, Time spent in the interaction zone during the Empty and Social Trials was examined. C, Representative images of NeuN and BrdU labeling in the DG. The arrows show the cell depicted in the inset. D, Quantification of NeuN+/BrdU+ cells in the DG. Data represent the mean ± SEM. *p < 0.05, means are significantly different from CON mice.
Discussion
We extend our previous findings on stress and neuroinflammation to show that RSD caused pronounced microglia activation and monocyte recruitment within the caudal hippocampus. These changes were associated with disruptions in hippocampal-dependent cognition, as evidenced by impaired spatial memory recall. Moreover, RSD caused long-term disruptions in the differentiation of NPCs into neurons at 10 and 28 d after RSD. Parallel with neuroinflammatory activation, the reduction in neuronal maturation was more pronounced in the caudal hippocampus 28 d after RSD, at which point social avoidance behavior was also maintained. This is relevant because the caudal hippocampus is a key regulator of mood and certain depressive-like behaviors, such as social avoidance (Lehmann et al., 2013). The role of neuroinflammatory activation in behavioral and neuronal effects of RSD was delineated using minocycline intervention. Minocycline prevented microglia activation and monocyte recruitment within the hippocampus. In addition, minocycline prevented spatial memory deficits after RSD but did not prevent social avoidance behavior or deficits in NPC differentiation. These data highlight neuroinflammatory-dependent and -independent behavioral deficits after RSD. Together, RSD induced neuroinflammatory signaling in the hippocampus, and inhibition of this signaling prevented stress-induced memory impairments independent of neurogenesis.
A novel finding of this study was the increased presence of CD45+ monocytes in the hippocampus after RSD. We reported previously that GFP+ monocytes infiltrate into the hippocampus of bone marrow-chimeric mice (Wohleb et al., 2013). Here we confirm these findings in wild-type mice that were not exposed to myeloablation, thus avoiding chimera-associated variability that could influence the percentage of cells entering the CNS parenchyma. Notably, however, myeloablation by low dose busulfan is not associated with artifactual monocyte recruitment (Kierdorf et al., 2013; Wohleb et al., 2013). Overall, we have consistently detected an influx of CD11b+/CD45hi/Ly6C+ monocytes into the brain of wild-type mice after RSD (Wohleb et al., 2011, 2013, 2014a,c). Here, labeling of CD45+ cells confirmed that the number of monocytes in the hippocampus was increased 0.5 d after RSD. In addition, this increase in monocyte recruitment was pronounced in the caudal hippocampus, which corresponded with higher Iba-1 immunoreactivity of microglia. Consistent with previous studies (Wohleb et al., 2013; Sawicki et al., 2015), the increased presence of macrophages and de-ramified microglia in the hippocampus were associated with elevated mRNA expression of IL-1β, TNFα, and IL-6. Because of the relative infrequency of brain macrophages compared with microglia in naive mice, microglia are the primary producers of cytokine mRNA under homeostasis. However, our previous studies suggest that monocyte trafficking during RSD can propagate and enhance cytokine signaling in the brain (Wohleb et al., 2013). Thus, enhanced cytokine mRNA expression in the hippocampus with RSD is driven collectively by microglia activation and monocyte recruitment. Overall, these data reflect pronounced neuroinflammatory activation within the hippocampus after RSD.
Another key finding of the study was that RSD caused impairments in spatial memory performance in the MWM and the Barnes maze. In the MWM, deficits were detected during the probe trial but not during the learning phase, which is indicative of impaired memory recall (Morris, 1984). Notably, moderately impaired performance was also detected in the working memory version of the MWM in the first 3 d after RSD. Nonetheless, the interpretation of these results was confounded by anxiety-like search patterns observed in the mice during testing. Based on this confound, we aimed to distinguish stress-induced memory impairment from stress-induced anxiety. Therefore, mice were trained to locate the escape hole during the acquisition phase of the Barnes maze before RSD. The recall test was performed 1 and 2 d after the last cycle of social defeat. Mice exposed to RSD exhibited impaired memory recall, indicated by increased latency and errors while locating the escape hole. When tested 28 and 29 d after RSD, the mice no longer showed deficits in memory recall. Together, RSD induced a transient impairment in spatial memory recall that was independent of anxiety and best detected using the Barnes maze assay.
A novel aspect of this study was that RSD reduced the neuronal cell fate of NPCs that proliferated during stress exposure. Surprisingly, RSD did not reduce the proliferation of NPCs or the number of young neurons in the DG. Impaired neurogenesis was evident during fate-mapping of proliferating cells. This revealed that RSD significantly reduced the number of DCX+/BrdU+ cells 10 d after RSD. Furthermore, the number of BrdU+ cells that matured into neurons (NeuN+/BrdU+) was reduced 28 d after RSD. Thus, RSD did not affect the number of proliferating NPCs initially but did reduce the total number of NPCs maturing into neurons that were incorporated into the dentate circuitry.
It is important to note the temporal mismatch between memory deficits and deficits in neurogenesis. For instance, the spatial memory deficits were transient and no longer present 28 d after RSD. It is likely that neuroinflammatory activation (e.g., increased IL-1β), more so than altered neurogenesis, contributes to impaired spatial memory. This possibility is underscored by minocycline treatment, which attenuated memory deficits after RSD but had no effect on NPC cell fate. Alteration in physiological levels of IL-1β has also been shown to impair memory in fear conditioning paradigms (Goshen et al., 2007) and promote hippocampal monocyte trafficking (Liu et al., 2015). A prevailing hypothesis is that stress-induced cognitive deficits are attributable to impairments in neurogenesis (McEwen, 1999). The mismatch between acute memory recall deficits and impaired NPC differentiation shown here are inconsistent with this hypothesis. Nonetheless, these data are evidence for ongoing, cumulative effects of RSD on neuronal plasticity. Myriad studies report a reduction in the number of neurons and proliferating NPCs with stress. For example, 4 weeks of chronic isolation stress reduced the number of DCX+ cells in the DG and impaired several measures of learning and memory in an IL-1 receptor-dependent manner (Ben Menachem-Zidon et al., 2008). The 4 week span in the study allows enough time for cells to differentiate into neurons and be incorporated into circuitry. This report aligns with our current finding of impaired neuronal maturation in the DG 28 d after RSD. It is likely that neurogenesis has more profound behavioral implications in stress models that persist at least 4 weeks. Nonetheless, the long-term cognitive affect of RSD-induced impaired neurogenesis is yet to be fully determined.
An important point for discussion is that increased number of monocytes and microglial activation after RSD spatially co-occurred with reduced NPC maturation in the caudal hippocampus. This selective reduction in neurogenesis in the caudal hippocampus after social stress has been reported previously (Lehmann et al., 2013). Notably, there is a functional dichotomy between the rostral and the caudal hippocampus in cognitive and affective processing (Fanselow and Dong, 2010). The rostral hippocampus is involved in learning, memory, and navigation (Fanselow and Dong, 2010), whereas the caudal hippocampus is involved with the regulation of mood states such as depression. The caudal hippocampus projects to the prefrontal cortex, bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, and subcortical structures associated with the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis that can indirectly influence learning and memory efficiency (Bannerman et al., 2004). These observations align with the expectation that the caudal rather than rostral hippocampus would exhibit enhanced neuronal activation with stress, leading to region-specific neuroinflammatory activation and altered NPC cell fate.
Previous work shows that social defeat causes persistent social avoidance (Wohleb et al., 2013; Donahue et al., 2014) that is interpreted as depressive-like behavior (Berton et al., 2006; Krishnan et al., 2007; Golden et al., 2011; Ramirez et al., 2015). The association between reduced neurogenesis, elevated inflammation, and increased depressive-like behavior has also been shown in previous studies (Yirmiya and Goshen, 2011; Dinel et al., 2014). Here, we report maintenance of RSD-induced social avoidance and reduction in the number of newly matured neurons, both of which were unaltered by minocycline. These findings suggest that social avoidance observed 28 d after RSD is unrelated to neuroinflammatory signaling and may be related to reduced neurogenesis in the hippocampus. This observation is consistent with our previous report that a single cycle of social defeat is sufficient to induce social avoidance (Wohleb et al., 2014a) without inducing neuroinflammatory activation (Wohleb et al., 2013).
In summary, RSD promoted hippocampal neuroinflammatory activation that was characterized by increased expression of proinflammatory gene expression along with pronounced microglia activation and monocyte recruitment within the caudal hippocampus. In addition, RSD impaired neurogenesis via reduced neuronal cell fate of NPCs rather than reduced proliferation that is typically reported with stress. Neuroinflammatory activation and impaired NPC differentiation in the hippocampus corresponded with transient spatial memory deficits and persistent social avoidance behavior, respectively. Minocycline prevented RSD-induced neuroinflammatory activation, resulting in a rescue of memory deficits but did not prevent social avoidance or alter impaired NPC cell fate. Collectively, these studies revealed a dichotomy of stress-induced behaviors that were either dependent on neuroinflammatory activation, such as anxiety and memory deficits, or independent of neuroinflammation, such as social avoidance behavior.
Footnotes
This study was supported by National Institute of Health Grants R01-MH-093473 and R01-MH093472 (J.F.S.) and National Institute of Aging Grant R01-AG033028 (J.P.G.). D.B.M. was supported by National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research Training Grant T32-DE014320. We thank Daniel Shea and Kyle Atcheson for their technical assistance.
References
(1995) Impairment of spatial but not contextual memory in CaMKII mutant mice with a selective loss of hippocampal LTP in the range of the theta frequency. Cell81:905–915, doi:10.1016/0092-8674(95)90010-1, pmid:7781067.
(2014) Inflammation early in life is a vulnerability factor for emotional behavior at adolescence and for lipopolysaccharide-induced spatial memory and neurogenesis alteration at adulthood. J Neuroinflamm11:155, doi:10.1186/s12974-014-0155-x, pmid:25224537.
(2015) Social defeat promotes a reactive endothelium in a brain region-dependent manner with increased expression of key adhesion molecules, selectins and chemokines associated with the recruitment of myeloid cells to the brain. Neuroscience302:151–164, doi:10.1016/j.neuroscience.2014.10.004, pmid:25445193.
(2014a) Re-establishment of anxiety in stress-sensitized mice is caused by monocyte trafficking from the spleen to the brain. Biol Psychiatry75:970–981, doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2013.11.029, pmid:24439304.
(2014b) Monocyte trafficking to the brain with stress and inflammation: a novel axis of immune-to-brain communication that influences mood and behavior. Front Neurosci8:447, doi:10.3389/fnins.2014.00447, pmid:25653581.
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Canadian Criminal Law/Offences/Obtaining Property by False Pretences
False pretence or false statement
362. (1) Every one commits an offence who
(a) by a false pretence, whether directly or through the medium of a contract obtained by a false pretence, obtains anything in respect of which the offence of theft may be committed or causes it to be delivered to another person;
(b) obtains credit by a false pretence or by fraud;
(c) knowingly makes or causes to be made, directly or indirectly, a false statement in writing with intent that it should be relied on, with respect to the financial condition or means or ability to pay of himself or herself or any person or organization that he or she is interested in or that he or she acts for, for the purpose of procuring, in any form whatever, whether for his or her benefit or the benefit of that person or organization,
(i) the delivery of personal property,
(ii) the payment of money,
(iii) the making of a loan,
(iv) the grant or extension of credit,
(v) the discount of an account receivable, or
(vi) the making, accepting, discounting or endorsing of a bill of exchange, cheque, draft or promissory note; or
(d) knowing that a false statement in writing has been made with respect to the financial condition or means or ability to pay of himself or herself or another person or organization that he or she is interested in or that he or she acts for, procures on the faith of that statement, whether for his or her benefit or for the benefit of that person or organization, anything mentioned in subparagraphs (c)(i) to (vi).
Punishment
(2) Every one who commits an offence under paragraph (1)(a)
(a) is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to a term of imprisonment not exceeding ten years, where the property obtained is a testamentary instrument or the value of what is obtained exceeds five thousand dollars; or
(b) is guilty
(i) of an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years, or
(ii) of an offence punishable on summary conviction,
where the value of what is obtained does not exceed five thousand dollars.Idem
(3) Every one who commits an offence under paragraph (1)(b), (c) or (d) is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years.Presumption from cheque issued without funds
(4) Where, in proceedings under paragraph (1)(a), it is shown that anything was obtained by the accused by means of a cheque that, when presented for payment within a reasonable time, was dishonoured on the ground that no funds or insufficient funds were on deposit to the credit of the accused in the bank or other institution on which the cheque was drawn, it shall be presumed to have been obtained by a false pretence, unless the court is satisfied by evidence that when the accused issued the cheque he believed on reasonable grounds that it would be honoured if presented for payment within a reasonable time after it was issued.Definition of “cheque”
(5) In this section, “cheque” includes, in addition to its ordinary meaning, a bill of exchange drawn on any institution that makes it a business practice to honour bills of exchange or any particular kind thereof drawn on it by depositors.
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2 comments:
Don't forget the free antibiotic deal. For some reason, I am now plagued with recurring UTIs. My Cipro is free. And I need to take it regularly. Refilling it once a month wouldn't be a huge cost because it's generic. But free is still better than three bucks!
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Top Paw Play Float Ring Dog Toy
This Top Paw Play Float Ring promises to be a favorite of your dog in the water or on land. Your dog will love this durable light toy, which floats and bounces and is perfect for the kind of spirited play your canine companion enjoys. Only at PetSmart. Features: Floats and bounces Includes: 1 Toy Intended For: Dogs Activity: Chew, Fetch Color: Green, Blue Size: 5.75 in x 5.75 in Advice for Use: Observe your pet's behavior with the toy for suitability. Some toys may be inappropriate for your pet. Remove and replace the toy if it becomes damaged. Caution: Ingestion of this product can result in serious injury.
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Jumbo Imitation Eagle Wings, 13"-15" Bulk
(1/2 lb pk)
Product No. 1051-015-993
$47.75
Normally: $47.75
In Stock
Unit:
Product Details
Priced per 1/2 pound; Approximately 210 per pound.
With black dyed tips, our Imitation Eagle Feathers are the best quality for the money. Available in Bulk (un-selected) at considerable savings, or in Hand Select for best quality, size and shape. Furnished in 1/2 rights and 1/2 lefts. Terrific for war bonnets, fans, bustles and other feather projects!
Feather Crafts Tip
The most comprehensive work ever produced in print about the plains warbonnet, by Barry Hardin, published by Crazy Crow Trading Post. Filled with color images and descriptions of museum examples, as well as historic photos. Large photos and color illustrations take you step by step through making a variety of authentic styles. This book addresses this misconception and other fascinating myths and realities pertaining to the warbonnet, including its evolution. Softcover, 128 pg, 130+ photos (most color), 35+ color illustrations.Product Detail & "Inside View" >>
Today, feathers often have broken tips; however, this is normally not a problem because in most cases this flimsy tip should be trimmed off before use in order to strengthen it. These quality issues are due in part to the way turkeys are raised, as well as increasing government regulations, fewer suppliers and fewer processors of raw feathers. We furnish our special, fully-illustrated "Feather Preparation Tips" sheet free with all Wing Feather Orders. To help you prepare your imitation eagle feathers for the best possible results in bonnet construction, we offer these online Imitation Eagle Turkey Feather Preparation TipsGo to Article >>
Our Story
Our goal is to provide the best quality products at fair and competitive prices, while bringing you, the customer, the very best service in the industry. Since beginning in 1970, the goal of Crazy Crow Trading Post has been to provide the best quality products at fair and competitive prices, while bringing you the very best service in the industry. As our business has grown, we have been able to have many unique items manufactured around the world. Many of these are authentic reproductions of original trade goods which, prior to our production, had not been available for many years.
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What New Yorkers Think About Atheists' Anti-'Christ in Christmas' Billboard
American Atheists have a electronic billboard near Pennsylvania Station in New York City saying that "Christ" should be taken out of Christmas since "nobody" needs him.
On December 17, MRCTV's Dan Joseph set out on an expedition to the Big Apple to ask New Yorkers whether they think we should take Christ out of Christmas. The responses will surprise you. Check it out.
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Middle River
Middle River is a small South Australian unbounded locality within the local government area of Kangaroo Island, it is located approximately 162kms from the capital Adelaide. Middle River is within the Australian Central Daylight Time zone Australia/Adelaide.
If you are planning a visit to Middle River we’ve put together some of the things nearby that you can see or do while you are here. These include, places to stay, tours and attractions, some upcoming events and places where you can grab a meal. Go ahead, try one of the buttons above. Every destination has something worth seeing so start exploring… If you know Middle River and think we’ve missed something, let us know and we’ll share it here.
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Manage Your Money
One of the most important life skills students can learn is basic money management. Click on the links below to learn more about paying for college, managing your finances, creating a budget, credit cards, establishing good credit, preventing financial fraud, and identity theft.
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Robust Error Metric Analysis for Noise Estimation in Image Indexing
In many computer vision algorithms, the well known Euclidean or SSD (sum of the squared differences) metric is prevalent and justified from a maximum likelihood perspective when the additive noise is Gaussian. However, Gaussian noise distribution assumption is often invalid. Previous research has found that other metrics such as double exponential metric or Cauchy metric provide better results, in accordance with the maximum likelihood approach. In this paper, we examine different error metrics and provide a general guideline to derive a rich set of nonlinear estimations. Our results on image databases show more robust results are obtained for noise estimation based on the proposed error metric analysis.
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Georgia's Mark Richt might be in line for a raise
ATHENS, Ga. — Georgia finished ranked in the top five in the nation in both major polls, but Mark Richt is not among the five highest-paid Southeastern Conference coaches.
That could change.
Richt, who got a contract extension last off-season but no raise, could get a boost to his $2.81 million annual salary at Georgia’s Athletic Association board meeting in February.
“The president and I will have that discussion,” Georgia athletic director Greg McGarity said Tuesday about talks with university president Michael Adams. “I’m sure we’ll deal with all of football in total and probably have something to say about that at our upcoming February board meeting.”
Arkansas coach Bret Bielema was recently hired at an annual salary of $3.2 million, and Tennessee will pay its new coach, Butch Jones, $2.9 million a year. They rank in the SEC behind only Alabama’s Nick Saban ($5.32 million), Louisiana State University’s Les Miles ($3.75 million) and South Carolina’s Steve Spurrier ($3.55 million), according to reports. James Franklin’s salary at Vanderbilt has been reported to be approximately $3 million, but the private school does not release salary figures.
Richt’s performance bonuses were doubled when his contract was reworked and extended through the 2016 season.
He received $150,000 for winning the SEC East, $100,000 for reaching the Capital One Bowl and $100,000 for finishing in the top five.
Georgia lost to Alabama in the SEC title game but was 5 yards away from playing for the BCS crown.
Georgia finished 12-2 and No. 4 in the coaches’ poll and tied for fifth in the Associated Press poll.
Richt is 118-40 at Georgia entering his 13th season.
“I think Mark has done a tremendous job and obviously any time you win 12 games in a season and 22 over two years is a tremendous accomplishment,” McGarity said. “Mark continues to lead our program in an outstanding manner. We’ll just talk through those things in our board meeting coming up.”
Offensive coordinator Mike Bobo, who drew interest from Virginia Tech for the same position on its staff and was a finalist for the Broyles Award for nation’s top assistant, is already expected to get a raise. Raises for the rest of the staff also could be coming.
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28 December - Joint statement by the UN in Syria, the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and the International Committee of the Red Cross 26 December - Statement attributable to the Spokesperson for the Special Envoy for Syria11 December - International Syria Support Group meeting24 November: Statement attributable to the spokesperson of the United Nations Special Envoy for Syria14 November - Statement of the International Syria Support Group
Vienna, November 14, 2015
Meeting in Vienna on November 14, 2015 as the International Syria Support Group (ISSG), the Arab League, China, Egypt, the EU, France, Germany, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United Nations, and the United States to discuss how to accelerate an end to the Syrian conflict. The participants began with a moment of silence for the victims of the heinous terrorist attacks of November 13 in Paris and the recent attacks in Beirut, Iraq, Ankara, and Egypt. The members unanimously condemned in the strongest terms these brutal attacks against innocent civilians and stood with the people of France.
Subsequently, the participants engaged in a constructive dialogue to build upon the progress made in the October 30 gathering. The members of the ISSG expressed a unanimous sense of urgency to end the suffering of the Syrian people, the physical destruction of Syria, the destabilization of the region, and the resulting increase in terrorists drawn to the fighting in Syria.
The ISSG acknowledged the close linkage between a cease fire and a parallel political process pursuant to the 2012 Geneva Communique, and that both initiatives should move ahead expeditiously. They stated their commitment to ensure a Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political transition based on the Geneva Communique in its entirety. The group reached a common understanding on several key issues.
The group agreed to support and work to implement a nationwide cease fire in Syria to come into effect as soon as the representatives of the Syrian government and the opposition have begun initial steps towards the transition under UN auspices on the basis of the Geneva Communique. The five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council pledged to support a UNSC resolution to empower a UN-endorsed cease fire monitoring mission in those parts of the country where monitors would not come under threat of attacks from terrorists, and to support a political transition process in accordance with the Geneva Communique.
All members of the ISSG also pledged as individual countries and supporters of various belligerents to take all possible steps to require adherence to the cease fire by these groups or individuals they support, supply or influence. The cease fire would not apply to offensive or defensive actions against Da’esh or Nusra or any other group the ISSG agrees to deem terrorist.
The participants welcomed UN Secretary General Ban’s statement that he has ordered the UN to accelerate planning for supporting the implementation of a nationwide cease fire. The group agreed that the UN should lead the effort, in consultation with interested parties, to determine the requirements and modalities of a cease fire.
The ISSG expressed willingness to take immediate steps to encourage confidence-building measures that would contribute to the viability of the political process and to pave the way for the nationwide cease fire. In this context, and pursuant to clause 5 of the Vienna Communique, the ISSG discussed the need to take steps to ensure expeditious humanitarian access throughout the territory of Syria pursuant to UNSCR 2165 and called for the granting of the UN’s pending requests for humanitarian deliveries. The ISSG expressed concern for the plight of refugees and internally displaced persons and the imperative of building conditions for their safe return in accordance with the norms of international humanitarian law and taking into account the interests of host countries. The resolution of the refugee issue is important to the final settlement of the Syrian conflict. The ISSG also reaffirmed the devastating effects of the use of indiscriminate weapons on the civilian population and humanitarian access, as stated in UNSCR 2139. The ISSG agreed to press the parties to end immediately any use of such indiscriminate weapons.
The ISSG reaffirmed the importance of abiding byall relevant UN Security Council resolutions, including UNSCR 2199 on stopping the illegal trade in oil, antiquities and hostages, from which terrorists benefit.
Pursuant to the 2012 Geneva Communique, incorporated by reference in the Vienna statement of October 30, and in U.N. Security Council Resolution 2118, the ISSG agreed on the need to convene Syrian government and opposition representatives in formal negotiations under UN auspices, as soon as possible, with a target date of January 1. The group welcomed efforts, working with United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura and others, to bring together the broadest possible spectrum of the opposition, chosen by Syrians, who will decide their negotiating representatives and define their negotiating positions, so as to enable the political process to begin. All the parties to the political process should adhere to the guiding principles identified at the October 30 meeting, including a commitment to Syria’s unity, independence, territorial integrity, and non-sectarian character; to ensuring that State institutions remain intact; and to protecting the rights of all Syrians, regardless of ethnicity or religious denomination. ISSG members agreed that these principles are fundamental.
The ISSG members reaffirmed their support for the transition process contained in the2012 Geneva Communique. In this respect they affirmed their support for a cease fire as described above and for a Syrian-led process that will, within a target of six months, establish credible, inclusive and non-sectarian governance, and set a schedule and process for drafting a new constitution. Free and fair elections would be held pursuant to the new constitution within 18 months. Theseelections must be administered under UN supervision to the satisfaction of the governance and to the highest international standards of transparency and accountability, with all Syrians, including the diaspora, eligible to participate.
Regarding the fight against terrorism, and pursuant to clause 6 of the Vienna Communique, the ISSG reiterated that Da’esh, Nusra, and other terrorist groups, as designated by the UN Security Council, and further, as agreed by the participants and endorsed by the UN Security Council, must be defeated. The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan agreed to help develop among intelligence and military community representatives a common understanding of groups and individuals for possible determination as terrorists, with a target of completion by the beginning of the political process under UN auspices.
The participants expect to meet in approximately one month in order to review progress towards implementation of a cease fire and the beginning of the political process.
6 November - Statement attributable to the Spokesperson of the Special Envoy for Syria30 October - Vienna Communique on Syria
Meeting in Vienna, on October 30, 2015, China, Egypt, the EU, France, Germany, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United Nations, and the United States [“the participants”] came together to discuss the grave situation in Syria and how to bring about an end to the violence as soon as possible.
The participants had a frank and constructive discussion, covering major issues. While substantial differences remain among the participants, they reached a mutual understanding on the following:
3) The rights of all Syrians, regardless of ethnicity or religious denomination, must be protected.
4) It is imperative to accelerate all diplomatic efforts to end the war.
5) Humanitarian access will be ensured throughout the territory of Syria, and the participants will increase support for internally displaced persons, refugees, and their host countries.
6) Da'esh, and other terrorist groups, as designated by the U.N. Security Council, and further, as agreed by the participants, must be defeated.
7) Pursuant to the 2012 Geneva Communique and U.N. Security Council Resolution 2118, the participants invited the U.N. to convene representatives of the Government of Syria and the Syrian opposition for a political process leading to credible, inclusive, non-sectarian governance, followed by a new constitution and elections. These elections must be administered under U.N. supervision to the satisfaction of the governance and to the highest international standards of transparency and accountability, free and fair, with all Syrians, including the diaspora, eligible to participate.
8) This political process will be Syrian led and Syrian owned, and the Syrian people will decide the future of Syria.
9) The participants together with the United Nations will explore modalities for, and implementation of, a nationwide ceasefire to be initiated on a date certain and in parallel with this renewed political process.
The participants will spend the coming days working to narrow remaining areas of disagreement, and build on areas of agreement. Ministers will reconvene within two weeks to continue these discussions.
2 October - Statement Attributable to the Spokesperson of the Special Envoy for Syria, Mr. Staffan de Mistura22 September - Statement attributable to the Spokesperson of the Special Envoy for Syria
As part of the implementation of the initiative set out by Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura before the Security Council on 29 July 2015 and endorsed by the Council in its Presidential Statement of 17 August 2015 (S/PRST/2015/15), the Special Envoy and his Deputy Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy met over the last two days with the following facilitators appointed by the Secretary-General to head the intra-Syrian thematic working groups, under the direction of the Special Envoy:
Mr. Jan Egeland as facilitator for the Safety and Protection thematic Working Group; Mr. Nicolas Michel as facilitator for the Political and Legal Issues thematic Working Group; Mr. Volker Perthes as facilitator for the Military, Security and Counterterrorism thematic Working Group; and Ms. Birgitta Holst Alani as facilitator for the Continuity of Public Services, Reconstruction and Development thematic Working Group.
They discussed draft agendas with a view to ensuring coordination and parallel progress of the Working Groups.
Mr. de Mistura has just returned from consultations with Syrian interlocutors most recently in Damascus and Istanbul. These visits complement ongoing OSE outreach to regional capitals and elsewhere. The Special Envoy is now heading to NY to carry these discussions forward in the margins of the General Assembly.
“The Working Groups are intended to provide Syrians with a platform to address in-depth themes that are certainly not new, but have lacked to date sustained intra-Syrian discussion. It is hoped that their outcomes could eventually set the stage for a Syrian agreement to end the conflict on the basis of the Geneva Communique,” Mr. de Mistura said.
While the participation of Syrians is central for this process to move forward, the Security Council has also “emphasised the need for robust international and regional assistance” in support of the efforts of the Special Envoy.
Mr. de Mistura will continue consultations with relevant actors to accelerate such support. “This is the defining humanitarian challenge of our times,” he reiterated. “The Syrians deserve that we move faster towards a political solution”.
13 September - Statement of the Special Envoy for Syria to the Ministerial meeting of the League of Arab States
10 September - Statement attributable to the Spokesperson for the United Nations Special Envoy for Syria1st September - Special Envoy for Syria met with the Deputy Foreign Minister of Arab African Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran17 August - Special Envoy for Syria condemned yesterday's air raids on the town of Duma 14 August - Special Envoy for Syria condemns shelling of Damascus Suburbs12 August - Special Envoy for Syria welcomes the release of human rights activist and journalist5 August - Secretary-General encouraged by Security Council’s support for latest proposal on Syria5 August - Special Envoy explains his proposal on thematic discussions29 July - Remarks by the Secretary-General to the Security Council on the situation in Syria29 July - Special Envoy for Syria briefs Security Council on the situation in Syria
23 July22 July21 July20 July15 July14 July13 July11 July10 July2 July26 & 27 June25 & 26 June19 June18 June16 June15 June11 June10 June9 June8 June5 June
Within the framework of the ongoing Geneva Consultations, Deputy Special Envoy Ramzy Ezzeldine Ramzy met today in Geneva with representatives of the Union of Syriac Women and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), who briefed on the situation in Syria. They discussed ways to support people in Syria in their daily humanitarian needs. Mr. Ramzy also discussed with the representatives of the Union of Syriac Women perspectives on a political solution to the Syrian conflict which could meet the needs of diverse components, which make up integral parts of the Syrian society.
At the end of today's meetings, Mr. Ramzy stressed that, "all should put their differences aside to ensure that aid reaches all those in need, but ultimately only a political solution would allow to address the deepening humanitarian crisis in a sustainable manner." While highlighting the urgent need for a political solution to the Syrian conflict, he added that, "it is critical that women organizations are included in any political process, fully participate in it and contribute to it".
