text:
Google Search Terms Can Predict the Stock Market
An investing strategy based on the frequency of certain words Google searches, it turns out, might yield sizable profits
Google, as many researchers know well, is more than a search engine—it's a remarkably comprehensive barometer of public opinion and the state of the world at any given time. By using Google Trends, which tracks the frequency particular search terms are entered into Google over time, scientists have found seasonal patterns, for example, in searches for information about mental illnesses and detected a link between searching behavior and a country's GDP.
A number of people have also had the idea to use these trends to try achieving a more basic desire: making money. Several studies in recent years have looked at the number of times investors searched for particular stock names and symbols and created relatively successful investing strategies based on this data.
A new study published today in Scientific Reports by a team of British researchers, though, harnesses Google Trends data to produce investing strategies in a more nuanced way. Instead of looking at the frequency that the names of stocks or companies were searched, they analyzed a broad range of 98 commonly used words—everything from "unemployment" to "marriage" to "car" to "water"—and simulated investing strategies based on week-by-week changes in the frequencies of each of these words as search terms by American internet users.
The changes in the frequency of some of these words, it turns out, are very useful predictors of whether the market as a whole—in this case, the Dow Jones Industrial Average—will go down or up (the Dow is a broad index commonly considered a benchmark of the overall performance of the U.S. stock market).
The strategy was relatively straightforward: The system tracked whether a word such as "debt" increased in search frequency or decreased in search frequency from one week to the next. If the term was suddenly searched much less frequently, the investment simulation bought all the stocks of the Dow on the first Monday afterward, then sold all the stocks one week later, essentially betting that the overall market would rise in value.
If a term such as "debt" was suddenly searched much more frequently, the simulation did the opposite: It bought a "short" position in the Dow, selling all its stocks on the first Monday and then buying them all a week later. The concept of a "short" position like this might seem a bit confusing to some, but the basic thing to remember is that it's the exact opposite of conventionally buying a stock—if you have a "short" position, you make money when the stock goes down in price, and lose money when it goes up. So for any given term, the system predicted that more frequent searches meant the market as a whole would decline, and less frequent searched meant it would rise.
During the period of time studied (2004-2011), making investment choices based on a few of these words in particular would have yielded overall profits several times higher than a conservative investment strategy of simply buying and holding the stocks of the Dow for the entire time. For example, basing a strategy solely on the search frequency of the word "debt," which turned out to be the single most profitable term in the study, would have generated a profit of 326% over the seven years studied—compared to a profit of just 16% if you owned all the stocks of the Dow for the whole period.
So if you systematically bought a "short" position in the market every time the word "debt" suddenly started getting searched more often, you'd have made a ton of money over the seven years studied. But what about other words? The system simulated how this strategy would have performed for each of 98 words chosen, listed in the chart at right from most useful at predicting the movement of the markets (debt) to least useful (ring). As seen in the chart, for some of these terms the frequency that we type them into Google seems to serve as a very effective early-warning system for declines in the market.
Stock market declines typically reflect investors' overall belief that, at any given time, it's better to sell stock than buy it, and they often happen suddenly, when investors move in a herd to a new position—so the researchers speculate that rises in the terms' frequencies in search convey a nascent feeling of concern about the market, before it's expressed via actual transactions. All these searches might also reflect countless investors in an information-gathering phase, seeking to find out as much as they possibly can about an industry or a stock before selling it.
Even beyond the practical investment strategies that this type of analysis might generate, simply looking through the words provides a striking—and oftentimes confusing—window into the collective American psyche. It's seemingly obvious why a sudden increase in the amount of people searching for the word "debt" might signal overall negative feelings about the market, and would likely precede a drop in stock values, and why "fun" might precede increases in the market. But why do searches for the words "color" and "restaurant" predict declines nearly as accurately as "debt"? Why do "labor" and "train" also predict stock market rises?


text:
Toyota has been dealing with negative backlash from the massive safety recalls of its vehicles; and is even suffering in terms of sales. So what does the company do to repair its image? Turn to Twitter, of course! The Japanese auto giant has launched a branded channel on TweetMeme, in partnership with Federated Media, which aggregates and organize Twitter conversations regarding Toyota.
Called Toyota Conversations, the site brings together the top stories being Tweeted about Toyota, from news articles to press releases. The site also shows visitors the most popular videos and images being shared about Toyota on Twitter. And the channel includes a Featured Tweets from Toyota's Twitter account and press room as well as AdTweets, which are Tweetmeme's retweetable ads for Toyota.
You may notice after taking a look at all of the top stories that are being aggregated on the site, that most of the news is positive. That doesn't seem to match the general tone of the media writing about Toyota, which has been quick to criticize the car company for its manufacturing mistakes. If you take a look at Twitter sentiment app Tweetfeel, the sentiment of Tweets mentioning Toyota lean more negative. Tweetmeme channels can be set up to pick up only certain news sources. It looks like Toyota picked the friendlier ones.
That being said, it's definitely interesting to see such a high-profile company taking to Twitter to try to reform its image by engaging directly in a dialogue with consumers. As we've seen with the recent Southwest/Kevin Smith incident, Twitter is influencing public relations in unprecedented ways. Now more than ever, brands are flocking to Twitter to not only monitor and track what's being said about their company on Twitter but to influence and participate in the conversation.
Photo Credit/Flickr/JoelZimmer

subset: commoncrawl


text:
What is VSA?
Variable Star Astronomy (VSA) is the web version of Hands-On Astrophysics. Every chapter has been converted to adobe pdf and word doc formats so that you can download them directly from this website free-of-charge.
Variable Star Astronomy is an AAVSO educational project developed with funds from the National Science Foundation. It is a flexible set of hands-on educational materials, activities, and investigations, based on the AAVSO's unique electronic database of variable star measurements. Students will be able to experience the excitement of doing real science with real data—making new measurements and new discoveries. By carrying out all aspects of the research process, they can develop and integrate skills in science, math, computing, and other areas.
Variable Star Astronomy will help students acquire fundamental science skills and develop an understanding of basic astronomy concepts; it will provide interdisciplinary connections, and take students through the whole scientific process while working with real data. This curriculum also will inform students about variable stars and their importance to the professional astronomical community, and give them the necessary information and skills to study variable star behavior or to become amateur variable star observers.
Students learn the necessary skills to make observations, analyze their data with graphing and statistical techniques, make predictions, and compare predicted and observational values, as well as learn how to develop sophisticated mathematical models. Students will learn about variable stars by using the activities, software, and charts available online. Students will be able to access the AAVSO database, and share their investigations and observations.
The study of variable stars is particularly suited to science, math, and computer education. Students can observe variable stars, and analyze the brightness changes in the stars they observe by using the database of 16,867,757 observations and access to computer programs. Except for a few exercises in skill development, there are no "right" answers in this curriculum. The data obtained and the results of the analysis of that data by students is the "right" answer. The amount of data and the mathematical refinement techniques will give reasonably accurate results. Students will understand that their observations can be reliable, and that their data can be useful enough to be used by professional astronomers.
Who is VSA for?
Variable Star Astronomy is a curriculum that benefits ANYONE who is interested in learning more about variable stars. The content is useful in astronomy, physical science, mathematics, computer classes, independent projects, and has interdisciplinary connections that make it appropriate for history and English classes. The material is appropriate for middle school through introductory college level classes, depending upon the chapters selected. The curriculum is self-contained: no prior knowledge of astronomy, variable star astronomy, or physics is necessary. Some chapters could be adapted for younger audiences at the elementary school level while others could even benefit most amateur astronomers. If you have an interest in learning more about variable stars, VSA is definitely for you.
Copyright 1997/2008
by The American Association of Variable Star Observers
May be reproduced for non-commercial educational use.
AAVSO Variable Star Astronomy was prepared with the support of the
National Science Foundation, Grant No. ESI-9154091.
Many Thanks To...
Variable Star Astronomy is an educational program created by
The American Association of Variable Star Observers
funded in part by
The National Science Foundation
Project Co-Directors:
Janet Akyüz Mattei
The American Association of Variable Star Observers
John R. Percy
Erindale Campus, University of Toronto
Curriculum Author:
Donna L. Young
Lead Educator: Chandra EPO/SAO/NASA


text:
Related links:
Mars 2003
If approved, the Mars 2003 mission will have two important parts. The first is the Mars Surveyor 2003 Lander, which will be launched sometime between May 27, 2003, and June 17, 2003. The lander will use rockets to land safely on the surface. The spacecraft will take images of the surrounding terrain and aid scientists in their study of Mars' geology.
The second part of the mission involves the Mars Surveyor 2003 rover. This little machine is similar to the rover used during the Pathfinder mission. It will traverse the Mars surface and study the geology of the Red Planet.


