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Good Life
As habitat disappears, so does California's deer population
An estimated 445,000 deer live in California, or about equal to the city of Sacramento's human population. Which sounds like a lot, until you realize the deer are spread over the entire state: 99 million acres.
If there were only 445,000 people in California, how long would it take you to find somebody you really wanted to hang out with?
Such is the plight of the state's deer population, our most iconic emblem of the forest. Without much notice, the species has declined slowly but relentlessly in virtually every corner of the state.
The decline has been almost too small to see on an annual basis. But since 1990, California has lost nearly half its deer population, according to the state Department of Fish and Game.
"Our deer are surviving, they're not thriving," said Craig Stowers, deer program manager at Fish and Game. "Quite frankly, until people start taking this seriously, we're going to continue to experience these types of declines."
This forest icon is on the wane mainly for one simple reason: habitat loss.
Between 1990 and 2000, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 75,000 acres per year were converted to low-density housing across California. A recent Bee analysis of housing data showed a similar trend over the past decade, at least until the recession began. The rate was even greater before 1990.
This land conversion eliminated food and migratory corridors vital to deer.
"You can't have a good migratory deer population when their wintering ground is covered in residential development for humans," Stowers said. "They're competing for the same resources we need, and they're losing."
The species in question are mule deer and blacktail deer. Both species are lumped together in Fish and Game's 2011 population estimate of about 445,000 deer statewide, a drop from 850,000 in 1990.
The state manages its deer herds according to zones defined by habitat and deer behavior. Of the 45 zones, only about six have deer populations that held steady or increased slightly since 1990. These are generally found in some of the least-populated areas of the state.
All the other zones declined significantly.
Rural residents might tell a different story. They see deer frequently around their yards, in their gardens, and as roadkill. Indeed, deer in these areas are often considered a pest.
Deer require a particular type of forest habitat called "early seral." This means they prefer to eat the tender, nutritious, young vegetation that surges for several years after a forest fire or other land disturbance.
The problem for rural residents, these days, is that deer primarily find this kind of food in the vigorous growth of gardens and landscaping that tend to go with rural housing development.
The natural sources of this deer food have been largely eliminated by a century of fire suppression in forests – the same problem that has caused forests to become overstocked with small, young trees that now pose an enormous fire risk.
Land management agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service now understand this error of excessive fire suppression. The problem is that allowing more fire is difficult because the overly dense forests pose a massive wildfire risk, and because so many people and homes have cropped up in and near forests.
It's a "double whammy" for deer, Stowers said. Much of their habitat has been eliminated by rural development. And the habitat that remains is poor quality.
"If deer numbers are poor, they are a real canary in the coal mine, so to speak," said Randy Morrison, California regional director at the Mule Deer Foundation, a conservation and hunting organization. "They are a real bellwether species for a given habitat. And our habitat is not healthy, no question about it."
Complicating the problem is that, when a wildland fire does occur, there is often a rush to remove the burned trees and replant with seedlings. Often this comes with herbicide spraying to prevent other plants from competing with the seedlings. This impulse eliminates the natural forest regeneration that would support deer populations.
And it's not just deer. A study last year by PRBO Conservation Science, which examined conditions after fires on the Plumas and Lassen national forests, found that dozens of songbird species benefit from the same kind of post-fire habitat that emerges when a burned area is left alone.
"It's a hard sell," said Craig Thomas, executive director of the environmental group Sierra Forest Legacy. "People look at burned trees and they say, 'Oh God, let's get the green ones back.' The early seral habitat could be really diverse and beautiful if we thought about it as a valuable thing. Deer suffer when we don't think that way."
Deer are also an iconic species for hunters, and the population decline has not gone unnoticed in their circles. Mule and blacktail deer are California's primary big-game hunting species. Yet it has become increasingly difficult to harvest one.
The statewide hunter success ratio for deer hunters in 2010 was 15 percent, according to Fish and Game data. That means about four out of five hunters who purchased a license and deer tag from the state and attempted to harvest venison for their family failed to bring any home.
In Colorado, by comparison, the hunter success rate for deer in 2011 was 43 percent, according to that state's Department of Wildlife.
"Our deer numbers are down to a point where success is definitely limited, which has been very discouraging to many hunters," Morrison said.
Because deer are a popular hunting species, they are intensively managed by Fish and Game and vast quantities of data are gathered when a hunter reports a kill. As a result, Fish and Game knows there are problems with the demographics of the remaining deer population.
The leading concern is that the species is now dominated by older females, Stowers said, which do not have the same breeding success as younger females. This makes it more difficult to rebuild the population.
Going back to the habitat problem, many of the fawns that do get born don't make it to adulthood – apparently because there just isn't enough to eat. Fish and Game grades deer on a health scale from zero to 100, and most get a rating of 50 or below.
"We have yet to find a doe in this state that we would rate above a medium to poor condition," Stowers said.
In contrast, bucks are generally healthy. Being larger, they are able to outcompete other deer for whatever food there is.
Complicating matters is the fact that hunting regulations – and many hunters – are focused on harvesting bucks. Only male deer have the showy antlers that make a good take-home trophy.
In 2010, the most recent data available, California hunters harvested 25,956 bucks and just 469 does.
This means the older does, instead of getting culled from the population, are just growing older.
Stowers said regulations need to be adjusted to encourage a larger doe harvest.
Morrison agreed. He said it would be appropriate in some areas – and hunters would support it – if the doe harvest was carefully monitored to avoid harming breeding success.
Many hunters blame the deer decline on mountain lions, which primarily feed on deer. The claim is that a state law that banned mountain lion hunting, passed by voters in 1990, allowed the deer-hungry mountain lion population to grow unchecked.
There has not been a thorough study of the state's mountain lion population in many years, and there are no formal monitoring programs in place. Fish and Game estimates the population at between 4,000 and 6,000 lions, but even this estimate is dated.
There are hints, however, that even mountain lions are running out of deer to eat and turning to other food instead.
Recent evidence of a decline in porcupines across the state could be attributed to mountain lions, one of the few predators known to eat the prickly rodent. There also have been reports of mountain lions eating feral pigs in the state's coastal regions.
Morrison, however, doesn't buy the mountain lion argument.
"I believe it's habitat, habitat, habitat," he said. "So far, I don't believe we're turning the tide at all. I'm concerned. Very concerned."
To read more, visit www.sacbee.com.


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For Seniors: Tablet Buying Decisions: Which Operating System?
When deciding which tablet to buy, you must consider the operating system it uses. Most tablets use a mobile operating system (OS) similar (or identical) to operating systems used on smartphones. The OS controls how you interact with your tablet, and which apps the tablet can run, so it's an important buying decision.
Mobile operating systems don't require as much processing power as a desktop or laptop computer operating system, but they perform pretty much the same tasks. There are several types of operating systems a tablet might employ:
iPad, the first of the recent generation of tablets, uses the Apple iOS that also drives the popular iPhone mobile phone and iPod Touch.
Android is the mobile OS promoted by Google. The Android 3.0 interface is optimized for tablets.
BlackBerry OS is the BlackBerry operating system, the same one used on BlackBerry phones for years.
The HP webOS was inherited with the company's acquisition of Palm Computing, and is available on their TouchPad tablets.
Windows tablets also exist, and they run the same Windows found on other computers.
Whichever tablet you choose, you should play around with it and see how the interface provided by the operating system feels to you, and which apps it supports.

subset: commoncrawl


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Time for a new job?
Explore new surveying opportunities at RICSRecruit
Congratulations to all new Associates, Chartered Surveyors and Fellows.
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Now, more than ever, clients are looking for greater certainty around professional standards and ethics, as well as the very best technical advice and guidance, lateral thinking and the skills to solve problems. Our focus is on achieving recognition of RICS and RICS' standards in our world markets. We are in a unique position; establishing a global professional presence across land, property and construction is a realistic long-term ambition.
Our newly qualified professionals will go on to shape the world we live in. So, to all new members, we wish you a long and prosperous career.