4 June2 June1 June30 May29 May28 May27 May24 May
On 24 May, Mr. de Mistura met with a delegation of the Assyrian Democratic Organization, and the Syrian Turkmen Council. He shared views with them on a political solution in Syria and the ongoing conflict on the ground. "Today I heard again about the importance of preserving Syria's social fabric and taking into account the diverse views from all corners of the country," Mr. de Mistura said. He stressed that "the United Nations will continue supporting efforts towards an all-inclusive Syrian-led political process." 22 May21 May12 May
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Comments for Augusta University College of Educationhttp://coenews.augusta.edu
Prepared, able, and responsiveMon, 09 Jan 2017 22:44:35 +0000hourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.4Comment on Education professor wins university’s teaching excellence award by Kimberly Hendrixhttp://coenews.augusta.edu/archives/1658#comment-1093
Mon, 09 Jan 2017 22:44:35 +0000http://coenews.gru.edu/?p=1658#comment-1093Could not be a better recipitent for this. Education has always been her life’s desire, largely in part, due to her mom, the late Dr Gayle Sims Lee. Congratulations to Dr Harper.
]]>Comment on Register now for three upcoming integrative STEAM workshops by Stacey Hudsonhttp://coenews.augusta.edu/archives/1677#comment-1009
Tue, 13 Dec 2016 18:10:58 +0000http://coenews.gru.edu/?p=1677#comment-1009The workshops are from 5:00 PM – 7:30 PM. Here are the full listings:http://calendar.augusta.edu/event/layingtracks1/http://calendar.augusta.edu/event/LayingTracks2/http://calendar.augusta.edu/event/layingtracks3/http://calendar.augusta.edu/event/layingtracks4/
If you have any questions, please call 706-737-1496.
]]>Comment on Register now for three upcoming integrative STEAM workshops by Debbie Fredenberghttp://coenews.augusta.edu/archives/1677#comment-1001
Thu, 08 Dec 2016 00:54:36 +0000http://coenews.gru.edu/?p=1677#comment-1001What time are the workshops? I’m interested in the sessions, but trying to figure out the logistics.
Thanks,
Debbie Fredenberg
]]>Comment on Four Education alumni named to Jag20 awards by Jennie skrobiszhttp://coenews.augusta.edu/archives/1356#comment-800
Fri, 27 May 2016 15:48:03 +0000http://coenews.gru.edu/?p=1356#comment-800Congratulations to Dr. Pettit! I have had the privilege to be her student twice. She’ll turn a methods course into a theory course and a theory course into a methods course. You’ll always get the best of everything when you take her courses.
]]>Comment on Professor wins Regents’ highest teaching honor by Drew Hromyakhttp://coenews.augusta.edu/archives/1326#comment-738
Wed, 23 Mar 2016 03:08:25 +0000http://coenews.gru.edu/?p=1326#comment-738Dr. Deaner definitely deserves this award among many more. He was my advisor when I was a school counseling intern at ASU (2010-2012). He always kept us passionate for counseling and helped instill in me to always serve my students to the utmost of my ability. Also he made sure we give back by getting involved in our counseling professional organizations. I would not be where I am in the professional school counseling field without him. Congratulations Dr. Deaner!
]]>Comment on Register now for the Dec. 8 RTI Workshop by Stacey Hudsonhttp://coenews.augusta.edu/archives/829#comment-143
Mon, 26 Jan 2015 17:41:42 +0000http://mcgsites.org/coe/?p=829#comment-143I’ll be happy to add you.
Done! 🙂
Call me if you have any questions or issues in the future:
Stacey Hudson
706-667-4076
]]>Comment on Register now for the Dec. 8 RTI Workshop by Gilchrist Phillipshttp://coenews.augusta.edu/archives/829#comment-99
Wed, 07 Jan 2015 16:09:11 +0000http://mcgsites.org/coe/?p=829#comment-99How do I get added to the email list to receive information about upcoming events in the College of Education?
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Call for papers FOR EWSECO 2017
We would like to invite European researchers and practitioners in the field of software ecosystem and business networks to come together in Darmstadt, Germany, on November 23th 2017, to discuss their recent (academic) research, insights or issues related to management of ecosystems, business models or technical issues including but not limited to topics like
"What are the business and engagement models of business networks and how are they managed?",
"What metrics exist for ecosystems and business networks to tell if they are healthy?" ,
"How do I handle intellectual property in partner ecosystems and business networks?"
"How can we view the Internet of Things as a software ecosystem and what properties does it have?“
„How can decentralized ecosystems (e.g. ecosystems without an underlying platform) be designed and what technologies drive the emergence of such ecosystems?“
„How can participation of an actor in several ecosystem be managed?“
„How do ecosystems differ in various domains?“
„How do platform business models distinguish from other business models and what are requirements for platform-based business models?“
„How can multi-sided partner relationships be managed? Are there approaches to set up such relationships?“
„How do ecosystems in Big Data Analytics and Machine Learning look like? What are differences and characteristics of such ecosystems?"
„How do ecosystems evolve e.g. based on lessons learned?"
We will invite practitioners to the workshop to ensure discussion about the practical impact of research and to give the presenters the opportunity to discuss with practitioners and researchers alike.The workshop location at TU Darmstadt, Germany, with many software and software service companies having an office nearby which eases the participation for practitioners.
Workshop style
Socialize and discuss with (academic) researchers and fellow professionals.We value discussion as well as presentations. So a short, 15 minute presentation is followed by 15 min discussion with fellow researchers and practitioners.The workshop will be held in English language only.
Poster session
As a new feature of the workshop, we are offering a poster session. If you are interested to present your work in progress to practitioners and fellow researchers, please submit a title and abstract as stated below, mentioning that it should be a poster session.
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Revolutionary Software & Systems Solutions
Commitment to product development utilizing the latest open IT
technologies.
AP with the goal of inventing a fully open, fully interoperable
framework for control automation systems.
Open Internet based Systems (using the LONWORKS,
Modbus and BACNET industry standards) for Commercial, Hospitality, and
Industrial & Educational Buildings. Infocon's products are applied to
HVAC (Heating, Ventilating & Air Conditioning) applications, building IT
Systems, energy management and industrial process control systems.
Beyond mere connectivity of field devices, the goal was to marry the
information infrastructure driven by the IT industry to the control
networks of the building control
and industrial control industries.
This revolutionary infrastructure is built upon
fully open, widely distributed Internet standards and integrates the
most common fieldbus standards for seamless device connection.
Software for all components of the AP systems is built upon Internet
industry standards (JAVA, CORBA, HTML, XML) and is structured in a true
object oriented fashion so that rapid incorporation of new software "applets"
(small pieces of relevant application software) could be adopted
regardless of their development origin.
This is the model that has facilitated the rapid
growth and adoption of the Internet into all facets of business today.
Further, we have structured our software products to be platform
independent, allowing the hardware industry to effectively commodities
the platforms and drive costs to the lowest
denominator.
We believe this to be the future of information, application and control
networks, and are dedicated to keeping our software products in the
information technology mainstream.
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Mike Parker: Knowledge is the soil that nourishes the roots of thought
By Mike Parker / Columnist
Published: Sunday, May 12, 2013 at 05:09 PM.
Years ago, students told me, “I don’t even try to remember things that I can just look up.”
Today, their 21st century counterpart asks, “Why should I remember things when I can just use Google?”
I tap my head and tell them:
“My ‘google’ works faster than yours.”
An over-reliance on technology is keeping students from developing the basis for all genuine critical thinking — a base of knowledge.
In 1956, Dr. Benjamin Bloom created a framework for analyzing thinking skills. We know his work as Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Domains. One of those domains deals with cognitive — or thinking — skills.
Under Bloom’s system, Knowledge rests as the foundation for all thinking. Knowledge leads to Comprehension. Knowledge and comprehension serve as the basis for Application and Analysis. All these skills establish the framework for Synthesis and Evaluation.
Years ago, students told me, “I don’t even try to remember things that I can just look up.”
Today, their 21st century counterpart asks, “Why should I remember things when I can just use Google?”
I tap my head and tell them:
“My ‘google’ works faster than yours.”
An over-reliance on technology is keeping students from developing the basis for all genuine critical thinking — a base of knowledge.
In 1956, Dr. Benjamin Bloom created a framework for analyzing thinking skills. We know his work as Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Domains. One of those domains deals with cognitive — or thinking — skills.
Under Bloom’s system, Knowledge rests as the foundation for all thinking. Knowledge leads to Comprehension. Knowledge and comprehension serve as the basis for Application and Analysis. All these skills establish the framework for Synthesis and Evaluation.
We need to understand that higher level of thinking cannot take place in the absence of the foundational stages. The base of the thinking pyramid is knowledge.
I generally attend the local Quiz Bowl competition. As I watch some of our top high school students compete, two things always amaze me: What these kids know … and what they do not know.
Most of the time, young people show a woeful ignorance of history. Their grasp of literature varies from topic to topic. Some have a decent handle on certain works of literature, but often the lack of knowledge of terms that govern literary analysis and interpretation. Students generally do well on math and science questions. Current events? Not so much outside of sports.
At one time in my long teaching career, nearly all my students had read certain specific pieces of literature: “To Build a Fire” by Jack London, “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell, Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” and “Macbeth,” Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn,” and Elie Wiesel’s “Night.”
For a decade or more, a majority of students have not read any of these pieces. A technique teachers use is “accessing prior knowledge.” In short, we try to build a bridge to new information by connecting it to old information.
I have no confidence my students will be knowledgeable about historic events. I often have students who think Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream Speech” was given during the time of slavery. What’s a hundred years or so among friends?
This past semester, my ECU students read Mark Twain’s “To the Person Sitting in Darkness,” a current events essay Twain wrote for the Anti-Imperialism League and published in 1901. Students complain they do not understand the essay.
“Why?” I ask. “Is the language too tough for you? I mean, after all, the piece is in modern English.”
Slowly I lead them to realize they cannot comprehend what Twain is writing because they have no real knowledge of the events Twain addresses: the Boxer Rebellion, the Boer War and the Spanish American War, both in Cuba and in the Philippines. Words convey ideas, and ideas need a context and frame of reference.
Knowledge is the soil that nourishes the roots of thought.
As we amass knowledge, we begin to see connections. We comprehend trends, movements, cause-effect and processes. We are better able to define terms. We can combine information to create new insights, and we can do better evaluation.
At the end of this semester, one of my students placed a thank you card in her writing portfolio. I discovered the note as I checked her folder. She started her thank-you with:
“The first day of class you told us that we did not know much at all. I thought you were wrong. By the end of that class period, I realized you were right.”
Once she understood how little she knew, she wanted to learn.
Mike Parker is a columnist for The Free Press. You can reach him at [email protected] or in care of this newspaper.
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Attention
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Overview
Opens with a lively intense blackberry compote, progressing into the complex sumptuousness of dark chocolate characters and finishing with stylish tannins that continue the experience long after the wine has left your mouth!
Region:
WA - Margaret River
State:
Western Australia
Country:
Australia
Expert Reviews
“The grapes come from the Wilyabrup district, one of the foremost in Margaret River for cabernet. It is only medium-bodied, but has purity, intensity and precise varietal fruit with a mix of redcurrant and blackcurrant flavours enhanced by silky, yet persistent, tannins.”95 Points - James Halliday, James Halliday Australian Wine Companion, 2015 edition
“The 2012 vintage of this consistently good red is full-bodied, smooth and succulent, with prominent flavours of black currant and cherry. The telltale hint of mint, classic to Australia’s relatively cool western Margaret River region, is here, too, as is an intriguing whisper of mossy earth. Medium-rare steak would be perfect; $21.99 in B.C., $24.99 in Nova Scotia.”90 Points - Beppi Crosariol, The Globe and Mail
Winery Tasting Notes
Colour
The wine is at full depth with a bold crimson red colour and purple tints.
On the palate, the wine opens with a lively intense blackberry compote, progressing into the complexity sumptuousness of dark chocolate characters and finishing with stylish tannins that continue the experience long after the wine has left your mouth!
Food matching
Great with Angus beef topped with garlic marron. Vegan and vegetarian friendly.
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Arizona Mortgage
Welcome! This Arizona Mortgage website is maintained daily to ensure that you our visitor be you a consumer, Realtor, or investor are exposed to the very best of information, education, resources and news regarding the ever changing and volatile mortgage market - In turn with our guidance this will enable you to ensure you make the most educated decision for you and your family's Arizona mortgage needs. My Team and I look forward to working with you and for you. -Mark Taylor
If you’re looking to invest in a cottage or waterfront getaway, there are three key things to keep in mind throughout your search.
How’s The House?
Even if the lake is the highlight of a property you’re considering, it is important to make sure that the home is equally as great as the beautiful body of water it borders.
How’s its orientation? Is it built on the ideal angle to take full advantage of the sun? Does the deck or large windows face another house directly? The orientation is an important factor to consider as it can make or break the comfort of the property.
You’ll also want to consider the lot itself, as many waterfront properties are not built on level lots, but rather on sloping hills. If this is the case with a cottage you are looking to buy, it is important to have the land inspected to uncover any potential dangers or deficiencies. This is especially significant if you want to pursue further construction on the property in the future.
The waste system is another factor to consider, as many lakefront properties utilize a septic tank or public sewer system, which may differ from what you are used to and could cause more hassle than the home is worth.
Just How Lakefront Is It?
It is also important to consider the proximity of a house to the water, as there are unique risks that come along with bordering on a body of water. If the home is very close to the lake, research the typical rise and fall of water levels throughout the year as well as whether ice or frost develops in winter.
Make sure you have a thorough understanding of the lake specifics as well. Know the lake rules, what types of water crafts are permitted for use, how deep it is, and how busy it is throughout the year. A lake may look beautiful, but it’s equally important to ensure it will provide the experience you are looking for as well.
Protect Your Privacy
Lake front getaway homes often come with limited privacy as many properties may face each other across the water. Additionally, since space is limited around a lake, properties may be squished together to make the most of the land that’s available, and that can also compromise your privacy. Be sure to check out who you can see and who can see you, and take note of whether or not there are substantial tree barriers between you and your potential neighbors.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, September 22nd, 2016 at 5:45 am and is filed under Home Buyer Tips.
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AmeriFirst Financial, Inc., 1550 E. McKellips Road, Suite 117, Mesa, AZ 85203 (NMLS # 145368). 1-877-276-1974. Copyright 2014. All Rights Reserved. This is not an offer to enter into an agreement. Not all customers will qualify. Information, rates, and programs are subject to change without prior notice. All products are subject to credit and property approval. Not all products are available in all states or for all loan amounts. Other restrictions and limitations apply. License Information: Click Here for Licensing
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Hugh Jackman & Kids: Strollin’ In Melbourne
Hugh Jackman was spotted with his two children, Oscar, 10, and Ava, 5, in Melbourne, Australia on Monday (December 20).
The kids, dressed casually, looked playful during their walk.
The Wolverine actor recently received stitches on his right eye after crashing into a lighting rig while performing a zip-line stunt on Oprah.
The incident has become a YouTube sensation. Luckily, he’s fine and enjoying his time with the family Down Under!
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La Rosa Blu Café
Okay, so a month or two tops turned out to be more like four. And a bit. I’m not sure where the time went, but it probably has something to do with falling into the money sucking, soul destroying, bottomless pit that is owning a restaurant. Especially in this town. I believe we have discussed this before? What were we thinking, trying to run a restaurant in a town where “value for money” is getting two eggs with your breakfast instead of one? Even if it means eating that breakfast at the corner garage. Owning a restaurant is like buying a room filled with everyone’s mothers-in-law, and your only job is to make sure that each and every one of them is happy. And they all like different things. Ridiculous, impossible to get right every time things, and one might even utter the words “Your pizza bases are too thin and crispy!”. HOW is that even possible? Is thin and crispy even a problem in a pizza? Do I need to change our bases? I don’t know! It is completely and utterly exhausting. And terrifying. And I am not currently loving it, but I’m hoping to get there eventually. Apparently I was meant to do this. You could’ve fooled me. I feel like I am one crisis away from a complete and utter breakdown. Every day.
The other problem with owning a restaurant is that it changes how you partake in the culinary delights your town has to offer. Visiting any restaurant within a 30km-potential-competition radius is no longer a relaxed evening out. It is a field trip. A learning experience. A reconnaissance, as it were. Sure, there are still intimate conversations as you lean over the table, wine glass in hand and whisper into your husband’s ear, but the conversation is now less about what you’re going to do to each other later and more along the lines of “Our X is much better than their Y”. Or “I wish we had thought of that first!”. Must get over this as eating out in a lovely establishment is my single, greatest pleasure in life.
This isn’t ours, but I wish it were!
Back when we still had a life, we had a lovely, leisurely lunch at La Rosa Blu Café on one of those winter afternoons that makes the rest of the world hate us (it’s okay world, we also have Zuma, mozzies and a pummeled currency so it all evens out). Situated on the Rosenhof rose farm in Waboomskraal near George, this vintage café is the perfect place for a first date. There are so many conversation pieces around you that you will never be stuck for something to say! We didn’t even realise that the fridge standing open next to us, spilling its linen contents all over the place, was actually supposed to be closed and wasn’t a part of the display. The gently worn entropy felt perfectly in keeping with the rest of the decor. A stack of well thumbed books is a table center piece. Old records are table mats. The couches on the patio are worn and threadbare, and you probably wouldn’t look at them twice if you saw them at your local charity shop, but here they invite you to sit down, relax, and take in the view. If couches had eyes, these would have bedroom ones. La Rosa Blu feels as inviting as your grandma’s home. If your grandma was a quirky, funky old lady who liked to collect pretty things and was a kick ass chef. Much of the decor is for sale, so you could take that Frida Kahlo print or odd tea cup home with you if it has grabbed your fancy.
The food is nothing fussy – breakfasts, pastas, sarmies and burgers. But one look at the menu and you know this isn’t your average plate of pasta or sandwiched bread. Vegetarian pasta options include The Capering Cow (rocket, basil pesto and capers) and The Happy Sheep (cherry tomatoes, mushrooms and olives), but – not too concerned with the happiness of my food – I opted for The Taxi Driver, that came with chicken, crispy bacon, red onions, cherry tomatoes, basil pesto and my Achilles heel, truffle oil. I don’t know why it’s called The Taxi Driver, but it was delicious! Burgers are equally creative, and I’m sure there are few men who would pass up the opportunity to try The Italian Stallion, topped with bacon, feta, mozzarella and salami. Breakfasts range from R36 to R65 and pastas and burgers from R60 to R85. There weren’t flatbreads when we were there, but I am told by a very reliable foodie friend that he has had them and they are phenomenal.
When you’ve had your fill (don’t miss out on the gourmet milkshakes), take your Karoo cocktail outside and sip on this white port and tonic concoction while you drink in the views from the patio. Yeah, I’m jealous.
Is it ethical to review a restaurant when you own one? Or is that only okay when you’re Gordon Ramsay?
Post navigation
It’s called the Taxi Driver because in the dish, you will find a little of everything and it’s chock-full of yummy ingredients. It’s literally a mouth full. My wife and her brother are the chefs in the restaurant and she based the dish on my favourite pasta at home, which we refer to as “Taxi pasta”…because “there’s always space for one more”….ingredient – whatever we’re in the mood for. 🙂
I think this place sounds great and must make you realise that there are people in George who DO appreciate good food; the effort it takes to make it and want to enjoy something more than the local Wimpy.
I have missed reading your blog and am so glad that you are back! Don’t be such a stranger. We know you are working really hard in your new restaurant but have pity on us people who do not have the talent to cook and write as you do!
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Next-generation energy and technology company Zenergy Brands, Inc. (OTC: ZNGY) this morning announced that its flagship service offering, the Zero Cost Program, continues to gain traction in the marketplace. This update follows the company’s June entry into seven-year Zero Cost services agreements with customers in the private sector, with aggregate contract values exceeding $1 million. As noted, one of the agreements is with U.S.-based bitcoin mining firm BitPlus, Ltd., which is leveraging an innovative energy sourcing strategy encompassing a micro-grid approach to gain a unique competitive advantage in the bitcoin mining industry. “We were honored to have been chosen by BitPlus as their energy solutions provider; and moreover, we are excited about the growth potential associated with being a key vendor for this fast-growing bitcoin mining company,” Alex Rodriguez, CEO of Zenergy, stated in the news release. “We are hopeful that this will be the first of many to come.”
Zenergy Brands, Inc. is a next-generation energy and technology company operating in the emerging smart energy/utility industry. The company provides energy conservation, smart controls and efficiency-based products and services as a fully integrated energy company. For more information, visit the company’s website at www.ZenergyBrands.com
NetworkNewsWire (NNW) is a financial news and content distribution company that provides (1) access to a network of wire services via NetworkWire to reach all target markets, industries and demographics in the most effective manner possible, (2) article and editorial syndication to 5,000+ news outlets (3), enhanced press release services to ensure maximum impact, (4) social media distribution via the Investor Brand Network (IBN) to nearly 2 million followers, (5) a full array of corporate communications solutions, and (6) a total news coverage solution with NNW Prime. As a multifaceted organization with an extensive team of contributing journalists and writers, NNW is uniquely positioned to best serve private and public companies that desire to reach a wide audience of investors, consumers, journalists and the general public. By cutting through the overload of information in today’s market, NNW brings its clients unparalleled visibility, recognition and brand awareness. NNW is where news, content and information converge.
NEW YORK — A pro-Hitler rally that took place 80 years ago this week at New York's Madison Square Garden is the subject of a short documentary that's up for an Oscar. The film directed by Marshall Curry is called "A Night at the Garden." It draws on archival footage of the rally and shows Fritz Kuhn, the leader of the pro-Nazi German American Bund, decrying "the Jewish-controlled press" and demanding a "white, gentile-ruled United States." Curry noted that the anniversary of the gathering comes amid a rise in anti-Jewish hate crimes. The New York Police Department says there were...
KANO, Nigeria — Africa's most populous country goes to the polls on Saturday to decide whether President Muhammadu Buhari deserves a second term. While more than 70 people are running to lead Nigeria, the close race comes down to Buhari and a billionaire former vice president, Atiku Abubakar. Here is a look at the top candidates, who both come from the country's largely Muslim north and have chosen Christian running mates from the other traditional power bases, the southeast and southwest. ___ PRESIDENT MUHAMMADU BUHARI The 76-year-old former military dictator who ruled in the mid-1980s now says he regrets his...
WASHINGTON — House Democrats have introduced a resolution to block the national emergency declaration that President Donald Trump issued to fund his long-sought wall along the U.S-Mexico border. Friday's move sets up a fight that could result in Trump's first-ever veto. It starts the clock on a constitutional clash between Trump and Democrats and sets up a vote by the full House as soon as next week. The Democratic-controlled House is sure to pass the measure and the GOP-run Senate may adopt it as well despite Trump's opposition. Any Trump veto would likely be sustained but the upcoming battle will...
DAKAR, Senegal — Senegal's President Macky Sall is counting on the success of his economic record to propel him to win a second term in Sunday's elections. Sall boasted he will win in the first round, without a runoff vote, though some critics say the two biggest threats to his re-election were barred from running. This stable West African democracy has long been praised for its peaceful transfers of power, a rarity in a region better known for its history of coups and dictators. Sall, who was elected in 2012, is running as "the builder of modern Senegal." One billboard...
CHICAGO — Police tapped into Chicago's vast network of surveillance cameras — and even some homeowners' doorbell cameras — to track down two brothers who later claimed they were paid by "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett to stage an attack on him, the latest example of the city's high-tech approach to public safety. Officers said they reviewed video from more than four dozen cameras to trace the brothers' movements before and after the reported attack, determining where they lived and who they were before arresting them a little more than two weeks later. Smollett reported being beaten up by two men...
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One memory I have from my childhood was preparing for my first communion. I begged and pleaded with my parents to go to the Holy Thursday and Good Friday services. I honestly don’t remember much except that I felt as if I was witnessing the Institution of the Eucharist for the first time in history and then following the cross on Good Friday as we meditated on the Stations of the Cross. The Last Supper and Christ’s death and resurrection are linked together through more than just two feast days in Lent. They both have to do with the Passover meal and how Christ fulfills the purpose of the ritual that began long before he was born.
For the purposes of this particular meditation, I’m gonna be citing from Scott Hahn’s The Fourth Cup which I highly recommend that you read. In his book, Hahn explains that the ritual of the Passover involves drinking four cups. The first cup is a blessing cup. The second cup is shared at the beginning of the Passover ritual. The third cup is taken during the actual meal. The last cup occurs at the climax of the Passover.
At this point, Jesus has taken three of the four cups, the third cup being the one he consecrates as his Blood. His disciples sing the psalms as called for by the ritual. However, Jesus does not take the fourth cup. Instead, they go onto the Garden of Gethsemane. It’s basically the equivalent of ending a football game in the start of the fourth quarter or an action movie ending before the big fight scene.
What’s going on here? Keep in mind that before they left for the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus said “I shall not drink again of the fruit of the vine until I am entering into the kingdom of God.” When he was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, he pleaded with his Father to “take this cup away from me.”
So what is the fourth cup? According to Scott Hahn, the fourth cup that Jesus took to finish the Passover meal was the vinegar that was given to him when he cried “I thirst.” Then once he drank the vinegar, he said “It is finished,” took one last breath, and died. At first, like a lot of people, I thought that it meant that his mission to redeem us was finished. However, our salvation came from the Resurrection, not from his death.
Think back to the Passover sacrifice and then read the story of the Passion with Isaiah’s song of the Suffering Servant in mind. Jesus’s death ended the Passover ritual that he started in the previous night. Then let’s go back to John’s Gospel. At this point, the soldiers are breaking the legs of the two thieves next to Jesus in order to make their deaths quicker. But Jesus was already dead. Instead of breaking his legs, a soldier pierced Jesus’s side and blood and water gushed out of it. If you’re familiar with the Divine Mercy Chaplet, you may have heard this prayer: “O Blood and Water that gushed forth from the Heart of Christ, as a fountain of mercy for us, I trust in You.” This is where that prayer comes from.
But the story isn’t over yet. As we know, Christ’s sacrifice was only the beginning. I hope that you go to Adoration today and meditate on Christ’s passion and death as you sit in His presence. God bless, my dear sisters in Christ.
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Description
Pinstripe is an emotionally charged adventure about Hell created entirely by a one-man team over the course of five years. Play as Teddy, an estranged ex-minister forced to venture through the frozen afterlife in search of Bo, his three year old daughter, and her perverse kidnapper. Discover the dark secrets of Teddy's past, and confront his sleazy, demonic nemesis, Mr. Pinstripe.
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Browsed byCategory: Industry
During a time in which cynicism seems to be on the rise when discussing the profit-driven behavior of many of the largest corporations, a number of businesses throughout the state of Arizona have worked diligently in an effort to disprove the notion that the bottom line is always the most pressing concern. While the headlines are often reserved for corporate misdeeds and financial misbehavior, there are far more examples of laudable work coming from the corporate sector than most people realize. Surely Arizona is not the only place in which this is the case, but each of the following stories serve as potent reminders of how businesses in Arizona have long been committed to service and goodwill.
Surprise, Arizona
Recent research into educational outcomes has consistently indicated that the level of success a student experiences in an academic program is tied to their access to certain types of technology. Internet access is critical, but so is access to courses that teach programming and coding skills. Through the use of computer science courses teaching subjects like web design surprise az has seen its students enjoy dramatic improvements.
The technology necessary to conduct these kinds of courses can be quite costly, which is why many area businesses have continually contributed in a variety of ways to make access that much more affordable. Local businesses have offered advanced software programs along with the latest developments in hardware to the school systems, and others have volunteered their time to assist teachers in leading these courses. Through the support of the community and local businesses, area students have been able to benefit tremendously from a program to which they would not have otherwise had access.
Phoenix, Arizona
Communities across the nation have struggled to find a solution to homelessness, adopting programs designed to assist those most in need. Despite all of these efforts, the issue has continued to persist and remains a difficult circumstance to overcome. In Phoenix, the city has done a great deal for the homeless, but one local business was inspired by the story of a mobile beauty salon designed to serve the homeless. While access to the kind of services offered by a beauty salon is rarely thought of as a vital need, the positive effect is immediately evident upon speaking to anyone who has been involved with the project.
Those who have been ensnared by homelessness find it difficult to find gainful employment due to their appearance, which in turn engenders a lack of self-confidence that makes their situation seem even more difficult to overcome. The mobile salon also helps to make people feel cared for, which is also essential for a group that is at an increased risk of falling into a sense of hopelessness. The business that began the mobile salon in Phoenix has seen support for the project grow and it is clear that it has been highly beneficial to the homeless community in Phoenix.
Tempe, Arizona
Home to several institutions of higher learning, businesses in Tempe have consistently assisted students with the many fees they face in their effort to earn a college degree. Even at a state school, the cost of tuition alone can be difficult to afford, not to mention books and the cost of living in the area. Understanding that cost should not be a hurdle to education, many area businesses have founded programs designed to reduce the economic burden students often encounter.
In addition to offering entry-level positions and flexible work hours, a number of businesses also provide programs in which they subsidize some of the costs of education through merit scholarships and academic grants. By rewarding students for their academic efforts, these local businesses ensure that talented students are able to reach their full potential and are not limited due to economic factors largely beyond their control.
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Goodell Paints Bright Picture
Roger Goodell was touched by UMass Lowell’s decision to honor his father, who lost his re-election bid in 1970 in part because of his decision to deviate from his party’s stance on the Vietnam War.
“My father had the courage to stick to his principles, no matter what the consequences,’’ Goodell told the graduates. “People may not know that initially he supported the Vietnam War. He always supported our troops. But over time he listened, listened to students like you. I want you to know that your voice is important.
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Mount Everest Climbing Fees Going Cheaper Nepal will cut climbing fees for Mount Everest to lure more mountaineers to the world’s highest peak, already overcrowded during the peak climbing season. Hundreds of foreign climbers, each paying thousands of dollars, flock to the 8,850-meter (29,035 feet) Everest summit during the main climbing season stretching from March […]
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29.05.2017 - Powers are terminated in accordance with the 6th paragraph of the 1st part of Article 154 of the Constitutional Law of the Republic of Armenia "Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly."
29.05.2017 - Powers are terminated in accordance with the 6th paragraph of the 1st part of Article 154 of the Constitutional Law of the Republic of Armenia "Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly."
29.05.2017 - Powers are terminated in accordance with the 6th paragraph of the 1st part of Article 154 of the Constitutional Law of the Republic of Armenia "Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly."