text:
ABOUT A BOY — Pilot — Pictured: (l-r) Benjamin Stockham as Marcus, David Walton as Will — (Photo by: Jordin Althaus/NBC) Based on the best-selling Nick Hornby ("High Fidelity," "An Education") novel, written/produced by Jason Katims ("Friday Night Lights," "Parenthood") and directed by Jon Favreau ("Iron Man," "Revolution") comes a different kind of coming-of-age story.
Will Freeman (David Walton, "Bent," "Perfect Couples") lives a charmed existence as the ultimate man-child. After writing a hit song, he was granted a life of free time, free love and freedom from financial woes. He's single, unemployed and loving it. So imagine his surprise when Fiona (Minnie Driver, "Good Will Hunting," "Barney's Version"), a needy, single mom and her oddly charming 11-year-old son Marcus (Benjamin Stockham, "1600 Penn") move in next door and disrupt his perfect world. When Marcus begins dropping by his home unannounced, Will's not so sure about being a kid's new best friend, until, of course, Will discovers that women find single dads irresistible. That changes everything and a deal is struck: Marcus will pretend to be Will's son and, in return, Marcus is allowed to chill at Will's house, play ping-pong and gorge on steaks, something his very vegan mom would never allow. Before he realizes it, Will starts to enjoy the visits and even finds himself looking out for the kid. In fact, this newfound friendship may very well teach him a thing or two that he never imagined possible — about himself and caring for others. Also starring are Al Madrigal ("Gary Unmarried") and Anjelah N. Johnson-Reyes ("Our Family Wedding").
Katims, Favreau, Tim Bevan ("Les Misérables," "About a Boy"), Eric Fellner ("Les Misérables," "About a Boy"), Liza Chasin ("Les Misérables," "About a Boy"), Robert De Niro ("About a Boy," "Meet the Parents") and Jane Rosenthal ("About a Boy," "Meet the Parents") serve as executive producers. "About a Boy" is a production of Universal Television, Working Title Films, True Jack Productions and Tribeca Productions.


text:
- City Fajr Shuruq Duhr Asr Magrib Isha
- Dubai 05:24 06:37 12:34 15:53 18:25 19:38
Maine's state fire marshal says a man burned down his parents' house and killed three pets while trying to exterminate ants in his basement with matches.
Investigators say 21-year-old Devon Doucette was trying to incinerate the ants with wooden matches when one of them ignited combustible materials. The fire quickly spread to the rest of the house.
Authorities say Doucette was treated for smoke inhalation and burns after he carried some burning items out of the house. They say the house is owned by his parents, who were not home at the time.
Authorities say the fire killed two cats and one dog. They say charges are not likely.
Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.


text:
AirDC++ (64-bit) v2.22
Open source
Vista / Win10 / Win7 / Win8 / WinXP
Vista / Win10 / Win7 / Win8 / WinXP
AirDC++ is a DC++ modified client with more features. The main source is based on fulDC core and it's actually the first FulDC mod that was created. Among other useful features AirDC++ has a setting that can trigger your antivirus software to scan the downloaded files. It also has a multilingual support and you can disallow segmented uploads.
Other editions:
HTML code for linking to this page:
direct connect
License type
Open source1
Author's homepage
Visit the author's site
Date added
07 May 2017
File size
(1min @ 1Mbps)
Operating systems
Vista / Win10 / Win7 / Win8 / WinXP1
1License and operating system information is based on latest version of the software.
07 May 2017AirDC++ (64-bit) v3.40(Latest stable version)
22 Jul 2014AirDC++ (64-bit) v2.80
24 Feb 2014AirDC++ (64-bit) v2.72
17 Feb 2014AirDC++ (64-bit) v2.71
04 Feb 2014AirDC++ (64-bit) v2.70
16 Nov 2013AirDC++ (64-bit) v2.63
29 Oct 2013AirDC++ (64-bit) v2.62
19 Oct 2013AirDC++ (64-bit) v2.61
13 Oct 2013AirDC++ (64-bit) v2.60
05 Aug 2013AirDC++ (64-bit) v2.51
02 Aug 2013AirDC++ (64-bit) v2.50
05 May 2013AirDC++ (64-bit) v2.44
10 Mar 2013AirDC++ (64-bit) v2.43
04 Jan 2013AirDC++ (64-bit) v2.40
14 Jun 2012AirDC++ (64-bit) v2.30
03 Feb 2012AirDC++ (64-bit) v2.22
13 Oct 2011AirDC++ (64-bit) v2.21
12 Jul 2011AirDC++ (64-bit) v2.10
19 Feb 2011AirDC++ (64-bit) v2.09
(No user ratings yet)


text:
An official website of the United States government
News Release 2010-92 | August 10, 2010
Share This Page:
WASHINGTON — The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) announced today the appointment of Ted Wartell as Director of Community Affairs Policy. He will report to Deputy Comptroller for Community Affairs Barry Wides.
"We are fortunate to have Ted Wartell join the OCC," said Mr. Wides. "His many years of Federal policy development experience in affordable housing, community development, and small business finance will be invaluable to the OCC as we continue to expand our support for national banks in undertaking community reinvestment and economic development initiatives."
Mr. Wartell will be responsible for helping to shape the OCC's policies concerning national bank involvement in community and economic development initiatives as well as overseeing the Community Affairs department's research and publications.
Mr. Wartell most recently served as chief of staff for Community Lending at Fannie Mae. Previously he served as Director of the Office of Policy at the U.S. Small Business Administration and as a budget analyst for affordable housing programs at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.
Mr. Wartell holds a master's degree in Public Policy from University of Chicago and a bachelor's of arts degree from Northwestern University.
Dean DeBuck (202) 874-5770


text:
New Releases
New OESD embroidery collections and designs released each week. Shop appliqué, freestanding lace, in the hoop embroidery projects, and many other themes and topics. All of our designs are digitized by our team here in the USA. Our designs are the highest quality - expect the best results for your project!