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Watch CBSN Live
Left: A Depression-era dust storm in Baca County, Colo., photographed by D.L. Kernodle.
Decades of poor farming practices had severely depleted the soil in the nation's mid-section by the early 1930s. Add chronic drought conditions -- and much of the nation's breadbasket was transformed into a Dust Bowl.
But the conditions of the Dust Bowl weren't limited to the Plains States.
Credit: Library of Congress
The stories of personal hardships of that time are still familiar to many of us, in part because of the iconic images captured by photographers.
Left: A dust storm hits Elkhart, Kansas, in May 1937.
Visibility drops during a dust storm in Amarillo, Texas, April 1936. Photographed
by Arthur Rothstein.
Kitchen windows are sealed up with towels to protect against dust storms,
in Williams County, N.D., October 1937. Photographed by Russell Lee.
A dust storm in Baca County, Colo., 1935. Photographed by J.H. Ward.
Left: The beginnings of a dust storm in northern Florida, March 1939. Photographed by Marion Post Wolcott.
Prevailing west-to-east winds occasionally brought tons of dust a thousand miles or more, to the Eastern Seaboard. On May 11, 1934, the airport in Pittsburgh reported dust so thick that visibility was reduced to one mile. For five hours, New York City was blanketed by dust, obscuring the city. The New York Times described "a half-light similar to the light cast by the sun in a partial eclipse."


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Percy Sledge
The sorrowful, soulful voice behind the soul classic "When a Man Loves a Woman."
Percy Sledge delivered soul with a conviction and emotion that still resonate today. His imploring, anguished ballads made him a Southern soul hero.
If Percy Sledge had only recorded "When a Man Loves a Woman," one of the greatest of all soul songs, he would have earned his place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
No less an authority than Jerry Wexler has called it "a transcendent moment...a holy love hymn." Released on Atlantic in 1966, "When a Man Loves a Woman" topped the R&B and pop charts for multiple weeks and raised the bar for soul balladeering for all time. Yet Sledge's career didn't end with that momentous first single. Over the years he racked up a dozen hits at Atlantic, including "Warm and Tender Love," "It Tears Me Up," "Out of Left Field" and "Take Time to Know Her."
Sledge, who was born in Leighton, Alabama, was working as a hospital orderly when he began playing clubs and frat parties with the Esquires, a locally popular group, in 1965. As he recalls, "I was singing every style of music: the Beatles, Elvis Presley, James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Motown, Sam Cooke, the Platters." That broad exposure gave him a soulful versatility as a singer that is evident on his Atlantic recordings.
"When a Man Loves a Woman" was Sledge's first single, cut by producers Quin Ivy and Marlin Greene at their modest studio in Sheffield, Alabama. Sledge had carried the song's melody with him for a long time. "I hummed it all my life, even when I was picking and chopping cotton in the fields," he recalls.
He improvised words to go with his melody one night while performing at a frat party at the University of Mississippi, and Ivy, who was then a college student, told him, "If you ever think about cutting a record, come on by, because I love that melody."
Inspired by a real-life situation involving a girl who left Sledge for another guy, the song began as "Why Did You Leave Me, Baby?" and evolved into "When a Man Loves a Woman." Sledge naively gave the writing credit to bassist Cameron Lewis and organist Andrew Wright, his Esquires bandmates who helped with chords and the arrangement.
Sledge's forlorn, crying vocal style, which betrayed his roots in gospel, found him reaching into his upper register without breaking into falsetto. The purity of his voice, as music journalist Dave Marsh noted, was something like hearing "the South itself, in all its bountiful, contradictory mystery." It was literally the first Southern soul record to top the pop charts. Of "When a Man Loves a Woman," Peter Guralnik wrote, "Southern soul had at last entered the mainstream of pop in the unlikely guise of the ultimate make-out song."
Heartbroken ballads about loneliness, attraction and betrayal were Sledge's specialty, and they filled the four albums he cut during his late-Sixties tenure at Atlantic: When a Man Loves a Woman (1966), Warm and Tender Soul (1966), The Percy Sledge Way (1967) and Take Time and Know Her (1968). As he liked to say, "Most artists judge their success by how much noise they create. I prefer my audience to be quiet."
From Atlantic, Sledge moved to Capricorn Records, where he cut I'll Be Your Everything (1974). In 1983 he recorded the album Percy! on Monument. More than a decade passed before his next new album, Blue Night, on the Pointblank label in 1995. Guests on that project included Steve Cropper (from Booker T. and the M.G.'s) and Bobby Womack. In between releases, Sledge saw "When a Man Loves a Woman" return to popularity when it was included on the soundtrack for Platoon, Oliver Stone's 1987 film about the Vietnam war. That same year, "When a Man Loves a Woman" was re-released in Britain, reaching Number Two.
In 1989 Sledge received the Rhythm & Blues Foundation's first Career Achievement Award. Even though his post-Atlantic recordings have been infrequent, Sledge has remained an in-demand performer, averaging about a hundred dates a year in the U.S. and Europe.
Sledge passed away on April 14, 2015.
Inductee: Percy Sledge (born November 25, 1940, died April 14, 2015)


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Sam Worthington's "Debt" Comes Due Aug. 31.
Three Mossad agents are sent to hunt down a notorious Nazi war criminal. 30 years later, a dark secret from their mission threatens to come to light and they must reunite to put an end to things once and for all. After languishing in limbo for more than a year, the film, starring Sam Worthington, Jessica Chastain, Helen Mirren and Tom Wilkinson, will open Aug. 31.
We don't waste our time on anything not worth your time. We celebrate the best of what's coming on film and TV. We cheer when our expectations are met and criticize when we're let down.


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If the system is part of a network, ensure that an Ethernet connector or similar network adapter is attached to your system.
If you are installing a system that is connected through a tip(1) line, ensure that your window display is at least 80 columns wide and 24 rows long.
To determine the current dimensions of your tip window, use the stty(1) command.
If you are using the system's DVD-ROM or CD-ROM drive to install the Solaris software, insert the Solaris Operating System for SPARC Platforms DVD or the Solaris Software for SPARC Platforms - 1 CD in the drive.
If you are using a profile diskette, insert the profile diskette in the system's diskette drive.
Boot the system.
If the system is new, out–of–the–box, turn on the system.
If you want to install or upgrade an existing system, shut down the system. At the ok prompt, type the appropriate options for the boot command. The syntax of the boot command is the following.
ok boot [cd–dvd|net] - install [url|ask] options
For example, if you type the following command, the OS is installed over the network by using a JumpStart profile.
ok boot net - install http://220.127.116.11/jumpstart/config.tar
For a description of the boot command options, see the following table.
The system checks hardware and system components and your SPARC based system boots. Booting lasts several minutes.
If you did not preconfigure system information in the sysidcfg file, when prompted, answer the questions about system configuration.
Follow the instructions on the screen to install the software.
When the JumpStart program finishes installing the Solaris software, the system reboots automatically.
After the installation is finished, installation logs are saved in a file. You can find the installation logs in the following directories:


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Browse Our Mercedes Benz 500SEL Parts Catalog
- Mercedes-Benz
- Steering
- Mercedes-Benz
- Engine
Automotive Battery (Powersport) Kit - Odyssey 539363
- Mercedes-Benz
- Supplies and Hardware
- Mercedes-Benz
- Suspension
- Mercedes-Benz
- Brake
- Mercedes-Benz
- Exhaust
About Mercedes Benz 500SEL
The Mercedes Benz 500SEL is a luxurious version of the classic 500SE. A lengthier and more luxurious version made it popular amongst Mercedes Benz enthusiasts. With many of the same options as the original, but some tweaks in the interior and exterior that make it more aesthetically pleasing, the 500SEL is truly a luxurious masterpiece from Mercedes Benz. The initial line being built from 1980 to 1985 this was an impressive vehicle that was deserving of the Mercedes Benz brand name.
Mercedes Benz 500SEL Parts from FCP Euro
FCP Euro brings Mercedes owners a new level of convenience and quality when it comes to shopping for parts online. With a growing selection of Mercedes Benz 500SEL parts, our continuing mission is to provide you with the most accurate and comprehensive 500SEL catalog available. By procuring only high quality 500SEL original parts by trusted and respected manufacturers such as Genuine Mercedes, Meyle, and Lemforder you have the reassurance of knowing that quality is never an issue. If you're ever having trouble finding the Mercedes 500SEL parts you need, you can always just give us a call and one of our highly qualified customer service experts will be available to help you. Our staff includes P2 Parts and ASE certified technicians that will answer all your questions and get you the Mercedes parts that best suit your needs as well as your wallet. We also back our Mercedes Benz 500SEL parts and our 500SEL accessories with our quality and fitment guarantee. If that's not enough we attach a one year warranty to everything we offer to give you the added confidence that you deserve. Trust FCP Euro for all of your Mercedes Benz 500SEL parts needs, and let us show you the difference that our 20 plus years of experience in the euro parts industry will have on your vehicle.