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Created by
Gary B. Rollman,
Emeritus Professor of Psychology,
University of Western Ontario
(In addition to links below, see weekly archives in the right column)
Friday, July 21, 2006
Report Finds a Heavy Toll From Medication Errors - New York Times
Medication errors harm 1.5 million people and kill several thousand each year in the United States, costing the nation at least $3.5 billion annually, the Institute of Medicine concluded in a report released on Thursday.
Drug errors are so widespread that hospital patients should expect to suffer one every day they remain hospitalized, although error rates vary by hospital and most do not lead to injury, the report concluded.
The report, “Preventing Medication Errors,” cited the death of Betsy Lehman, a 39-year-old mother of two and a health reporter for The Boston Globe, as a classic fatal drug mix-up. Ms. Lehman died in 1993 after a doctor mistakenly gave her four times the appropriate dose of a toxic drug to treat her breast cancer.
Recommendations to correct these problems include systemic changes like electronic prescribing and tips for consumers like advising patients to carry complete listings of their prescriptions to every doctor’s visit, the report said.
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I seen sign repair guys work on a Arby's sign that was about 60 ft. high. The type you see along the highway for the restaurant. They were getting in it, and there were hornets so big, I could see them from the ground. Needless to say, they came right back down to get a shit load of spray.
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How spiders see the world
Spiders usually have eight eyes (some have six or fewer), but few have good eyesight. They rely instead on touch, vibration and taste stimuli to navigate and find their prey. Most are able to detect little more than light-dark intensity changes which stimulate nocturnal web building, hunting or wandering activities and rapid movement to allow quick reactions against daytime predators (e.g. by dropping from webs). Some spiders have median eyes that can detect polarised light and they use this ability to navigate while hunting.
However, for a few spiders, good vision is vital for hunting and capturing prey and for recognising mates and rivals. They include the day active jumping spiders (Salticidae) and flower spiders (Thomisidae), and the wolf spiders (Lycosidae) and net-casting spiders (Deinopidae), more often seen by twilight or later at night.
Types of eyes
Eight eyes are typically placed in two rows, on the front of the carapace. The AME or direct eyes, differ markedly in structure from the other indirect eyes (ALE, PLE, PME). The direct eyes appear dark, whereas the indirect eyes usually have a layer of light reflecting crystals, the tapetum, behind the light sensitive retina, giving these eyes a silvery appearance. The tapetum increases visual sensitivity because light entering the light sensitive retinal cells is immediately reflected back through them, so intensifying the image. These indirect eyes are adapted for seeing at low light intensities and their lenses are often enlarged in spiders with good vision. Spider eye lenses are better than photographic lenses in terms of their image brightness (very low F-numbers). However, because most spider eye retinas have relatively coarse-grained mosaics of receptor cells, their resolution of these images is much poorer than in the human eye.
Reflector eyes
Most wolf spiders (Lycosidae) hunt in the dimmer light of dusk and moonlight. Their four large posterior eyes have well-developed tapeta which help them spot prey movement in such low light conditions. At night, wolf spiders can be easily spotted because the tapeta in their large eyes shine brightly in torchlight.
Search-light eyes
Net-casting spiders (Deinopidae) have eight eyes, but in one genus, Deinopis, two of the rear eyes (PME) are enormously enlarged. Their great, curved lenses face forward like twin search-lights, giving the spiders a rather menacing appearance (the 'ogre-faced spiders').
The two biggest eyes are specialised for providing outstanding low-light night vision. They have enormous, compound lenses that give a wide field of view and gather available light very efficiently. The lenses have an F number of 0.58 which means they can concentrate available light more efficiently than a cat (F 0.9) or an owl (F 1.1). Each night a large area of light sensitive membrane is manufactured within these eyes (and rapidly destroyed again at dawn).
This remarkable combination of large, powerful lenses and the nightly production of new light-sensitive membrane, enables net-casting spiders to accurately track and 'net' their prey at night. Interestingly, they do this without the help of a tapetum, the reflecting layer present in other spiders with highly sensitive indirect eyes. White faecal spots on a leaf below the net are aiming points placed there by the spider.
Daylight hunters with multi-purpose vision
Jumping spiders (Salticidae) are most active during the day. They have excellent vision which they use to hunt prey and recognise mates and enemies. Jumping spiders can leap more than 20 times their own body length, propelled by their back legs. However, when pouncing on their prey, they make shorter, more accurate leaps.
When hunting, the eyes of jumping spiders see in three different ways, using three different sets of eyes:
The spider first senses movement of distant prey with the side eyes (PLE), which provide a blurry wide-angle image.
Once movement is detected, the spider turns in that direction and locks onto the moving prey with the large, middle front eyes (AME). These eyes provide a clear, focussed telephoto image, probably in colour. The spider can track moving prey both by body movements and by using muscles to internally swivel the elongated eye capsules so that the light sensitive retina of each eye remains locked on the prey.
While the spider stalks closer, it uses the side front eyes (ALE) judge the distance to the prey. When it judges the prey to be close enough (about 2 cm - 3 cm), the spider leaps.
They are the only animals which use silk in almost every part of their daily lives.
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New Drug Combinations Block Kidney Cancer in Culture and Mouse Models
Drugs that block the activity of the enzyme Stearoyl-CoA desaturase-1 (SCD1) repress the growth of kidney cancer cells in culture and in mouse models of the disease.
SCD1, which is overexpressed in most kidney cancer samples, is a key enzyme in fatty acid metabolism responsible for forming a double bond in Stearoyl-CoA. This is the way that the monounsaturated fatty acid oleic acid is produced from the saturated fatty acid stearic acid. The ratio of stearic acid to oleic acid has been implicated in the regulation of cell growth and differentiation through effects on cell membrane fluidity and signal transduction.
Investigators at the Mayo Clinic (Jacksonville, FL, USA) worked with a drug that had been designed to block the activity of SCD1 in clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC), which accounts for almost 85% of kidney cancer cases in the United States.
The investigators examined patient normal and ccRCC tissue samples and cell lines for SCD1 expression. Genetic knockdown models and targeted inhibition of SCD1 through the use of the drug A939572 were analyzed for growth, apoptosis, and alterations in gene expression using gene array analysis. Models of combined therapy using A939572 and the tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI) sunitinib and pazopanib, and the mTOR inhibitor temsirolimus were evaluated.
Results published in the May 1, 2013, issue of the journal Clinical Cancer Research revealed increased SCD1 expression in all stages of ccRCC. Both genetic knockdown and pharmacologic inhibition of SCD1 decreased tumor cell proliferation and induced apoptosis in vitro and in vivo. Upon gene array, quantitative real-time PCR, and protein analysis of A939572-treated or genetic SCD1 knockdown samples, induction of endoplasmic reticulum stress response signaling was observed, which suggested a mechanistic mechanism for SCD1 activity in ccRCC. Furthermore, application of A939572 (25% inhibition when applied alone) combined with temsirolimus inhibited tumor growth by 60%–70% in vitro and in vivo.
“There is a clear need for new therapies for this common cancer. With very few exceptions, patients inevitably become resistant to all available treatments,” said senior author Dr. John Copland, professor of cancer biology at the Mayo Clinic.
“We found it [A939572] to be incredibly specific to cancer cells in laboratory mice treated with the agent,” said Dr. Copland. “But these are early days in the testing of this agent for cancer. The synergy between the drugs [A939572 and temsirolimus] was very striking, suggestive of significant clinical benefit in patients.”
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Saturday, March 19, 2011
Just 24 hours after a series of injuries left some mild concerns about the state of the Yankees bullpen, the Yankees relievers came through with flying colors today. And Freddy Garcia said he wouldn’t be opposed to joining them.
“If I can pitch in the bullpen, I pitch in the bullpen,” Garcia said. “The goal is to make the team, but that’s not in my hands. Try to do my best. I don’t pitch the way I want to pitch (today), but that’s the way it is.”
If he doesn't make the rotation it might be a good idea to keep the guy around as some insurance.
In other news:
- Andrew Brackman and Dellin Betances were assigned to minor league camp.
“I feel great, and I’d rather have this happen at this time instead of this time next week,” he said. “There would be no question (if it happened next week) that I wouldn’t be able to make the season. I want to head north with these guys.”
- Pedro Feiliciano threw a light BP session and is one more BP session away from returning to game action and says he'll be ready for opening day.
- Manny Banuelos will make an appearance on Monday following Bartolo Colon's start. This could be his final big league outing of the spring.
Just 24 hours after a series of injuries left some mild concerns about the state of the Yankees bullpen, the Yankees relievers came through with flying colors today. And Freddy Garcia said he wouldn’t be opposed to joining them.
“If I can pitch in the bullpen, I pitch in the bullpen,” Garcia said. “The goal is to make the team, but that’s not in my hands. Try to do my best. I don’t pitch the way I want to pitch (today), but that’s the way it is.”
If he doesn't make the rotation it might be a good idea to keep the guy around as some insurance.
In other news:
- Andrew Brackman and Dellin Betances were assigned to minor league camp.
“I feel great, and I’d rather have this happen at this time instead of this time next week,” he said. “There would be no question (if it happened next week) that I wouldn’t be able to make the season. I want to head north with these guys.”
- Pedro Feiliciano threw a light BP session and is one more BP session away from returning to game action and says he'll be ready for opening day.
- Manny Banuelos will make an appearance on Monday following Bartolo Colon's start. This could be his final big league outing of the spring.
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Well I've already tested this on Windows 7 64x using the perx injector and the portal injector. Apparently, non seem to work. It's either something is wrong with the hack (Since I'm running 64x) or I might be missing something. Once the .dll was injected, nothing else happened. No menu either. It's like the hack was never injected when it pretty much was.
Well I've already tested this on Windows 7 64x using the perx injector and the portal injector. Apparently, non seem to work. It's either something is wrong with the hack (Since I'm running 64x) or I might be missing something. Once the .dll was injected, nothing else happened. No menu either. It's like the hack was never injected when it pretty much was.
This hack no longer works. I've got vista 32 bit, running firefox as an administrator, and the injector as an administrator also. It tells me "hack brought to you by jeff," the injector closes, the game starts, and it freezes. The game doesn't even load for 5 seconds and it crashes. No longer working.
EDIT: I installed missing a DLL (d3dx9_43.dll) and this didn't fix the problem, the game still crashed. I used the PerX injector, and the Portal injector and the game keeps crashing. These hacks are no longer working.
This hack has been detected as far as i can tell and forgive me if this comment is out of place or if this is not the right way to comment etc. (this is my first comment) It got 2 accounts banned. I figured it was the injector. So i used portal, instead of using perx (which is what i used the first time) Thank you for this hack though .. i did have fun with it
The Following User Says Thank You to mrhacksalot For This Useful Post:
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Uranium in tanning beds? That’s a new one for me. Mercury vapor, certainly, but uranium? Maybe in military rounds, armor, power generation, scientific research and 1920’s era glassware but tanning beds? Notice I’m not refuting the half-wit part.
Yeah, I was just taking a farcical jab at the half-wit’s wildly unnatural pigmentation. Not much of a science buff, and don’t actually know what causes those indoor ultraviolets, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t uranium.
I was curious about the uranium since I frequently work around germicidal lamps and biological safety cabinets and wondered if there was some other technology in Europe or Canada I’ve never heard. They (and common fluorescent lights) use mercury vapor to emit uv radiation but regular fluorescent lights have a fluorescent coating to lengthen the wavelength to visible light and made of regular glass and other coatings to reduce the amount of uv released. Germicidal lamps are quartz glass to allow the uv through to damage any DNA nearby. Tanning lights would have to block higher energy uv-c (esp around 260 nanometers) to avoid serious DNA damage. I’ve had a friend get “sunburns” from working over uv trans-illuminators without a uv opaque faceshield.
Joe Bob here… Bubba’s scratchin’ his head for a change from scratchin’ his other end and wondering, is this some of that fake news everbody’s been talking about. I tolled to stay out of this, it ain’t his dog fight.
That imbecile managed to piss me off even more than usual today. I did military service for my country, being stationed at the NATO military airport closest to the Russian border during the late stages of the cold war. I’ve got nothing against people who haven’t done service though, as long as they don’t do what the chicken-in-chief did today and pretend to be military men. The orange moron who got FIVE deferments from Vietnam pranced around in a navy jacket and cap – not even in somewhere like Iraq, but safely at home in Virginia. Urgh. Plus points to the guy who said that the only jacket Trump should be wearing is a straight jacket:https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/02/donald-trump-military-look-jacket-cap
Joe Biden had 5 deferments had Viet Nam. Asthma. Funny that asthma didn’t stop Joe from playing football in college. Biden’s son Hunter, the one discharged from the Navy for drug use, has now married the widow of Biden’s dead son beau. During the divorce proceedings of Beau and his ex wife Kathleen, there was testimony of alcohol, cocaine, strip clubs , prostitutes, gifts for women who Beau had relations with, and lavish spending that left no money for his family to pay their bills. Apparently Joe is OK with all this. Great family.
So what? Trump hasn’t even tied his own shoes ever, and his sons sacrifice blonde virgins to drink their blood. Just look at them. I get it, the Clinons are bad, Biden is a tool, gotcha. But they’re not Trump. Charles Manson is more coherent and more capable of leading a country than that rape child of an Orang Utan.
Forgot to mention that Hunter Biden got a sweet gig on the Board of Directors of a Ukrainian oil company, just days after his vice president father visited there in 2014. What a coincidence. How do you spell nepotism?
Austrians are pretty used to Americans telling them: “If it wasn’t for us you would be speaking German!” (Sometimes after complaining about the lack of kangaroos). So it’s not a problem really. P.S.: Jetzt fia di net so auf, nua weu i scheh bin und du net!
Actually Austrians do speak their own language, their own German. It’s called “Österreichisches Deutsch” (Austrian German). It differs slightly from the “Bundesdeutsch” or “Hochdeutsch” (Federal German or High German) which is spoken in Germany or the “Schweizer Hochdeutsch” (Swiss High German). A German dictionary is not be used in Austria! The Duden nicely provides both versions though. Kauf Buch didn’t make his homework again.
So now, POTUS Asteriscus V is stealing material from Jake Harper & Bart Simpson’s book reports? I thought Cheeto Benito was more of a bankruptcy & fraud guy than a plagiarizer & a thief. Perhaps his staff read the book for him and messed up the Powerpoint® presentation.
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I agree with you but you really do sound like a right-wing talking head raising Kerry expectations.
I've watched the Kerry-Weld debates. Dude doesn't back down and he does a great job of turning attacks back on the attacker. Although I'm not so sure his Vietnam schtick ("I've seen people die") is going to be as effective as it may have been in the past. If Kerry hits a home run this will be a new race because the story will be how he has turned it around. If he doesn't, then Bush wins because there isn't a new story.
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Let's Split v2 PCBs (Free International Shipping)
Friday. February 01, 2019
I have some Let’s Split v2 PCBs (designed by /u/wootpatoot) for sale. It’s one of the most popular DIY split, ortholinear mechanical keyboards. Free international shipping is included, shipped via slow, untracked airmail by Hong Kong Post.
If you’re from the United States, there’re cheaper alternatives at Mehkee or switchTop.
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CASE RESULTS
CONTACT US NOW...
If you have been arrested, don’t delay. You have only 10 days to save your license. Contact us today for a FREE consultation, and find out about all of your options, and all of your rights, and how to protect yourself.
Orange County West Justice Center Westminster Courthouse
Orange County West Justice Center or Westminster Courthouse Information – including what you need to know if you have to go to Court in Westminster, from a DUI Attorney in Orange County that works in that courthouse every week.
The OC Courthouse in Westminster was built in 1967. It has 16 courtrooms. Its average daily pedestrian traffic is 2,406 persons entering and exiting the currently one entrance to the courthouse.
The Court in Westminster handles DUI cases, and other criminal cases, from any arrests within the following cities:
This court has exterior traffic windows, which reduce the number of people entering the court, and makes it easy to pay fines, get information, and have the court provide a copy of documents without having to wait in the security check line.
Your Court Appearance in the Westminster Court.
If you have been arrested for DUI and are appearing at the West Justice Center, you will typically be given a court date on a document, for your arraignment.
Your arraignment will be in Department W-3, on the first floor.
After your arraignment, your case proceeds to pretrial.
Misdemeanor pretrials are all heard in Department W-16, upstairs on the second floor of the Westminster Courthouse.
If you have a case that has already been set for a trial at a previous date by a judge, then misdemeanor trials start in W-16, where they can be assigned to any courthouse in the courthouse, or anywhere in Orange County.
Persons Held in Jail for their Court Date in Westminster: If you are in court for a case where someone is in custody, they are usually held in the basement under the custody of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and brought up to court when ready, as needed by the court.
Approximately 2,000 or more inmates are transported, by bus, to the West Justice Facility each month from various Orange County Jail facilities. The holding facility at the West Justice Facility has a rated capacityofr 253 inmates. However, those in custody are required to be kept separated (by gender, by ethnicity, gang affiliations, health, or protective custody), and as a result, the Westminster Court detention facility cannot safely hold more than 150 inmates.
Orange County West Justice Center Westminster Courthouse
The address to the courthouse is as follows:
West Justice Center
8141 13th Street
Westminster, CA 92683
(657) 622-5900
Westminster Courthouse Parking is available for free, and parking is available across the street from the courthouse on 13th Street adjacent to the public library and at the corner of 13th Street and All American Way, or anywhere on the streets as allowed near the courthouse.
The list of telephone numbers for the courthouse is available here: http://www.occourts.org/locations/general-phone.html
The Orange County District Attorney has an office on the second floor inside the courthouse building. Phone number is (714) 896-7261.
There is a Victim’s and Witnesses Office in the Westminster Courthouse also, which can help victims or those testifying, with questions and support. Phone: (714) 896-7188, Witness Coordination:(714) 934-4634
Our Mission: "To deliver outstanding client service, to provide fulfilling careers and professional satisfaction for our people, and to achieve financial success so that we can reward ourselves, grow, and give back to the community."
Contact Us Today
The information on this website is for general information purposes only.
Nothing on this site should be taken as legal advice for any individual
case or situation. This information is not intended to create, and receipt
or viewing does not constitute, an attorney-client relationship.
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Dr. Marc Goldman works as an orthopedic surgeon. Before completing his residency at the University of Maryland Medical Center, Dr. Goldman attended medical school at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. His areas of expertise include the following: shoulder surgery, total hip replacement, and wrist problems. Dr. Goldman has received a 5.0 out of 5 star rating by his patients. Blue Cross Blue Shield Bronze, Blue Cross Blue Shield HMO, and United Healthcare Plans are among the insurance carriers that Dr. Goldman accepts. He is affiliated with Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas and Medical City Hospital (Dallas). Dr. Goldman has an open panel.
Dr. Terry Gemas sees patients in Dallas, TX and Rockwall, TX. His medical specialties are hand surgery, orthopedics/orthopedic surgery, and sports medicine. In addition to English, he speaks Spanish. Clinical interests for Dr. Gemas include total shoulder replacement, knee arthritis, and minimally invasive knee surgery. He is affiliated with Baylor Scott & White Health and Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Rockwall. He graduated from the University of South Carolina School of Medicine. For his professional training, Dr. Gemas completed residency programs at St. Luke's Hospital and a hospital affiliated with Case Western Reserve University. Patient ratings for Dr. Gemas average 4.5 stars out of 5. He accepts Blue Cross Blue Shield Bronze, Blue Cross Blue Shield HMO, and Blue Cross Blue Shield Gold, in addition to other insurance carriers. He is open to new patients.
Dr. Paul Saadi is a spine surgeon and orthopedic surgeon in Dallas, TX. Dr. Saadi's average patient rating is 4.5 stars out of 5. Areas of expertise for Dr. Saadi include back pain, knee replacement, and minimally invasive surgery. He honors Blue Cross Blue Shield Bronze, Blue Cross Blue Shield HMO, United Healthcare Plans, and more. After attending Thomas Jefferson University, Jefferson Medical College for medical school, Dr. Saadi completed his residency training at the University of Maryland Medical Center. He is conversant in Spanish. He is affiliated with Medical City Hospital (Dallas).
Dr. George Zoys' specialty is orthopedics/orthopedic surgery. He is rated highly by his patients. Dr. Zoys has indicated that his clinical interests include replacement arthroplasty (joint replacement), knee surgery, and muscle problems. He is an in-network provider for several insurance carriers, including Aetna EPO, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and Blue Cross Blue Shield Bronze. Dr. Zoys is a graduate of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, School of Medicine. In addition to English, Dr. Zoys (or staff) speaks Spanish and Greek. He is professionally affiliated with Baylor Scott & White Health.
Dr. Duc Vo is a specialist in hand surgery and orthopedics/orthopedic surgery. Dr. Vo is rated highly by his patients. His areas of clinical interest consist of shoulder surgery, musculoskeletal problems, and endoscopic carpal tunnel surgery. He is in-network for Aetna EPO, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Blue Cross Blue Shield Bronze, and more. Before completing his residency at a hospital affiliated with the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Dr. Vo attended medical school at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. In addition to English, Dr. Vo speaks Vietnamese. He is professionally affiliated with Baylor Scott & White Health.
Dr. James Brooks is an orthopedist in Dallas, TX. After attending the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, he completed his residency training at a hospital affiliated with the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. His areas of expertise include knee arthritis, minimally invasive knee surgery, and bloodless medicine/transfusion-free surgery. Dr. Brooks has a 3.0 out of 5 star average patient rating. Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Blue Cross Blue Shield Bronze, and Blue Cross Blue Shield Gold are among the insurance carriers that Dr. Brooks accepts. He is affiliated with Baylor Scott & White Health.
Dr. Kushal Patel is a specialist in orthopedics/orthopedic surgery and sports medicine. Areas of expertise for Dr. Patel include meniscus repair, total shoulder replacement, and knee arthritis. Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Blue Cross Blue Shield Bronze, and Blue Cross Blue Shield Gold are among the insurance carriers that Dr. Patel accepts. He graduated from Texas A & M Health Science Center College of Medicine. Dr. Patel (or staff) is conversant in Gujarati and Hindi. He is professionally affiliated with Baylor Scott & White Health, the University of Colorado Hospital (UCH), and the University Physicians.
Dr. Todd Johnson's area of specialization is orthopedics/orthopedic surgery. He speaks Spanish. Dr. Johnson's areas of expertise include hip replacement, knee problems, and musculoskeletal problems. His hospital/clinic affiliations include Baylor Scott & White Health and Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Rockwall. He attended medical school at the University of Iowa, Carver College of Medicine. Patients gave Dr. Johnson an average rating of 4.5 stars out of 5. He takes Aetna EPO, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Blue Cross Blue Shield Bronze, and more.
Dr. Diane Litke practices orthopedics/orthopedic surgery. Her average patient rating is 4.0 stars out of 5. Dr. Litke accepts several insurance carriers, including Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Blue Choice, and Blue Cross Blue Shield Bronze. She is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine.
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What is Joint Replacement?
Joint replacement, sometimes also called arthroplasty, is an option when a joint becomes severely damaged by disease or injury. The damaged cartilage of the joint is surgically removed, the ends of the bones in the joint are resurfaced, and a prosthetic is installed. Most prosthetic joints are made of a metal piece that fits into a plastic sleeve so that they glide smoothly. A joint replacement increases stability in the damaged area and decreases pain. The hip and knee are the two joints most commonly replaced, but joint replacement can also be performed on the ankle, shoulder, elbow and even fingers.
Although joint replacement is one of the safest and most reliable medical procedures available, it is still a major surgical procedure. All surgical procedures carry risks, such as infection or blood clots. For this reason, doctors try to help their patients avoid surgery for as long as they can. Taking arthritis medications, losing weight, avoiding high impact sports such as running, taking supplements such as glucosamine or chondroitin, or having joint injections may allow a patient to enjoy life without the need for surgery.
After having joint replacement surgery, expect some pain the first few days as you recover. Physical therapy is an important part of recovery, and it can decrease complications and increase your future mobility. As soon as possible, returning to low impact sports such as swimming, walking or biking can stretch and heal your new joint. A prosthetic joint can last 15 - 20 years and cannot be further damaged by degenerative diseases such as arthritis, so once it is done you should be pain-free for many years.
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We all come across challenges in our lives and in our business. I have personally come across a system that has worked for me in many areas in my business. Although, I have over six businesses I have created; it was difficult for me to organize, grow and sell without exhaustion everyday. There had to […]
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If you could choose from any and every NRL player in the competition, who would you pick in your rugby league dream team? Let us know with our team picker right here, and be sure to share it with all your league-loving mates.
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Ice Bears preparing for home opener
KNOXVILLE, Tenn (WVLT) - Media members and the Knoxville Ice Bears gathered at Gettysvue County Club for the teams annual Media Luncheon.
The 2013-14 version of the Ice Bears is younger than normal with 9 rookies on the roster. Fans can expect a nice blend of both speed and physical play from this years team. "I think we're a little bigger than we usually are and we're just as quick as we always are, and in a small building like ours, we're going to have a lot of big hits and a lot of big presence on the ice so it will be nice," says team captain David Segal.
Ice Bears forward Brett Valliquette likes the youth movement the team is undergoing. "We're a lot younger than in recent years and I think that youth has brought a lot of work ethic. So our speed is there but also a lot of physicality. And we're really looking forward to getting started. And getting started the right way and the hard way."
The Ice Bears host their home opener Friday night at 7:30 against Pensacola.
Online Public Information File
Viewers with disabilities can get assistance accessing this station's FCC Public Inspection File by contacting the station with the information listed below. Questions or concerns relating to the accessibility of the FCC's online public file system should be directed to the FCC at 888-225-5322, 888-835-5322 (TTY), or [email protected].
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White Paper
Using analytics to transform health care costs for payer programs
About this paper
Health insurers have long been plagued by issues of fraud, waste, abuse, error and corruption. Taking an enterprise approach to payment integrity – one that combines advanced data management and sophisticated analytics – can help payers detect and prevent fraud; effect positive change in how providers, employees and patients behave; and substantially reduce health care costs. Payers can achieve better outcomes when software support for the core disciplines of payment integrity run on a single platform.
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Yes, I would like to receive occasional emails from SAS Institute Inc. and its affiliates about SAS products and services. I understand that I can withdraw my consent at any time by clicking the opt-out link in the emails.
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12
Stocks for the Rest of Your Life
The more often you have to make choices as an investor, the more opportunities you have to lose money. Your research and analysis may be wrong. Your valuation may be wrong. The market's random fluctuations may move against you, through no fault of your own. On top of all that, each time you trade a stock, you pay commissions, and you may face taxes if you're closing out a profitable position.
For these reasons and more, it makes sense to minimize the number of times you have to make buy or sell decisions. Take that line of thinking to its logical conclusion, and an ideal holding period would be forever.
It's a great concept, but in reality, very few stocks are truly worth holding for the rest of your life.
Still, what would it take?First and foremost, a "forever" company would have to pay a dividend. As great a wealth creator as Warren Buffett has been for Berkshire Hathaway owners, all that stock appreciation buys absolutely nothing -- unless you're willing to sell your shares. If you need to sell to get cash, it becomes rather impossible to own it forever.
Of course, paying a dividend isn't enough. A truly great business will be able to sustain -- and grow -- those payments over time. A one-time dividend is nice, but a sustainable, growing payment is a reflection of the strength of the operations that enabled the payments in the first place.
Diebold (NYSE: DBD) , for instance, has been paying dividends for well more than half a century. Even better, it has raised those payments every year for the past 54 years. Like Diebold, the companies listed below pay decent dividends, have increased those payments for at least a decade, and aim to keep doing more of the same:
Why it mattersDividends give you tremendous financial flexibility throughout your investing life. While you've got an income from working, you can reinvest those payments to speed the process of compounding your wealth. Once you've left the workforce, the cash thrown off by dividends spends just as well as any money you earned from your salary. Even better, a rising dividend payment can help you fight inflation by providing you more cash every single year.
Additionally, dividends have the tremendous benefit of being exceptionally difficult for companies to fake. After all, it's difficult to persuade lenders to loan money to a company if it's only going to turn around and hand that cash over to its shareholders. As a result, to sustainably make and increase those payments, a business needs to generate serious cash -- on a regular and repeatable basis.
Perhaps most importantly, a company's dividend payment comes from its operational success -- not from the manic gyrations in its stock price. In volatile market periods, those payments give you a way to make money even when your stocks move down.
What's not to love?Faster compounding. Better financial flexibility. Cash in hand without selling. A buffer against inflation. An honesty check on a company's accounting. Money in a down market. With all they give to you, it's obvious why dividend payments are such a key part of anyone's search for a company to hold forever.
If you're ready to find your forever stocks, I encourage you to join us today at Motley Fool Income Investor. Our picks sport an average dividend yield well above the S&P 500's, and they're beating the market since we began. You can see all our picks and research for the next 30 days, free of charge. Once you've discovered the true power behind those payments, you'll be thrilled you did.
This article was originally published Aug. 15, 2007. It has been updated.
At the time of publication, Fool contributor Chuck Saletta owned shares of Johnson & Johnson. The Motley Fool holds stock in Berkshire Hathaway. Johnson & Johnson and RPM International are Income Investor selections. Berkshire Hathaway, Diebold, and Anheuser-Busch are Motley Fool Inside Value picks. Berkshire Hathaway is also a Motley Fool Stock Advisor recommendation. The Fool has a disclosure policy.
Comments from our Foolish Readers
Help us keep this a respectfully Foolish area! This is a place for our readers to discuss, debate, and learn more about the Foolish investing topic you read about above. Help us keep it clean and safe. If you believe a comment is abusive or otherwise violates our Fool's Rules, please report it via the Report this Comment icon found on every comment.
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Chuck Saletta has been a regular Fool contributor since 2004. His investing style has been inspired by Benjamin Graham's Value Investing strategy. Chuck also can be found on the "Inside Value" discussion boards as a Home Fool.
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The Stripe
$159.00 USD
Share:
This item is sold out. You have to be quick!
Beautifully packaged in a chic box, Atelier/Child’s luxurious cashmere blend blankets are the ultimate baby gift. Keep your child snug while out and about or style them in the nursery as a statement piece. The classic Stripe is updated with bold lines and vibrant splash of yellow.
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(16-10-2012 06:07 PM)Logisch Wrote: There was a really funny comic of all the dinosaurs supposedly fapping, and t-rex was crying because it showed he couldn't reach. I think I saw it on reddit, was awesome.