text:
With an equipment-wide update to Energy Star qualifications coming down the pipe early next year, the Food Service Technology Center has been actively working on developing specifications for commercial water heaters, a new venture for the industry and for the FSTC.
The new specifications for efficiency apply to gas storage, electric heat pump and tankless water heaters. And this past August, the Energy Star team released the first draft of the water heater specifications for review.
"We received some feedback right away, and most likely it's going to be expedited to a final draft soon," says Amin Delagah, FSTC project engineer. "Potentially by the New Year we'll have a labeling program set up for commercial storage and tankless water heaters that are high efficiency and condensing."
While standard water heaters rank at about 80 percent efficiency, high-efficiency units can meet a level of 94 percent or more. "We could have stopped at the standard 90 percent, but decided to aim higher," Delagah says. "This rate is consistent with the federal energy management program and CEE Tier 2 guidelines."
The EPA pointed out the ample opportunity for energy savings with high-efficiency water heaters in its first draft for Energy Star regulations. But the time is right for such a standard as there has been an increase in the purchase and use of commercial storage water heaters in all foodservice segments. "The EPA estimates that the incremental cost associated with efficient commercial water heaters is on average $750 and is paid back within two years through energy savings in applications...such as restaurants," the Energy Star draft stated.
Commercial Water Storage Heaters
The four main water heaters coming under close scrutiny as of late are standard efficiency storage and standard efficiency tankless heaters, and high-efficiency storage and high-efficiency tankless water heaters.
Electric water heaters are naturally more efficient than gas, but the extra step of heating a coil causes some of the initial energy to be wasted in the warming and transmitting process, Delagah says. Newer electric models with heat pumps are three times as efficient as standard electrical heaters because they transfer heat directly to the unit. "The problem is that the test standards and metrics are not developed yet, so this is something that might happen in the future or perhaps even in the next version of the Energy Star program."
Gas water heaters, while they are the preferred type of unit and cost three to four times less than electric, at least in California, only reach 80 percent efficiency compared to standard electric models, Delagah says.
High-efficiency gas water heaters, however, have served as the focal point of the FSTC's main work with the EPA, with efficiency levels of about 90 percent to 94 percent. What makes the storage units efficient are their condensing abilities and down-fired burner approach. Standard models, in comparison, heat from the bottom up, which causes some of the warmth to go to waste before it reaches the water. "With conventional water heaters you lose about 20 percent of that energy through your exhaust when operating the water heater," Delagah says. "With condensing water heaters you only lose 5 percent of that energy."
The top-down vertical heating and heat exchanger units with high-efficiency storage units "allow 350-degree exhaust gasses to connect with the coldest water at the bottom of the tank," he says. "When that exhaust gas cools, it condenses and changes to a liquid. By going from a gaseous to a liquid state, some of that heat is passed onto the water. Through this more intricate heat exchanger, you are able to take more heat through the flue gas stream before it exits." Still, these condensing units are not perfect — some acidic water goes down the drain and must be neutralized.
But the benefits are gas savings and a faster recovery rate. "The fact that you can heat up water faster potentially downsizes the unit you would need in your facility," Delagah says, however, operators don't always realize this.
Tankless Water Heaters
Tankless heaters are slowly making their mark on commercial foodservice. Long a staple in the residential sector, where most units have an Energy Star rating, tankless heaters' slowness to catch on in commercial foodservice mainly has to do with their smaller size and slight water-heating delay. But with more point-of-use placement and strategic design, they offer tremendous energy-saving potential versus one large storage heater for the entire kitchen, according to Delagah. They also save space in tight quarters because they can be affixed to a wall where there is little floor space, or even set outside.
To meet the new Energy Star qualifications for commercial tanklesss water heaters, the unit has to be 94 percent efficient for models generating 199,000 or more Btus. Also referred to as gas instantaneous, tankless heaters can sense when cold water begins flowing through a fixture and flip on the burner in just 1 to 2 seconds. It takes 15 seconds for the water inside to reach the desired temperature. Problem is, many operators don't want to wait that long. In the home, where hot water is only used a few times a day, this doesn't pose as large an issue. Once the hot water kicks in, it's on –— you can take a hot shower for an unlimited amount of time. For smaller coffee or sandwich shops requiring less hot water, this delay also poses little issue. But in a large restaurant setting, most operators want their water hot –— and they want it now. High-volume operators also tend to remain reluctant to purchase 2, 3 or 4 tankless heaters at about 200,000 Btus a piece, just to meet the needs of 1 storage heater capability at 400,000 or more Btus.
Design Implications for Efficiency
There's a way to work around this issue of tankless versus storage and water delays while still being able to use super high-efficiency tankless heaters, Delagah says.
The most efficient setup for a water heater and/or booster would be to minimize the distance between the unit and the dishwasher, or other point-of-use, he says. Operators may complain about a 15 second lag time for tankless, but in many cases, it already takes 15 seconds or longer for hot water to reach a hand sink or even pot sink at the opposite end of the kitchen.
Through clustering, "you reduce the piping in between the two positions and possibly eliminate the need for a recirculation system and you can reduce the thermostat temperature a bit," Delagah says. This simple design change can save significant — and otherwise wasted — energy use over time. "Instead of supplying 145-degree F water to the dish machine to get to 140 degrees F, you can supply 141-degree F water to get to 140," he says.
While it may be a challenge to elevate a storage water heater with 100-gallon water capability above a mop sink near the dish room, it's far less challenging to elevate a smaller tankless unit in the same place.


text:
Refer a friend and save!
Essencias de Portugal
100% Authentic, directly purchased from brands and authorized distributors.
We accept returns on unused, unopened, items within 30 days of the original purchase*
*For safety reasons we do not accept returns on homeopathic medicines, refrigerated products, hair brushes, combs, toothbrushes, shaving brushes, razors, shaving tools, manicure/pedicure tools, sponges, menstrual cups, and bath items such as washcloths and back scrubbers, even if they are unused/unopened.
Choose UPS Next Day or 2nd Day for the fastest service. The cut off for shipping out expedited orders same-day is 2pm CST, Monday-Friday. Our carrier does not pick up or deliver orders on Saturdays or Sundays.
Choose Shop Pay at checkout and pay in full or in 4 interest-free installments for orders between $50 and $3000 .
*Subject to eligibility check and approval. Estimated payment amount excludes taxes and shipping fees. Notice to California Residents
A small number of our brands and products are not allowed to be sold online. Please give us a call at 1-800-252-0275 or stop into one of our stores to order this product.
You have no items in your bag.