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Equity Point Lisboa Hostel
Hostel in Lisbon - The perfect location
Equity Point's new hostel in Lisbon has the best possible location: right in the heart of the city, at the crossroads of Chiado, Bairro Alto and Restauradores neighborhoods. There is an important transit hub very nearby, with an underground station, the famous "Subida de Gloria" streetcar, and convenient airport buses. The hostel is just a three minute walk from the 'Mirador de San Pedro de Alcantara' where you can enjoy some of the best views of the city.
The building history
The building which hosts Equity Point Lisboa was built around 1800 to be the palace of a wealthy Lisboan family. The building has been completely refurbished but still retains its incredible fireplaces, ornate three meter high ceilings and its unique original wooden floor. The facade has been restored to its original color, which gives the hostel a unique look and makes it easily identifiable from virtually anywhere in the city.
Discover the hostel
Equity Point Lisbon is our company's eighth hostel. It has 104 beds distributed in rooms from 2 to 10 beds. All rooms face the exterior and many have a balcony. You will not forget this hostel's unmistakable charm and character.
Enjoy the common areas
The hostel has nice common areas where you can enjoy TV, free WiFi and a chill out area which is great to relax in and meet other travelers. But there's more: Equity Point Lisbon offers breakfast included, bar, computers with internet, a kitchen and more.
Guests will be required to show an official ID with photo at upon arrival.
Persons under the age of 18 years are only allowed to stay in private rooms or dormitory rooms that are booked for use of one family or group of persons, and can't share dormitory rooms with other guests. People under 18 years old must travel with their parents or legal guardian.
Check in at 2 PM and check out at 10 AM.
Travessa do Fala-Só 9
1250-109 Lisbon
Bookings and modifications:
Tel +351 218 018 211


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Nelson: Dones' attitude unhelpful
Courtney Dones' disparaging remarks about members of our community are disgusting, ugly and intolerable. To suggest that 768 children of "immigrant workers" idly sit being "babysat" until they can consume their free lunch is both untrue and insulting to the human spirit. Forty percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or the children of immigrants and, be assured, they did not get there without the help of a public education and an excellent secondary education. Perhaps one of the reasons they are so successful is because they recognize opportunity and they place a value on things such as an education. The hard work and determination displayed by many immigrants, including our ancestors, is a legendary component of the American ideal. To focus on immigrant laborers as "subsidized" is a fallacy as they also pay property and sales taxes the same as you and I. If they don't own their home (immigrants can, you know) I am certain their rent includes a portion due the county. Their paychecks have portions deducted (and matched by their employers) which contribute to basic services and their purchasing of consumer items and services provide a measure of benefit to our economy. To argue that immigrant workers take without sharing in the costs is flat-out wrong. Your assertions, all clearly stated in your letter, that we should withhold charity from those not "our own," that "revolving ELL students" are somehow inferior students not bound for success and that we should even deny immigrants rental housing, reek of racism and bigotry. The difficulties in educating children are always large and the problems caused by illegal immigration are vexing but will undoubtedly be handled in a grand American way. In our community we will solve them without the unhelpful attitudes such as yours.
Ken Nelson, Breckenridge
Start a dialogue, stay on topic and be civil.
If you don't follow the rules, your comment may be deleted.


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It may be time to rethink the CIA's mission
President Obama should pause before choosing a successor to CIA Director David H. Petraeus and rethink the role of the nation's primary intelligence agency. Its main focus for the past decade has been fighting terrorists and insurgents.
The first question to ask: Has the CIA become too much of a paramilitary organization? The second: Should this be the time to put the agency's main emphasis being the premier producer and analyst of intelligence for policymakers, using both open and clandestine sources?
That doesn't mean losing its counterterrorism role. Terrorists remain a threat, but the rest of the world is changing so fast that the president and policymakers down the line need the best information available.
More than 20 years ago, Richard M. Helms, the legendary CIA director, told me that one of the biggest mistakes the agency made during his tenure was to run the "secret war" in Laos in the late 1960s. "You can't keep a war secret, and therefore a clandestine intelligence service should not be running it," he said. "It also diverts you from doing our main job, analysis."
Helms would have shuddered reading last month's Washington Post story that Petraeus was seeking to increase CIA drone activities at a time when policymakers needed to know more about the political turmoil in the Middle East and the new leaders there and in China, India, Africa and Latin America.
Helms came out of the analytic side of the agency. Although he ran the clandestine service as deputy director for operations from 1962 to 1965, he was sent to that post after the Bay of Pigs episode with the aim of directing the CIA away from such semi-covert military operations and more toward espionage.
As CIA director from 1966 to 1973, his credo was: "Focus on the core missions: collecting and analyzing foreign intelligence," according to an appreciation written by one of his top assistants, David S. Robarge. The piece was published 10 years ago, after Helms's death. "Helms believed that the CIA is best at acquiring secrets and telling policymakers what they mean, but that covert action in peacetime can cause the Agency no end of trouble," he wrote.
In recent years, new CIA case officers were quickly sent off to war zones. A former top CIA officer told me that the agency has looked more like the the Office of Strategic Services, the World War II wartime intelligence agency, than the CIA, which replaced it in 1947.
A significant part of recent training of case officers has been geared to Iraq, Afghanistan and situations related to the worldwide war on terror. That has caused, as one former operator put it, "a loss of tradecraft," meaning old-fashioned peacetime spying techniques.
The same thing has happened on the intelligence-analysis side. An emphasis on finding the bad guys who are Taliban or al-Qaida or planters of roadside bombs has created a generation of analysts who "may see ordinary intelligence gathering and assessment work as just . . . ordinary," said one senior official.
Inevitably they will have a letdown returning to a cubicle in Langley, Va., the site of CIA headquarters. "They'll miss the adrenaline rush, yanking on their Kevlar helmets, seeing an immediate kill or miss," said a former official.
There is a more subtle change, too. Sixty percent of CIA officers have arrived since Sept. 11, 2001, and 30 percent since just five years ago. This relatively young workforce has known strong, respected leadership under Michael Hayden, Leon E. Panetta and Petraeus; strong funding; and public respect from recent overseas successes. A limited number of current agency officials experienced the harsh criticism and structural changes after 9/11 and the controversies over Iraq and weapons of mass destruction and over enhanced interrogation and torture.
"An impression within the workforce that they can do no wrong . . . inevitably leads to problems down the road," a former senior official said. "Lessons from negative experiences in the past must be factored into the training and culture of the current generation."
Agency leadership has now been rocked after relative stability. George Tenet resigned in July 2004 after seven years as director. In the eight succeeding years there have been three directors, and Obama will now have to name a fourth.
This is a difficult time to bring in an outsider, even one with learning capabilities equal to Petraeus's. "We don't have time to teach someone what we're now doing so he or she can get us back to what Helms and others said ought to be what we mainly do," said one veteran agency official.
Michael Morell, 54, the deputy CIA director, is serving as acting director. He's the logical choice. His 32-year CIA career has primarily been on the analytic side. But over the past decade his senior positions have put him at the center of the action. He was executive assistant to Tenet, briefer to Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and No. 2 to Panetta and Petraeus.
He has dealt with failure and success. He was in the White House with Tenet for 9/11 and Iraq, and with Panetta explaining to Obama the risks of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
The president said Friday, "I have the utmost confidence in Acting Director Michael Morell and the men and women of the CIA who work every day to keep our nation safe."
Appointing Morell to carry out a recalibration of CIA activities would deliver a steadying message to agency personnel and the entire intelligence community.