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Bad Tristan and Jolly Good King MarkAnonymous
The themes of misinterpretation and passivity are threaded throughout Beroul's text "The Romance of Tristan": characters often misread signs and events, as well as each other. There are several key misinterpretations in the story that reveal where the author's true sympathies lie. Because most of what happens to Tristan can be attributed to people or events that are out of his hands, he is blamed by neither the other characters nor himself, and never assumes a truly penitent role. Though this may be Tristan's romance by title, he is certainly not the character with whom readers are intended to empathize. King Mark often misinterprets circumstances as well, but to vastly different ends. His indecisiveness is at times endearing, and though he is the enemy of our "hero", his character is ultimately cast in a more positive light than the titular protagonist.
The events that take place in the text are rarely motivated by Tristan's hand: Tristan makes few, if any, decisions on his own. A pattern emerges in which Broul repeatedly reveals Tristan's inefficacy to the reader, but because the other characters in the text do not see Tristan's flaws, he remains the hero. He is in love with Isolde,...
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Daily Digest: Pact Of The Kitten
Go ahead. Pet the kitty. It looks so friendly and its fur looks so soft. What could possibly go wrong?
Then suddenly you find a Demon ripping your soul out while holding out a contract that you don't remember signing. All you wanted to do was play with a cute kitten and now you're damned to spend the rest of eternity in fire and brimstone.
Don't worry. We all make mistakes.
I knew this deck would pop up sooner or later. Game-ending combos don't appear in Standard that often, so whenever one slips through the cracks, many players are all too eager to put on their brewing caps and make it work.
Most of the time the combo is too convoluted to attain the necessary consistency, especially in the current Standard dominated by aggressive creatures. But this one is lean, only two cards. One of those cards can dig for the combo, protect the combo by stripping answers from your opponent's hand, and buy time by gaining life and killing something.
Some lists I've seen take advantage of this by trimming on Harmless Offerings and playing a control gameplan, eventually executing the combo with the aid of many copies of Dark Petition. Not so here, as we see three copies of Harmless Offering. We're jamming and jamming hard, which I can certainly appreciate.
Between Duress and Collective Brutality, you have plenty of protection for the combo, and the rest of the deck is removal to buy time and Read the Bones and Tormenting Voice to tear through your deck as quickly as possible. It wouldn't surprise me if this list can win on turn 5 with regularity, using the first couple of turns to play disruption before sequencing Read the Bones, Demonic Pact, Discard + Harmless Offering on turns 3 through 5.
There aren't a lot of bells and whistles here. You could try to sideboard into a more traditional control deck if you expect your opponent has disruption for the combo, whether through discard or enchantment removal like Dromoka's Command, but doing so takes a lot of space, given how threat-light the maindeck is.
You also gain an advantage by making nearly all opposing removal bad. Even if they draw a Dromoka's Command or two, the additional time you gain by those cards not being able to pressure you should let you find the necessary discard to combo through them. The extreme focus of this list on the combo gives you a strange sort of inevitability. Unless your opponent can create pressure through your array of removal spells, eventually you are going to make them an offer they can't refuse.
About Ross Merriam
Ross has been playing competitive Magic for over ten years and has been a fixture on the SCG Tour® since 2012. With a highly analytical approach, he stresses playing fundamentally sound Magic with a preference toward proactive strategies. Always ready and willing to teach, his quest to achieve competitive success will help guide your own path to improvement.
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Farmers' markets
Why not sample quality fresh local food and drink with a visit to one of these farmers' markets? Enjoy the friendly atmosphere and have a chat with the passionate people behind your food. Many also include craft makers and artists showcasing their beautiful handcrafted work. They're award-winners too, Stokesley taking the 2014 FARMA National Farmers' Market of the year and one of The Telegraph's Top 20 UK Farmers' Markets in 2017.
As well as enjoying great tasting produce, by buying direct you'll be helping the local economy and farming communities which maintain much of the outstanding landscape in the North York Moors.
Can't wait until the next market? Luckily you'll find many market towns hold traditional weekly markets and Country Markets and plenty of farm shops on your doorstep selling fresh produce, and usually stocking other Yorkshire food and drink, and tasty treats too.
Coxwold
Coxwold Village Market is new for 2019. Find a wide range of producers at Coxwold Village Hall on the last Saturday every month (10am-1pm).
Esk Valley Mini Markets
A local Mini Market, sometimes themed, held at various locations where most of the stallholders are from local farming families. Free admission. Sit down for a brew and homemade cakes too. Check their Facebook page for more details of each market and opening times.
Hovingham
The Hovingham Village Market is a previous winner of the Yorkshire Life Farmers' Market of the Year (2012) and was a finalist in the North Yorkshire County Council Best Community Project Award 2015.
First Saturday of every month (10.30am-1.30pm). No market in January, 10th birthday celebrations (5 October 2019), extra Christmas market in December (7 and 21 December 2019).
Husthwaite
More seasonal, than monthly, Husthwaite Village Markets are worth a visit. Head to the village hall to find around 25 stallholders, including bread, honey, cider, preserves, chocolatiers, rare breed meats, arts and crafts, and Apple Tree Café serving homemade food and beverages.
Sheriff Hutton
Find locally sourced or hand made produce inside and outside the village hall.
Stokesley
Winner of FARMA's National Farmers' Market of the Year 2014 and in the Telegraph's Top 20 UK Farmers' Markets for 2017. 36 stallholders selling organic vegetables, meat, British charcuterie, chocolates, plants and more.
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LOCATION
Credit Cards Accepted:
About Us
For over 10 years, Vinny’s Italian Grill and Pizzeria in Midlothian has been serving
good food at competitive prices along with steadfast and friendly service. Our story
has been one of hard work coupled with genuine commitment to serve the very best
that we can in a warm family-style environment. This has been our key to success
and we hope that we can continue to serve and please our clientele for many years
to come. Finally, a word for our Customers:
Thank you for your loyalty and continued patronage.
Without you we wouldn’t be here. Grazie!
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-
Wednesday, July 19, 2017
A Text Book Case
If you want a perfect and shining example of why American brick and mortar retail is failing, and why people are flocking to the internet, this is it.
I stopped at a big box store at 2:00 AM Monday for a couple of cases of water. Personally, I like tap. The chlorine makes me feel clean inside. I have family members who won't touch the stuff.
I grabbed a cart and wheeled it to the back of the store, threw in two cases, and headed for the self serve check out in the front. I zapped the bar codes with the gun at the register, jammed my credit card in the slot, and headed for the door.
Before I got to the exit, a security guard stopped me and asked to see my receipt. I replied that I checked out six feet in front of him, ten seconds ago! He replied that he has to check everyone as they leave. I supplied my receipt, but I wasn't done with the store yet.
I told the guard there should be security personnel in the parking lot because the place was crawling with shady characters.
That will never happen. Here's why.
If someone steals from your car in the parking lot of the store, that's your problem.
If someone steals from the store, that hurts the company-- and the company feels it's more important than you, your shopping experience, and more importantly, your safety.
By the way, the security guard could not have cared less about my concerns. Next time, the manager gets a visit.
I guess I can avoid those 2:00 AM shopping trips, but that's when I have time available. I'm sorry the store cares more about loss prevention than safety preservation.
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{
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my boards have a ww of 249 and 254
i have large cartels and wear sz13, no toe drag for me luckily
This is either a lie or you have angles like 21,-21 or you have your bindings set way back and have significantly uneven overhang.
I wear a size 12.5-13 boot, anything less then 259 is pretty noticable. You should be fine on anything from 259 up, but i assure you the poster i quoted is wrong about his overhang. (as another poster suggested Mid-wides should work fine for you)
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Ramblings of a crazy cat lady.
Menu
A letter to myself
I know you’re feeling like crap right now. All the good intentions and efforts you started this year out with, have sort of fizzled and gone up in smoke. You were very determined to make this work out as long as possible, but after 6 weeks that ended in a bit of a bust.
But it’s okay.
Remember that you’re still only 6 weeks into a new medication regime. Adjusting insulin and getting it all sorted, and sticking to it, takes time and experimentation.
Remember that you started your first period on insulin almost three weeks ago, and it’s still going. Insulin is a hormone, you have the hormonal birth control implant, this is not out of the ordinary that they affect one another but it is taking a toll on you. It’s no wonder you feel tired when you’ve bled nonstop for 18 days, while juggling everything else around it. That’s not your fault.
Remember that a few days into your period, you also came down with a cold. Now a cold is bad enough on its own to throw almost anyone out of their routine, but you know that a disruption of routine hits you especially hard. It lasted almost five days before you felt better. That’s not your fault.
Remember that insomnia is a real part of your health problems and that your best efforts don’t always work to get through it. You’ve had insomnia almost non-stop since your period started and this is killer on basically anyone. When you do get to sleep, you feel like a train hit you. That’s not your fault.
Somewhere along the way, for two days you didn’t give a flying fuck about your diabetes and just ate whatever with a few shots here and there. Your values were all over the place, but so was your mind and your ability to hang on through this shit storm. Nobody is perfect, and neither are you. What matters is that on the third day, you tested your waking up value, saw it was 9.7, and decided to fix it instead of despairing.
You’re still not fully on track, and your diet still sucks, but you’re taking your insulin properly and making the best effort you can at the moment. You’re still dealing with that motherfucking period, and that’s enough to enrage almost any woman and send her shrieking like a banshee through the streets, but the fact you’re taking it levelheaded as it comes is a good and admirable thing.
It’s impossible to control everything in life. Remember how we’ve vowed to live by that saying and not feel depressed about it? These are things that influence you which you can’t control, but what you can control is how you respond to and deal with them.
That includes doing the best you can with the foods you can afford. It’s important to remember you’re in a unique financial situation where your fixed income doesn’t offer much leeway. If you can’t afford to replace the staple whole carbs and the cheap processed box carbs with whole vegetables and proteins, then you can’t. Let’s be honest, a box of brown rice that costs eighty cents and feeds you for fifteen servings, beats a salad that costs twice as much and feeds you once hands down. That is reality. You did the math, you kept your body’s limitations in mind (don’t forget you also have IBS and a lot of vegetables cause very painful gas), and it doesn’t work out. You can’t be upset about that because being upset changes nothing. You’ve had many great days in your diabetes control with the diet you have right now, there’s no reason that with a tiny bit of extra effort you can’t keep that up.
You’re trying. You’re aware of what’s happening to you. You’ve made efforts to change that what you can change. You can’t do anything about that which you can’t change. Just keep doing what you’re doing, keep testing and taking your insulin, keep checking what and how much you’re eating, keep soldiering through this period; it’s bound to end sooner than later right about now.
Never forget that you have many people who love you dearly. Never forget that this disease isn’t easy to manage and takes a lot of care. Never forget that you are more than capable. Never forget it’s okay to falter sometimes, but it’s necessary to pick yourself back up afterwards.
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{
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@Carlos Pinzón, posted as an answer as you requested: functools.lru_cache() is designed to work with arbitrary positional and keyword arguments, and possibly a maximum cache size. If you don't need those features, it isn't too difficult to roll your own cache (aka memoize) decorator. The cache is just a dictionary, so you can provide a function to save it to disk as a pickle (or json if you want to be able to look at it) and reload it later. The lru_cache sourcecode is also available; modify it to suit your needs.
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`Shuttle bug' route proposed to assist people seeking jobs
MTA eyes bus plan to link Randallstown and Owings Mills Mall
Owings Mills is less than 2 miles from Randallstown. But if you don't have a car, it can take hours to get from one Northwest Baltimore County neighborhood to the other by bus.
The state's Mass Transit Administration wants to solve the problem with a shuttle bus route that would link sections of Randallstown to the Owings Mills Mall, with the goal of opening up employment opportunities for Randallstown residents.
Existing bus routes require riders to travel several miles into the city and travel back out to Owings Mills.
MTA officials proposed the plan last week at a meeting with community leaders. While comments were mixed - some Randallstown homeowners objected to buses traveling through their neighborhood - several leaders agreed to form a committee to discuss the route with MTA officials.
Bill Bralove, president of RENEW, a Randallstown-based community organization of 3,000 members, said many residents are senior citizens "who no longer drive and want to work. They can't get to the Owings Mills Mall."
A shuttle bus "could also reduce traffic," he said. "We're seeing families with four or five cars."
Beth Robinson, chief of community planning for the MTA, said the shuttle bus is in the planning stage and no route has been proposed. She said that if the plan is approved, the buses used would be shorter by at least 10 feet than regular MTA buses and would be called "shuttle bugs."
The proposed Randallstown-Owings Mills shuttle would be one of six planned for older communities in the metropolitan area. The first will connect Hampden in North Baltimore to the Woodbury light rail stop, she said.
She declined to name the other neighborhoods where the MTA is considering shuttles because those areas have not been notified.
In Randallstown, representatives from residential neighborhoods, the business community and Northwest Hospital Center will begin meeting Jan 1.
Bralove said some opponents were concerned that "public transportation generates crime and automatically connects [local] people with the city dwellers. This is a shuttle between communities. If the crime exists, it's already here."
Bralove also said some Randallstown residents might be wary of the MTA because of a dispute that arose three years ago when the transit administration announced it would extend the Liberty Road bus line from Chapman Road north to Deer Park Road, having it pass through several residential neighborhoods.
"The MTA presented it as a done deal and hadn't communicated with anyone in the area," he said. The community fought the plan, and the MTA withdrew the bus line extension.
This time, Bralove said, the MTA is doing a better job of seeking community input.
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Archives
About Victor Alexander
The law firm of Victor Alexander, Jr. P.C., has been successfully representing Georgians suffering a loss of quality of life due to an accident or injury for more than three decades. Let us help you obtain the medical and income benefits you need for your Workers’ Compensation or Personal Injury claim.
Archive for December, 2011
Claimant fell as she was turning down a store aisle. She fractured her leg in the fall and subsequently filed a claim for workers’ compensation. The administrative law judge ruled that Johnson’s injury arose out of the course of employment. On appeal the Superior Court of Houston County reversed and the Court of Appeals then received the case and they reversed. Johnson v. Publix Supermarkets, 256 Ga. App. 540, 568 S.E.2d 827 (2002).
This case seems to reverse the issue of idiopathic fall and quotes many cases which state as follows: “Physical contact with some object is no necessary in order for the employee to sustain an accident within the meaning of the workers’ compensation law. See Orkin Exterminating Company v. Wright, 92 Ga. App. 224, 88 S.E.2d 205 (1955).
The Court goes on to say that the Hartford accident for the Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. v. Cox, 61 Ga. App. 420, 6 S.E.2d 189 (1939) the Court held that to be compensable injuries do not have to arise from something peculiar to the employment.
Instead where the duties of an employee entail his presence at the place and a time, the claimant for an injury there occurring is not to be barred because it results from a risk common to all others, a concept that came to be known as a “positional risk doctrine”. While subject cases have cited Borden Foods v. Dorsey, 112 Ga. App. 838, 146 S.E.2d 532 (1965), the proposition that there must be a causal connection between the employment and the injury (such as the specific incurrence) its requirement of a “peculiar danger”, is no longer good law and was overruled by National Fire Insurance Company v. Edwards, 152 Ga. App. 566, 263 S.E.2d 455 (1979).
Slip and Fall/Rubber Mat
Plaintiff slipped and fell at a store and alleged that the store breeched a duty it owed her as an invitee when she tripped and fell on a mat. The trial court granted a summary judgment on behalf of the store. Where the Supreme Court has held 1) as a general proposition, issues of negligence, contributory negligence and lack of ordinary care for one’s own safety are not susceptible of summary adjudication but should instead be resolved by trial in the ordinary matter and 2) trial court can conclude as a matter of law that the facts do or do not show negligence on the part of the defendant or the plaintiff only where the evidence is plain, palpable and undisputable. Issues such as how closely a particular retailer should monitor its premises and approaches, what retailers should know about the property’s condition at any given time, how vigilant patrons must be for their own safety in various settings and where customers should be held responsible or not responsible for looking or not looking are all questions that, in general must be answered by juries as a matter of fact rather than by judges as a matter of law. See Robinson v. Kroger Company, 268 Ga. 735, 493 S.E.2d 403 (1997) See Also American Multi-Cinema, Inc v. Brown, 285 Ga. 442, 679 S.E.2d 25 (2009) and Mairs v. Whole Foods Market Group, Inc, 303 Ga. App. 638,694 S.E.2d 129 (2010).
In Georgia, a proprietor has a statutory duty to exercise ordinary care to keep its premises safe which, includes inspecting the premises to discover possible dangerous conditions of which the proprietor does not have actual knowledge and taking reasonable precautions to protect invitees from dangers foreseeable from the arrangement or use of the premises. The plaintiff or invitee must prove 1) that the defendant had actual or constructive knowledge of the hazard and 2) that the plaintiff lacked knowledge of the hazardous despite the exercise of ordinary care due to actions or conditions within the control of the owner/occupier.
In the case of floor mats which are subject to folding, bunching, rolling and shifting can constitute hazards for which landowners may be liable. In this case, the owner inspected the premises at 7:00 a.m. with the accident occurring at 5:00 a.m. The courts decided to leave it to a jury instead of summary judgment for adjudication because the owner may have lacked a reasonable inspection procedure. A plaintiff need not show how long a hazard was present unless the owner has first demonstrated its inspection procedures. The evidence must establish an adherence to customary inspection procedures on the day in question and not simply that such procedures exist. All of this is cited in Benefield v. Tominich, 2011 WL 982973. (CASE NO. A10A2242) (DEC’D 3/22/11).
Where an employee is injured outside the state and collects workers’ compensation in this state, workers’ compensation will be his exclusive remedy. See Karimi v. Crowley, 172 Ga. App. 761, 324 S.E.2d 583 (1984).
Since the company picnic where claimant died was not on premises, was a morale booster and was not required, the trial court properly held that the workers’ compensation act was not the exclusive remedy. Pizza Hut of America, Inc. v. Hood , 198 Ga. App. 112, 400 S.E.2d 657 (1990).
Plaintiff killed while working for DOT on Ashland-Warren site. Because DOT had control over the time, manner and method of work, workers’ comp was the only remedy and they could not sue in tort for wrongful death. George v. Ashland-Warren, Inc., 171 Ga. App. 556, 320 S.E.2d 586 (1984). Reversed in George v. Ashland-Warren, Inc., 254 Ga. 95, 326 S.E.2d 744 (1985).
Sheriff is deputy’s employer for purposes of Georgia Workers’ Compensation Act, and does not owe deputy special duty that would render Act inapplicable. Sergeant Teasley was fatally shot by Brian Nichols while on the job. His wife filed suit against various parties, including the Fulton County Sheriff Myron Freeman. The trial court dismissed the suit on the ground that workers’ compensation is the “exclusive remedy” for on the job injuries under Georgia Law. The wide appealed to the Appellate Division and argued that the trial judge erred in finding that Sheriff Freeman was Sergeant Teasley’s employer for purposes of the Act and that no unique duty was owed to Sergeant Teasley that would make the Act’s exclusive remedy provision inapplicable. Appellate Division rejected these arguments and affirmed the trial court. A sheriff would be considered a deputy’s employer under the Georgia Act because of his status as a county officer and the Act’s treatment of counties as employers. The Court of Appeals held that there was no exception to bring this case out of the exclusive remedy of workers’ compensation and Sheriff Freeman owed no unique duty to take this case outside of the Act. Teasley v. Freeman, 305 Ga. App. 1, 699 S.E.2d 39 (2010).
An employer is not protected from tort immunity under the exclusive remedy provision of the Georgia Workers’ Compensation Act if the employee’s claim is not otherwise subject to the Workers’ Compensation Act. Brian Nichols escaped from Fulton County deputies killing Judge Rowland Barnes and others. Additionally he held captive Judge Barnes’ case manager and assistant case manager. They sure the county sheriff and other employees in tort seeking special, general, and punitive damages for false imprisonment, assault, and infliction of emotional distress. Trial court granted sheriff’s motion to dismiss holding that the plaintiff’s exclusive remedy was in workers’ compensation. The Court of Appeals reversed holding that plaintiff’s had not alleged any physical injuries and therefore their claims were not within the scope of the Act. Clarke v. Freeman, 302 Ga. App. 831, 692 S.E.2d 80 (2010).
Workers’ Compensation Act is exclusive remedy for claims of heirs in temporary worker against contractor to whom temporary worker was assigned. In April 200k Boral Bricks, Inc. (BBI) hired Albert Painting Inc. (API) to paint some of the buildings at its Smyrna, Georgia plant. API contracted with Labor Ready to supply temporary workers for the job billing $16.80 per employee, per hour which included workers’ compensation insurance. Sabellona was a temporary employee supplied to API for painting BBI’s plant and on August 14, 2006 he fell through a skylight on the roof and died. His son filed a workers’ compensation claim against Labor Ready which settled for $160,000. His two other children filed a wrongful death suit against API and BBI. Trial court granted API’s motion for summary judgment holding they were protected by O.C.G.A. § 34-9-11(c) of the Act. The exclusive remedy provision prevents an injured employee or his/her dependents from bringing a tort claim against the employer. The Court of Appeals affirmed holding that API was immune from suit. Sabellona v. Albert Painting, Inc., 303 Ga. App. 842, 695 S.E.2d 307 (2010).
Temporary help firm employee killed on premises of company where he was working could not bring third party tort action against the company despite that temporary help firm paid workers’’ compensation benefits because the company was protected by the workers’ compensation exclusive remedy. Rose Marie Cyronis as personal representative of the Estate of Jeffrey C. Cyronis v. Mart Management (decided Janurary 21, 2010).
Cannot File Tort Action if Case is Settled by No Liability Stipulation
O.C.G.A. § 34-9-15: Where a dispute over the applicability of the Workers’ Compensation Act exists but the parties want to settle a claim, the Board is authorized to approve a settlement agreement which contains a “no-liability” stipulation and to enforce any compensation payment agreed to in the settlement. Moreover, where compensation is paid pursuant to a settlement under § 34-9-15, the exclusive remedy provisions of O.C.G.A. § 34-9-11(a) bar a subsequent tort suit by the insured party despite a stipulation in the settlement agreement that there was no liability under the Act. Ridley v. Monroe, 256 Ga. App. 686, 569 S.E.2d 561 (2002); Theesfeld v. Image Electrolysis and Skin Care, Inc., 274 Ga. App. 38, 619 S.E.2d 303 (2005).
Employee of General Contractor Liable
Employee of independent subcontractor, who received workers’ compensation benefits for injuries he sustained during the scope of his employment on the job site when he was accidentally injured by the general contractor’s employee, brought action against the general contractor and its employee seeking damages. The State Court, Cobb County, Tom Cauthorn, J., entered summary judgment in favor of the defendants, and appeal was taken. Long v. Marvin M. Black Co., 163 Ga. App.633, 294 S.E.2d 641, affirmed.
Certiorari was granted. The Supreme Court, Hill, C.J., held that the claim against the general contractor was barred by tort immunity, but the employee was not immune from tort liability because the two employees were not employed by the same employer. Long v. Marvin M. Black Co. 250 Ga. 621, 300 S.E.2d 150 (1983).
Immunity from Suit
A good discussion on the immunity applied for tort law and that tort law does not apply to workers’ compensation cases. See Bayer Corporation et al. v. Lassiter, 282 Ga. App. 346, 638 S.E.2d 812 (2006).
Misrepresentation by Employer to Treating Doctor about Legality of Chemicals: An employer, who misrepresents to a treating doctor that a certain chemical exposure to a claimant is not harmful when in fact it is, amounts to a misrepresentation that will waive any immunity under the Georgia Workers’ Compensation Act. See, Potts v. UAP-GA, AG Chem, Inc., 227 Ga. App. 841, 490 S.E.2d 432 (1997) Rev’d. by Potts v. UAP-GA, AG Chem, Inc., 270 Ga. 14, 506 S.E.2d 101 (1998).
Research about Contractor’s Relationships
O.C.G.A. § 34-9-11
States that however, that no employee shall be deprived of any right to bring an action against any third-party tort-feasor, other than an employee of the same employer or any person who, pursuant to a contract or agreement with an employer, provides workers’ compensation benefits to an injured employee, notwithstanding the fact that no common law master-servant relationship or contract of employment exists between the injured employee and the person providing the benefits, and other than a construction design professional.
The immunity provided by this subsection shall apply and extend to the business using the service of a temporary help contracting firm, such term is defined in Code Section 34-8-46, or an employee leasing company, as such term is defined in Code Section 34-8-32, when the benefits required by this chapter are provided by either the temporary help contracting firm or the employee leasing company or the business using the services or either such firm or company. A temporary help contracting firm or an employee leasing company shall be deemed to be a statutory employer for the purposes of this chapter.
The court reversed the grant of summary judgment for the general contractor’s employees because they did not share in the statutory immunity where they were not employees of the subcontractor.
The general contractor Marvin M. Black Company. We are required by Long v. Marvin M. Black Co., 250 Ga. 621, 300 S.E.2d 150 to reverse the summary judgments granted to the employees of Marvin M. Black Co. Established that HN1(upwards arrow) the liability of the general contractor for workers’ compensation benefits renders it liable for workers compensation benefits as the “statutory employer” of its subcontractor’s employee; but according to the Supreme Court’s decision in Long, Supra, the employees of the general contractor do not share in that statutory immunity, as they are not “employee(s) of the same employer” (O.C.G.A. § 34-9-11) AS Paz.
But plaintiffs assert they have sued each of these individual employees of the general contractor on account of a breach of a specific management or supervisory duty. There is evidence raising an issue of the fact as to there being committed a negligent act in managing supervising or implementing the safety program therefore, we cannot find they have borne their duty as movants to prove they are entitled to judgment as matter of law.
Where a claimant makes certain admissions to formal requests for admissions and then states otherwise during the testimony, an Administrative Law Judge can’t disbelieve the admissions and accept the testimony. See Piedmont Aviation Inc. v. Washington, 181 Ga. App. 730, 353 S.E.2d 847 (1987).
Affidavits
Affidavits may be considered even if conclusions are intermingled with facts. Willig v. Shelnutt, 224 Ga. App. 530, 480 S.E.2d 924 (1997). Self-serving does not equate with conclusionary when the statements contained in an affidavit are supported… by substantiating facts and circumstances. See, Keene v. Herstam, 225 Ga. App. 115, 483 S.E.2d 235 (1997).
It is well established that a party to an action is a competent witness. The fact that a witness is a party goes to the weight and credibility of his testimony. Where the claimant swears to his injury and disability, this testimony’s weight and credibility is to be determined solely by the ALJ and the Board. “The Superior Court. When sitting as an appellate body, is bound by the ‘any evidence’ standard of review and is not authorized to substitute its judgment as to weight and credibility of the witnesses. The ALJ and Board may choose to believe the testimony of the claimant as opposed to the testimony of an expert witness. The testimony of the claimant provided the ‘any evidence’ in support of the ALJ and Board’s findings, and the Superior Court erred in substituting its judgment for that of the Board in weighing the credibility of the claimant’s testimony, and finding no competent evidence in support of the Board’s award.” See Maddox v. Elbert County Chamber of Commerce, 191 Ga. App. 478, 382 S.E.2d 150 (1989).
The Board is the trier of fact and law and the appellate court is bound by the findings that there is “any evidence” to support that finding. Diers v. House of Hines, Inc., 168 Ga. App. 282, 308 S.E.2d 611 (1983).
“The findings and conclusions of the full board supersede those of the administrative law judge and required under the ‘any evidence rule’ to uphold those findings and conclusion. It is the law in this state that if there is any evidence to support a finding the Workers’ Compensation Board of the Superior Court may not reverse the award unless errors of law are committed. Moreover, in determining whether evidence in the case meets that any evidence rule, the evidence will be construed in the light most favorable to the party prevailing before the board and every presumption in favor of the board’s award is indulged. See Poulnot v. Dundee Mills Corp., 173 Ga. App. 799, 328 S.E.2d 228 (1985).
Finding of fact by the Board if supported by any evidence is conclusive and binding upon the Superior Court. Banks v. Royal Globe Insurance, Co., 160 Ga. App. 18, 286 S.E.2d 309 (1981).
Since there was some evidence to authorize the award of attorney fees for failure to comply with O.C.G.A. § 34-9-221(d) without reasonable grounds it was error to reverse the full board. Moon v. Cook & Co., 170 Ga. App. 569, 317 S.E.2d 642 (1984).
Findings of fact by the Board if supported by any evidence is conclusive and binding upon the superior court. Banks v. Royal Globe Insurance Co., 160 Ga. App. 18, 286 S.E.2d 309 (1981). Since there was some evidence to authorize the imposition of attorneys’ fees for failure to comply with 34-9-221(d) without reasonable grounds, it was err to reverse the Full Board. Moon v. Cook & Co., 170 Ga. App. 569, 317 S.E.2d 642 (1984).
The Administrative Law Judge relied on the opinion of the family physician for a claimant seeking catastrophic designation of his case. The employer and their insurer sent claimant to Dr. Lee Kelley, Dr. Thomas Dopson and Dr. Ezequiel Cassinelli. All three IME doctors concluded that claimant had no residual problems because of his back. The case was appealed to the full Board of the State Board of Workers’ Compensation and the full Board reversed indicating that the preponderance of evidence supported the three IME doctors that there was no problem and the case did not meet catastrophic designation. In 1994 the legislature amended O.C.G.A. § 34‑9‑103(a) and stated that the full Board or appellate division reviews the decisions of the ALJ’s findings of fact and they shall be accepted by the appellate division where such findings are supported by a preponderance of competent and credible evidence contained within the record. The appellate division can no longer hear additional evidence but you must make a decision on the record established in the trial division if the appellate division concludes that the ALJ Award does not meet the statutory requirement of preponderance of admissible evidence then the appellate division may substitute its own alternative findings for those of the ALJ and enter an Award accordingly. See Bonus Stores, Inc. et al. v. Hensley, 2011 WL 1238420, (Case No. A11A0307 decided April 5, 2011).