text:
Document #1348621
IRB – Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (Author)
Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Ottawa
Sources indicate that domestic violence in Moldova is a "serious" problem (Cozzarelli 8 Mar. 2011) and that it is "widespread" (UN 25 July 2011, para. 40; Moldova 2010, 6). A study on women's vulnerability to HIV/AIDS in Moldova published in 2010 by the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Moldova, the Ministry of Labour, Social Protection and the Family National Centre for Health Management surveyed 1,969 people between the ages of 15 and 64 (ibid., 19). According to the survey, 51.3 percent of women who had a sexual partner reported that they had experienced psychological abuse in their lifetime, 24.2 percent had experienced physical violence, and about 12.1 percent had experienced sexual violence (Moldova 2010, 44). The report also notes that women living in rural areas experience violence in "higher proportions" than women in urban areas (ibid.). However, "experts" interviewed by the authors of the survey said "that it is not actually a rule and violence in rural areas is more visible because of stronger social networks" (ibid., 60).
The US Department of State's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2011 states that there were reportedly 340 cases of family violence in 2011 (US 24 May 2012, Sec.6). A representative of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Mission to Moldova, in correspondence with the Research Directorate, indicated that, according to the Ministry of the Interior, 458 domestic violence crimes were registered in 2011; the victims were 360 women, 16 girls and 82 men (IOM 7 June 2012). Data also show that 8 women were killed by their partners in 2011 (ibid.).
Sources indicate that domestic violence is underreported (US 24 May 2012, Sec. 6; IOM 7 June 2012; Moldova 2010, 18; UN 8 May 2009, para. 67). The study on women's vulnerability to HIV/AIDS in Moldova indicates that 12.2 percent of victims would report the abuse to the police, 5.1 percent to other municipal authorities, 6.3 percent to the justice system and 11.2 to hospitals (Moldova 2010, 45). The study explains that women "tolerate" violence because of "economic dependency, perception and pressure from society and psychological and physical pressure from their partners. There was a widespread perception that addressing to police in such cases is inefficient" (ibid., 18). According to the report of the UN Special Rapporteur, violence against women, especially domestic violence, is "largely underreported due to: shame; fear of social stigma; lack of knowledge about existing laws, judicial procedures and services; or simply because of lack of confidence in the system" (UN 8 May 2009, para. 67). Country Reports 2011 explains that women rarely report domestic abuse because of the weakness of available legal remedies, such as fines and brief detentions for convicted abusers (US 24 May 2012, Sec. 6). The IOM representative similarly indicated that victims are often reluctant to report domestic violence for several reasons, including:
According to the report of the UN Special Rapporteur, economic hardship and difficulties finding alternative housing "exacerbate women's dependency and constrain their options to leave an abusive relationship … especially in cases where the couple had children" (UN 8 May 2009, para. 28). In some cases abused women resorted to suicide or to killing their abusers as the "only way out of the oppressive life they [were] enduring" (ibid., para. 27).
Sources state that women who are victims of domestic violence in Moldova are vulnerable to becoming victims of human trafficking (AFP 25 Nov. 2010; see also IOM 2009, 9). Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that over 70 percent of women and girls who were trafficked from Moldova were victims of domestic violence (25 Nov. 2010). According to the IOM report, over 90 percent of women assisted by IOM and La Strada were victims of domestic violence prior to being trafficked (IOM 2009, 13). The report of the UN rapporteur indicates that Moldovan women were trafficked to more than 30 countries in Western Europe, the Middle East, the United States, South Eastern Europe, Russia and other former Soviet Republics (UN 8 May 2009, para. 32).
The BBC indicates that Transnistria is a break-away region of Moldova, which is not recognized by Moldova and the international community (BBC 26 Dec. 2011). According to an IOM report entitled Countering Trafficking in Moldova, "[w]hile the region is de jure part of Moldova, de facto Transnistria remains under the administration of the authorities in Tiraspol, the 'capital' of Transnistria" (IOM 2009, 6). Transnistria has its own government, parliament, military and police (ibid.).
Freedom House reports that domestic violence against woman is a problem in that region (2011). Country Reports 2011 similarly indicates that domestic violence was a "serious" problem in Transnistria (US 24 May 2012, Sec. 6). The report cites an unnamed study that indicates that in 2011, 35.7 percent of women in Transnistria experienced physical domestic violence, 22 percent were reportedly beaten by their husband or partners and 5.2 percent were sexually abused by their partners (ibid.). According to Country Reports 2011, in Transnistria, the law does not prohibit violence against women (ibid.). However, a statement of the UN Working Group on discrimination against women published on 30 May 2012 indicates that a draft regulation on domestic violence "is being discussed" in Transnistria.
Moldova adopted the Law on Preventing and Combating Family Violence in March 2007, which came into force on 18 September 2008 (Moldova 2007). The law defines different types of violence, such as family violence, which includes physical, sexual, psychological, spiritual and economic violence (ibid., Art. 2). In this law, sexual violence includes marital rape (ibid.). It names the authorities and institutions responsible for preventing and combating family violence, such as the Ministry of Social Protection, Family and Child, the Ministry of Education and Youth, the Ministry of Healthcare, the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Local Public Administration, and the Ministry of Justice (ibid., Art. 7). The law specifies the role of centers for the rehabilitation of victims of family violence, which can be created by government or public administration authorities, or by international organizations or NGOs (ibid., Art. 10). The law provides a possibility for third parties to submit a claim of family violence (ibid., Art. 12). According to the law, there is no charge for the submission of domestic violence claims to the court (ibid., Art. 13). The claims can be submitted to the following organizations:
The law specifies the following protective measures:
The 2009 report of the UN Special Rapporteur indicates that the criminal code includes provisions on
new aggravating circumstances for severe physical or health damage committed against a spouse; deprivation of liberty for average physical or health harm to a spouse; the offence of "deliberate small physical or health damage," which was previously classified as an administrative infringement. (UN 8 May 2009, para. 51)
Sources indicate that amendments to the criminal code that criminalized "sexual harassment" and domestic violence were adopted in 2010 (IOM 7 June 2012; US 8 Apr. 2010, Sec. 6). Country Reports 2010 states that sexual harassment is punishable by penalties ranging from a fine to a maximum of two years imprisonment (US 8 Apr. 2010, Sec. 6). The amendments to the criminal code are designed to promote safety and well-being of victims of domestic violence (ibid.). Country Reports 2010 explains that,
[t]he amendments require the abuser to leave lodgings shared with the victim, regardless of who owns the property. The amendments also provide for psychiatric evaluation and counseling, forbid the aggressor from approaching the victim either at home or at a place of business, and forbid visitation of children pending a criminal investigation. Courts may apply such protective measures for a period of three months, and can extend them upon the victim's request or following repeated acts of violence. (ibid.)
Country Reports 2011 states that "[r]eal progress in protecting women and children against domestic violence was slow" (US 24 May 2012, Sec. 6). The 2009 report of the UN Special Rapporteur indicated that there was a lack of enforcement of the law on domestic violence partly due to a lack of planning, lack of provisions on budget allocation, as well as lack of infrastructure to support victims of domestic violence (UN 8 May 2009, para. 50). According to the report, prosecutors and judges often treat domestic violence cases as "administrative" rather than criminal offences (ibid., para. 67).
According to sources, the court issued 206 protection orders in cases of domestic violence between 2010 and 2011 (UN n.d., 20; IOM 7 June 2012). However, the IOM representative noted that it is "not sufficient and often protection orders are not issued or not extended even though there is a clear need [for that]" (ibid.). Sources indicate that complaints were submitted to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) because of non-implementation of protection orders (ibid.; UN n.d., 20). Country Reports 2011 states that NGOs report delays in issuing protective orders, as well as improper enforcement of protective orders by the police (US 24 May 2012, Sec. 6). For instance, Country Reports 2011 provides an example of a woman who filed a complaint with the ECHR in March 2011, accusing Moldova of "inhumane treatment and gender discrimination" in accessing police protection (ibid.). A protection order was issued for her and her daughters, but it was reportedly not enforced by police (ibid.). According to the report, the woman submitted requests for protection to the Prosecutor General's Office and the Ministry of Interior, but they were unanswered, "allegedly because the abuser was a police officer" (ibid.).
According to the NGO La Strada, an international center for protection and promotion of women rights, victims of domestic violence do not have trust in law enforcement authorities and consider that police intervention will not improve their situation (2012, 2, 11). The report of the UN Special Rapporteur states that the high cost of legal assistance, the lack of confidence in law enforcement agencies and the lack of specialized female units within the police prevent women from seeking help (UN 8 May 2009, para. 28, 67).
The IOM representative also noted that the police officers do not always provide help to victims of domestic violence, "especially in rural areas where people know each other and there is an unwritten custom of keeping quiet about family issues" (IOM 7 June 2012). La Strada reports that police often refuse to document the complaints of domestic violence because they consider it to be a private family issue, or because they claim there is not enough evidence of severe physical injuries (La Strada 2012, 52). The organization explains that sometimes police officers do not take any action because the aggressor is a relative or friend of the police officer (ibid.). La Strada further states that in cases when the aggressor is a former police officer or ex-staff member of the Ministry of the Internal Affairs,
victims are reluctant to initiate any kind of action for seeking legal support, being afraid of her husband's position or relationship; on the contrary, any action taken can only aggravate the situation … (ibid.)
Sources report that often a fine is charged to the aggressor which has a negative impact on the household budget (La Strada 2012, 52; Moldova 2010, 63; US 24 May 2012, Sec. 6;), "further harming the wives and children of abusers" (ibid.).
The IOM representative stated that approval of the National Program on Gender Equality 2010-2015 by the government in 2009 is an "important step forward" (IOM 7 June 2012). The Ministry of Labour, Social Protection and Family is responsible for the implementation of the program (Moldova 31 Dec. 2009, 1). The program focuses on the reduction of gender based violence and on state measures to prevent and combat domestic violence, among other things (ibid., 22). Further information on the program could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate.
The IOM representative indicated that the National Referral System for Assistance and Protection of Victims and Potential Victims of Trafficking (NRS), which is a comprehensive system of co-operation between governmental and non-governmental agencies, involves promotion of human rights and combats domestic violence and human trafficking (IOM 7 June 2012). According to a UN progress report for 2011 regarding a development assistance framework in Moldova, the NRS covers the entire territory of Moldova (UN n.d., 26). The report indicates that from January until September 2011, 243 victims of domestic violence received "direct assistance," including psychological, social, legal and vocational counselling through NRS (ibid.). However, the IOM representative noted that the system is "not fully effective for victims of domestic violence as the actual implementation of the laws in this field is still deficient or inconsistent" (IOM 7 June 2012).
In 2009, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in partnership with the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of Moldova, La Strada, the Gender Centre and the UN Population Fund, among others, organized a 16 day campaign in Moldova in order to raise awareness about domestic violence (OSCE 24 Nov. 2009). Country Reports 2011 indicates that the government, in partnership with foreign agencies, tried to increase public awareness on domestic violence, but, according to the NGOs, there was an "excessive reliance" on NGOs for raising awareness on remedies and for them to assist domestic violence victims (US 24 May 2012, Sec. 6).
The study on women's vulnerability to HIV/AIDS in Moldova indicates that staff at the Ministry of the Interior lacks training to support victims of domestic violence (Moldova 2010, 63). The UN progress report on Moldova similarly indicates that police officers need additional training on domestic violence (UN n.d., 20). However, according to the OSCE, in 2011, the OSCE organized a two-day training seminar for 30 judges, prosecutors, lawyers and police officers in the Republic of Moldova in order to improve the implementation of legislation in efforts to combat violence against women (OSCE 12 Dec. 2011).
The representative of the IOM Mission to Moldova indicated that the Centre for Assistance and Protection (CAP) and Casa Marioarei are state-run shelters (IOM 7 June 2012). The CAP provides short-term rehabilitation assistance and temporary lodging for people in vulnerable situations, particularly for victims of human trafficking, but also to victims of domestic violence, children and elderly (ibid.). The IOM representative noted that the state covers the centre's expenditures and salaries, but the cost for direct assistance to victim, such as legal and humanitarian assistance, are covered through IOM projects (ibid.). According to the website of the Casa Marioarei, they provide emergency accommodation, judicial, medical, social and psychological assistance to female victims of domestic violence and their children (Casa Marioarei n.d.a). In 2008, they provided assistance to 79 women and 104 children (ibid., n.d.b). The average length of stay in the shelter, located in Chisinau, in 2008 was 23 days; the shortest stay was 2 days, while the longest stay was 140 days (ibid.).
A report by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) indicates that there are Maternal Centres that provide services to victims of domestic violence in Causeni, Drochia and Cahul (UN 2010, 16). According to the IOM representative, "Ariadna" Maternal Centre in Drochia is run by the NGO Artemida and specializes in a long-term rehabilitation and reintegration of victims of domestic violence and victims of trafficking (IOM 7 June 2012). The UNDP report says that Maternal Centres provide psycho-social assistance, counselling, vocational training and retraining to victims of domestic violence (UN 2010, 12). Each Centre has an average of 10 accommodation places and can assist about 80 persons annually (ibid., 13). During 2006-2010, these three centres assisted 814 victims of domestic violence (ibid., 16).
The report submitted by the government of Moldova to the UN Human Rights Council provides information on a number of shelters, including:
Country Reports 2011 indicates that La Strada operates a hotline to report domestic violence (US 24 May 2012, Sec. 6). According to La Strada, the hotline offers recommendations on recognizing early signs of violence in relationships, psychological and legal counselling, among other services (La Strada 2012, 4). The report indicates that the most numerous domestic violence cases were registered in 2011 (1,495 calls), with a 17 percent increase compared to 2010 (ibid., 6).
La Strada in Chisinau provides support services to victims of trafficking (IOM 2009, 11) and victims of domestic violence (US 24 May 2012, Sec. 6). In addition to the hotline, the organization offers victims psychological and legal aid, as well as follow-up assistance (ibid.).
Sources indicate that a specialized centre for perpetrators has been created in Drochia (UN n.d., 20; IOM 7 June 2012) and is operated by the NGO Artemida (ibid.).
According to the UN progress report on Moldova, anti-domestic violence services "remain dependant on international donor funding and support from international organizations and NGOs" (UN n.d., 29).
This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim for refugee protection. Please find below the list of sources consulted in researching this Information Request.
Agence France-Presse (AFP). 25 November 2010. "Moldova: Europe's Poorest Land." (Factiva)
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). 26 December 2011. "Trans-Dniester Profile."
Casa Marioarei. N.d.a. "Refugiul Casa Marioarei."
_____. N.d.b. "Statistica PE 2008."
Cozzarelli, Catherine. 8 March 2011. 2011 Gender Assessment for USAID/Moldova.
Freedom House. 2011. "Transnistria." Freedom in the World 2011.
International Organization for Migration (IOM). 7 June 2012. Correspondence from a representative to the Research Directorate.
_____. 2009. Anna Kontula and Elina Saaristo. Countering Trafficking in Moldova.
La Strada. 2012. Trust Line for Women: 0 8008 8008. Activity Report.
Moldova. 19 July 2011. National Report Submitted in Accordance with Paragraph 15 (a) of the Annex to Human Rights Council Resolution 5/1. Republic of Moldova. (A/HRC/WG.6/12/MDA/1)
_____. 2010. Ministry of Health of the Republic of Moldova, Ministry of Labour, Social Protection and Family National Centre for Health Management. Women's Vulnerability to HIV and AIDS in the Republic of Moldova 2010.
_____. 31 December 2009. "Government Decision No. 933 of 31.12.2009 Regarding the Approval of the National Programme on Ensuring Gender Equality During 2010-2015."
_____. 2007. Law on Preventing and Combating Family Violence. Law Number 45-XVI of 1 March 2007.
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). 12 December 2011. "Training of Trainers on Legal Practices to Combat Domestic Violence."
_____. 24 November 2009. "OSCE Moldova Mission Launches Campaign Against Gender Violence."
United Nations (UN). 30 May 2012. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCR). "End of Mission Statement UN Working Group on Discrimination against Women in Law and in Practice Calls for Coherent Implementation of Moldova's Non-discrimination Legislation." <
_____. 25 July 2011. Human Rights Council. Compilation Prepared by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Accordance with Paragraph 15 (b) of the Annex to Human Rights Council Resolution 5/1. (A/HRC/WG.6/12/MDA/2)
_____. 2010. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). From the Concept to People. Changing Destinies: Better Opportunities for Youth and Women. Report on the Achievements by the Better Opportunities for Youth and Women Project during Six Years of Implementation.
_____. 8 May 2009. Human Rights Council. Promotion and Protection of all Human Rights, Civil, Political, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Including the Right to Development. Report of the Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, its Causes and Consequences, Yakin Ertürk. Mission to the Republic of Moldova. (A/HRC/11/6/Add.4)
_____. N.d. 2011 Progress Report: United Nations - Republic of Moldova. Development Assistance Framework 2007-2012.
United States (US). 24 May 2012. Department of State. "Moldova." Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2011.
_____. 8 April 2011. Department of State. "Moldova." Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2010.
Oral Sources: Attempts to contact representatives from the following organizations were unsuccessful: Amnesty International Moldova; Casa Marioarei, Moldova; Center for Partnership and Development, Moldova; Center for Human Rights, Moldova; Gender-Centru NGO, Moldova; Embassy of the Republic of Moldova in Washington, D.C.; Interaction NGO, Moldova; La Strada, Moldova; Ministry of Labour, Moldova; Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe; United Nations Development Program, Moldova; UNAIDS, Moldova; Winrock International NGO, Moldova.
Internet sites, including: Amnesty International; Beginning of Life; ecoi.net; Factiva; Freedom House; Global Legal Resources; Human Rights Watch; IDP Project; Info-Prim Neo; Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre; International Crisis Group; International Federation for Human Rights; Legislationline; Minority Rights Group International; Moldova — Embassy of the Republic of Moldova in Washington, D.C., Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ombudsman; Moldpres; Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty; United Nations — Integrated Regional Information Networks, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, UNICEF, UN Population Fund, UNHCR RefWorld, UN Women.
Moldova: Domestic violence, including legislation, state protection and services available to victims [MDA104108.E] (Response, French)