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EAST GREENBUSH --The state's largest pharmaceutical company, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc., announced Monday morning that a drug to aid treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer in adults has been approved for marketing in the European Union. The approval is only for patients in whose bodies the disease has resisted certain other treatments. The drug, brand named ZALTRAP, was approved by the European Commission following the findings of a randomized trial of 1,226 patients from patients in several countries and a recommendation by a panel of physicians from the European Medicine Agency. "It was expected, not guaranteed, but expected," said Stephen Dworkin, a spokesperson for Regeneron. The trials found the drug, given as part of a chemotherapy treatment, extended the median survival rate for patients that had previously been treated with another method by six weeks, from around 12 months to around 13.5 months, an 18 percent risk reduction. After conducting research into the drug for more than a decade, it was approved in August 2012 for sale by the Food and Drug Administration in the United States and is now available for prescription. In the U.S., ZALTRAP has been commercialized by Paris-based pharmaceutical company Sanofi, formerly Sanofi-Aventis, which will also bring the product to European markets. The drug will only be available in some European Union countries immediately. Certain countries require price negotiations between companies looking to sell a new drug, such as Sanofi, and the government. In single-payer systems such as the EU, the government in each country is often the major buyer. Colorectal cancer is the most common cancer in both men and women and is the second leading cause of death from cancer. There were 436,000 new cases of colorectal cancer diagnosed last year and 212,000 deaths from the disease, according to the Annuals of Oncology. Development and production of the drug took place over ten years at Regeneron's production facility on the State University at Albany's East Campus along Columbia Turnpike. There, the company has about dozen products in clinical development in addition to three that are approved and marketed, including ZALTRAP and EYLEA. Regeneron employs 540 people on the East Greenbush campus and expects to grow its workforce by more than 840 with the addition of two new facilities. One of those two facilities, a new office building, is currently under construction, Dworkin said. In early December, Bayer Healthcare submitted an application to allow another of Regeneron's products, EYLEA, to be marketed in the European Union. The drug is an injection for the treatment of macular edema caused by central retinal vein occlusion. The application is undergoing review.
Colorectal cancer drug developed by Regeneron approved for sale in Europe
- Ian Benjamin
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The cost of financing a legal education can be daunting, but the Financial Aid Office is available to assist you in preparing to meet it. Columbia Law School is committed to clarifying the process of applying for financial aid so that you may explore various options that may exist for funding your legal education.
The Law School's Financial Aid Office is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. The office is located on the 5th Floor of William and June Warren Hall at 115th Street and Amsterdam Avenue.
Financial Aid Office
Columbia Law School
435 West 116th St.
New York, NY 10027
Tel: 212-854-7730
Fax: 212-854-7445
E-mail: [email protected]
If you need further information after you review this site, please do not hesitate to contact the Financial Aid Office for assistance. The financial aid officers are generally available to meet with students on a walk-in basis. Also, students can arrange an appointment by emailing [email protected]. Every effort will be made to respond to your inquiry within one to three business days.


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This is a really great interview. Beyond the substance is something really remarkable that has been missing from GOP politics for a long time; the inherent camaraderie between a Vice-president and President.
It is simply impossible to fake optimism this sincere, and VPE Pence discusses both the substance and the larger optimistic outlook.


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Approximately two-thirds of all American households own animals. Many companion animals (pets) are considered part of the family and in farm families, livestock are a primary source of income.
In recent disasters, people have not made the most rational decisions about ensuring their own safety when they have pets or livestock to consider by:- refusing to evacuate and leaving animals- trying to re-enter an unsafe area to rescue pets Although the care and safety of humans must be the primary focus in a disaster, planning for pet evacuation, pet-friendly and temporary emergency animal sheltering is of great importance.
New York State
Empire State Animal Response Team (ESART) - a public-private partnership which unifies organizations, businesses, government agencies and individuals that support all phases of emergencies affecting animals in New York State. The Animal Health Diagnostic Center at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University provides information on emerging infectious diseases to animal owners through veterinarian.
New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets (NYSDAM) - the official source of information for agriculture which includes the animal industry division.
National Resources and Organizations
American Humane Association provides information on animal emergency services.
American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) has disaster response services nationally and in NYS and provides informaton on disaster preparedness, first aid and planning for animals in emergencies.
American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) disaster information:
Ready.gov for animals
Extension Disaster Education Network (EDEN) animal agriculture disease issues:
Emergency Animal Rescue Service (EARS) - emergency sheltering and disaster relief services. United Animal NationsWildlife Resources - addressing wildlife issues in disasters. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)


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Oxygen therapy means using an oxygen tank or a machine to
breathe in air that contains more oxygen than normal.
therapy increases the amount of oxygen in the lungs and the bloodstream. A
person with a health problem such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
(COPD) may need oxygen therapy if there are signs that the cells of the
body are not getting enough oxygen.
Oxygen therapy may be given by
different methods, including a:
Last Revised:
November 29, 2011
Healthwise Staff
Medical Review:
E. Gregory Thompson, MD - Internal Medicine & Ken Y. Yoneda, MD - Pulmonology
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Air, ground search for fourth fugitive comes up empty
Update: Feb. 15, 2013
After securing a search warrant for at least one of the suspects police took into custody during a Valentine's Day chase, Beaumont Police Department detectives found a sizeable cache of stolen big screen TVs, recording equipment, video game consoles, personal computers, iPads and other electronics in the 4400 block of Concord.
Police later identified the residence as the home as Marcus Keith Johnson, 24, who was taken into custody after a short foot chase near Roland Road on Thursday, Feb. 14, 2013.
Johnson was booked in the Jefferson County Jail on charges of felony theft, according to a BPD press release.
BPD spokesman Sgt. Rob Flores said the stolen property, some of which would not fit on two large tables during a press conference, was valued in excess of $25,000.
Flores said the chances of property owners getting their big screen TV or one of many computers back aren't good, however, because the thieves took steps to remove any identifying markings.
"This one here you can actually see where they scratched that off," he said, pointing to a serial number on one of at least five flat screen TVs police recovered.
Although serial numbers are the primary tool police use to identify and return stolen property to their owners, he said homeowners can use other means to identify their property in case it's stolen, including marking electronics and other valuables with nail polish or engravings.
"We identify these primarily through these numbers," he said, "but you can also mark it in other ways that's not obvious to the people who're stealing this stuff."
Police familiar with the investigation said a large amount of cocaine and possibly other narcotics were also found while police served the search warrant.
If convicted, Johnson faces five to 99 years in prison for the charge of felony theft. Johnson's criminal record includes guilty pleas to a couple of misdemeanor theft charges.
Previous reporting
About 12:05 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 14, a Beaumont Police Department patrol officer was flagged down in the 7000 block of Scotts Drive and informed that a suspicious silver pickup looked to be prowling the neighborhood, possibly casing homes for burglaries. According to BPD spokesman Sgt. Rob Flores, the patrol spotted a vehicle matching the description near the intersection of Eastex Freeway and Chinn Drive. and attempted to stop it. When the driver refused to stop, a pursuit ensued.
The pursuit led to the intersection of Christopher Street and Bigner Road in north Beaumont, where all four occupants exited the vehicle and fled on foot at a dead end near the 3200 block of Roland Road. Flores said two were taken into custody immediately, and a third was found hiding in a nearby backyard. A Jefferson County Sheriff's Office helicopter unit and BPD canine unit are currently searching for the fourth suspect. He was last seen fleeing east from Christopher Street.
As the Jefferson County helicopter unit circled overhead, Flores said the fourth suspect fled into swampy, wooded area adjacent to Christopher Street.
"There's a lot of swamp. They've got a saltwater barrier back here. It's a real wooded area," he said. "We think he's probably laying low."
Inside the truck, officers found several electronic items that they believe might have been stolen in a burglary. Officers also found crack cocaine, a BPD press release said.
As of Thursday evening, police had not yet apprehended the fourth subject but were still searching for the fugitive.
Stayed tuned to the TheExaminer.com for updates as they become available.