Claimant as a Witness for Self
In a workers’ compensation case, a Superior Court judge held that there was no competent and credible evidence on record to support the finding of the Board and ALJ that claimant sustained an injury. The Superior Court judge went on to hold that because claimant was a party in interest her credibility is suspect at best, and therefore, without any confirmatory evidence, is not competent to support the verdict. The Superior Court judge cited Brown Transport v. Parker, 129 Ga. App. 737, 201 S.E.2d 17 (1983), as supporting. In reversing the Superior Court judge, the Court of Appeals held that a party to an action is a competent witness. See O.C.G.A. § 24-9-1(a). The fact that a witness is a party goes to the weight and credibility of his testimony. See O.C.G.A. § 24-4-4.
Where the claimant swears to his injury and disability, this testimony’s weight and credibility is to be determined solely by the ALJ and the Board, and his testimony alone is sufficient to establish those facts. See Fulton Dekalb Hospital Authority v. Hadley, 174 Ga. App. 503, 330 S.E.2d 432 (1985); and Southern Railroad Company v. Tankersley, 3 Ga. App. 548, 60 S.E. 297 (1908). The Court of Appeals went on to hold that the findings of the Board are conclusive and binding and neither the Superior Court not this Court has any authority to substitute itself as a fact finding body in lieu of the Board. See East Texas Motor Freight Lines v. Jacobs, 163 Ga. App. 727, 296 S.E.2d 80 (1982); and Argonaut Insurance Co. v. Cline, 142 Ga. App. 603, 236 S.E.2d 876 (1977).
The ALJ and the Board may choose to believe the testimony of the claimant as opposed to the testimony of an expert. See Fulton Dekalb Hospital Authority v. Hadley, 174 Ga. App. 503, 330 S.E.2d 432 (1985); and Terry v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, 152 Ga. App. 583, 263 S.E.2d 475 (1979). This may all be found in Maddox v. Elbert County Chamber of Commerce, A89A0112 (1989).
Factual questions concerning causation are properly left to the state Board to determine rather than to the superior court or the appellate courts and the Board’s findings must be affirmed if there is any evidence to support them. City of Atlanta v. Roach, 297 Ga. App. 408, 677 S.E.2d 426 (2009). CYKK (USA), Inc., 287 Ga. App. 537, 652 S.E.2d 187 (2007) all cited in Hughston Orthopedic Hospital et al. v Wilson, 306 Ga. App. 893, 703 S.E.2d 17 (2010).
In this case the Administrative Law Judge simply did not believe the witness and found that she had psychiatric problems as opposed to being exposed to glue while at work. Even though there was a medical physician, Dr. Larry Empting, who believed that it was caused by chemical exposure and the Board and Administrative Law Judge simply did not have to believe the doctor which he did not. “But the trier of fact clearly is entitled to observe the demeanor and conduct of the witness while testifying and take these factors into account in ensuring the credibility of the witness.” See McIlwain v. State, 264 Ga. 382, 445 S.E.2d 261 (1994).
Also, the fact finder may consider medical opinion testimony in the context of its own experience and completely disregard the expert opinion. See Dept. of Revenue v Graham, 102 Ga. App. 756, 117 S.E.2d 902 (1960). (“The weight and credit to be given to expert testimony is a question exclusively for decision by the fact-finding tribunal.”)
Independent Contractor v. Employee
Judge Jacoy Claimant-Sewell worked doing satellite installation work for New South Contracting. He did not discuss employment status and did not sign a contract establishing any particular status. He did fill out paperwork identifying him as an independent subcontractor. Form W-9 may indicate independent contractor but to an untrained eye, such as Mr. Sewell, it had no impact. The judge points out that a very small font size was used to establish independent contractor or subcontractor. Judge Jacoy determined that the company retained the right to control the manner and method of work and retained the right to inspect jobs by sending quality control inspectors to the completed jobs for the purpose of verifying that the installation has been performed.
“Although there are some indicia of independent contractor status, I find that Mr. Sewell has shown by a preponderance of the evidence that he was an employee of New South Contracting. The few factors which could indicate status as an independent contractor are not sufficient to negate the other factors which indicate status as an employee. Echo Enterprises, Inc. v. Aspinwall, 194 Ga. App. 444, 390 S.E.2d 867 (1990). Because the company has the right to direct the time, manner, methods, and means of the work, the relationship between it and Mr. Sewell was of an employer and employee. Burgett v. Thamer Construction, Inc., 165 Ga. App. 404, 300 S.E.2d 211 (1983). In addition, I conclude that the relationship of these parties was of employer/employee because the law resolves doubt in favor of employee status. Unigard Mutual Insurance Co. v. Hornsby, 134 Ga. App. 157, 213 S.E.2d 538 (1975).”
In workers’ comp case contention is that Administrative Law Judge erred in admitting the results of a paternity test because the report did not meet the requirements O.C.G.A. § 34-9-102(e)(2). The contention is that the report was not signed by a treating physician and that no physician or other medical provider testified regarding the issue of paternity.
In order to satisfy O.C.G.A. § 34-9-102(e)(2), a medical report must be signed by a “duly qualified medical practitioner.” The persons listed include a physician and three laboratory directors.
An individual holding a Ph.D. is not a “medical practitioner” as defined O.C.G.A. § 43-34-20(3). Therefore, because the evidence does not show that a physician signed a report, the ALJ erred in admitting it under O.C.G.A. § 34-9-102(e)(2). However, such error was harmless given the independent evidence supporting the finding that the young girl was the biological daughter of the employee.
Language in the code section (O.C.G.A. § 34, O.C.G.A. § 9-11-35) has very clear language requiring the examination be performed by a physician.” Since a psychologist is not a physician, the trial court had no authority to order Roberts to submit to an examination by a psychologist.
Medical Opinions – Weight and Credit to be given
In workers’ compensation claims although all medical opinions must be considered, acceptance of an opinion is not required. See Liberty Mutual Ins. Co. v. Nobles, 147 Ga. App. 81, 248 S.E.2d 160 (1978). Further, the weight and credit to be given to expert testimony is a question exclusively for decision by the fact-finder, making the opinions of the expert witness advisory and binding the fact-finder only to the extent to which credence is given to the opinion. See Department of Revenue v. Graham, 102 Ga. App. 756, 117 S.E.2d 902 (1960) Thus, the Board may accept the testimony of one expert over the testimony of another. Further, the rejection of an expert medical opinion is within the authority of the Board. As the Board is not absolutely bound to accept such expert opinions, even when uncontroverted. See Fulton County Board of Education v. Taylor, 262 Ga. App. 512, 586 S.E.2d 51 (2003). Therefore, the Board is free to accept the testimony of one doctor over that of another or reject an expert medical opinion outright.
O.C.G.A. § 34-9-221(h) provides that, where compensation is being paid without an award, the right to compensation shall not be controverted except upon the grounds of change in condition or newly discovered evidence unless a Notice to Controvert is filed with the Board within sixty days of the due date of first payment of compensation.
Failure to exercise ordinary diligence in discovering evidence that will be used to controvert a claim will bar the argument of “newly discovered evidence.” See Georgia Power Company v. Pinson, 167 Ga. App. 90, 305 S.E. 2d 887 (1983).
In deciding whether to remand a case to the ALJ to receive newly discovered evidence, the Board is directed to apply the law of Georgia regarding the nature and character of newly discovered evidence required for the granting of a new trial. Rule 103-D of the Rules of the State Board of Workers’ Compensation. See also, Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company v. Snyder, 126 Ga. App. 31, 189 S.E.2d 919 (1982).
Evidence is not duly discovered if it was known to a party at the time of the original hearing. For reference, see Franchise Enterprises, Inc. v. Sullivan, 190 Ga. App. 767, 380 S.E.2d 68 (1989).
Weight and credit to be given: “It is up to the Board to determine the weight and credit to be given testimony of witnesses and to resolve the conflicts in the evidence. Raley v. Lanco Paint and Drywall, 190 Ga. App. 462, 379 S.E.2d 196 (1989); Moss v. Brunswick Mfg. Co., Inc., 160 Ga. App. 564, 287 S.E.2d 612 (1981).
“Upon de novo consideration of all evidence, the Board makes the findings of the administrative law judge its findings and conclusions.” Cooper v. Simmons Co., 154 Ga. App. 260, 267 S.E.2d 866 (1980). This case finds merit less that the board failed to consider all of the evidence.
Questions as to creditability and preponderance address themselves to the trier of fact. On appeal the appellate tribunal does not determine creditability of witnesses on the preponderance of the evidence. Hodges v. William L. Sloan, Inc., 173 Ga. App. 358, 326 S.E.2d 556 (1985).
Equitable estoppel is a doctrine which could, in some circumstances be applied to a workers’ compensation case. An employer could be bound by the Act whether there was valid reliance if the worker relied on a misrepresentation that was covered. In this case a deduction was regularly made from claimant’s pay. See Hartford Insurance Group v. Voyles, 149 Ga. App. 517, 254 S.E.2d 867 (1979). See Also Horne v. Exum, 204 Ga. App. 337, 419 S.E.2d 147 (1992).
Where an employer fails to have workers’ compensation insurance, a direct action against the officers and owners is authorized. Samuel v. Baitcher, 247 Ga. 71, 274 S.E.2d 327 (1981).
Statutory Employer
A mere owner of property is not a statutory employer or a “principal contractor” where the owner has no contractual obligation of performance to another. See long discussion and complicated analysis in Yoho v. Ringier of America, Inc., 263 Ga. 338, 434 S.E.2d 57 (1993).
Where there is no evidence to indicate that an owner is under a contractual obligation to anyone to either cut timber on the tract in question or to provide any other service in connection with the cutting of timber, there is no basis for a finding that the owner was in the principal contractor/subcontractor relationship. Since secondary liability imposed upon this code section is predicated upon the existence of the principal contractor/sub-contractor relationship, this provision of the Compensation Act is not intended to cover all employers who let out work on contract, but is limited to those who contract to perform certain work, such as the furnishing of goods and services for another and then subletting in whole or part such work. See Evans v. Hawkins, 114 Ga. App. 120, 150 S.E.2d 324 (1966). See also, American Mutual Liability Insurance Company v. Fuller, 123 Ga. App. 585, 181 S.E.2d 876 (1971) and International Indemnity Company v. White 174 Ga. App. 773, 331 S.E.2d 37 (1985).
Where employee was a police officer for City of Atlanta and obtained permission from City to work during off-time as a security officer for theater. While working at theater, employee was shot and killed. Court decided that since City has full control of employee at all times, and that employee was “on call” for any necessity by City (riot, emergency, etc.) and that employee was performing the duties of a police officer at time he was shot and killed, that the City and the theater should share liability for workers’ compensation benefits. See United States Fire Insurance Co. et al v. City of Atlanta, et al, 135 Ga. App. 390, 217 S.E.2d 647 (1975).
Where out-of-state contractor had no employees in the State of Georgia, contractor was nevertheless required to provide workers’ compensation because under O.C.G.A. § 34-9-124(b), any employer purchasing workers’ compensation coverage is estopped from denying coverage. See 34C: O.C.G.A. § 34-9-124(b). Furthermore the injured employee became a third-party beneficiary to the contractor’s workers’ compensation because of a contract between the owner and the contractor hired to do the relevant work. See all in: Murph v. Maynard Fixturecraft, Inc. et al., 252 Ga. App. 483, 555 S.E.2d 845 (2001).
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Thanks for The Template Suggestions
We would like to thank all those people who contacted us with their suggestions for our forthcoming premium website templates section.
All in all the response was less than we expected but with that said, the suggestions that were made were extensive and have opened our eyes a lot.
We will be integrating a new category into the website for "Charity / NGO" based templates. This is a niche that we have, to-date, had nothing to do with, that's the reason we will add it, a new challenge.
All of the new website templates that we will be building for the premium templates section will be "multi-purpose templates", what does this mean you may say, well, the main layout / design will be suitable for a variety of different types of websites.
Developing for a specific niche is not the way to go forward in our opinion - a template that can be used for a numerous amount of different sites is what we aim to achieve.
Using different layout possibilities, skin colours and main layout colours you can make a template look completely different from its original appearance.
If you add images for a specific niche, with an appropriate colour scheme you get a template for a niche, so a template could be used for multiple types of sites, from corporate to personal.
We have an excellent example of what we are waffling on about, we will write a separate post about it shortly named "CleanCut In The Wild".
Conclusion:
We are working as fast as we can to get the premium templates section up and running, so please have patience, as soon as we have a design or two ready to show, we will.
In the future our intention is to create a premium design, show it in the form of screenshots and ask our users if they want the template converted into HTML or not. The intention behind this is simply to not spend too much time on something no-one wants to see as a fully working HTML template.
We won't be converting all of the designs we make into HTML templates, we will have premium PSD website templates as well as HTML templates, the PSD's can be coded by whoever purchase them.
The PSD templates will have all of the basic elements that are required to create a template e.g. gallery, blog single, blog overview etc.
We also intend on giving the opportunity to buy a template "outright", meaning a template can be bought and the buyer can do with the template what he/she wants to. This is a request that has been asked for by quite a few of our users.
The template will be removed from our website and will never appear on the site again nor will it be sold on any other site by us, this obviously has a different price category.
IMPORTANT NOTE!
We received quite a few requests about using 3rd party grid systems such as Bootstrap - the official answer to this:
WE DON'T USE & WON'T USE 3rd PARTY CSS GRID SYSTEMS OR CSS FRAMEWORKS.
We have built our own responsive and fixed width grid(s) & framework(s), tested them and they work well in all browsers we support - they are easy to use for beginners as well as professional developers.
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Working with us is easy and fun. We love what we do and we're sure you'll love it too. We're creative, but we're also super organised
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It all starts with an idea, (and some coffee). We get to know you, listen to your requirements, brainstorm ideas and develop concepts.
We’ll communicate the ideas through sketches, diagrams, documents and presentations, all of which are accessible online through our shared client portal, Basecamp.
As we close in on the design plan, we’ll put together detailed features lists and milestone schedules so that you know exactly what you’re getting and when you’re getting it
Prototype
Our first delivery will usually be a minimum working prototype. This ‘wireframe’ build can be navigated and interacted with, and aims to give you a sense of the user experience and how it actually ‘feels’ in your hands.
From here design changes can be easily made as the prototype is light and flexible enough for easy changes. We may end up with several prototypes, allowing you to weigh up their various strengths, enabling you to make an informed decision on the final design plan if required.
Iterate
Once a prototype has been approved and the skeleton structure of the project is in place, we’ll then move through the delivery list, adding layers of features to the project. Regular, iterative versions of your project are made available online, allowing you to see the project develop as we work.
All of this information is stored online for maximum transparency and can be easily downloaded and shared with your team. Every comment, decision and product build is tracked, creating a conversation history that gives a great overview of the project.
Alpha & Beta Builds
The Alpha & Beta builds are fully featured versions of your project, complete and ready for testing. We set up a testing schedule and track any bugs or issues that are found. We use both internal and external testing teams to thoroughly work through the project and identify issues.
Using the industry leading Jira software to track bugs, we can provide access to the issues database for your team to view and to contribute to if you wish. At the end of this process, you will have a rock solid version of your project that’s ready for deployment across your chosen platforms.
Deployment
When it’s time to launch your project, we’re there every step of the way. Whether releasing a product on the app store, or launching a website, we make the whole process clear and understandable so that you know exactly what’s going on.
Even at this final stage, if there are issues that need to be kept in mind, from legal compliance to App store requirements. File sizes, formats, servers and data, we can handle all of the heavy lifting to ensure that your project can get off the runway and into the skies.
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Garlic Parmesan Chicken Lasagna Bake
I made this last night and was really pleased with the flavors, especially the tang of the garlic mixed with the sweetness of the peas. I struggled with thickening the sauce, though, so I had to make a flour and butter roux to help thicken it up. And next time, I think I’ll use boiled noodles because my no-boil noodles came out inconsistently cooked,,
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Experimental animation and pottery may seem like two completely different artistic mediums from two totally different worlds, but when the Crafts Council was looking for an effective method of advertising themselves they turned to animator Jim Le Fevre and decided that fusing animation and pottery would not only be eye catching it would be a juxtaposition no one had ever seen before.
The result is a mighty interesting two minute long short that showcases RAMP Ceramics, a company whose name acronym stands for, appropriately enough, Roops and Al Johnstone Make Pottery, and features a simple yet effective phonotrope animation created on the side of a ceramic bowl.
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Carta Font
See preview carta font and download this cool font for free. The font is classified as roman fonts. This font viewed 713 times and downloaded 35 times. You can also downloads other fonts: Carta Std Medium, Carta S, Carta, Magna Carta, CARTAZ, Carta Normal for Windows and Mac at FreakFonts.com. If you like this font don't forget share them with you friends!
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BEOS Spacedrop - Manna from Heaven
The time has come to reveal what happens after the BEOS rainfall ends. The answer is Skyfall.
We'll be dropping a new token from space called Manna which can be traded for millions worth of our best upcoming token offerings.
Here's how it works (when ready this summer). Each time our SpaceQuest satellite passes over our ground station in Alaska it will download Manna tokens to the BEOS wallets of all who are holding BTS and BEOS on the BEOS network. Because Alaska is near the pole we'll get multiple passes per day from our satellite in polar orbit. Every holder of a staked BTS and BEOS token will share in millions worth of Manna tokens to be dropped for 888 lucky days.
You can watch an animation of SpaceQuest satellite ground tracks and footprints here:
Millions in BEOS will be used to acquire tokens to be offered to qualified holders of Manna exclusively on our beos.world web site. That number could grow as more companies provide some of their tokens to the give-away. The BEOS Limited Cooperative Association will be buying millions worth of these tokens to be traded there for the Manna we give away.
No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited.
Note that not everyone will be eligible for every one of these tokens. The world's regulators are out to spoil it for many of you. Some will require KYC. Some will be limited to qualified investors. Manna will not be tradable on the DEX but BLCA members should at least be able to trade their Manna for BEOS directly from the BLCA. It will be another month or so before we have all the kinks worked out, but you'll be able to collect Manna within a week after BEOS rainfall ends.
Here are some of the participating tokens we expect to make available to qualified manna holders this year.
DISCLAIMER: - All of these offerings are subject to change and BLCA makes no promises that any particular offering will be released in the form we have indicated.
RUON (ruon.ai)
RUON AI is being designed to be a highly sophisticated, next generation, Artificial Intelligence social media, chat, banking and mobile application built on Space-based Blockchain SovereignSky. RUON hopes to be the new "Social Media Electronic Currency". Join the Revolution.
Sovereign Sky (sovereignsky.com)
The Planet’s first space-based blockchain powering a new “Free World Currency” designed to re-distribute the world’s wealth to provide and protect our children, save and preserve our wildlife and aim to eradicate global poverty by 2032. It will give BEOS the ability to execute transactions in the sovereignty of international space.
Biquitous (biquitous.io)
Biquitous is bringing together two massively disruptive technologies (3D Printing & The Blockchain) to make custom manufacturing accessible to everyone through a collaborative P2P marketplace. This will be a security token licensed under Reg D and Reg A by the SEC and subject to those constraints.
Mission Space (missionspace.one)
This project's mission is to design, launch and operate the world’s first constellation of up to four orbiting space-based optical telescopes, placing space exploration at the fingertips of everyone. This will be a security token licensed under Reg D and Reg A by the SEC and subject to those constraints.
BEOS (beos.world)
Yes, your Manna are good for more BEOS to be offered by the BEOS Limited Cooperative Association (BLCA). If you are a member, you are eligible. BEOS is a new privately funded blockchain, a straight clone of EOS intended to serve as a middle chain between BitShares and the EOS main chain. Its goals are token portability and jurisdictional agility. It does these functions without requiring any modifications to or cooperation from either the BitShares or EOS communities, neither of which are involved in its development. BEOS tokens serve the same functions as the EOS token on the EOS main chain - giving holders voting and access privileges to network resources.
There may be more such giveaways throughout the next lucky 888 days, so hang onto your BEOS and keep them and your BTS staked on the BEOS network.
In the future, I don't see any challenge moving any beos token from beos to telos or any eosio chains, since it's eos compatible. We could see beos integrate with other eosio explorer and signature providers like @Anchor (Greymass). Looking forward to see how bitshares will integrate eos.
Bravo! This is the ultimate reason to stay staked. I hope you're able to leverage all the collective BTS voting power for the good of all. Also, I'm anticipating a Trans-Atlantic BEOS Dirigible somewhere in the roadmap. I may start rumors. Please make it happen. Lastly, some clear instructions on how to get BTS back from BEOS would be helpful. I'd have staked more if I knew how to send them back, which I don't. If it exists out there already, can someone point me to it, please?
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Xbox Series X controller release date, news and confirmed features
If you’re clamoring for more information about the Xbox Series X controller, you’ve come to the right place. Microsoft has revealed the new Xbox pad in all its glory, and we can’t wait to get our grubby mitts on it when it releases – alongside the Xbox Series X towards the end of 2020.
So what exciting additions can we look forward to from Microsoft’s new controller? Well, it’s designed around accessibility first and foremost. With a slightly smaller overall footprint along with some quality of life improvements, the controller should feel familiar in the hand yet subtly different.
Popularized by Microsoft’s many limited edition Xbox One controllers, the Series X pad will include a tactile texture on both the triggers, grips and bumpers, which have been rounded and reduced in size. The previously glossy accents of the original are also gone in favor of a matte finish that closely matches the console’s design.
We already know what the Xbox Series X will look like, along with its controller details, a few of the features on offer and a good deal about specs the next Xbox is boasting. Now, though, it's time to learn about the games, and Microsoft has confirmed we'll be seeing our first gameplay for the Xbox Series X at 4pm BST/ 11am ET/ 8am PT on May 7 (or 1am AEST on May 8). Here's how you can watch the Xbox Series X gameplay reveal.]
Microsoft has clearly cleaved pretty close to the design of the Xbox One controller, though – unlike Sony, which unveiled quite a drastic visual departure for its next-gen PS5 controller, named the DualSense (rather than the DualShock moniker of previous controller generations).
While neither company can up-end the traditional button and trigger layout too much, it's clear that players can expect a step up to match the beefed-up consoles coming later this year – even if we might not know the exact applications until testing out these controllers ourselves.
For everything we know for sure about the Xbox Series X controller, though, read on below.
Cut to the chase
What is it? Microsoft’s next-generation Xbox controller
When is it available? Late 2020 (to coincide with Xbox Series X release)
How much will it cost? TBC
Xbox Series X controller release date
The Xbox Series X controller will release alongside the Xbox Series X during the “Holiday” 2020 period – so expect it sometime between October and December.
Xbox Series X controller price
A price for the Xbox Series X controller has not been confirmed, much like the console itself. However, with the Xbox One controller retailing for £40/$50/AU$80, it’s likely that the new controller will be a touch more expensive – probably around £60/$70/AU$120.
Of course, this is only a speculative guess based on the previous pricing strategy for Microsoft’s controllers. We’re expecting Microsoft to confirm a price for the Xbox Series X controller in the next few months.
Xbox Series X controller confirmed features
New D-pad and share buttonVisually, there are quite a few changes that stand out. A long-awaited share button has been added to the center of the controller, letting gamers capture their favourite screenshot or clip a short video with ease. The D-pad has also undergone a noticeable transformation, combining the benefits of both a traditional cardinal D-pad with the disc pad found on the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2. The goal is to give gamers the best of both worlds.
Backwards compatibleMicrosoft has promised that all your existing Xbox One accessories will work on Xbox Series X. That means all those controllers you’ve collected in the last five years will carry across, which is a huge relief. The recently released Xbox Adaptive Controller and Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 will also work perfectly, too.
Better connectivityWith Project xCloud on the horizon, more gamers will be connecting their controllers to a phone or Windows 10 PC. Microsoft has taken steps to ensure that switching and pairing between devices is more seamless than ever and has included Bluetooth Low Energy (BTLE) to make the controller more efficient.
Lower latencyThough latency isn’t something you can always see, it’s something you can definitely feel. With competitive games growing increasingly popular, Microsoft has made significant strides in reducing latency by reworking how the Xbox controller sends information across the system pipeline.
Data is now transmitted just before a game asks for it, keeping the controller in sync with the game for both analog and digital inputs and preventing any unforeseen latency spikes.
Further improvements have been made to the performance of the existing radio design used by Xbox One accessories today so games receive inputs faster and can access them quicker, without impacting performance.
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WhatsApp Messenger update brings Holo UI to the Android app
Popular instant messaging client WhatsApp has gone through a major UI redesign on Android. While the former version was nothing more than just a slight revision of the iOS app, the latest update takes advantage of the new Holo UI guidelines for Android.
Right off the bat you’ll be able to see that the menu bar on top is now flat and in line with the new UI guidelines. Drop into a conversation and you will find new flat message bubbles and a redesigned text input field. The emoticons have also been moved down and placed next to the text field, which makes them easier to access on smartphones with large displays. The Settings menu has also been redesigned.
Unfortunately, the new version of the app is not yet available through the Play Store, and you will have to click on the link below to download the APK from WhatsApp website. You can safely update the app with the new one and maintain all your current app data. There is also no beta sign anywhere, so the app should be stable enough for everyday use (I haven’t faced any issues with it yet).
If you are on Android and use WhatsApp Messenger regularly, you should definitely give the new update a try.
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U.K. startup onefinestay — which has attracted backing to the tune of $15.9 million — has patented a keyless entry system to make it easier for homeowners to manage comings and goings. It’s clearly hoping to remove a few more barriers to potential home hosts signing up — not to mention offering them a bit of a carrot in the form of some cutting edge digital convenience. Read More
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Find the latest family movie reviews here at CrossWalk.com! We offer movie reviews from a Christian perspective allowing you to make an informed decision prior to going to the theater. Our Christian movie reviews include your standard movie review information such as release date, rating, genre, run time, director, and actors, but they will also include "cautions" about language, profanity, alcohol, smoking, drug use, violence, crime, religion and morals. You can also find Christian music, Christian video, Christian news and much more all free on Crosswalk.com
Jesus' Death and Resurrection as Portrayed on Film
Christian HamakerCrosswalk.com Contributing Writer
200818 Mar
COMMENTS
The Resurrection is the heart of Christianity. Without a risen Savior, our faith is useless (1 Corinthians 15:14). All four Gospel accounts in the New Testament recount the crucifixion, death and burial of Christ, and all contain post-Resurrection accounts of Christ.
Any film adapted from a written work runs the risk of minimizing the impact of the original story, or distorting it beyond recognition. Yet filmmakers have not shied away from visualizing the crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ. The five films described here—one each from the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1990s, and 2004—have fans and detractors, and each reveals similarities and distinctions in their depictions of the death and resurrection of Jesus.
This recap of key sequences is designed to help readers decide which of the films might appeal to them, or whether particular embellishments to the Gospel accounts may be too much of a distraction for viewers.
Also known as Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, this film does not focus on the death of Christ until its final stretch. Judah, a slave, has gained his freedom but still remembers a kindness shown to him by a man who once offered him water in the midst of great physical anguish, but whose name he never learned.
After his release, Judah finds his mother and sister, only to discover that they have become lepers. Hearing that a man named Jesus can perform miracles, Judah brings them to Jerusalem, where he learns of the trial of the young Rabbi.
The film cuts to a scene of Jesus, his back to the camera (Jesus’ face is never clearly shown in the film), and we see Pontius Pilate physically washing his hands of Christ’s death. As he watches Jesus carry his cross, Judah says, “I know this man,” and a woman’s voice speaks the words, “In his pain, this look of peace.”
As Jesus carries his cross and stumbles, Judah returns the earlier favor of Jesus, bringing the Lord a cup of water. As he looks in Jesus’ eyes, we see Judah’s recognition dawn as he makes the connection to the man who once helped him. A subsequent shot shows Jesus laying on the cross, which rests on the ground. He’s filmed from above his head, looking down the length of his body (again, we don’t see Jesus’ face). Nails are driven into his feet, but a soldier’s hands obscure the blow. The cross is raised, filmed from behind, and the film then cuts to a distant shot of Jesus on the cross, showing him from the front but from such a distance that Jesus’ features are difficult to make out.
A conversation between Judah and the older Balthasar lays out the film’s theology, explaining the death of Christ in terms that are historically orthodox. “He has taken the world of our sins onto himself,” says the older man. “To this end he said he was born in that stable. … For this cause he came into the world.”
The day grows dark, as we see one of the leprous women declare, “I’m not afraid anymore.” They realize that Jesus has died. As the wind howls and lightning and thunder crash down, the women discover they have been healed. Later, Judah confides in one woman, “Almost the moment he died, I heard him say, ‘Father forgive them, for they know not what they do. And I felt his voice take the sword out of my hand.” A shot of a hill with three crosses is the film’s closing image.
Nicholas Ray directed this 171-minute retelling of the story of Christ’s life, which features narration from Orson Welles. Unlike the cautious treatment of Ben-Hur, which never shows the face of Jesus in close-up, King of Kings shows Jesus at every turn. Played by the blue-eyed Jeffrey Hunter, this Jesus is a matinee idol.
In the film’s garden of Gethsemane sequence, Jesus prays the words “My father” before collapsing to the group, then starting again. “Not as I will, but as you will,” he says, just as the crowd arrives with Judas, who kisses the Lord. There is no comment about the kiss. Peter subsequently denies Christ, and a rooster crows. He denies Christ again, and then denies Jesus face to face. While looking into Jesus’ eyes, Peter hears a rooster crow.
For the trial, Pilate peppers Jesus with aggressive questions. “Are you a king?” he asks. Jesus replies, “It is your own lips that have called me king.”
“Then you are a king,” Pilate says.
“I was born and came into this world to give testimony to the truth,” Jesus says.
“What is truth? … Can there not be more than one truth?” Pilate counters.
“There is only one truth, and it is written in the commandments: Be true to God,” Jesus says.
In a later scene, Pilate’s wife expresses skepticism of the case against Jesus. We then watch as Jesus is whipped, his face contorted. Workers assemble a cross, and a soldier makes a crown of thorns, which he places on Jesus’ head.
We hear Christ being nailed to the cross (this occurs offscreen). Someone says of Jesus, “The man is dying in my place. Why should he do that?” As Jesus is lifted up, he prays, “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.”
Two thieves also being crucified exchange words with Jesus. The Lord promises the repentant one that he will be with Jesus in Paradise, then looks down to Mary and says, “Woman, behold your son.”