text:
Buxy's Salty Dog
28th St. & Coastal Hwy.
Saturday, Dec. 31: New Year's Eve with Tim Cyphers Duo
Every Thursday: Team Trivia
With DJ Jeremy, 5-9 p.m.
Charlie's Bayside Restaurant
Rte. 1 & Maryland Ave.,
Fenwick Island
Saturday, Dec. 31:
New Year's Eve with Old School
Clarion Hotel
10100 Coastal Hwy.
Ocean Club:
No Band-Friday, Dec. 23 & Saturday, Dec. 24
Friday, Dec. 30, Saturday, Dec. 31 & Sunday, Jan.1: First Class
Saturday, Dec. 31:
Power Play & Rhondels
Dead freddies
64th St. & the Bay
Friday, Dec. 30:
DJ Rupe, 8 p.m.
Saturday, Dec. 31:
DJ Calico
Fager's Island
60th St. in the Bay
Friday, Dec. 23: DJ Robcee
Sunday, Dec. 25: Christmas Night Locals' Party
with DJ Groove
Friday, Dec. 30:
No Pets For Noah
Saturday, Dec. 31:
No Pets For Noah
Every Sunday: Jazz Brunch
with Everett Spells Project,
11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.
Globe, The
12 Broad St., Berlin
Friday, Dec. 23: TBA
Saturday, Dec. 31: New Year's Ever with DJ Soulfinger
Greene Turtle North
11601 Coastal Hwy.
Every Friday: DJ Wax
Every Saturday: DJ Wood
Greene Turtle West
Rte. 611, West Ocean City
Friday, Dec. 23:
DJ Soulfinger, 5-8 p.m.;
DJ Skip Bigler, 9 p.m.
Tuesday, Dec. 27:
DJ Skip Dixxon
Hotel Atlantic
2 North Main St., Berlin
Every Friday:
Elsworth Wheatley
Every Monday:
Earl Beardsley
House of welsh
1106 Coastal Hwy.,
Fenwick Island
Every Friday:
DJ Norm, 3-6 p.m.
Every Friday, Saturday & Sunday:
Tony Vega, 6-10 p.m.
Every Saturday:
Tom Lowe, 4-6 p.m.
Every Monday:
DJ Norm with DCHDC, 6-9 p.m.
Every Wednesday:
Bob Hughes, 6-9 p.m.
Every Thursday:
Tom Lowe, 6-9 p.m.
johnny's pizza & pub
56th St. & Coastal Hwy., Bayside
Friday, Dec. 30:
Tommy Edward
Lobster Shanty
Rte. 54, Fenwick Island
Every Thursday:
Kevin Poole & Joe Mama, 6 p.m.
Pit and Pub
28th St. & Coastal Hwy.
Friday, Dec. 30: Hot Sauce Sandwich
Pour house, The
501 S. Baltimore Ave.,
Corner Of Wicomico
& Baltimore Ave.
Friday, Dec. 30:
Kaleb Brown Reggae Band,
Zion Reggae Band &
The Electric Co.
Every Tuesday:
Poker Night, 7 p.m.
Every Wednesday:
Open Mic Night with Livin' The Dream, 9:30 p.m.
49th St. & Coastal Hwy.
Friday, Dec. 23:
The Nameless Few
Every Thursday:
Dance Party with DJ
Smitty McGee's
Rte. 54, West Fenwick Ireland, Del.
Every Friday:
Randy Lee Ashcraft, 8 p.m.
Every Thursday:
Randy Lee Ashcraft, 8 p.m.
Steer inn Tavern
10514 Racetrack Rd., Berlin
Friday, Dec. 23:Tranzfusion
Every Wednesday:
Karaoke with Hey Mick, 8 p.m.
Every Thursday:
DJ Marla, 8 p.m.