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Beaujolais nouveau
Beaujolais nouveau (French pronunciation: [bo.ʒɔ.lɛ nu.vo]) is a red wine made from Gamay grapes produced in the Beaujolais region of France. It is the most popular vin de primeur, fermented for just a few weeks before being released for sale on the third Thursday of November. This "Beaujolais Nouveau Day" used to see heavy marketing, with races to get the first bottles to different markets around the globe.[1] The current release practice is to ship the wine ahead of the third Thursday of November, and release it to the local markets at 12:01 a.m. local time.
|Beaujolais nouveau
Beaujolais had always made a vin de l'année to celebrate the end of the harvest, but until World War II it was only for local consumption. In fact, once the Beaujolais AOC was established in 1937, AOC rules meant that Beaujolais wine could only be officially sold after 15 December in the year of harvest.[2] These rules were relaxed on 13 November 1951,[2] and the Union Interprofessionnelle des Vins du Beaujolais (UIVB) formally set 15 November as the release date for what would henceforth be known as Beaujolais nouveau.
A few members of the UIVB saw the potential for marketing Beaujolais nouveau. Not only was it a way to clear lots of vin ordinaire at a good profit, but selling wine within weeks of the harvest was great for cash flow. Hence the idea was born of a race to Paris carrying the first bottles of the new vintage. This attracted a lot of media coverage, and by the 1970s had become a national event. The races spread to neighbouring countries in Europe in the 1980s, followed by North America, and in the 1990s to Asia.[2] In 1985, the date was changed to the third Thursday in November to take best advantage of marketing in the following weekend.
Beaujolais nouveau is made from the Gamay noir à Jus blanc grape, better known simply as Gamay. The grapes must come from the Beaujolais AOC, with those of the ten "cru" appellations excluded. They are grown in "stony, schistous soils".[3] Both Beaujolais Nouveau and Beaujolais-Villages Nouveau are produced; the latter comes from the ~ 30 non-cru villages in the region. Nouveau's production is about 25% of overall production in Beaujolais. As of 2017, there are 2000 producers producing 27.5 million cases, with 40% exported from France.[4]
By law, all grapes in the region must be harvested by hand. The wine is made using carbonic maceration,[3] whole berry anaerobic fermentation which emphasizes fruit flavors without extracting bitter tannins from the grape skins. Grapes are loaded and sealed into a large (on the order of 20,000-U.S.-gallon (76,000 L)) sealed container that is filled with carbon dioxide. Grapes that are gently crushed at the bottom of the container by the weight of the grapes start to ferment, emitting more CO2. All this carbon dioxide causes fermentation to take place inside the uncrushed grapes (without access to oxygen, hence "anaerobic fermentation"). The resulting wine is fresh, fruity, and very low in tannins. Part of the success of Beaujolais Nouveau is due to the Gamay grape - it can easily make this very straightforward wine and make more complex wines. Most other red wine grapes would not easily make nouveau-style wines."[5]
This "Beaujolais Day" is accompanied by publicity events and heavy advertising. The traditional slogan, even in English-speaking countries, was "Le Beaujolais nouveau est arrivé!" (literally, "The new Beaujolais has arrived!"), but in 2005 this was changed to "It's Beaujolais Nouveau Time!". In the United States, it is promoted as a drink for Thanksgiving, which always falls exactly one week after the wine is released (on the fourth Thursday of November). Many producers release the nouveau with colourful or abstract design that changes every year, usually as an evolution from the previous year's design. Duboeuf has silk ties made each year with their label's abstract design, and releases them through select wholesalers and distributors. In several metropolis areas in east Asia, Nouveau on the 3rd Thursday in November is seen as a status symbol and a luxury item. There is so much emphasis on this date that there are many air shipping companies who have online articles about how they arrange the air shipments, starting in late October.
Beaujolais nouveau is a purple-pink wine reflecting its youth, bottled only 6–8 weeks after harvest. The method of production means that there is very little tannin, and the wine can be dominated by such fruity ester flavours as banana, grape, strawberry, fig and pear drop. The wine is recommended to be slightly chilled to 13 °C (55 °F).
Beaujolais nouveau is intended for immediate drinking. While some nouveau can be kept for a few years (old-veau?), there's no real reason to, as it doesn't improve with age. For comparison, standard Beaujolais AOC wines are released the following year and can be stored for one or more years before consuming. The wines show definite variation between vintages, and as such are considered to be an early indicator of the quality of the year's regional wine harvest.
For a period around the late 90s some wine critics criticized Beaujolais nouveau as simple or immature. For example, the prominent wine critic Karen MacNeil wrote that "Drinking it gives you the same kind of silly pleasure as eating cookie dough."[6] Another well-known wine critic, Robert M. Parker, Jr., disagrees, calling those opinions "ludicrous" and describing the better vintages as "delicious, zesty, exuberant, fresh, vibrantly fruity" wines.[3] There seems to be general agreement that this is a wine intended to be enjoyed but not analyzed, quaffed rather than sipped.
Similar winesEdit
The commercial success of Beaujolais nouveau led to the development of other "primeur" wines in other parts of France, such as the Gaillac AOC near Toulouse. These wines are typically released on the third Thursday of November, just like their counterparts in Beaujolais. The practice has spread to other wine producing countries such as Italy ("Vino Novello"), Spain ("vino joven"), and the US ("nouveau wine").
In the United States, a number of vintners have produced Nouveau-style wines, using various grapes such as Gamay, Zinfandel, Tempranillo, Pinot noir, and even Riesling.
See alsoEdit
- ^ Parkinson, Justin (20 November 2014). "Is Beaujolais Nouveau making a comeback?". BBC News magazine.
- ^ a b c "It's Beaujolais Nouveau Time!". Union Interprofessionnelle des Vins du Beaujolais. Archived from the original (Flash) on 12 October 2007. Retrieved 14 October 2007. Warning - plays music by default
- ^ a b c Parker, Robert M.; Rovani, Pierre-Antoine (2002). Parker's Wine Buyer's Guide. Simon & Schuster. p. 414. ISBN 9780743229319.
- ^ "The Beaujolais Nouveau, a marketing question" (Flash). Euronews IT. Retrieved 16 November 2017.
- ^ Rudolph Chelminski, I'LL DRINK TO THAT: Beaujolais Nouveau Gotham. 2007
- ^ Karen MacNeil, The Wine Bible Workman Publishing Company, Inc. 2001, pg. 225
External linksEdit
- 10 Fascinating Facts About Beaujolais Nouveau
- Red Scare: Stay away from that Beaujolais Nouveau, sucker. Mike Steinberger, Slate.com 21 November 2002.