With two rivulets of blood on his face, Jesus says, “My God, my God. Why have you forsaken me?” but the recitation is dispassionate. “It is finished,” Jesus says. “Father, into your hands I commend my soul.” As the sky darkens and thunder is heard, a centurion says, “He is truly the Christ.”
Welles’ narration then explains Jesus’ placement in a tomb. We see the tomb, as several people exit it and a stone rolls over the opening. We don’t see who, or how many people, push the stone over the opening.
Cut to a shot of Mary Magdalene arriving at the tomb. Seeing it empty, she runs out. A man with his back to her turns and calls her by name. She recognizes Jesus, who tells her not to touch him but to tell the disciples than he will ascend to the Father. They will see him in Galilee.
Welles, in narration, says Christ was seen by those who “knew he was the Lord God.” The disciples are shown on a shore, looking at the risen Jesus, who we hear—but don’t see—as he commands them to go and preach the gospel. “I am with you always, even to the end of the world,” we hear Jesus say, and as the disciples walk offscreen, the shadow Christ falls across a line in the sand, forming a cross image.
This popular mini-series is cast with British actors, including Robert Powell as Jesus. Directed by Franco Zeffirelli, the film is dull but reverent, and it has been considered one of the finer treatments of the life of Christ on film.
The Gethsemane sequence shows Peter asleep, while Jesus prays that the cup pass from him “if it is possible.” When Judas shows up, Jesus says, “This is your hour, Judas. The hour of shadows.” Judas is shown interacting with Jesus’ captors, clearly torn by his decision.
Before Caiaphas, Jesus answers questions with full, eloquent sentences. Everyone in the Sanhedrin has a British accent. Asked if he is the Messiah, Jesus says, “I am, and you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the power of God.” Caiaphas, hearing the response, tears his clothes and proclaims, “The Lord our God, the Lord is one!”
Peter denies Christ three times in quick succession. Judas is shown hanging from a tree, with his silver pieces scattered on the ground beneath him.
As Jesus is whipped, soldiers taunt him. “King of the Jews,” they say mockingly, as they laugh. A soldier makes a thorn of crowns and places it on Jesus, who approaches Pilate, body bleeding, but able to walk with little problem on his own.
A crowd strategizes to have Barabbas released instead of Christ. Jesus’ mother, in the crowd, screams his name when Pilate asks whom he should release, but she is slapped and called a “slut.” Pilate is clearly reluctant to carry out the death sentence against Jesus.
Jesus carries a beam on his back. Nails are shown going into his palms, and the beam is then raised and attached to an already erected post. Jesus hangs from the cross, his body nearly blood-free, and says, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.” The two thieves being crucified with Jesus converse with him, and Christ promises the one who asks to be remembered that “today you will be with me in Paradise.” He says to John, “Behold your mother,” and to Mary, “Behold your son.” Then, although he has spoken English throughout the film, he cries out, in Hebrew, “Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani!” (English translation: “My God, my God. Why have you forsaken me?”) Onlookers quote Isaiah 53. Jesus, looking directly into the camera, says “Into thy hands, I commit my spirit. It is accomplished.”
Mary is shown with the body of her son—a pieta pose. Those responsible for Jesus’ death discuss rumors that Jesus might rise from the dead, and a case is made for guarding Jesus’ tomb.
Three women on their way to Jesus’ tomb encounter an angel who asks them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” Mary Magdalene arrives where the disciples have gathered and tells them “I have seen him! He is risen.” She is greeted with skepticism. “Women’s fantasies,” says one disciple, but Peter embraces her story and accuses the other disciples of betraying Jesus.
Jesus is shown explaining that it is written that he must suffer and die. “Receive the Holy Spirit,” he says to the disciples. “Go like lambs among wolves. Make disciples of all the nations. … Now I am leaving the world again. I am going to the Father.”
Looking into the camera, Jesus says, “Don’t be afraid. I am with you every day, until the end of time.” The film cuts to its final shot—and empty tomb.
More than 20 years after Zeffirelli’s mini-series, CBS aired director Roger Young’s story of Christ’s life, starring Jeremy Sisto in the title role. Hailed by some critics as a breakthrough that emphasized Jesus’ humanity, the two-part TV movie includes some unusual interpretations of Christ’s life.
In the garden, Jesus prays, saying he’s “so afraid,” at which point Satan appears and tempts Jesus with images of the future. “You’ve seen crucifixion, but you’ve never felt it,” he says, telling Jesus his death would be “all in vain.”
Satan shows Jesus the Crusades, with men shouting “In the name of Jesus Christ!” as they attack and kill their enemies. He also shows Jesus images of modern warfare. “You can stop it tonight. End poverty. End war,” Satan says.
Judas shows up and betrays Jesus with a kiss. Peter denies Christ. On trial, Jesus is asked, “Do you claim to be the Son of God?”
“It is you who says it,” Jesus responds.
“Blasphemy!” the interrogators reply.
Peter denies Christ, then sees Jesus and hears a rooster crow.
Pilate tries to release Jesus, but the crowd favors Barabbas. Pilate orders Jesus flogged. We see Jesus filmed from above as he’s whipped, his face in agony. Cut to a scene of Jesus wearing a crown of thorns, blood on his face and chest. Pilate washes his hands, says he’s innocent of Jesus’ blood, and orders, “Crucify him.”
Jesus wrists are nailed to the cross, but in this television film, the camera cuts away from the blows. A platform is provided for his feet, “so that he will die slower” an onlooker explains. Jesus is shown between two other people being crucified, but no comment is made about those men.
“My God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus says. “Father, into your hands I commend your spirit.” As Jesus dies, a huge stone structure is shaken and begins to disintegrate. Rain falls, and thunder is heard. A pieta image is followed by a scene of four men carrying Jesus’ body, wrapped in cloth. A stone is rolled over Jesus’ grave by three people. In the next scene, a woman arrives at the grave, sees the stone moved away, and informs the disciples that Jesus’ body has been taken. Two disciples arrive. “He is risen!” one proclaims. The other doubts, but then believes. They run to tell others.
Jesus appears to Mary from the bushes and says her name. She recognizes and embraces him. “You must let me go now, for I have not ascended to my Father,” Jesus tells her.
Thomas, hearing that Jesus has risen, expresses doubt. “Did you see the wounds in his wrists?” he asks. Jesus appears, saying to him, “Put your finger here.” Without doing so, Thomas proclaims, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus gives the Great Commission, turns and vanishes, and the film ends.
Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ emphasizes Jesus’ physical suffering. Based in part on the writings of Anne Catherine Emmerich and her interpretation of the passion of Jesus Christ, the film features an androgynous Satan figure who appears several times.
Beginning with Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, The Passion of the Christ shows Jesus confronting Satan in the garden, being betrayed by Judas with a slow-motion kiss and restoring a soldier’s severed ear.
Played by Jim Caviezel, this Jesus wears suffering and anguish on his face as he undergoes intense spiritual and physical torment. The scourging of Jesus is extremely bloody and sadistic, but he endures it and embraces the cross, praying for strength from his Father to fulfill his mission. He receives help in carrying his cross, and is offered water and a towel by a young girl. The film intercuts other flashbacks of Jesus preaching, and of the last supper, as well as his mother remembering how she ran to him when he stumbled as a young boy.
A nail enters his palm. Blood drips from the nails as they exit the other side of the wood. His ankles are hammered to the cross, which has not yet been raised. The cross is turned on its side, as the nails are hammered down on the back side of the wood.
Hanging near Jesus, a thief confesses and asks to be remembered in the kingdom. Mary says, “My son, let me die with you.”
A teardrop falls, the earth quakes, and the Temple splits in two. Soldiers break the ankles of the thieves, but seeing that Jesus already appears to have died, they pierce his side, causing blood and water to pour out.
Satan is shown screaming in agony. A pieta is followed by a shot of a stone rolling away, and an empty sheet. Jesus, in profile and bathed in light, stands, a hole in his palm clearly visible.
Each of these films takes liberties with the Gospels, and each has been both admired and condemned by Christians. Yet the story of Christ continues to be filmed. From the reverent, biblical epics of the 1950s to The Passion of the Christ, the power of Christ’s suffering and the joy of his triumph over death continue to be the greatest story ever told.
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Buddhist scripture attributes this very old monastic site to the time of the Buddha, founded by a banker named Ghosita. The site has been located near Kosambi and identified by inscriptions. Archaeology suggests continuous occupation down to the sixth century when it was likely destroyed in the Hun invasion. Xuanzang found it an unoccupied ruin.
See Sukumar Dutt, Buddhist Monks and Monasteries of India: their history and contribution to Indian culture (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd. 1962), p. 65.
See also the excavations at Kosambi published in Indian Archaeology (1955 - 56).
Src: India
Input by: Stewart Gordon, Aug 28, 2009
"Kosambi is near Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh. Kosambi was once great historic city with the capital of Vamsa. The city has witnessed several important events in the Buddha's life. On the tour of Kosambi, you will come across the Ashokan Pillar and the ruins of the Ghositarama, which was first built during the Buddha's lifetime. […]"http://www.buddhisttoursindia.com/buddhist-tour-destinations/kosambi-tours.html
"The Brahmans generally asserted that it [Kosambi - tmc] stood either on the Granges [a typo, Ganges - tmc], or close to it, and the discovery of the name of Kosdmui mandala, or " Kingdom of 'Kosambi," in an inscription over the gateway of the fort of Khara, seemed to confirm the general belief, although the south-west bearing from Prayaga or Allahabad, as recorded by Hwen Thsang, points unmistakably to the line of the Jumna. In January 1861 Mr. EC Bayley informed me that he believed the ancient Kosambi would be found in the old village of Kosam, on the Jumna, about 30 miles above Allahabad. …"http://books.google.com/books?id=eXIIAAAAQAAJ&pg=RA1-PA303
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There are none, said Jessica Sherlock of Topsham. So she and Keith Biedrzycki, a fellow avid scooterist from Topsham, decided to organize one.
Sherlock said Biedrzycki’s father, nicknamed “Ski,” also of Topsham, often joked with his son about organizing a scooter rally.
Story continues below advertisement.
But when Biedrzycki mentioned it to Sherlock recently, “she took it by the bars,” and made it happen.
This weekend’s first-ever Maine scooter rally features Ski’s Shrimp Run on Saturday: Scooters of all size and make, and their owners, are welcome to meet in the Sea Dog parking lot, 1 Main St., Topsham, at 10 a.m. They will leave at noon for a 16-mile tour along Route 24 to Richmond.
The rally point is The Old Goat pub, where the Richmond Days festival will be under way.
Sherlock said a blue two-tone scooter will be on loan to the Richmond Police Department for the day.
Richmond Police Chief Scott MacMaster said the scooter will be used in the department’s patrols in recognition of the rally, and will be featured in the Richmond Days parade, which starts at 10 a.m. Saturday.
MacMaster said the scooters will park in front of The Old Goat at 33 Main St., and there will be a designated area for the best-in-show scooters.
This is the first year of what will be an annual, free event, Sherlock said.
Planning for it began in January.
Biedrzycki and his brother have been working on and riding scooters for about 20 years, he said, and both his brothers will be riding Saturday.
He and Sherlock said they had expected they could get about 20 people to ride, including friends and family and some additional scooterists they don’t yet know.
Sherlock said this week the two have heard from about 100 people and received 75 confirmations on Facebook. Others they expect will not confirm and will just show up.
They got word the Halifax Scooter Council from Nova Scotia is Maine-bound and will take two ferry barges to get here via scooter.
Other scooters are coming from Boston, Vermont, New Jersey and all over New England.
There is no registration fee and all scooters are welcome to meet up at the Sea Dog parking lot and join in the rally, but no motorcycles will be included.
Not part of any scooter club, and there are clubs nearby, Sherlock said this organizing duo is not discriminating; any scooter can join. Clubs will often organize rallies around a certain brand of scooter, such as Vespa or Lambretta.
According to Biedrzycki, scooters range in top speeds from 30 to 35 mph to 50 to 60 mph.
He’s often “scooted” solo because there haven’t been many other scooters to ride with, but in the last five years he believes that has changed, as commuters look for more fuel-efficient modes of transportation amid soaring fuel costs.
Sherlock said she believes scooters, which were popular in the 1960s, are making a comeback.
Her scooter goes about 45 mph, though on many roads she won’t get above 35. They are not speed-demon machines, she said.
“It’s about the pleasure of riding rather than getting there quickly.”
She thinks they are a very attractive vehicles in their style and shape.
When she sees one, “I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s gorgeous.’” They are different than motorcycles in that all the mechanical parts are completely enclosed and unlike a motorcycle, you can wear a dress or three-piece suit on one without having to worry about smudges of grease if you rub up against the chain.
She doesn’t take her Honda Metropolitan on roads where she can’t do the speed limit.
In Maine, “people are usually really, really polite,” and her scooter triggers more curiosity than frustration.
Every time she stops for gas or ice cream, she gets questions about how fast the scooter goes and what the gas mileage is (more than 100 miles to the gallon).
They are surprised to learn she bought it for only $1,000, too.
“People respond very well to them, just because they are so adorable,” she said.
The scooterists, many who are coming from out of state, will be camping this weekend at Thomas Point Beach in Brunswick.
Sponsors of the event include The Old Goat in Richmond, Tri-Sports in Topsham, Mainely Scooters in Boothbay Harbor and Cumberland Motorcycle, Biedrzycki said.
CORRECTION:
An earlier version of this story incorrectly attributed the author of the article as Beth Brogan of the BDN staff. The article was written by Darcie Moore of the Times Record.
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Even as the militant group loses ground in Iraq, many Sunnis say they have no hope for peace. One family’s story shows why.
Falah sabar heard a knock at the door. It was just before midnight in western Baghdad last April and Falah was already in bed, so he sent his son Wissam to answer. Standing in the doorway was a tall young man in jeans who neither shook Wissam’s hand nor offered a greeting. “We don’t want you here,” he said. “Your family should be gone by noon tomorrow.” For weeks, Wissam, who was 23, had been expecting something like this, as he’d noticed a dark mood taking hold of the neighborhood. He went to get his father, but when they returned, the stranger was gone.
Falah is tall and broad-shouldered, with salt-and-pepper hair. At 48, he was the patriarch of a brood of sons, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren. He sat down with Wissam to talk things through. They had been in Baghdad for just three months, but that was long enough for the abiding principle of refugee life to imprint itself on Falah’s psyche: Avoid trouble. When Wissam had managed to find a job at a construction firm, Falah had told him to be courteous, not to mix with strangers, and not to ask too many questions. If providence had granted them a new life in this unfamiliar city, it could snatch that life away just as easily.
Six months earlier, isis had seized their village, in Anbar province, the Sunni heartland of Iraq, blowing up houses and executing civilians as they fled. A few hundred families had managed to escape and were now scattered across Iraq. Many had wound up in squalid refugee camps near the front lines. The Sabars considered themselves lucky to have landed in Baghdad, a city solidly under the control of anti-isis forces.
Journalistic Freedoms ObservatoryAn Iraqi journalist faces pressure and death threats for publishing a file of corruption on investment in the province of Diyala, where local officials and directors of municipalities have manipulated in the cities of Baquba, and Khanaqin.
According to the documents obtained by the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory (JFO), the journalist who was threatened with death counted to publish his article on official written data, issued by the Iraqi state institutions.
The journalist Sarmad Al-Qasim, the editorial manager of the (Lex News) agency, informed the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory (JFO) about his receiving to a direct death threats after publishing a file of corruption that includes 30 official document issued by the State of Iraq that clearly condemns those people.
The young journalist adds that his agency revealed “a group of corruptors run by a General Director of the Municipalities of the Province of Diyala, assisted by some of the districts municipality’s managers, including the mayor of Khanaqin. This group intends to block the investment in the province by placing obstacles in front of investors, and then send mediators to blackmail the investors in general, with the support of a Member of the Parliament”
The seesawing battle between Iraq’s government forces, allied militias and Islamic state militants is wrecking havoc in Fallujah. City residents are likely to be massacred if they flee, and from governments air strikes there is nowhere to hide.
Deputy Director for the Middle East at Human Rights Watch, Joe Stork, called for a cessation of violence to ensure that “aid reaches the civilian population”. Food reserves, as activists told The Diagonal, are fast shrinking, and civilians are reverting to consuming ‘soups’ made of grass. Remaining rations are near impossible for locals to purchase, sold at inflated rates. A sack of 50 kilograms of flour sold for $15 in the capital is sold for $750 in Fallujah, according to HRW. The greatest risk faces infants in the form of malnutrition – and amenorrhea for women – if the food security situation remains unchanged.
There was a time when one could speak Arabic on a flight in the United States, or even read a book written in that language, without hesitation or the fear of suffering humiliating consequences. That time is long gone. Many colleagues and friends confess that they try to avoid carrying Arabic or Persian books on flights in order not to invite suspicious looks.
On 6 April,Khairuldeen Makhzoomi, an Iraqi refugee and UC Berkeley student, was on a Southwest Airlines flight at Los Angeles international airport talking to his uncle on the phone. He was removed, interrogated and searched by the FBI as a result. Then he was forced to find another flight. Why? Because another passenger heard him speak Arabic. “Inshallah,” which means “God willing,” an expression used by all native speakers of Arabic irrespective of religious affiliation, seems to have been the trigger.When I talk about things being better in the past, I am not being nostalgic at all. There was never a dearth of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiments in this country. There were plenty and they were often translated to violent assaults against Arabs and Muslims in times of turmoil and war. The rise in violent attacks right before and during the 1991 Gulf war is just one example. However, 9/11 and the official response to it created a much more treacherous climate for Arabs and Muslims (and these two are still casually conflated) in the United States.
The 9/11 attacks were officially framed in cultural and civilizational terms, rather than as an event with a genealogy better understood in terms of geopolitics and recent history. That, of course, would have entailed a critical look at US foreign policy and the costs and consequences of alliances with brutal regimes and support for sacred wars against evil empires.
A hundred miles south, in Najaf, ayatollah Ali Sistani seethed with anger. The 86-year-old cleric, the most revered figure among Iraq’s majority Shia sect, has staked his name on Abadi establishing some form of control over the country’s political class and the powerful presence of its neighbour Iran.Across the border, in the Iranian shrine city of Qom, the failure was also noted, though not with the same concern. For more than 13 years, Iran has been an essential stakeholder in Baghdad. But in the past three years in particular, it has had more role shaping political outcomes than many of Iraq’s most influential players.
A 2000 image of a 14-year-old soldier in Sierra Leone Photograph: Adam Butler/AP
A former senior director at a British firm says that it employed mercenaries from Sierra Leone to work in Iraq because they were cheaper than Europeans and did not check if they were former child soldiers.
James Ellery, who was a director of Aegis Defence Services between 2005 and 2015, said that contractors had a “duty” to recruit from countries such as Sierra Leone, “where there’s high unemployment and a decent workforce”, in order to reduce costs for the US presence in Iraq.
“You probably would have a better force if you recruited entirely from the Midlands of England,” Ellery, a former brigadier in the British army, told the Guardian. “But it can’t be afforded. So you go from the Midlands of England to Nepalese etc etc, Asians, and then at some point you say I’m afraid all we can afford now is Africans.” He said the company had not asked recruits if they were former child soldiers.
Aegis Defence Services, which is chaired by Sir Nicholas Soames, a Tory MP and Winston Churchill’s grandson, had a series of contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars to provide guards to protect US military bases in Iraq from 2004 onwards. From 2011 the company broadened its recruitment to take in African countries, having previously employed people from the UK, the US and Nepal.
Key Take-away: Iraq Prime Minister Haidar al Abadi faces new calls for his resignation as a rump parliament of roughly 131 members, falsely claiming a quorum, has begun to ouster its sitting leaders. The rump Council of Representatives (CoR) barricaded itself in the Parliament building after an overnight sit in on April 13 to 14.
The parliamentary remnant illegally convened a session, voted amongst itself to dismiss CoR Speaker Salim al-Juburi, and elected a new provisional speaker. Party discipline and cohesion is devolving, though the Kurdistan Alliance, ISCI, and Badr Organization – each of which has received benefits in the evolving cabinet reshuffle – appear to have retained control of their members.
Senior political leaders are meeting. Longtime allies Ammar al-Hakim and Jalal Talabani met in Suleimaniyah on April 13, presumably to discuss ISCI cooperation with the Kurdish Alliance, while rumors state that Muqtada Sadr is in Lebanon, as is Jawad al-Sharistani, the son-in-law and representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
Although these leaders may be trying to stave off government collapse, they may not be able to overcome the parliamentary entropy. Street protests have reignited in advance of Friday prayers. Parliamentary means, protests, or force may topple the current government.
A terrorist hoping to buy an antiaircraft weapon in recent years needed to look no further than Facebook, which has been hosting sprawling online arms bazaars, offering weapons ranging from handguns and grenades to heavy machine guns and guided missiles.The Facebook posts suggest evidence of large-scale efforts to sell military weapons coveted by terrorists and militants. The weapons include many distributed by the United States to security forces and their proxies in the Middle East. These online bazaars, which violate Facebook’s recent ban on the private sales of weapons, have been appearing in regions where the Islamic State has its strongest presence.
This week, after The New York Times provided Facebook with seven examples of suspicious groups, the company shut down six of them.
The findings were based on a study by the private consultancy Armament Research Services about arms trafficking on social media in Libya, along with reporting by The Times on similar trafficking in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
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Because as we all know, a lot has changed over the last 40 years. But while our founders did have the latest touch tone phones and electric typewriters, Agency 128 has always embraced continual learning as a marketing enthusiast’s number one job. That means taking change as it comes and translating it into valuable insight for our clients.
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Ballmer's billion-dollar blunders: When he gambled Microsoft's money and lost
Nokia is the biggest write-off yet, but it wasn't the first
Analysis Less than two years into Satya Nadella's tenure as CEO of Microsoft, he's already had to report a lossmaking quarter. It's only the second time that's happened in the software giant's three decades as a public company, and the $8.44bn write-off Redmond posted earlier this week is the largest in its history.
Don't blame Nadella, though. He's just the janitor. The mess he's been forced to clean up was left for him by his predecessor, Steve Ballmer.
In this case, the source of the red ink was Ballmer's crash-and-burn acquisition of Nokia's phone business, which seemingly has now cost Microsoft more than it originally paid for it. It's emerging as the single most disastrous event in all of Microsoft's history. It was such a contentious move, in fact, that it reportedly destroyed Ballmer's friendship with his old college buddy, Bill Gates.
But this wasn't the first time one of Ballmer's plans cost Microsoft some serious coin. In fact, on several occasions during his tenure he bet big on the wrong idea when he probably should have known better, ultimately costing the company millions or even billions in the process.
While it's true that Ballmer's 14 years in the corner office left Microsoft a more profitable and more valuable company than when he first became chief exec, his legacy also includes a series of bad gambles that didn't pay off. Here we remember a few of the biggest ones – and time will tell whether Nadella can avoid similar mistakes.
1. Nokia
It's worth revisiting this one, because it's a doozy. Microsoft paid $7.1bn to gobble Nokia's former Devices and Services business in April 2014. Less than a year and a half later, it would write down $8.44bn in a single quarter, with almost all of the charges related to the Nokia deal.
That wasn't all, though. Just three months after the deal closed, Nadella announced 18,000 layoffs, again with most of the cuts coming from the former Nokia division. That move cost Microsoft $1.57bn in restructuring costs over the next three quarters, bringing the total losses related to the acquisition to $10.01bn.
We're not done yet, though. Even before Microsoft agreed to take the phone business off Nokia's hands, Ballmer was seemingly convinced that he could make the Finnish firm into Redmond's own pet smartphone franchise while keeping it as an independent company.
Best buddies? Nadella showed former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop the door in June
In 2011, Microsoft paid Nokia $1bn to drop Symbian and make Windows Phone its exclusive smartphone OS. Given that Redmond would buy the moribund business outright just three years later, one could easily argue that the billion-dollar investment yielded zero return.
All told, Ballmer's smartphone misadventure looks to have cost Microsoft more than HP spent on its botched acquisition of Autonomy – and that's saying something.
2. aQuantive
Nokia wasn't Ballmer's first duff deal, though. Microsoft has only posted a quarterly loss one other time, and that was when it wrote off costs related to its $6.3bn buyout of online advertising firm aQuantive.
Ballmer snapped up the ad outfit in 2007, with the assumption that it would get Microsoft an oar into the ad-revenue river that has floated Google's boat so nicely over the years.
It was partly a defensive move. Google had just bought ad-delivery network DoubleClick for $3.1bn, and Ballmer fretted that his Mountain View rival was gaining too much momentum in a market that had never provided much revenue for Microsoft.
As it turned out, buying aQuantive didn't change that. Over the next five years, far from making Microsoft an "advertising company," as Ballmer promised, the gobble delivered little return. Former aQuantive CEO Brian McAndrews quit a year after the deal closed, and ex-aQuantive employees complained of being marginalized.
In July 2012, Ballmer admitted defeat, and Microsoft wrote down $6.2bn of the ads business – virtually every penny it paid for it. The result was a quarterly net loss of $492m, where previously Redmond had been expected to report a profit.
3. Online Services
The aQuantive debacle was such a high-profile misstep, though, that it distracted from other losses going on right in its own backyard.
After acquiring aQuantive, Microsoft folded it into its Online Services reporting segment. That was fitting in two senses: First, because aQuantive's business was online advertising; and second, because nobody else in Online Services was making any money, either.
Online Services grew out of Redmond's MSN business and would eventually include the Bing search engine, Hotmail, maps, and various other efforts designed to make it look like Microsoft was competing head-to-head with Google. Problem was, while Google was raking in money for its efforts, Microsoft was spending it while it played catch-up.
Over the course of its lifetime, Online Services posted an average net operating loss of nearly $1.5bn per year. That's eight years of operation for a total cost of $11.78bn.
And the thing is, Ballmer never actually pulled the plug. Instead, when he got tired of analysts pointing out how much the segment was costing Redmond each quarter, he changed Microsoft's reporting structure. The business units that were under the Online Services umbrella are now scattered among several of the software giant's new segments, so their performance is no longer as visible. For all we know, they're still burning through cash.
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Several chocolate factories use the Linx SL301 30W laser. The ultra-fast galvos of this laser allow it to achieve 1200 bars of chocolate per minute. For this purpose, the Linx lasers are integrated in the flow wrappers, where the foil is being coded just before the moment the bars are wrapped.
At Perfetti van Melle, we code with a Linx SL301 laser on transparent foil, in which Mentos rolls are wrapped. The laser replaces an inkjet printer, whose ink didn't adhere sufficiently to the smooth foil. The Linx SL301 laser made it possible to obtain an indelible code and to significantly increase the efficiency of the line.
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ALTHOUGH it is doubtless true that the superior dryness of seeds does enable them to resist the influence of heat longer than moist eggs are able to do, and therefore also enables them apparently to resist for a brief period a temperature notably higher than would have proved fatal to them had they been in a moist state—it is altogether another question when we have to decide whether moist Bacteria or their germs are endowed with this seed-like property of developing after desiccation. To maintain his position, Spallanzani was compelled to assume that they did possess this potentiality. Modern science, however, on the basis of experiment, declares that they have no such property. We are told most unreservedly by Prof. Burdon-Sanderson,[2] not only that "the germinal particles of microzyms (Bacteria) are rendered inactive by thorough drying without the application of heat," that is, by mere exposure to air for two or three days at a temperature of 104° Fahr., but also that, "fully-formed Bacteria are deprived of their power of further development by thorough desiccation." Thus is the most important assumption made by Spallanzani swept away, and with it all the strength that his position may have appeared to possess. Neither he, nor any of his followers, can hope to save their germs from the full action of heat by assuming the preëxistence of a protective desiccation, when they are told, on the unquestionable authority of Prof. Sanderson, that such desiccation would be in itself destructive to them.
We are left, therefore, now face to face with only one other question. Has the progress of science, it may be asked, since the time of Spallanzani, in any way tended to strengthen the possibility that Bacteria-germs or any forms of living matter in the moist state can resist the destructive action of boiling water, even for two or three minutes? And to this question a negative answer may be unreservedly given, since the progress of science has shown, on the contrary, that such a supposition becomes more and more improbable in the light of all uncomplicated investigations bearing on the subject. To these results of modern research I must now call the reader's attention.
In the first place, the specific question with which we are more immediately concerned, as to the thermal death-point of Bacteria and their germs, has itself been answered by most decisive experiments. As the writer has elsewhere already shown,[3] all direct experimentation on this subject leads to the conclusion that Bacteria and their germs, whether visible or invisible, are killed by a brief exposure to a heat of 140° Fahr. in the moist state. Thus Dr. Sanderson's experiments having proved that the germs of these organisms are, as regards their ability to withstand desiccation, related to eggs rather than to seeds, the writer's own experiments tend to strengthen this resemblance by showing that these Bacteria-germs also (like the eggs with which Spallanzani experimented) are invariably killed at a temperature of about 140° Fahr.
Although, therefore, my experiments are not favorable to Spallanzani's assumptions, they are entirely in accordance with his experiments. The thermal death-point ascertained by him for the eggs of Insects and of Batrachia, agrees almost exactly with that which I have established for Bacteria-germs, although at the time my own experiments were made I was unaware of these particular results obtained by Spallanzani.
Is there, then, any thing in this fact concerning Bacteria and their germs at all at variance with what we might have been led to expect from our knowledge about the capacity for resisting heat shown by other kinds of living matter? Here, again, a negative answer may be unreservedly given. The grounds for this opinion must, however, be set forth, and, in dealing with this important question, I will range what I have to say under the following heads: 1. The results obtained by many other investigators, working quite independently of one another, (and in many cases also without distinct reference to the Origin-of-Life question), all go to show that different kinds of living matter are killed when in the moist state at or below the temperature of 140° Fahr. 2. The only known exceptions to this rule are cases of a special kind differing altogether from those with which we are at present concerned. 3. Our knowledge concerning the thermal death-point of Living Organisms and of Living Matter is remarkably harmonious, and is in accordance therefore with what we know concerning the unity of living matter generally. 4. The assumptions entertained by some, in support of their notion that living matter unaccustomed to the influence of heat is able to resist the destructive action of boiling water, are of the most frivolous nature—alike unsupported by experiment and contradicted by all ordinary experience.