text:
TOKYO – Japan's crippled nuclear power plant is struggling to find space to store tens of thousands of tons of highly contaminated water used to cool the broken reactors, the manager of the water treatment team said.
About 200,000 tons of radioactive water — enough to fill more than 50 Olympic-sized swimming pools — are being stored in hundreds of gigantic tanks built around the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant. Operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. has already chopped down trees to make room for more tanks and predicts the volume of water will more than triple within three years.
"It's a pressing issue because our land is limited and we would eventually run out of storage space," the water-treatment manager, Yuichi Okamura, told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview this week.
TEPCO is close to running a new treatment system that could make the water safe enough to release into the ocean. But in the meantime its tanks are filling up — mostly because leaks in reactor facilities are allowing ground water pour in.
Outside experts worry that if contaminated water is released, there will be lasting impact on the environment. And they fear that because of the reactor leaks and water flowing from one part of the plant to another, that may already be happening.
Nuclear engineer and college lecturer Masashi Goto said the contaminated water buildup poses a long-term health and environmental threat. He worries that the radioactive water in the basements may already be getting into the underground water system, where it could reach far beyond the plant, possibly the ocean or public water supplies.
"You never know where it's leaking out and once it's out you can never put it back in place," he said. "It's just outrageous and shows how big a disaster the accident is."
The concerns are less severe than the nightmare scenario TEPCO faced in the weeks after the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami knocked out power and cooling systems at the plant, leading to explosions and meltdowns of three reactor cores in the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. The plant released radiation into the surrounding air, soil and ocean and displaced more than 100,000 residents who are uncertain when — or if — they will be able to return to their homes.
Dumping massive amounts of water into the melting reactors was the only way to avoid an even bigger catastrophe.
Okamura remembers frantically trying to find a way to get water to spent fuel pools located on the highest floor of the 50-meter-high reactor buildings. Without water, the spent fuel likely would have overheated and melted, sending radioactive smoke for miles and affecting possibly millions of people.
"The water would keep evaporating, and the pools would have dried up if we had left them alone," he said. "That would have been the end of it."
Attempts to dump water from helicopters were ineffective. Spraying water from fire trucks into the pools didn't work either. Okamura then helped bring in a huge, German-made concrete-making pump with a remote-controlled arm that was long enough to spray water into the fuel pools.
The plan worked — just in time, Okamura said.
Those measures and others helped bring the plant under tenuous control, but it will take decades to clean up the radioactive material. And those desperate steps created another huge headache for the utility: What to do with all that radioactive water that leaked out of the damaged reactors and collected in the basements of reactor buildings and nearby facilities.
Some of the water ran into the ocean, raising concerns about contamination of marine life and seafood. Waters within a 20-kilometer (12-mile) zone are still off-limits, and high levels of contamination have been found in seabed sediment and fish tested in the area.
Okamura was tasked with setting up a treatment system that would make the water clean enough for reuse as a coolant, and was also aimed at reducing health risks for workers and environmental damage.
At first, the utility shunted the tainted water into existing storage tanks near the reactors. Meanwhile, Okamura's 55-member team scrambled to get a treatment unit up and running within three months of the accident — a project that would normally take about two years, he said.
"Accomplishing that was a miracle," he said, adding that a cheer went up from his men when the first unit started working.
Using that equipment, TEPCO was able to circulate reprocessed water back into the reactor cores. But even though the reactors now are being cooled exclusively with recycled water, the volume of contaminated water is still increasing, mostly because ground water is seeping through cracks into the reactor and turbine basements.
Next month, Okamura's group plans to flip the switch on new purifying equipment using Toshiba Corp. technology that is supposedly able to decontaminate the water by removing strontium and other nuclides, potentially below detectable levels, he said.
TEPCO claims the treated water from this new system is clean enough to be potentially released into the ocean, although it hasn't said whether it would do that. Doing so would require the permission of authorities and local consent and would also likely trigger harsh criticism at home and abroad.
To deal with the excess tainted water, the utility has channeled it to more than 300 huge storage tanks placed around the plant. The utility has plans to install storage tanks for up to 700,000 tons — or about three more years' worth — of contaminated water. If that maxes out, it could build additional space for roughly two more years' worth of storage, said Mayumi Yoshida, a company spokeswoman.
But those forecasts hinge on plans to detect and plug holes in the damaged reactors to minimize leaks over the next two years. The utility also plans to take steps to keep ground water from seeping into the reactor basements.
Both are tasks that TEPCO is still not sure how to accomplish: Those areas remain so highly radioactive that it is unclear how humans or even robots could work there.
There's also a risk the storage tanks and the jury-rigged pipe system connecting them could be damaged if the area is struck by another earthquake or tsunami.
Goto, the nuclear engineer, believes it will take far longer than TEPCO's goal of two years to repair all the holes in the reactors. The plant also would have to deal with contaminated water until all the melted fuel and other debris is removed from the reactor — a process that will easily take more than a decade.
He said TEPCO's roadmap for dealing with the problem is "wishful thinking."
"The longer it takes, the more contaminated water they get," he said.
Associated Press Writer Malcolm Foster contributed to this report.