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Online Blended MBA
General Information
The Craig School of Business is currently recruiting candidates for our Online Blended MBA. CSB Online Blended MBA option offers the best of both worlds – flexible online classes and face-to-face exposure to material, faculty and colleagues. Students can complete their MBA face to face or online or a combination of both. With our flexible options, you can take one class online while taking a second class as face to face within the same semester.
The curriculum follows the same structure and course work as the traditional MBA but allows students the flexibility to learn remotely. This program is designed to suit the needs of continuing students who live in the Fresno area, international students and working professionals. Graduates will have an enhanced ability to add value to their current business models and meet the challenges of competition on an increasingly global scale. Additionally, the program is general enough to prepare students for a range of careers. Graduates will receive an MBA that will be a portable foundation for future career growth in any line of work.
Summary of the program:
- The Online Blended MBA is the same degree as the Craig School of Business traditional MBA program. The degree is AACSB-accredited. AACSB is the professional association for college and university management education and the premier accrediting agency for bachelors, masters, and doctoral degree programs in business administration and accounting (www.aacsb.edu). This is the highest rated AACSB accredited program between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
- Students can take classes online completely with the exception of an orientation, selected final exams, and final culminating experience presentations. Approved testing locations and Respondus will be used to bridge any geographic barriers that present themselves.
- The Blackboard Learning System will be the primary mode of delivery for courses.
- Students have an option to participate in the Summer Study Abroad
Program during the Summer.
For more information, contact us at 559.278.2107 or Email at email@example.com.


text:
Main navigation | Main content
|Dieter Dehnhard
|Russll Hobbie
Emeritus Professor Karl Dietrich "Dieter" Dehnhard died May 20, after suffering a heart attack the previous week.
Dehnhard received his PhD. at the University of Marburg in Germany in 1964. He joined the University of Minnesota faculty in 1966 where he worked until his retirement in 2001. Dehnhard's research specialty was experimental nuclear physics. He initially performed studies of nuclear structure using light ion probes at the Minnesota Tandem Laboratory. Dehnhard turned his attention to the use of heavier projectiles and extensively studied nuclear reactions and excitations using ions as a probe. This work brought him international recognition and started a series of collaborations with Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg Germany. Dehnhard then established a new research group funded by the Department of Energy to extensively study nuclear structures at the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility. Later he studied hypernuclear physics, using kaon and electron probes at the Brookhaven alternating gradient synchrotron, the Brookhaven National Laboratory and the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility.
After retiring from a career in nuclear physics research and teaching at U of MN, Dieter focused on music - playing flute, practicing with friends and hosting and attending house concerts. Dehnhard was preceded in death by his wife of 42 years, Hilde.
Dehnhard is survived by his brother Hans; daughters Bettina Dehnhard (Dean), Susanne Carpenter (Bryan) and Karoline Dehnhard (Larry); and granddaughters Nicola Carpenter and Helen Trisko. There will be a memorial service to honor his life on Thursday, June 9, 2 PM at Unity Church-Unitarian, 733 Portland Ave, St. Paul, 55104.


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Mariehamn to Kittilä Flights (MHQ-KTT)
Mariehamn to Kittilä
Finnair serves Mariehamn through Mariehamn Airport (MHQ), which is located just 3 km north of Mariehamn town centre. We invite you to book your flights from Mariehamn with Finnair and see for yourself why we are proud to have served Finland's skies for over 90 years. Fly in Nordic style and ease with our fleet of sleek, modern aircraft. No matter where you are headed next, choose Finnair.
Reaching Mariehamn Airport is simple, with taxis available throughout the town to transport you to the airport in time for your flight.
Departing from Mariehamn with Finnair
- When the time comes to leave the town of Mariehamn behind, travel at your convenience because we offer up to two flights daily from MHQ to over 100 destinations around the world.
- Finnair flights from Mariehamn are operated by Nordic Regional Airlines.
- If you have time to spare at the airport, treat yourself to gifts or souvenirs in the duty-free shop.
Silence, purity and nature unlike anywhere else in the world – this is what you can expect when you fly to Kittilä and Levi in Finnish Lapland! Situated north of the Arctic Circle, this is a popular vacation spot for winter sports enthusiasts and fans of dramatic nature. This Finnair travel guide to Kittilä will tell you everything you need to plan your perfect holiday in this winter wonderland.
Instead of four seasons, Kittilä and Levi introduce you to eight. The seasons are rooted in the culture of the ancient Sámi people, the traditional inhabitants of Lapland. To survive in the harsh northern climate, they always needed to listen to nature. What does crusted snow feel like under your feet? What do the Northern Lights sound like? How does it look when autumn tinges the fells and forests with the hues of red and gold? No matter the season, visiting Kittilä and Levi will certainly be a unique experience. Many visitors book flights to Levi and Kittilä in the winter months, when skiing and other snow sports reign supreme. Levi and Ylläs are the main ski centres in the area, each offering exhilarating experiences. Lively Levi is one of Finland's largest areas for winter sports, and the après-ski scene is energetic too. There are 45 pistes for downhill skiing, as well as more than 200 kilometres (124 miles) of skiing tracks and even more extensive routes for snowmobiling. In Ylläs (easily accessible when you book your airline tickets to Kittilä) you'll find 60 slopes, including the longest slope length of 3000 metres (9842 feet). The Kittilä area promises not only excellent downhill skiing, cross-country skiing and snowmobiling in the winter, but also exploring with snowshoes, rides on husky- and reindeer-pulled sledges and ice fishing. Winters also tempt people with the chance of seeing the spectacular Northern Lights, which are generally visible between September and March. Summers here are exciting too, with hiking and biking in the mountains and canoeing and fishing in the rivers and lakes to look forward to after your Kittilä flights. Many visitors may be surprised to find great golf courses set in lush green surroundings. See lots of local wildlife, including Arctic foxes and reindeers, at Levi Husky Park, visit Kittilä Town Hall, admire the art at Einari Junttila Art Museum and Palsa Museum and learn more about the area's people and past at Kittilä's Museum of Local History and Culture. There's so much to do when you get off your flight to Kittilä.
If you're flying to Kittilä with children, here are some great family-friendly ideas.
Winter Laser World – Step into a fantasy land, complete with lights, lasers, smoke and snow, for an exciting game of outdoor laser tag.
Lastenmaa Kidsland – Located in front of the ski slopes, Kidsland is an ideal place for younger members of the family to have fun in the snow. Children can practise on small ski lifts and have outdoor fun with sledges and sliders. If you need to warm up, there are indoor handicrafts, a play centre and a cosy hut with a roaring fire.
Luvattumaa – Admire glorious ice sculptures in a stunning ice hotel and meet friendly reindeer.
Lemmenjoki National Park – The largest national park in Finland, attracting outdoor enthusiasts, nature lovers and people who want to try their luck at panning for gold.
Samiland – Located at Koutalaki ski village, Samiland offers interesting insights into the life and traditions of the native Sámi people. There are both indoor and outdoor displays that include shelters and transportation, art, clothing, music, hunting and more.
Although not a shopping destination, Kittilä still has several places where you can give your credit card a workout and purchase local arts and crafts, Finnish fashions and outdoor clothing.
Ainut Shop – Located in Kittilä town, this is a good place to find local souvenirs.
Shopporo – This is a top choice for people who want to buy fashionable clothing for men, women and children.
Asuste Taika – You'll find a good selection of clothes, shoes and accessories here.
Don't miss trying these tasty local treats when you land off your flights to Kittilä, Lapland:
Lakkalikööri – A great way to warm up from the inside out, this is a locally-made liqueur, produced using cloudberry.
Poronkäristys – This reindeer meat dish is a speciality in Lapland. The sautéed meat is usually served with mashed potatoes and a chunky preserve made from lingonberries.
Cloudberry jam – The preserve is made from small local berries that are rather similar to blackberries and raspberries.
Although the villages are easy to explore on foot after flying to Kittilä, transportation is generally required to move between the various villages and explore areas farther afield.
By foot – Walking is often the best way to move around the villages, with facilities all grouped in close proximity to each other. In the winter months, snowshoes can come in useful and skiing is a popular means of moving around the snowy streets.
Buses – Regular local bus services in Kittilä transport people between the area's different villages.
Taxis – Although pricey compared to buses, taxis are sometimes the only practical option for discovering places that aren't on bus routes (in the absence of renting a vehicle or joining a tour).
Snowmobiles – As well as providing a fun outdoor activity, snowmobiles are an important means of local transportation in the winter months.
If you're looking forward to snow sports and winter activities, winter is the best time to visit Kittilä and Levi. You can also experience the Polar Night and try to spot the magical Northern Lights. Keep in mind that November is the most humid month and June is the least humid. February is the driest month. March is generally considered the best month for skiing, with deep, powdery snow enticing people onto the slopes.
While still cool, summers see the warmest temperatures and July and August are the hottest. The long days are bright and light, perfect for enjoying nature and outdoor activities like hiking and biking. It's important to keep in mind the usual weather at different times of year when looking for plane tickets to Kittilä.
Visit outside of peak tourist times and school holidays for the best chance of finding cheap flights to Kittilä.
Finnair has direct flights to Kittilä from Ivalo, with a flight time of just 00h 30min. You can also connect via Ivalo on flights to Kittilä Airport (KTT) from Helsinki. The journey takes just under 03h, including the connection time.
It is also possible to reach Lapland's remote Kittilä and Levi from various cities worldwide, transiting through Helsinki and Ivalo. Check out our flights to Kittilä from UK, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Japan and others for a magical time in a rare unspoilt winter wonderland.
Fly with Finnair for the best Nordic hospitality and terrific in-flight services, as well as competitive rates for your airfare to Kittilä.


text: April 21, 2010: Fire boats battle the blaze on the Deepwater Horizon rig. U.S. Coast Guard/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption U.S. Coast Guard/Getty Images Opinion The Two-Way Calling 2010 'Best Year' On Safety Was Mistake, Gulf Oil Rig Owner Admits April 4, 2011 Transocean Ltd. owned the rig that exploded a year ago, killing 11 workers and creating a massive oil spill that took months to contain. Now, it says it was "insensitive" to say in a regulatory filing that 2010 was — statistically — its best year.