1. Liebig proved that sugar-yeast (Torula cerevisiæ) entirely lost its power of growth and germination at 140 Fahr. It has been ascertained by Tarnowski, after numerous experiments conducted, as Sachs says,[4] "with all possible precautions," that spores of Penicillium and other common fungi, also most closely related by nature to Bacteria, "entirely lost their power of germinating when heated in their own nourishing fluids" to a temperature of 131° Fahr. Again, it has been ascertained by Dr. Timothy Lewis[5] that the germs of tape-worms are invariably killed at the temperature of 131°, while Prof. Mantegazza has shown that the male reproductive particles of frogs are killed by exposure to the same heat. So far, therefore, concerning germs, in addition to what I have already mentioned about Spallanzani's observations upon the eggs of Insects and Batrachia. Turning now to adult organisms of different kinds or to their elemental parts, the following facts may be cited: Pouchet[6] found that all kinds of Ciliated Infusoria were certainly killed at 131° Fahr., and while confirming this observation the writer found that a brief exposure to this temperature always sufficed to kill Amœbæ, Monads, Euglenæ, Desmids, Rotifers, Nematoids, and other minute aquatic organisms. The writer did not try to ascertain what was the lowest temperature which would prove fatal to these organisms, though this has been done by other observers. Spallanzani, for instance, ascertained that Ciliated Infusoria, Waterfleas, Leeches, Nematoids, and other worm-like creatures, all perished at 107°-113° Fahr.; while Max Schultze,[7] and Kühne,[8] in part working over the same ground, have quite recently fixed the limits for such organisms at temperatures varying between 104° and 113° Fahr. At these temperatures the protoplasm entering into the formation of such organisms as well as that of the tissue-elements of higher animals was not only killed, it became coagulated and assumed the condition named by Kühne "heat-rigidity." Both Max Schultze and Kühne also found that the protoplasm of plant-cells with which they experimented was always similarly killed and altered by a very brief exposure to a temperature of 1181⁄2° Fahr. as a maximum. All accurate new observations, therefore, go to prove that different kinds of living matter, whether in the form of germ or of developed organism, are killed by a brief exposure in the moist state to a temperature at or below 140° Fahr.
2. So far I have been referring to the influence of heat upon living matter when it is suddenly applied to an altogether unaccustomed extent. This is the mode of operation with which we are especially concerned, as, with the view to the interpretation of experiments on the Origin-of-Life question, we wish to know the effects of great heat upon organisms accustomed to ordinary atmospheric and aquatic temperatures. On the other hand, it should be pointed out that organisms have been found living in hot springs at temperatures very considerably above those I have just been quoting; although the very highest of the temperatures, under the influence of which living things have been reported as existing in thermal springs, is still a few degrees below the boiling-point of water. The various observations that have been made upon this subject have been collected and criticised with much care by Prof. Jeffries Wyman,[9] to whose paper I would refer the reader. The most remarkable instances of this kind, in which Confervæ, or allied organisms, have been met with—that is, the highest temperatures cited which are at all trustworthy—are thus summarized by Prof. Wyman: "The statements we have quoted," he says, "give satisfactory proof that different kinds of plants may live in water of various temperatures, as high as 168° Fahr., as observed by Dr. Hooker in Sorujkund; 174° as observed by Captain Strachey in Thibet; 185° as observed by Humboldt in La Trinchéra; 199° as observed by Dr. Brewer in California; and 208° as observed by Descloizeaux in Iceland." As we have no grounds for criticising these observations, we are bound to look upon them, provisionally at least, as correct and taken with all due care, though it is only fair to add that both Max Schultze and Cohn appear to be not altogether satisfied with some statements of the same kind.[10] Such instances, if thoroughly accurate, may perhaps be taken as examples of the highest temperature which it is possible for living matter to endure, even where it has been inured to its influence in the most gradual manner. And the real point of view from which these facts should be regarded is, indeed, pointed out by Prof. Wyman when he says: "Having become adapted through a long series of years to their surroundings, such organisms may be supposed to live under circumstances the most favorable possible for sustaining life at a high temperature. It is a well-known physiological fact that living beings may be slowly transferred to new and widely different conditions without injury; but if the same change is suddenly made, they perish. In the experiments made in our laboratories, the change of conditions is relatively violent, and therefore liable to destroy life by its suddenness."
3. If we omit, therefore, the facts concerning the existence of living organisms in thermal springs which are altogether peculiar, and which lie outside the boundaries of our present inquiry, all that we know about the unaccustomed influence of high temperatures upon living things can easily be shown to be even more harmonious than it may at first glance appear. We have only to bear in mind two or three general principles in order to be able to harmonize the several experimental results arrived at with the now very generally admitted doctrine as to the oneness or generic resemblance existing between all forms of living matter. We must bear in mind, first of all, the consideration enforced by Spallanzani, that there are different grades of vitality, or, in other words, forms of living matter which exhibit more or less of the phenomena known as vital, and that of these forms those which exhibit the most active life are those which would be most easily killed by heat. Thus we should expect the latent "life" of the germ, egg, or seed, to be less easily extinguished than the more subtile, and, at the same time, more active life of the fully-developed tissue-element or organism; and we should also expect that the vegetal element or organism would, as a rule, be less readily killed than the more highly-vitalized animal element or organism. These principles, based upon the consideration of relative complexity of life, are, however, subject to the influence of a disturbing cause, since we must also take into account, in the case of animals, whether we have to do with the elements of a warm-blooded or a cold-blooded organism, owing to the fact that custom or habitual conditions tend to render the more active tissue-elements of warm-blooded animals better able to withstand the influence of heat than similar elements of less highly vitalized cold-blooded animals. Keeping these considerations in view, therefore, we may see by the following figures how harmonious are the facts already ascertained:
TEMPERATURES AT WHICH DEATH OCCURS.
Simple aquatic organisms are
killed at
104°-113°
Fahr.
(Spallanzani, Max Schultze, and Kühne.)
Tissue-elements of cold-blooded animal—Frog
""
104°
(Kühne.)
Tissue-elements of warm-blooded animal—Man
""
111°
(Strieker and Kühne.)
Tissue-elements of Plants Urtica, Tradescantia, and Vallisneria
""
116½°-118½°
(Max Schultze and Kühne.)
Eggs, Fungus-spores, and Bacteria-germs
""
122°-140°
(Spallanzani, Liebig, Tarnowski, and others.)
So far as we can ascertain by really scientific methods, free from all obvious possibilities of misinterpretation, these are the temperatures which undoubtedly kill the different varieties of that common life-stuff known as Protoplasm—the "physical basis of life," as it has been termed by Prof. Huxley. That it should present this comparative unity in its behavior toward heat as weir as to other physical agencies, is surely not in antagonism with the most generally-approved biological doctrines, of which Prof. Huxley has made himself the most celebrated exponent in this country. In his own forcible language he tells us as follows: "Beast and fowl, reptile and fish, mollusk, worm, and polype, are all composed of structural units of the same character, namely, masses of protoplasm with a nucleus. . . . What has been said of the animal world is no less true of plants. . . . Protoplasm simple or nucleated is the formal basis of all life. . . . Thus it becomes clear that all living powers are cognate, and all living forms are fundamentally of one character."[11]
4. I now turn to say a very few words concerning the general attitude and specific statements made by those who, wishing not to give in their adherence to the fact of the occurrence of "spontaneous generation," affect to believe that Bacteria-germs or other kinds of living: matter can resist the influence of boiling water.
In the first place, it should be said that not one of these persons has striven to justify his position by scientific evidence bearing directly upon the death-point of Bacteria and their germs, while several of them have glaringly attempted to make good their position in the most unscientific manner, that is, by adducing experiments admitting of two interpretations as though they were instances only admitting of one, and then of these two possible interpretations selecting that which the experiments were not originally destined to illustrate, and which is, moreover, contradicted by other less equivocal evidence, as to the very existence of which those who adopt this course take care to say nothing. This is a kind of treason to Science of which I hope the future may prove less prolific than the past has been.
And, if we turn now to the specific statements made by those who profess to believe that Bacteria and their germs are able to resist the influence of boiling water, we discover in the first place that all who advance such suppositions find it convenient to pass unnoticed the several series of experiments by which it has been proved that Bacteria and their germs are uniformly killed by an exposure to 140° Fahr. for five minutes. My opponents find it most convenient to take no notice of these experiments, though no one has as yet attempted to dispute their cogency. They prefer to talk vaguely, as though these experiments had never been made, and to adduce various theoretical reasons whose validity they do not attempt to test experimentally. To do this, indeed, would be a vain attempt, because they must be aware that such suppositions as they advance are opposed to generally-accredited scientific doctrines, even if they have not already been specifically refuted.
The suppositions principally dwelt upon may be ranged under three categories:
(a.) It is assumed by some that the mere minuteness of the germs of Bacteria may serve to protect them from that destructive influence which heat exercises upon living matter generally.[12] This is an old objection entirely unsupported by facts, and those who dwell upon it may be reminded that it was unhesitatingly rejected by the former chief of their school, Spallanzani, who said, "Un raisonnement de cette sorte est absolument contraire à toutes les notions que nous avons du feu." They may be further reminded that the writer's own experiments absolutely meet this objection, since they refer to the death-point of invisible germs of Bacteria just as much as to the death-point of those which are visible.[13]
(b.) Others, without definitely committing themselves to the belief that Bacteria-germs can resist the destructive influence of boiling water when they are immersed in it, affect to believe that some germs may have escaped its influence by being "spurted" out of the fluid on to the sides of the glass when the process of boiling commenced. How any such germs could escape the moistening and destructive influence of the hot steam with which they would still be in contact these reasoners do not say, though some of them are cautious about openly suggesting an antecedent and protective state of extreme desiccation in the face of Dr. Sanderson's experiments proving that this would be in itself destructive. The futility of this reasoning has, however, been completely demonstrated by the fact that organisms will occur just as freely under conditions where no such objection can be alleged, that is, when the vessel and its contents are heated by submergence in boiling water, after it has been hermetically sealed—a mode of heating that has been occasionally adopted by different experimenters since the time of Spallanzani.
(c.) The third objection raised is no less remarkable, owing to its being similarly brought forward as an unsupported supposition in the face of much other evidence testifying to its nullity. When the writer's earlier experiments were first recorded, the public was authoritatively told by Prof. Huxley that the results were unworthy of credence, because the fact that tons of meats and vegetables were annually preserved from putrefaction by a very similar process was in itself the strongest evidence that he had in some manner deceived himself. It was never suggested or thought of, therefore, at this time, that such moist meats and vegetables were incapable of being heated through, even when pounds of them were aggregated together. It was, in fact, implicitly said that they could be so heated, and the fact of the preservation of the meats and vegetables was itself deemed to be the best evidence that all germs contained in their interior had been killed. Now that the writer has demonstrated to unbelievers, and when others have ascertained for themselves, that organisms are to be met with and that putrefaction will occur within almost airless and hermetically-sealed flasks whose contents have been previously boiled, the tactics of these unbelievers are entirely changed. Forgetting altogether their previous objection upon which they relied so long as they doubted the writer's facts, they now advance the interpretation of his results, which must carry with it its own stultification to the minds of those who have not entirely forgotten their previous position. The writer's methods are declared to be faulty for not freeing his infusions from all particles, however minute and however soft. The oracles now shake their heads, and talk with apparent learning about "the protective influence of lumps." While heat was previously supposed to be capable of operating as a germ-killer through pots of meats and vegetables, and while it has been proved to act in the same way through the thick and dry envelopes of seeds, now a pea or a minute particle of cheese, even though smaller than a pin's head, is thought to exercise a "protective influence" over imaginary germs! Such puerilities may safely be left to die a natural death, though it may be as well to remind those who trust to them, that, although they do not put their notions to the test of direct experiment, others have, for certain practical reasons, had occasion to do so. Dr. Timothy Lewis, who has been for some time in Calcutta, carrying on, in concert with Dr. D. Cunningham, important sanitary investigations, has, among other things, directed his attention to the vitality of tapeworm germs in cooked meat. He proved, first, that tape-worm germs are undoubtedly killed by exposure for five minutes to a temperature of 135°-140° Fahr.; and then, with a view of ascertaining also how far they would be likely to experience such a temperature in the ordinary process of meat-cooking, he made other important observations having considerable interest for us. Dr. Lewis found that when legs of mutton had been put into the boiler almost as soon as the water, their central temperature averaged 140° Fahr. by the time the water around them had reached the boiling-point, and that, after the water had boiled for five minutes, the internal temperature of the legs of mutton which had remained in the boiler had on an average reached 170°. This is a practical method of dealing with the question which those skeptical dreamers who talk of the "protective influence of lumps" would do well to imitate.
After this I may perhaps be deemed fully justified in quoting two very typical experiments for the consideration of those who stave off their belief in the occurrence of "spontaneous generation" either by relying upon insufficient reasons for doubting the influence of boiling water, or because of their following Pasteur, Cohn, and others, in supposing that certain peculiar Bacteria-germs are not killed except by a brief exposure to a heat of 227° or 230° Fahr. For, even if we could grant them these limits, of what avail would the concession be toward staving off the dreaded admission of the occurrence of "spontaneous generation," in the face of such experiments as those which follow?
Experiment I.—A strong infusion of turnip was rendered faintly alkaline by liquor potassse, and to this a few separate muscular fibres of a codfish were added. Some of this mixture was introduced into a flask of nearly two ounces' capacity. Its neck was drawn out and afterward hermetically sealed by the blow-pipe flame, while the fluid within was boiling. When thus closed the flask was about half full of fluid. It was then introduced into a digester which was gradually heated, and afterward kept at a temperature of 270°-275° Fahr., for twenty minutes, though it seems also well to point out that, if we include the time taken for the water of the digester (in which the closed flask was immersed) to attain this heat, and also again to cool down to 230 Fahr., this flask was exposed to temperatures above 230° Fahr. for one hour, as I myself carefully noted at the time. When withdrawn from the digester the closed flask was kept at a temperature of 70-80° Fahr. for eight weeks, and during part of this time it was exposed to the influence of direct sunlight. After it had been ascertained that the flask was free from all crack or fault, its neck was broken, in order that its contents might be examined. The reaction of the fluid was found to have become decidedly acid, and it had a sour though not fetid odor, as though a fermentative process had been taking place in the solution. The fluid was very slightly turbid, and there was a well-marked sediment consisting of reddish-brown fragments, and of a light flocculent deposit. On microscopical examination the fragments were found to be portions of altered muscular fibre, while the flocculent deposit was composed for the most part of granular aggregations of Bacteria. In the portions of fluid and of deposit which were examined, there were thousands of Bacteria of most diverse shapes and sizes, either separate or aggregated into flakes. There were also a large number of monilated chains, of various lengths, of a kind very frequently met with in abscesses and other situations, where pyæmia or low typhoid states of the system exist, in the human subject. There were, in addition, a large number of Torula corpuscles, as well as of brownish, nucleated, spore-like bodies, gradually increasing in size from mere specks, about 1⁄30000th up to 1⁄2599th of an inch in diameter. Lastly, there was a small quantity of a mycelial Fungus filament, bearing short lateral branches, most of which were capped by a single spore-like body.
Experiment II.—A strong infusion of common cress (Lepidium sativum), to which a few of the leaves and stalks of the plant were added, was inclosed in an hermetically-sealed flask in the same way, heated in the digester at the same time (and therefore to the same temperature), and was subsequently exposed to the influence of the same conditions as I have already mentioned in connection with the last experiment. This flask was, however, opened one week later—that is, at the close of the ninth week after it had been heated in the digester to 270-275° Fahr. Before breaking the neck of the flask, the inbending of the glass under the blow-pipe flame showed that it was still hermetically sealed. The reaction of the fluid was found to be distinctly acid, though there was no notable odor. The fluid itself was tolerably clear and free from scum, but there was a dirty-looking flocculent sediment at the bottom of the flask, among the débris of the cress. On microscopical examination (with a 1⁄12th "immersion" objective) much altered chlorophyll existed, either dispersed or aggregated among the other granular matter of the sediment, and among some of this three minute and delicate Protamœbæ were seen, varying in form, and creeping with moderately rapid, slug-like movements. They contained no nucleus, and presented only a few granules in their interior. In the same drop of fluid, and also in others subsequently examined, more than a dozen very active Monads (1⁄4000th of an inch in diameter) were seen, each provided with a long, rapidly-moving lash by which neighboring granules were freely knocked about. There were many smaller motionless and tailless spherules of different sizes, whose body substance presented a similar appearance to that of the Monads—and of which they were, in all probability, earlier developmental forms. There were also several unjointed "Bacteria", presenting most rapid progressive movements accompanied by quick axial rotations. Many Torula corpuscles and other Fungus "spores" also existed, as well as portions of a mycelial filament containing equal segments of colorless protoplasm within its thin investing membrane.
A drop of the fluid containing several of these active Monads was placed for about five minutes on a glass slip in a warm-water oven maintained at a temperature 140° Fahr. All the movements of the Monads ceased from this time, and they never afterward showed any signs of life.
These experiments are two of the most remarkable selected from several others in which even higher temperatures were originally had recourse to in order to free the fluids and flasks generally from any thing like a trace of living matter. Nothing, that has yet been alleged by way of objection to the admission of "spontaneous generation" as an every-day fact, at all affects such experiments as these. The shortest way out of the difficulty would therefore be to doubt the facts. I can assure the reader, however, that they are as true and just as reliable as those other results obtained when working with lower temperatures, which, though strongly disbelieved in at first, are now generally recognized as trustworthy. And, although these now accredited results abundantly suffice, in face of our present knowledge concerning the limits of vital resistance to heat, to establish the strongest probability of the occurrence of "spontaneous generation," yet such experiments as those which I have now recorded even still further confirm this view, since it becomes incredible that, while all known forms of living matter with, which accurate experiment has been made inevitably perish at or about 140° Fahr., the particular examples of the same forms which appear within our sealed flasks have been able to survive a much longer exposure to 270°-275° Fahr. If this were true, then indeed would the cultivation of Science be a vain pursuit—"uniformity," in fact, must be postulated and granted, or Science with humbled and sorrowful crest must retire from the field.
A word or two must be said in conclusion with reference to the interpretation which should be attached to such experiments as those just recorded. And this subject cannot be better introduced than by means of the following extract from the already-quoted and valuable paper by Prof. Jeffries Wyman. He says: "There can therefore be no certainty of the existence of spontaneous generation in a given solution, until it can be shown that this has been freed of all living-organisms which it contained at the beginning of the experiment, and kept free of all such from without during the progress of it. On the other hand, this kind of generation becomes probable, whenever it is made certain that Infusoria are generated in solutions in which the conditions just mentioned have been complied with. We say able, because their appearance under such circumstances would not amount to a proof. The absolute proof of spontaneous generation must come from the formation of living organisms out of inorganic matter. If Infusoria are generated in solutions of organic matter, independently of spores or germs, the question may be fairly raised whether we do not begin the experiment with materials in which life already exists, even though this material is not in the form of distinct organisms." Now, these last few lines, as they at present stand, tend to convey to the reader very erroneous impressions, and yet I am aware that views of the same kind are very commonly expressed, and seem to exist in an inchoate or half-realized form in the minds of many distinguished persons. It is for this reason, and on account of the authority attaching to Prof. Wyman's statements, that I am induced to take notice of this particular passage in order to attempt its rectification.
In the first place, then, under the old term, "spontaneous generation," are included two processes quite distinct from one another—namely, Heterogenesis and Archebiosis. With regard to Heterogenesis, this is merely the opposite of Homogenesis: and the latter is the name for that mode of generation or reproduction among living things which is looked upon with most respect and which is most generally known. It is the process by which "like produces like," that is, where the offspring grow into beings like their parents. In Heterogenesis, on the other hand, we have the birth of dissimilar products, the beginning of a new branch from a "life-tree," in which the offspring have no tendency to assume the parental type. This occurs, for instance, where the protoplasmic matter of an animal or of a vegetal cell becomes modified and resolved into Bacteria. Here we have to do with the mere transformation of living matter. It can, therefore, only take place where living matter preexists. And seeing that many, among whom I may especially mention Needham,[14] Pouchet, and Trécul, have, both now and formerly, understood by the phrase
spontaneous generation merely such a process of metamorphoses of living matter as is implied by the term Heterogenesis, it is very misleading to say that "the absolute proof of spontaneous generation must come from the formation of living organisms out of inorganic matter."
It seems obvious, however, that, when Prof. Wyman wrote this passage, he, forgetting the more common acceptation of the phrase "spontaneous generation," must have used it in the same sense as I now employ the term Archebiosis—in the sense, that is, of life-origination. But, even taking it in this sense, how far, we may ask, is Prof. Wyman justified in saying that its proof "must come from the formation of living organisms out of inorganic matter?"
The statement is, in my opinion, one which cannot be logically entertained by a believer in the ordinary physical doctrines of life, and consequently should be professed by no consistent believer in Evolution. Those who do not assent to these doctrines would probably never be able to believe in Archebiosis at all—to the "vitalist" life is an immaterial principle specially created, and therefore our flask experiments terminating in the birth of new organisms, if they carried with them any convictions at all, would simply be regarded by him as proving the occurrence of Heterogenesis. This is the view to which a vitalist would be driven, if he had become convinced that no germs of Bacteria, or of such organisms as are found in our flasks, could have survived the preliminary process of heating. Such a vague sort of position is not open, however, to those who believe in the now generally-accepted physical doctrines of life. They are bound to recognize the undoubted distinction which exists between mere dead organic matter and that organic matter which displays the phenomena of life. They should no more think of calling a body "living" which could not be made to display the characteristics of life, than they would call a body "magnetic" when it would show none of the properties pertaining to magnetism. If they had learned, therefore, that living matter when exposed to heat of a certain intensity became lifeless matter, the process by which new living protoplasm comes into existence among this dead organic material would be, for them, as much an instance of its new independent origin as if the process had occurred in the midst of mere inorganic elements. The term Archebiosis is therefore applicable to the process that must take place in our ordinary flask experiments where we have to do with dead organic matter, just as it is also applicable to those more primordial combinations which first gave birth to living protoplasm. The continued occurrence of an independent elemental "origin" of living matter we are called upon to believe in at the present day, though the actual steps of the process by which it takes place are unfortunately as completely unknown to us as are the steps by which its "growth" occurs whether from organic or from inorganic materials.—Contemporary Review.
↑Some of those who rely upon this supposed reason have resorted to direct attempts to ascertain the death-point of the germs of other organisms, although their results have been, in part, vitiated by the evaporation of the drop of fluid employed, so that the organisms were subsequently exposed to the higher degrees of heat in a dry state.
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Overview of Initial Responses to COVID-19 by the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts and by Select Courts Within the Federal Judiciary
March 18, 2020
IN11252
This CRS Insight provides information related to initial responses to Coronavirus disease 2019, or COVID-19, by the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts and select courts within the federal judiciary. Consequently, this Insight is not intended to provide a comprehensive overview of the policies and practices adopted by each federal court or judicial entity. Additionally, given the rapidly changing situation surrounding COVID-19, the information provided in this Insight may be superseded by new information from that which is described in the text below. If there are any questions regarding whether such changes have occurred, congressional staff may contact the author of this Insight. The author can also be contacted for information related to responses to COVID-19 by other federal judicial entities or courts not specifically addressed below.
Administrative Office of U.S. Courts
The Administrative Office of U.S. Courts (AO) is the agency within the federal judiciary that provides, in part, administrative services and program support to federal courts. On March 12, 2020, the AO issued a statement indicating that federal courts were "individually coordinating with state and local health officials to obtain local information about the coronavirus (COVID-19)." The flexibility provided to federal courts to adapt to local conditions is reflective of past practices during other recent emergencies (see, for example, the response by some courts to Hurricane Sandy in 2012).
The AO also created a task force to serve "as a single point of contact to share information and guidance related to the coronavirus outbreak as it relates to the Judiciary." The taskforce includes, in part, representatives from the General Services Administration (GSA), the U.S. Marshals Service, and Federal Occupational Health (FOH).
United States Supreme Court
On March 16, 2020, the Supreme Court announced that it is postponing all oral arguments scheduled for its March session (March 23-25 and March 30-April 1). The Court also announced that the building itself will continue to be open for official business but that it is "expanding remote working capabilities" to reduce the number of on-site Court employees. Previously, on March 12, 2020, the Court announced that its building was closed to the public until further notice.
U.S. District Courts in the Five Most Populous Judicial Districts
According to data compiled by CRS, the five most populous federal judicial districts are, in ascending order, the Central District of California, the Middle District of Florida, the Southern District of Texas, the Northern District of Illinois, and the District of New Jersey. These five judicial districts have a combined population of approximately 59.9 million, representing approximately 18.3% of the U.S. population (based on 2018 estimates by the Census Bureau).
Some of the initial responses by these five courts are highlighted below (the hypertext link for a particular court provides additional information regarding the court's response). The actions taken by these courts are presented as illustrative examples, and may not be representative of actions taken by other courts.
Central District of California (Los Angeles, Riverside, Santa Ana): The court has restricted entry to courthouses in the district, as well as access to its probation and pretrial services offices, for any individuals who have travelled to certain countries within the past 14 days. Additionally, the court has also issued an order that no jurors would be called for criminal or civil trials until April 13, 2020.
Middle District of Florida (Orlando, Tampa, Jacksonville, Fort Myers, Ocala): The court has restricted entry to courthouses in the district for certain individuals, including those who have traveled within 14 days to or from certain countries. The bankruptcy court (a unit of the district court) has announced several changes, including that all non-evidentiary hearings will be conducted by telephone.
Southern District of Texas (Houston, Galveston, Laredo, Corpus Christi, Brownsville, Victoria, McAllen): The court announced that civil and criminal jury trials in two of its seven divisions (covering the Houston and Galveston areas) are deferred through May 1, 2020. The court has otherwise emphasized that "other deadlines and settings remain in place pending further order by each judge in specific cases or by standing order."
Northern District of Illinois (Chicago, Rockford): The court has postponed all civil jury trials that were scheduled to begin before April 3, 2020, and extended deadlines in all federal civil cases in the district by 21 days from their current deadline. Additionally, criminal case proceedings that cannot be postponed will be conducted in Chicago only (not Rockford) by emergency district judges. Grand juries will continue to meet during the week of March 16, 2020, but "reasonable limits" will be placed on future meetings.
District of New Jersey (entire state): On March 16, 2020, the court announced visitor restrictions covering individuals who have been diagnosed with COVID-19, asked to self-quarantine, or who have had close contact with someone who has been asked to self-quarantine. Additionally, on the same date, the court announced that all civil and criminal jury selections and jury trials scheduled to begin before April 30, 2020, are postponed pending further notice. The court has also encouraged all judicial officers to conduct proceedings by telephone or videoconferencing where practicable and permitted by law.
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My wife just got a job at The Rib Co. about 2 weeks ago and she went to go pick up her check on Monday and they just handed her an envelope with some cash in it. Aren't employers required to give you some kind Of proof of how many hours you clocked in and the rate at which you're getting paid and taxes taken out and such? Or is an envelope with nothing but cash and some change legit?
I don't know why people are telling you that employers are required to give you a pay stub. Under federal law, they are not. They have to keep accurate records of your wages and taxes, BUT they are not required to give you a summary of that with every paycheck. So, that's federal law. However, there are state laws that require employers to give pay stubs. Perhaps you live in one of those states; where do you live? Also, if your wife is on salary, they are not required to list her hours either since she should be getting a flat rate. Edit: Thanks for the info. Yes, in Middleburg Heights employers are required to give pay stubs every time they pay an employee: A California employer is required to give an itemized wage statement to all employees each time they are paid or semimonthly. The statement can be attached to the employee's paycheck or written as a separate document and should include pertinent data, such as the employee's gross wages, total work hours, salary (if applicable), deductions listed separately or as a total amount, pay period dates, the last four digits of the employee's Social Security number or her employee identification number, and her net income. Penalties Pay stub penalties vary by state. For example, in California, an employer that denies employees a paycheck stub can face a penalty of $50 for the initial pay period violation, and $100 for each subsequent violation. If the employer willfully broke the law and caused the employee to suffer damages, the latter may be entitled to the greater of all damages suffered or $50 for the first violation and $100 for subsequent violations, up to $4,000. The employer may have to pay the employee all awarded costs plus reasonable attorney fees, if applicable. A California employer can also be required to pay a current or former employee a penalty of $750 for refusing to allow him to inspect or copy his wage statement records within 21 days of the request.
It all relies on what you do. If you're an hourly worker non exempt, then he can't deduct hours out of your workded agenda, BUT you have got to were requested to paintings additional time. If you took it upon your self to paintings extra hours to conclude a undertaking, withoutthe request of leadership, you're now not entitled to fee (and honestly that's grounds for dismissal). If nonetheless, you're scheduled to reach at eight:00, and you probably did, they can't legally now not pay for the ones hours labored. Also, they won't difference your friday hours when you have been peculiarly requested to paintings on Saturday. You would possibly dossier a grievance with the State workplace, nonetheless it sounds such as you must discover employment in other places. These men are deceitful, it doesn't matter what the information are.
Did she fill out a W4? If so then the standard procedure is that she would receive a paycheck and a stub. This sounds a little fishy so you might want to check into it. Please help me with my question:
If she was hired legally by a legal company, yes, they would be required to give her at least a summary of wages earned and taxes taken out. Did she fill out and sign proper tax paperwork when she was hired?
Did she fill out paperwork? W-4? If so, then standard procedure is that she receive a paycheck and stub, not cash. This sounds fishy.
Uh, in general, cash is a no-no. If it's an envelope of cash, there is most likely something totally illegal going on.
When I have money left over after my FASFA and TAP grants, am I suppose to get a refund?
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Professional Development for the Military Leader
I have seen many people over the years who could not accept there were things outside of their control. Sometimes we fall into the “shut up and color” zone while in the military. I know this has happened to me many of times and I was driven to make rank so I could right the wrongs I experienced. What I learned was there are a lot of things that exist for a reason and my efforts were more fruitful when I focused on what I could influence. I was able to fix some things and had the ability to make the mission better and those on my team better prepared. There are enough things in our own sphere of control that need fixed; don’t waste your energy worrying about what is out of your reach.
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Joe Lawrence
Joe is passionate about developing others using the lessons he has learned from education, mentors, military and life. His personal mission is to serve others through mentorship so they can grow into their full potential as leaders.