text:
In this episode, I play a song from Paul Melancon; I talk about my new house and studio; I discuss sentimentality about child stuff; I run down the various digitization projects in my life; I discuss Marie Kondo and the outrage about getting rid of books and getting rid of my own books; I talk about the corrosive nature of "resilience porn" and how it relates to software projects; why I listen to less of Dan Benjamin.
Here is the direct MP3 download for the Evil Genius Chronicles podcast, January 22 2019
Links mentioned in this episode:
- New sponsor: ExpressVPN! go to expressvpn.com/egc for three months of service free!
- Support this show on Patreon
- Paul Melancon
- Buy Camera Obscura at Amazon
- Buy "Jeff Lynne" at Amazon
- The Fan History Project
- Science Fiction Oral History Project
- Marie Kondo
- Tidying Up with Marie Kondo on Netflix
- 5by5 Podcast Network
- Auphonic podcast production tool is so good!
- My Google+
You can subscribe to this podcast feed via RSS. To sponsor the show, contact BackBeat Media. Don't forget, you can fly your EGC flag by buying the stuff package. This show as a whole is Creative Commons licensed Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported. Bandwidth for this episode is provided by Cachefly.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download


text:
Cabbage Rolls
- 1 medium head cabbage
- ¾ pound lean ground beef
- ½ cup chopped onion
- 1 can (14 ½ ounces) diced tomatoes, undrained
- ½ cup water
- ⅓ cup instant brown rice
- 1 can (15 ounces) tomato sauce
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- ½ teaspoon dried basil
- ½ teaspoon dried thyme
- ½ teaspoon sugar
- ½ cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
Cook cabbage in boiling water just until leaves fall off head. Set aside 8 large leaves for rolls. (Refrigerate remaining cabbage for another use.) Cut out the thick vein from the bottom of each reserved leaf, making a V-shaped cut. Set aside.
In a large nonstick skillet, cook the ground beef and onion over medium heat until meat is no longer pink; drain. Stir in tomatoes and water; bring to a boil. Stir in rice; return to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 5 minutes.
Place about ⅓ cup beef mixture on each reserved cabbage leaf; overlap cut ends of leaf. Fold in sides, beginning from the cut end. Roll up completely to enclose filling
In a bowl, combine the tomato sauce, Worcestershire sauce, basil, thyme and sugar. Spread half on the bottom of an 11-by-7-by-2-inch baking dish coated with nonstick cooking spray. Top with cabbage rolls and remaining tomato sauce mixture. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Uncover; sprinkle with cheese. Bake 5–10 minutes longer or until bubbly and cheese is melted.


text:
European Economic
and Social Committee
Participation of Persons with disabilities in European elections
In view of the upcoming EU elections of 23-26 May, the EESC Study Group on Disability Rights is organising a public hearing on "Participation of Persons with disabilities in European elections ".
Are persons with disabilities really on equal terms with the rest of the population when talking about their right to vote?
What has been done so far and which are further steps to be taken?
Join us to our hearing and discuss it with us!


text:
Life at Deloitte
Participants get up close and personal through Deloitte's Global Leadership Shadow Program
Barry Salzberg, Former Deloitte Global CEO, hosts three shadows
Shadowing a senior leader is a unique opportunity to experience leadership firsthand. That's one of the reasons Deloitte Global launched the Leadership Shadow Program and Barry Salzberg, Global CEO, participated.
Three shadows—high-performing managers from the Deloitte Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific regions— were paired with Barry Salzberg as part of the program to follow him throughout a typical day. Barry and his shadows are among the more than 50 senior leaders and top-performing managers across Deloitte Global who paired-up for the Leadership Shadow Program.
Shadowing a senior leader, managers get an up-close look at a day in the life of a leader, Deloitte's business strategies at work, and decision-making at the top. Shadow experiences span over 1-2 days and are designed to provide participants with professional development opportunities, including meaningful career conversations, exposure to senior leadership, and broader understanding of the Deloitte Global organization. Managers also build their professional networks, jump-start their development, and pick-up new tools and ideas. The leaders participating in the program benefit from gaining the perspectives of the next generation of leaders, fostering a coaching culture, and increasing visibility into Deloitte's Value Proposition and business strategies.
Margaux Lisiak, Manager, Strategy, Innovation, and Corporate Development, DTTL, shadowed Barry Salzberg, DTTL Chief Executive Officer.
"During my two days with Barry, I attended the DTTL Quarterly Meeting, a Global Advisory Council workshop, and scheduling, communications, and strategy meetings. I listened in on College Summit calls, had lunch with Barry and his chief of staff, and came away with a deep appreciation for the complexities of a leadership role and insights that will be valuable as I continue my career at Deloitte."
Margaux Lisiak, Manager, Strategy, Innovation, and Corporate Development, DTTL
Eric Mickelberg, Manager, Global Clients & Industries, DTTL, shadowed Matthew Hirshfield, Director, Office of General Counsel, DTTL.
"Sitting in on a staff meeting with Matt, I was able to see exactly what a day-in-the-life of the Office of General Council is like. The insight into Matt's group allowed me to see many connections between legal and finance. This experience gave me a new perspective on my own responsibilities."
Eric Mickelberg, Manager, Global Clients & Industries, DTTL
Bob Tweedie, Program Delivery Manager, DTTL HR, shadowed Jeremy Smith, Managing Director – ERS Global & Crisis Management Market Offering Leader, and Bill McFarland, Chief of Staff to DTTL Global CEO.
"My experience with Jeremy and Bill was, without doubt, one of the most powerful learning experiences of my career to date. Jeremy provided me with a unique insight into the many parts of our client-facing business that I rarely have exposure to. Bill shared with me his insights into effective leadership from his different roles in the U.S. and in Europe. After having lunch with DTTL Global CEO Barry Salzberg and Bill during their weekly debrief, I had the utmost fortune to sit in on a meeting with Barry, Roger Dassen, Partner, Deloitte Netherlands, Bill, and the senior leaders responsible for Deloitte University globally. I would summarize my key learning takeaways as follows: people leadership, influencing, building relationships, and being yourself will lead one to be an effective leader."
Bob Tweedie, Program Delivery Manager, DTTL HR
Ravi Sekar, Manager, Business Research Center, GKS, DTTL, shadowed Mimi Lee, Director, Clients & Industry, Manufacturing, DTTL.
"I took away some key insights shadowing Mimi for the day—for example: the importance of asking the right questions, gaining deep understanding of my industry, reacting quickly to opportunities, communicating your viewpoint and seeking consensus, and creating a value proposition for myself. It was an exceptional learning experience."
Ravi Sekar, Manager, Business Research Center, GKS, DTTL