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oaring mountain peaks, glaciers, deep-blue lakes, and lush forests of spruce, lodgepole pine, cedar, hemlock, and subalpine fir delight the senses of visitors who drive on Going-to-the-Sun Road through Glacier National Park in northwestern Montana. Turnouts allow visitors to relish vistas of glacier-sculpted mountains and glimpse wildlife.
Before this east-west road was constructed, only a small number of people could enjoy this spectacular scenery. The construction of the Going-to-the-Sun Road, dedicated in 1933, made this splendid experience available to the hundreds of thousands of visitors who come to the park by car. Building this transmountain road, which was literally carved out of the precipitous mountainside for 12 of its 50-mile length, was a challenging and dangerous task. Its designers and builders learned valuable lessons that were applied to many such scenic roads to follow.
About This Lesson
Getting Started: Inquiry Question
Setting the Stage: Historical Context
Locating the Site: Maps
Determining the Facts: Readings
Visual Evidence: Images
Putting It All Together: Activities
How the National Register
This lesson is based on Glacier National Park's Going-to-the-Sun Road, one of the thousands of properties listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Going-to-the-Sun Road has been designated a National Historic Landmark.


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Back to Life - Tora
A solid wooden pillar with three holes, one for the neck and two for the hands is on your stage. A spectator is asked to come onto the stage.
Help them place their neck and wrists in the holes. 3 swords are shown to the audience and then pushed through the neck and wrists so that all of the swords can be seen clearly as being passed thru the helper yet they are unharmed.
Breaks down for easy transport!
No trained assistant needed!
Easy to Perform!