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While Massachusetts did indeed provide a structural model for Obamacare, it is the replication of Massachusetts' admitted flaws that should cause any thoughtful legislator to recoil from shoving it down the throats of the rest of the country. These include, in former Massachusetts health secretary Tim Murphy's words, "overreaching social planning" and its fiscal consequences. In fact, the bulk of Murphy's commentary is devoted to what went wrong, which Obamacare replicates nearly point by point. His basic message is this: we got the reform part right -- Republicans and Democrats pretty much agree on that anyway --but the insurance subsidization part was a government expansion disaster.
Subsidizing and mandating insurance coverage for non-catastrophic care, as this bill does, is not a laudable goal; in fact, it exacerbates the greatest threat to both health care and the government's fiscal health: medical inflation. On the other hand, making health care service -- not just insurance -- cheaper and more competitive, insurance more flexible and portable, and consumer choices smarter, is essential. But Obamacare, like the worst of the Massachusetts experiment, takes health care in the opposite direction and beyond by crudely throwing trillions in taxpayer dollars at the problem. Moreover, it does so at a time when the consequences of its consumer price inoculation and fee-for-service reimbursement are well-demonstrated in the insolvency of Medicare. Accordingly, any congressman who spills his blood on behalf of this bill will only see it sopped up by a bulging metastasis. Some legacy.
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About the Arena
The Arena is a cross-party, cross-discipline forum for intelligent and lively conversation about political and policy issues. Contributors have been selected by POLITICO staff and editors. David Mark, Arena's moderator, is a Senior Editor at POLITICO. Each morning, POLITICO sends a question based on that day's news to all contributors.
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What will your Catholic legacy be?
Every year, Catholic causes help hundreds of thousands of people in need. Much of this work is only possible thanks to gifts in wills.
Your Catholic Legacy brings together a group of Catholic charities working to inspire and encourage you to leave a gift in your will to a Catholic good cause. Your legacy, large or small, will help to make the world a better place for future generations. more details
Writing a will is a wonderful way of providing for the people and causes you care about. Alongside your family and friends, might you also be able to help your brothers and sisters in need, and the Church that has shaped your life?
By remembering your favourite causes in this special way, you can be sure your faith and values will live on for decades to come. more details
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Thursday, January 21, 2010
Should You Take Vitamin D2 Or Vitamin D3?
Michael Holick's opinion: It doesn't matter.
Michael Holick's opinion matters.
Dr. Holick discovered the mechanism for how vitamin D is made in the skin. He identified the major circulating form of vitamin D3 in human blood (calcidiol also known as 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 or 25(OH)D3. This is the form that's measured to determine deficiency states.)
He was the first person to isolate and identify the active form of vitamin D (1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3).
He's the author of The UV Advantage and the soon-to-be-released The Vitamin D Solution.
Vitamin D2, also known as ergocalciferol, is derived from plants (notably yeast).Vitamin D3, also known as cholecalciferol, is derived from animals (notably sheep's wool).
In his study...
Vitamin D2 Is As Effective As Vitamin D3 In Maintaining Circulating Concentrations Of 25-Hydroxyvitamin D, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, March 2008
Dr. Holick and his colleagues gave participants one of the following daily for 11 weeks at the end of the winter in Boston:
Placebo
1000 IU vitamin D2
1000 IU vitamin D3
Combination of 500 IU vitamin D2 and 500 IU vitamin D3
And found:
"The rise in the total 25(OH)D was identical to that observed for the groups who received either 1000 IU vitamin D2 or 1000 IU vitamin D3."
"That, to me, proves that vitamin D2 is as effective as vitamin D3 in raising and maintaining 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels. That is consistent with the early literature that showed that 100 IU of vitamin D2 was effective in preventing rickets in children."1
6 comments:
At the end of the trial none of the participants had a 25(OH)D level above 30ng/ml they all remained vitamin D insufficient. IMO it is unacceptable medical practice to knowingly give people an amount of a supplement that leaves them at such a low 25(OH)D level they remain unable to properly absorb calcium and well below the 58.8ng/ml level at which human breast milk flows replete with D3.So too little vitamin D of any kind leaves you vitamin D deficient.Is that such a remarkable finding?
Grassrootshealth Banner Graph shows the amounts people have been taking and the 25(OH)D levels they have achieved. 6000~8000iu approx 1000iu/daily for each 25lbs you weigh generally produces a natural level at which the body is able to store a sufficient reserve of D3 to be effective at times of crisis. This LEF study is another example showing 5000iu/d is not sufficient to get most people above 50ng/ml.
As Holick knows perfectly well human skin naturally makes 10,000iu/daily given a few minutes full body UVB exposure. It does that for a purpose. Only when researchers start using equivalent EFFECTIVE amounts of the same NATURAL Vitamin D3 biologically identical to the form human skin NATURALLY makes, will we see an improvement rates of chronic illness.
The case against Ergocalciferol as a vitamin supplement shows D3 is more effective lasts longer and is safer. Holick's research did not raise levels to that at which human DNA works as it evolved to function. The level his people attained was just half the amount required to enable breast milk to flow replete with D3.At natural levels, human bodies normally achieve living naked outdoors, 60~80ng/ml we know D2 makes the bode catabolize vitamin D at a faster rate. This means the more D2 you take the more your body tries to get rid of it. Just look at the FIG. 2. here and you see the guys taking D2 were below the starting point after 15 days whereas those on D3 were still fine at the end of the month. D2 is fine for rats and for plants but not for humans. Sure getting Vitamin D3 from sun is fine BUT you cannot rely on UVB reaching the ground if you live under a flight path or in or near a town. Atmostpheric pollution absorbs/blocks UVB. Look what happens in practiceNow who had the greatest amount of UV exposure?Who had the highest 25(OH)D levels. Again those women only achieved, at best, levels half that required for optimum function. In practice no one is going to get regular full body sun exposure if they live/work in normal society. We have to accept that supplements are the best way of attaining and maintaining optimum 25(OH)D levels between 60~80ng/ml. 150~200nmol/l.
As we know that 10,000iu/daily is safe even in sunny countries the question of liver damage is simply hypothetical. It takes 40,000iu/daily for months and months to maybe raise 25(OH)D to levels that may cause harm. There is no evidence that at the amounts needed for most people (1000iu/for each 25lbs weight)any harm occurs. The evidence shows people with higher levels live longer, experience less infection, suffer less pain, have fewer heart attacks and less cancer incidence. I could go on listing the benefits that those with higher D3 levels enjoy. You cannot support the claims you have made anonymous.
TedHutchinson, You say the question of oral doses of vitamin D and liver damage is hypothetical, is a hypothesis. I agree. The link between oral intake of vitamin D - or between blood levels of vitamin D, as 25(OH)D - and longer life, and pain, and cancer, and heart attacks are hypothetical as well.
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But the 25-year-old wasn't as interested in promoting his Dark Knight persona as he was in highlighting another of Phil Jones' famous faces captured in the social media post highlighting Batshuayi's custom kicks.
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Now Commenting On:
Triple-A manager back from cancer treatments
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Tony DeFrancesco is returning to the RedHawks' dugout Tuesday.
By Brian McTaggart
/
MLB.com |
SEATTLE -- Triple-A Oklahoma City manager Tony DeFrancesco is scheduled to return to his club Tuesday after undergoing successful cancer treatments during the opening weeks of the season, the Astros announced Sunday.
DeFrancesco underwent treatments for approximately six weeks at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. The RedHawks are hosting Omaha on Tuesday. Tom Lawless has served as the RedHawks' interim manager in DeFrancesco's absence.
"I'm feeling great," DeFrancesco said in a statement released by the team. "The treatments went well and the doctors are optimistic for a full recovery. I'm ready to go and very anxious to get back in the dugout. That's where I want to be. I'm looking forward to seeing the players and staff."
DeFrancesco was also thankful for the support he has received while undergoing treatments: "I want to thank my wife and family for all they have done for me during this time. I also can't say enough about the Astros for all the support they've given me."
"We're extremely excited for Tony," Astros player development director Quinton McCracken said. "He has shown tremendous strength while going through this, which is no surprise to us. We are looking forward to his return to Oklahoma City, and I'm sure our players, staff and the fans there are as well."
DeFrancesco, 51, has managed the RedHawks since 2011. Last season, he led Oklahoma City to an 82-62 mark, which was tops in the Pacific Coast League, despite having the youngest roster in the league. The 2014 season is his 20th as a manager.
The former catcher won three PCL championships as manager for Triple-A Sacramento (2003, '04, '07). In 2012, he served as the Astros' interim manager for the club's final 41 games, guiding Houston to a 15-15 mark over the last 30 games of the season.
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Stockholm bus explosion sends driver to the hospital
STOCKHOLM -- A natural gas-powered bus that didn't have any passengers on it caught fire from an explosion in Sweden's capital, but there were no signs it was terror-related, Stockholm police said Sunday.
The city's police department tweeted that the bus driver was rushed to the hospital with severe burns but no one else was known to have been injured.
The department said the incident was being investigated as a traffic accident.
Photos and video footage from the scene showed the bus in flames and thick black smoke.
Stockholm fire and rescue officials were called to the Klara Tunnel in central Stockholm at about 11:25 a.m. local time.
Rescue worker Asa Skold told Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet the bus appeared to have collided with barriers at the top of the shallow tunnel's entrance, causing a gas tank on the vehicle's roof to explode.
The newspaper said the out-of-service bus was on its way to a bus depot.
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Philadelphia Job Fair For Ex-Offenders Shut Down Due to Overwhelming Response
A job fair held for ex-offenders in Center City Philadelphia yesterday had to be shut down due to an overwhelming crowd of job seekers. The city anticipated a turnout of about 1,000 and organizers were shocked when a crowd of 3,000 showed up at the Municipal Services Building. Even with the crowd, the situation was calm—until someone cut the line.
Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Everett Gillison says the space was not equipped to accommodate a crowd that large. He told KYW Newsradio that the maximum number of résumés were accepted and they'll schedule another event at the Convention Center, which will be able to handle a crowd of that size.
There were 25 employers present for yesterday's event who were equally disappointed when it was shut down. Last year's event drew 1,000 people and 435 of them got jobs. The response was much larger this year due to larger advertising efforts. Once news of the job fair went viral, it was a wrap.
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In recent years, the significance of artists' magazines has been cemented by the proliferation of exhibitions, panels, and monographic studies devoted to independent publishing endeavors. Not merely side projects or promotional vehicles, such magazines constituted, as art historian Gwen Allen argues in her 2011 book Artists Magazines: An Alternative Space for Art, a form of exhibition space in itself, a central site of postwar artistic experimentation.
The magazine was, in a sense, the ideal form for the “dematerialized” art practices taking hold in the 1960s and ‘70s, which were often rooted in language and typically exhibitable solely in the form of secondary documentation—textual descriptions, instructions, or scores; diagrams and maps; and photographs. At the moment when artists were vehemently challenging the authority of the institutions that mediated between their work and its audience, as well as the attendant commercial system that conferred value based on the saleability of the object, the form of the magazine offered a way to circumvent existing structures—to disseminate projects and ideas directly to an audience, and one that was, at least theoretically, broader than that of the museum or gallery, and more geographically dispersed.
Among the storied magazines of the ‘70s, Avalanche, founded by artist and curator Willoughby Sharp and filmmaker Liza Bear in 1968 (the first issue appeared in Fall 1970), is perhaps the most iconic in terms of capturing the ethos and character of the period’s artistic climate. The privileged editorial form of Avalanche was not the critical essay or review, but the artist interview and it often turned pages over to artists— including Gordon Matta-Clark, Hanne Darboven, and Richard Long —to design their own spreads. Likewise, its “Rumblings” section functioned as a form of pre-internet global art-world message board where artists could submit announcements of upcoming exhibitions, projects, and publications.
Ephemeral and inexpensive, Avalanche was, as Bear described, “a cross between a magazine, an artist book, and an exhibition space in print. Basically, it was devoted to avant-garde art, from the perspective of the artist.” Avalanche, and periodicals like it, were attempts to rethink the art magazine in terms of both form and content, conceived in response to mainstream publications like Artforum, which were dominated by the critic’s voice and implicitly bore the influence of curators and dealers. However, Avalanche was also a network, a decentralized mode of distributing art that aimed to shift the site of reception beyond institutional boundaries...
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US/ticketsBufretOversett denne sidenThe 20World Championship might be over but prepare for some mayhem with the 20All-Star Event! This year we’ll be bringing the show to Barcelona, . The 20League of Legends World Championship series, will follow up the 20World Championship which was held in Europe. BufretOversett denne sidenThe 20League of Legends World Championship was the world championship for League of Legends held from September – October 2 20across .
Riot Games League of Legends World Championships. Converted prizes calculated on October 2 201 with a currency rate of USD . Riot Games League of Legends World Championship. Converted prizes calculated on October 2 201 with a currency rate of USD . SKT vs SSG – Finals Full Series SLoL eSports World Championship 2016! SK Telecom Tvs Samsung Galaxy Game Final Lol esports SWorlds.
The League of Legends World Finals er tilbake på storskjermen! League of Legends World Finals viewing party, .
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Building permit valuation rises in 2012
LAS CRUCES — The total number of building permits in Las Cruces and the total valuation of those permits rose year-over-year in 2012.
According to statistics released by the City of Las Cruces, 2,459 permits — which include everything from new residential and new commercial construction to fences and reroofs and excavations — were issued last year, a slight increase from 2011 when 2,420 permits were issued.
The total valuation in 2012 was nearly $163 million, up $144 million the year before. That marked the first time the valuation had been more than $150 million since 2009. Part of that was helped by larger projects, such as a new Walmart.
In 2013, the first month of the year saw a backward step in new residential permits. Last year, 47 permits with a valuation of $8.1 million were issued for new residential construction compared to 32 for $6.4 million this year.
Still, Jennifer Sandoval, this year's president of the Las Cruces Home Builders Association, said that she believes there is some momentum in the industry.
"There is a much more positive air," said Sandoval, who is with Robert Hines Construction in Las Cruces.
She said that potential home buyers could become motivated.
"When interest rates start creeping up, that'll have more of an impact on movement in real estate," Sandoval said. "People will start realizing that prices are about as low as they're going to get."
Steve Chavira, manager director with the Home Builders Association, said that the direction of talk has been more on the upswing.
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"Overall the builders are starting to be more positive. Some good things are starting to happen," Chavira said.
Sandoval said that appraisals are starting to align more closely with sell prices.
"That's a sign that sellers are at prices they need to be," she said.
So far for 2013, through the end of January, 183 permits were issued for a valuation of $13.9 million, up slightly from $13.6 million last year. The total number of permits, though, was down considerably as January of 2012 saw 269 permits issued.
What was the difference? While last January had more new residential permits, several permits for commercial fire suppression as well as three permits for new commercial construction boosted the number.
Impact fees
New impact fees for major road and drainage construction were put on hold in December but are scheduled to be implemented July 1. The delay will allow city staff members to close what Public Works Director Loretta Reyes earlier described as "loopholes" the city needs to close to make the impact fees more enforceable.
The new impact fees will be applied to any new residential or commercial development that occurs within the city.
The delay was also endorsed by members of the Las Cruces Home Builders Association. Their consensus was the fees would create additional burdens on prospective first-time homebuyers.
"Other alternatives are the key," Chavira said. "One thing that has come out of this is we're developing a stronger relationship with the city council."
Brook Stockberger may be reached at 575-541-5457; follow him on Twitter @Bstockberger
Billionaires, entertainers and athletes alike announced their intentions to pursue the Los Angeles Clippers with varying degrees of seriousness Wednesday, proving the longtime losers will be quite a prize if the NBA is able to wrest control of the team away from Donald Sterling after his lifetime ban for racist remarks. Full Story
Louie, who (like Louis) is a New York comic and a divorced father of two daughters, knows struggle and angst and cloudy wonderment. He views life through eyes with a stricken look, dwelling in a state of comfortable dread. Full Story
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Citation
Toplines
Prescription drug spending in the U.S. far exceeds that in other high-income countries
Higher prices, and greater use of higher-priced drugs, make the U.S. an outlier on prescription drug spending
Abstract
Issue: Compared with other high-income countries, the United States spends the most per capita on prescription drugs.
Goal: To compare drug spending levels and trends in the U.S. and nine other high-income countries — Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom; consider potential explanations for higher U.S. spending; and explore patients’ exposure to pharmaceutical costs.
Method: Analysis of health data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the 2016 Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey, and other sources.
Findings and Conclusions: Various factors contribute to high per capita drug spending in the U.S. While drug utilization appears to be similar in the U.S. and the nine other countries considered, the prices at which drugs are sold in the U.S. are substantially higher. These price differences appear to at least partly explain current and historical disparities in spending on pharmaceutical drugs. U.S. consumers face particularly high out-of-pocket costs, both because the U.S. has a large uninsured population and because cost-sharing requirements for those with coverage are more burdensome than in other countries. Most Americans support reducing pharmaceutical costs. International experience demonstrates that policies like universal health coverage, insurance benefit design that restricts out-of-pocket spending, and certain price control strategies, like centralized price negotiations,
can be effective.
Background
U.S. health care spending, per capita and as a percent of GDP, dwarfs that of any other high-income country, and longitudinal trends reveal that the gap in spending between the United States and the rest of the world continues to grow. Understanding the components and drivers of health care spending is important for policymakers, providers, and patients.
One important component of overall health care expenditures is the amount spent on prescription drugs. This brief compares prescription drug spending in the United States and nine other high-income countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. We explore how three factors that determine drug spending — drug utilization, the type and mix of drugs consumed, and the price of drugs — differ across countries. We then examine how these costs are borne by patients in these countries — in particular, the role insurance coverage and design plays in protecting patients, and specifically vulnerable populations, from the burdens of paying the ever-rising costs of pharmaceuticals.
Findings
Pharmaceutical Spending in the U.S. and Abroad
Prescription drug spending per capita is far higher in the United States than in the nine other high-income countries considered (Exhibit 1). This was not always the case. In the 1980s, several countries spent about the same amount per capita as the U.S. But in the 1990s and early 2000s, spending on prescription medications grew much more rapidly in the U.S. than in other nations. The mid-1990s saw a decade of rapid pharmaceutical growth in all countries, as annual numbers of FDA-approved drugs hit all-time highs, and sales of hypertensive and cancer drugs boomed.1 In the U.S., this was accompanied by expansions of coverage (including for prescription drugs) by the federal government, through such programs as the Children’s Health Insurance Program, Medicaid, and Medicare.
In the mid-2000s, spending growth slowed in all 10 countries, as fewer blockbuster drugs gained approval and many top-selling drugs, like Lipitor, came off patent.2 This slowdown ended in striking fashion in 2014 and 2015, as U.S. prescription spending spiked by approximately 20 percent over a period of two years. This growth, like that experienced in the 1990s, was principally because of the introduction of several expensive specialty drugs to treat hepatitis C, cystic fibrosis, and other conditions.3 Also likely contributing to this growth in the U.S. was the increase in health insurance coverage following passage of the Affordable Care Act.
While prescription spending also rose in 2014 and 2015 in several other countries (Germany, Norway, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom), the increases were not as large or abrupt as in the U.S.
The result is that by 2015, U.S. spending on pharmaceuticals exceeded $1,000 per person and was 30 percent to 190 percent higher than in the other nine countries (Exhibit 2).
However, as a share of total national health expenditures (NHE), prescription drug spending in the U.S. is not out of line with that in other countries. In fact, it is in the middle of the range: retail prescription drugs account for 10 percent of total NHE in the U.S., whereas in Norway they account for 7 percent and in Canada for 15 percent (Exhibit 2). These numbers represent conservative estimates, as they do not include spending on pharmaceuticals consumed in other health care settings or in hospitals. If this other spending were included, U.S. drug spending as a share of NHE would be closer to 17 percent.4
Explaining High U.S. Spending on Pharmaceuticals: Volume, Utilization, Mix, and Prices
Four possible factors determine a country’s spending on pharmaceuticals: country population and volume of drugs consumed, drug utilization per person, type and mix of drugs consumed (e.g., generics versus brand-name drugs), and prices at which drugs are sold.
While the United States has the largest population and the greatest absolute prescription drug spending as a country, its spending per capita (shown in Exhibit 1 and Exhibit 2) is still significantly higher than that of other countries. This higher per person spending is not because of its larger population.
At the same time, The Commonwealth Fund’s 2016 International Health Policy Survey suggests that per person prescription drug utilization in the U.S., while at the high end among high-income countries, is not an outlier.5 Forty-seven percent to 60 percent of adults in all countries report taking one or more prescription drugs regularly, and while the U.S. is at the upper end of this range (59%), the differences may not be statistically significant. These findings align with other research concluding that Americans consume similar amounts of drugs as people do in other countries.6
The types of drugs consumed also influence pharmaceutical spending. In general, generic drugs have a lower per-unit price than nongenerics. In the U.S., generics make up 84 percent of the total pharmaceutical market (in terms of utilization, not spending), a larger share than in all the other countries except for the U.K. (Exhibit 3).
That generics — which have been aggressively promoted over brand-name drugs by payers and pharmaceutical benefit managers — make up such a large portion of the U.S. pharmaceutical market may seem counterintuitive, given that the U.S. spends more on pharmaceuticals than any other country. Further complicating the picture are research findings that approximately 20 percent of U.S. generics underwent a rapid price increase between 2010 and 2015.7 More research is needed on how these markups affected overall U.S. pharmaceutical spending.
Finally, we investigated whether and how drug prices contribute to high U.S. spending. Comparing drug prices across countries is a complicated and imperfect process, primarily because of the proprietary nature of the rebates drug manufacturers offer different payers. In a 2013 analysis, researchers attempting to account for these rebates created a retail price index for pharmaceuticals, with the U.S. set at 100. Index values ranged from 95 in Germany to 46 in the United Kingdom, reflecting that U.S. retail prices for commonly prescribed drugs were 5 percent to 117 percent higher than prices in the other six countries included in the study (Exhibit 4). The authors suggested that the lower prices in these other countries reflected their more centralized processes for procuring pharmaceuticals and determining coverage.8
Another recent analysis from Bloomberg compared the prices of six top-selling drugs across countries (Exhibit 5).9 Though these drugs’ higher prices may not be representative of all brand-name drugs, they suggest that — even after adjusting for the confidential discounts offered to U.S. health plans — prices for many blockbuster drugs are markedly higher in the U.S. than elsewhere. Further, this analysis does not include potential rebates negotiated in other countries for payers (e.g., the government), and therefore may represent a conservative analysis of the price differential compared with the U.S.10
Patients’ Exposure to Pharmaceutical Costs
Just as pharmaceutical spending differs across countries, the degree to which patients are exposed to out-of-pocket costs varies. Cost exposure is determined by the extent of insurance coverage among the country’s population and by national standards (or a lack thereof) for insurance benefit design and protections against high out-of-pocket costs for poor or sick patients (Appendix).
In Norway, for example, copayments for pharmaceuticals can be more than $50 per prescription, though these charges are capped at approximately $260 annually. In contrast, the U.K.’s National Health Service requires little or no patient cost-sharing.
Despite the differences among them, all countries do more than the U.S. does to limit patients’ exposure to high out-of-pocket costs. While insured U.S. patients often pay little or nothing for generic prescriptions, they can be billed tens of thousands of dollars for certain high-priced medicines. Even Medicare’s Part D prescription drug benefit has no out-of-pocket cap for beneficiaries. Only a handful of U.S. states have passed legislation to limit out-of-pocket spending for insurance sold within their borders; for example, Maryland has a $150 monthly cap for specialty-tier drugs.11
In a 2016 international survey of adults, 14 percent of insured Americans reported that, in the past year, they did not fill a prescription or skipped doses of medicine because of the cost, compared with 2 percent in the U.K. and 10 percent in Canada, the nation with the highest rate after the U.S. (Exhibit 6).12 Among Americans without continuous insurance coverage over the past year, the rate was twice as high: one-third reported they did not fill a prescription for medicine, or skipped doses of medicine, because of the cost.
For patients with chronic conditions, cost barriers are particularly detrimental, as they can undermine adherence to highly effective medication regimens.13 The 2016 survey found that, in most countries, patients with two or more chronic conditions were significantly more likely to skip medications because of costs than were healthier patients, with one-fourth of chronically ill adults in the U.S. reporting such a problem (Exhibit 7). Notably, the only countries where such patients were not significantly more likely to report cost barriers to prescription drugs were France, Germany, and the U.K. — countries that have instituted protections to reduce out-of-pocket charges for their chronically ill populations.
The Affordable Care Act, however, implemented significant reforms to improve the affordability of health care, including prescription drugs. Most notable were the insurance coverage expansions, through which more than 20 million low- and middle-income Americans gained coverage. Data from the Commonwealth Fund’s Biennial Health Insurance Surveys show that the percentage of low-income adults who reported not taking a prescribed drug because of the cost declined to 24 percent in 2016 from 39 percent in 2010 (Exhibit 8).
Discussion: The Primacy of Price
Spending on prescription drugs in the U.S. far exceeds that in nine other high-income countries, a phenomenon that appears to be principally explained by the higher prices U.S. purchasers and consumers pay. Americans are more likely than their counterparts to bear this financial burden out-of-pocket — both because the U.S. is the only country among those studied with a large uninsured population, and because even Americans with insurance tend to have less protective benefits than people in other countries.
The importance of price in explaining high U.S. pharmaceutical spending is made apparent when we examine historical trends. The two eras when drug spending growth in the U.S. broke away from that in other high-income countries (the 1990s and 2014–15) took place when blockbuster drugs were hitting markets all over the world. Given that the U.S. generally pays higher prices for on-patent drugs, this influx may have caused its spending to rapidly outstrip that in other countries.
One reason U.S. prescription drug prices are higher may be the relative lack of price control strategies. Unlike the U.S., many other countries employ centralized price negotiations, national formularies, and comparative and cost-effectiveness research for determining price ceilings.14 In the U.S., health care delivery and payment are fragmented, with numerous, separate negotiations between drug manufacturers and payers and complex arrangements for various federal and state health programs.15 And, in general, the U.S. allows wider latitude for monopoly pricing of brand-name drugs than other countries are willing to accept.
Recent opinion polls have found that large majorities of Americans believe the government should be doing more to reduce the cost of prescription drugs.16 Ninety-two percent of U.S. adults favor letting the federal government negotiate lower drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries. Such a reform would mark a significant shift in U.S. policy toward the more centralized pricing determinations used in other high-income countries. Currently, the Veterans Health Administration and the Department of Defense are the only federal entities allowed to effectively negotiate directly with drug manufacturers; they pay prices that are roughly half of those paid at retail pharmacies.17
Granting Medicare — which finances well over a quarter of prescription expenditures — the properly designed authority to negotiate drug prices could help reduce costs for beneficiaries.18 Doing so could also potentially bring prices closer to those in other high-income countries. But given the maze of public and private payers in the U.S. health system, bringing down drug prices for all Americans will most likely require a suite of market-based and government-led pricing reforms.
The more moderate spending trends in the other nine countries also may reflect policies that result in new drugs and medical technologies being adopted more gradually.19 Other countries generally assess not just whether a new drug is effective, but whether it is more effective than existing therapies — and, in some cases, whether it is cost-effective. Thus, while U.S. per-person drug utilization may be similar to that in other high-income countries, new research indicates that the mix of drugs Americans consume includes a higher proportion of newer, more expensive medications — yet with no evidence of better health outcomes.
It is crucial to note that America’s higher spending on prescription drugs (and the higher prices Americans pay) does not necessarily mean the spending is wasteful. A larger, more profitable pharmaceutical sector may attract investments resulting in more innovative and effective drugs in the future. For this reason, policymakers who wish to reduce America’s prescription drug bill need to weigh, on the broader merits, the pros and cons of different cost-control policies.
Since implementation of the Affordable Care Act’s insurance expansions, there has been a clear improvement in access to pharmaceuticals and other health care services in the United States, the only one of the 10 countries in our study that lacks universal health coverage. Still, cost barriers remain far too common, especially for those Americans still without coverage. As policymakers and the public debate the future of the ACA, the goal should be to improve on the country’s recent gains, rather than to further restrict access to prescription drugs based on ability to pay.
Methods
The data in this issue brief are drawn from a variety of sources on pharmaceutical spending in high-income, industrialized countries. Generally, the analysis seeks to provide a comprehensive yet targeted overview of pharmaceutical spending trends in a set of countries using varied but symbiotic data.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) annually tracks and reports on a wide range of health system measures across 34 high-income countries, from population health status to health care spending and utilization. The pharmaceutical spending analyses shown in Exhibits 1 and 2 examined OECD health data released in 2017 for 10 countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. These exhibits present OECD data for the year 2015 or, if not available, for 2014. All currency amounts are listed in U.S. dollars (USD) and adjusted for national differences in cost of living. Total pharmaceutical spending refers in most countries to “net” spending, i.e., adjusted for possible rebates payable by manufacturers, wholesalers, or pharmacies. Data from all countries include only the portion spent on retail prescription medicines except for the data from the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, which include prescribed medicines, over-the-counter medications, and other medical nondurable goods, as the disaggregated data were not available. Pharmaceuticals consumed in hospitals and other health care settings are excluded.
The share of generics in pharmaceutical markets analysis shown in Exhibit 3 utilized 2016 OECD health data for ten countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States (data not available for Sweden). This exhibit presents OECD data for the year 2014 or for the most recent year available (2013 in Canada and France, 2012 in the U.S., and 2007 in Australia).
Data in Exhibit 4 come from an analysis by Kanavos and colleagues (2013) on branded drug prices and spending, originally published in Health Affairs for Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Switzerland, the U.K., and the U.S. The other three countries were not included in the article and therefore excluded from Exhibit 4.
Data in Exhibit 5 are from a Bloomberg analysis (2015) that compared prices of eight brand-name drugs in the U.S. and other countries, which includes both the U.S. list price for the drug as well as an approximate U.S. price after discounts.
Mission
The mission of The Commonwealth Fund is to promote a high-performing health care system that achieves better access, improved quality, and greater efficiency, particularly for society's most vulnerable, including low-income people, the uninsured, minority Americans, young children, and elderly adults.
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