text:
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The aim of this study was to assess the role of clinical context in determining the correspondence between actigraphic and reported sleep measures in preschool children.
Sleep was assessed using actigraphy and parental reports in a clinical sample of 109 preschool children between the ages 4 and 6 years suffering from significant nighttime fears and in a sample of 30 healthy controls.
In comparison to actigraphy, parents in both groups indicated that their children fell asleep earlier and overestimated their sleep period. These gaps were significantly larger in the control group than the clinical group. Parents from both groups similarly underestimated the time their child was awake during the night in comparison to actigraphy. Significant correlations were found in both groups between parental reports and actigraphy sleep schedule measures. Low correlations were found for wake after sleep onset in both groups and for the number of night wakings.
Clinicians and researchers should be highly aware that parental reports on their children's sleep may not be accurate, and that accuracy may be affected by the context of the study. The use of complimentary sleep assessment tools in clinical and research settings should be encouraged.
Kushnir J; Sadeh A. Correspondence between reported and actigraphic sleep measures in preschool children: the role of a clinical context. J Clin Sleep Med 2013;9(11):1147-1151.
Sleep problems are very common during childhood and constitute a source for major concern to parents and professionals.1–3 These problems tend to be persistent4–6 and associated with daytime behavior problems and parental distress.2,5,7,8
Seeking professional help is usually based on parental perception that their child has a sleep problem.9 In most clinical settings, the child's sleep assessment is solely based on parental reports.1,10 Parental reports may rely on realistic perceptions of the child's sleep characteristics; however, their accuracy may be compromised by situational and subjective factors.10,11 Previous studies have suggested that parental perceptions and reports on their children's sleep may be influenced by factors such as unrealistic expectations and interpretations, lack of developmental knowledge, socioeconomic status, demographic factors, and broader cultural norms, beliefs, and attitudes.9,12–15 A major limitation is that parents become aware of many events during the night (e.g., night wakings) only if the child signals and requires attention11,16; therefore, their knowledge may be significantly influenced by the child's tendency to signal. Recently, Gregory et al.1 concluded that assessing sleep using exclusively the sleep items of the Child Behavior Checklist, which is one of the most popular parental reports on children's behavior problems, is insufficient for assessing sleep and should be combined with other sleep assessment methods.
The limitations of parental reports on children's sleep become more prominent in preschool children, who develop increased capacity for independent falling asleep and resuming sleep following night wakings.2,10 In comparison to infants and toddlers, preschool children are, therefore, less likely to signal and require help, and their parents are less likely to be aware of these events during the nights. However, this picture may be different in preschool children with special clinical presentation who are more likely to signal. For instance, preschool children are very vulnerable to nighttime fears and nightmares.17–20 Furthermore, it has been recently demonstrated that preschool children with nighttime fears are more likely than controls to wake up at night and signal and require parental assistance to resume sleep.21
Current Knowledge/Study Rationale: Parental reports on their children's sleep may not be accurate. The purpose was to assess the accuracy of parental sleep reports in preschool children and to examine to what extent this accuracy is related to the presence of a clinical sleep-related issue (nighttime fears).
Study Impact: There are general discrepancies between parental reports and objective sleep measures. These discrepancies may be affected by the presence of a clinical sleep related disorder. These results emphasize the need for clinicians and researchers to use complimentary sleep assessment tools.
The purpose of the present study was to assess the accuracy of parental reports on a brief questionnaire assessing sleep patterns in preschool children and to examine to what extent this accuracy is related to the presence of a clinical sleep-related issue (nighttime fears). The comparison of reported sleep was made against actigraphy-based sleep measures. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study assessing the correspondence between objective and subjective sleep assessment tools comparing clinical and healthy control groups of preschool children. We hypothesized that the reports of parents of children with nighttime fears would be more accurate than reports of parents of control children because children with nighttime fears require increased parental involvement during the night.
Children and their parents were recruited from the local kindergarten system by informing them about a service for children with nighttime fears (NTF) and inviting parents of children with no fears to volunteer as well. The clinical group of children with severe NTF consisted of 109 preschool children (64 boys and 45 girls between the ages 4 and 6 years, mean age 58.91 months; SD 8.32). Inclusion criteria for the clinical group were: (a) NTF ≥ 2 months; (b) NTF exerted significant adverse impact on the child and family; (c) NTF requiring parental intervention ≥ 2 nights per week to comfort the child. NTF was determined solely by parent reports during the screening and intake interviews.21
The control group included 30 healthy children from the same age group who did not meet criteria for NTF (16 boys and 14 girls, mean age 58.93 months, SD 7.62 months). There were no group differences on any of the demographic variables.21 Exclusion criteria for both samples were: (a) major health or neurological-developmental problems; (b) concurrent psychiatric treatment; (c) concurrent psychotherapy or similar interventions. Additional information on the participants is available in earlier publications.21,22
The BCSQ provides information on children's sleep habits and problems. The questionnaire's items were derived from the Brief Infant Sleep Questionnaire (BISQ)23 and from the Sleep Habits Questionnaire (SHQ).24 The BISQ was developed and validated as a brief infant sleep screening tool for clinical and research purposes.23 Measures of internal consistency (Cronbach α) for the SHQ scales range between 0.72 and 0.82.24 The parents were instructed to refer to their child's sleep during the past week. The items assessed sleep time, total sleep duration during the night, number of night wakings, and total time awake during the night.
Actigraphy is based on a small device that resembles a wristwatch that can be worn by the child for a substantial period of time and monitor sleep-wake patterns in the child's natural sleep environment.25–27 The parents were instructed to attach the device (Mini Motionlogger, Ambulatory Monitoring Inc.) to their child's non-dominant wrist for a period of one week, during the evening before bedtime and to remove it in the morning after rise time. The actigraph collected data in 1-minute epochs. Sleep measures were derived from the raw data using the validated Sadeh algorithm.28 Because of compliance problems and technical issues, actigraphy data were available for ≥ 4 nights29 in 88% percent of the children. For the rest of the sample, actigraphy data were available in 4.5%, 3%, and 4.5% for 1, 2, or 3 nights, respectively.
Actigraphic measures included: (1) sleep onset time; (2) sleep period—total sleep period from sleep onset to morning rise time; (3) number of night wakings (lasting ≥ 5 min); (4) wake time after sleep onset (WASO)—total time of wakefulness during the night.
This questionnaire includes 25 questions covering demographic and developmental data. This questionnaire has been extensively used in previous studies.10,21,24
The study was approved by the departmental ethical committee and the Chief Scientist of the Israeli Ministry of Education. After signing the informed consent, parents completed the questionnaires. Parents were interviewed about nighttime fears. Parents were instructed to attach the actigraph to children's non-dominant wrist every evening before bedtime for a period of one week.
Data analysis included the following components: (a) between-groups comparison of the actigraphy versus reported sleep discrepancies; (b) within-group correlations between actigraphy and reported sleep measures and comparison of the correlations between the groups using Fisher r to z transformations; and (c) discriminant analysis to assess the ability of actigraphic and reported sleep measures in predicting the clinical status (clinical versus control group) of the children. Because not all measures met normal distribution criteria, we used nonparametric methods, including Spearman correlations, univariate sign test for paired comparisons, and Wilcoxon rank sum test.30
Statistically significant and strong correlations were found between actigraphic and reported sleep schedule measures (sleep period and sleep onset time) in both groups (Table 1). The correlation for sleep period was significantly higher in the control group. In both groups, significant strong correlations between actigraphic and reported sleep measures were found for sleep onset time and sleep period. In both groups the correlations for night wakings and WASO were low and insignificant.
Spearman correlations between actigraph and reported (BCSQ) sleep measures in each group and Z score for the comparison of correlations between groups using Fisher's r to z transformation
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In considering the discrepancies between actigraphic and reported sleep measures (Table 2), it was clear that parents in both groups underestimated sleep onset time and overestimated sleep period. In the control group, parents also significantly underestimated the number of night wakings and WASO. With the exception of WASO, the discrepancies in the control group were significantly larger in the control group than the clinical group.
Differences between actigraphic and reported sleep measures within each group and comparison of the discrepancies between groups
To assess whether parental nighttime fear-management strategies (e.g., cosleeping vs. limited presence near their child) affected the correspondence between actigraphy and reported sleep in the clinical sample, a new variable was composed based on a method used in a previous study.21 Children were divided into 2 groups: cosleeping (i.e., children who, upon waking at night, fell asleep again in their parents' room and stayed there either throughout the night or for a limited time) and limited presence (i.e., children who, upon waking at night, fell asleep again with limited parental presence near their own bed). However, the results revealed that the fear-management strategies had no effect on the correspondence between actigraphy and reported sleep.
Discriminant analysis was conducted separately for each group to examine how well equivalent reported and actigraphic sleep measures predicted group classification. Actigraphic sleep measures explained 11.6% of the variability and provided 60.8% correct group classifications. The reported sleep measures explained 31.8% of the variability and provided 81.2% correct group classifications.
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study assessing the correspondence of sleep measures between actigraphy and parental sleep questionnaire, comparing a clinical group of preschool children with severe nighttime fears to healthy controls. The results of our study suggest that: (a) there are general discrepancies between reported and actigraphic sleep measures; and (b) the presence of a clinical sleep-related problem may have significant impact on the correspondence between reported and objective measures of sleep.
With regard to the sleep schedule measures, correlations between actigraphic and reported measures were relatively high and significant (range: 0.54-0.89). However, significant discrepancies existed between actigraphic and reported sleep measures in both groups. For instance, actigraphy estimated sleep onset time to be, on average, 50 or 75 minutes later than reported in the clinical and control groups, respectively. The discrepancies between actigraphic and reported sleep measures were significantly higher in the control group, suggesting that parents of children with nighttime fears are more accurate because of their higher involvement with the child around bedtime and during the night.21
When sleep quality measures are considered, poor correlations between actigraphic and reported measures were found for the number of night wakings and WASO in both groups. These findings further support the hypothesis that at this age group, parents have very limited knowledge about their children's sleep disruptions and time spent in wakefulness during the night.10,31,32 However, it should be noted that the correlation between actigraphic and reported number of night wakings was statistically significant only in the clinical group, and the discrepancies were significantly smaller for this measure in the clinical group, suggesting that higher involvement required by the parents of children with nighttime fears leads to more accurate reporting about night wakings in this group.
Our results are in line with previous studies demonstrating the discrepancies between sleep measures obtained using different sleep assessment methods among clinical populations. Previous studies have revealed discrepancies in sleep measures based on actigraphy versus parental reports. For example a previous study assessed the quantity and quality of sleep in children with autism, developmental delay without autism, and typically developing children using actigraphy and parental reports.33 Across all subjects, parent diaries and actigraphy data mean values differed. Parental reports underreported sleep onset latency times and wakefulness after sleep onset compared to actigraphy. Reports on sleep start times, morning rise time, and the number and duration of daytime naps were more similar to the objective measures. Another study compared sleep behaviors of children with autism spectrum disorders with sleep behaviors of typically developing children using the Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ) and actigraphy.34 According to parental reports 62.5% of children with autism, 76.2% of children with PDD-NOS, and 58.3% of children with Asperger disorder had sleep problems. However, 75%, 52.4%, 75% of the children, respectively, had disturbed sleep according to actigraphic data.
Additional studies revealed discrepancies on various sleep measures comparing actigraphy and PSG. For example, a large-scale study compared total sleep time derived from actigraphy and PSG in adolescents with and without sleep-disturbed breathing.35 The results revealed that overall, actigraphy underestimated sleep time in comparison to PSG. Another study compared actigraphy and PSG in children with intellectual deficits and motor handicaps, sleep-disordered children without motor handicaps, and healthy controls.36 In healthy children without sleep disorders, there was good correspondence in sleep time assessment; however, in the sleep disturbed and the handicapped children, significant discrepancies existed between measures derived from PSG and actigraphy.
The discriminant analysis revealed that the reported sleep measures were better predictors of group classification (clinical versus control) in comparison to the equivalent actigraphic measures. This is not surprising considering the fact that parents decide to seek clinical help on the basis of their own perceptions regarding their child's sleep, regardless of how biased these perceptions may be.9
The results of our study highlight the limitations of studying sleep in young children with exclusive reliance on parental reports. Parental knowledge about sleep quality is very limited, and the accuracy of this knowledge is significantly influenced by the clinical context. In other words: the differences between the actual sleep quality of clinical versus control children may not be as large as manifested by parental reports. The parents of children with nighttime fears are much more likely to be involved with their child during the night (e.g., in different forms of cosleeping), and are therefore more likely to report more accurately on sleep-related events.
Our findings suggest that conclusions based on parental reports on children's sleep can be biased or misleading. However, parental reports are very informative in providing valuable information on behavioral consequences of sleep-wake patterns and the presentation of clinically relevant manifestations such as nighttime fears and their management.21 Actigraphy can play a substantial complementary role in providing a more objective picture that is not affected by the clinical context and perceptual biases. Therefore, it is recommended that both methods be used as complementary sources in the evaluation of sleep in clinical and research settings.
This was not an industry supported study. The authors have indicated no financial conflicts of interest. The research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation (Grant # 1047/08 to Avi Sadeh).
The authors are thankful to Ornit Arbel for coordinating and managing the study and to the participating families.
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