text:
Welcome to The Family Handyman
Unfortunately we had to shutdown our sister site, Fresh Home Ideas. But don't worry; we have all the home repair, remodeling and design ideas you need.
Browse around and check out our selection of DIY projects and tips to help you around the house. We hope you'll find everything you need to keep your home in tiptop shape.
Or if all that work's making you hungry, find recipes for every day (and every occasion) at our sister site, Taste of Home
If you're looking for fresh home & garden ideas and fun craft projects, find them at our sister site, Country Woman Magazine


text:
How is being a better philanthropist than software developer a criticism? I think it's better to be remembered for the good one did rather than creating a shinier phone on which to view "content".
Bill Gates won't be coming back to Microsoft to retake the reins from embattled CEO Steve Ballmer – so says none other than Bill Gates himself. "I've made the transistion to work full-time on the [Bill & Melinda Gates] Foundation," Gates told an interviewer from The Sydney Morning Herald, "and that'll be what I do for the rest …
shame some of the criticisms are actually very flawed.
They complain that high profile causes divert funds away from local health issues due to better salaries paid to the specialist teams (remind me how this is different to any other profession in most other countires)
Well blow me, how dare they a) try and help sort out two of Africas biggest killers (Malaria and AIDS) rather than sort out an ingrowing tonails b) improve the salaries of the top doctors and research people.
This is not to far off how Small Pox was erradicated, with targeted attacks; so when an outbreak occured, all resources were targeted within that area, to the detrement of other issues. When you are trying to vacinate / help several thousand people in a limited time, you don't have the resources to piss about treating other ailments, no matter how big they may seem.
To be honest the would is full of arseholes who would rather maon about what people are not doing (just look at the responses to the Google charity pledge) than what they are doing.
One day they will both be dead and written into history. A Hollywood movie made, several books and yet more movies.
I thought this story was about Bill not going back to MS? Seems to have degenerated into the Bill n Steve saga.
If we are to have a movie, can we have one with them smoking a bong together then several scenes later fighting over the aesthetics of different types of coffee? :-) (fair trade of course)
Sometimes I just don't get the downvotes?!
(unless you're upset that Dollar Bill won't be returning to Microsoft full-time?)
I guess some people just refuse to believe that metaphorical leopards have the right or ability to change their spots.
How limiting.
(not that I personally think Bill Gates has any spots to change)
Im not going to sit here with my head up my arse saying your software is perfect, its not, although Win 7 is pretty damn good, an i quite like WP7 too....oh wait a sec...
but anyway, your company regardless of how it got there is getting one royal shafting after another largly because a lack of direction from the top, or better put, lack of PERCIEVED direction, there isnt any point doing anything if the perception is that you sitting with your thumbs up your arse.
i admire what you are doing in your personal time but seriously, that guy needs to go, your a significant share holder Bill, so unless steve has found some "bad" porn on your laptop, you need to grow some balls and get someone else to start improving your companies Image
Perception or Image are everything an right now yours [Microsofts] sucks
Happy xmas!
... until it has been denied in the media. Given a chance, most shareholders would welcome back Gates in an instant.
BillG still has his head up his wossname. He says that Microsoft machines outsold Apple. Not really. MS sold no PCs. The only MS machine that has sold well is the XBox. Others sank like rocks.
A few years back, before apple embraced intel processors, there was a clear divide between mac and everything else running one of plenty Microsoft OS. MacOS would run only on power pc processors and windows only on x86.
Since no computer is properly functional without an OS, you can split the whole ecosystem into apple and microsoft machines. Especially considering that back then Linux was still "getting there" and unix was in the major decline.
Also consider that since the late 80s and even today it has been virtually impossible to buy any [non-apple] preassembled computer without an MS OS installed.
So yes, anything being sold with an MS OS can be named a microsoft machine, and they did did outsell apple ones by a landslide.
...every stupid comment some idiot makes on the internet eg
"BillG still has his head up his wossname. He says that Microsoft machines outsold Apple. Not really. MS sold no PCs. The only MS machine that has sold well is the XBox. Others sank like rocks."
Good God, how old are you, 14?
MS and Apple, Jobs and Gates had an odd relationship. On the one hand Jobs in particular would slag off Gates, but MS were about the only software company to take the Mac seriously in the beginning which really helped it. MS Office for Mac was and is an essential install for most offices where Macs are used. Jobs himself said words to the effect of MS vs Apple isn't a zero sum game - they can both do well without having to destroy the other.
There are many more examples, but those are the ones that spring to mind.
Indeed, was it the '97 Apple expo, Jobs went on stage and video conferenced with Gates?
Much booing and gnashing of teeth, but Jobs admitted that Apple needs MS. Thus, Office 98 and X soon after and IE for Mac.
The transition to x86 hardware in recent years also did wonders to Microsofts sales figures.
Good for Gates.
Always amused me that microsoft in the past had been portrayed as 'evil' - which has now completely faded away on the back of the success of Apple & Google.
Guess people always need a straw man - or in this case, a straw 800lb gorilla in the room.
It's the British way - knock success and try to belittle it, "how dare you demonstrate brilliance and flaunt it"
How sad...
There are suggestions on the Gates Foundation website that some good research is happening. Rather than merely advocating single-vector solutions, some of the sponsored research SEEMS to point to solutions that show an awareness of complex ecosystems.
That is a pointed contrast to Microsoft's "monoculture" approach that caused such damage to the intellectual/creative technology environment over the past 15 years. I know, if you're a member of the collective, you'll say that it was all good because your species prospered. What you're missing is that the ecosystem itself was miniscule compared to how big it COULD have been if it hadn't been so wholly dependent upon a single (inevitably limited) cognitive infrastructure.
So the appearance of ecosystem-aware thinking in Gates Foundation projects COULD spell very good things for Gates' return to the helm at Microsoft. If he were to start thinking of the overall information/cognitive landscape (Raymond would call it the "noosphere") rather than solely his part of it, then Microsoft could evolve some extremely interesting products and actually begin to contribute to the growth of the whole ecosystem.
What kind of idiotic anti-MS bullshit is this? MS traditionally made operating systems. They helped to make computers cheap and widely available and didn't limit in any way what software people could run on the platform or what they could do with it after they had purchased it. Please explain how this damaged creativity?
Re the Bootnote ....... "While Bill Gates says he'll devote "all of my energy" to philanthropy, Steve Jobs' biographer Isaacson reportedly told a San Francisco gathering on Wednesday that one topic he was not allowed to discuss with the late Apple cofounder was what would become of his fortune after he was no longer around to enjoy it." ...... the System has that taken care of, for it is the System which provides for all opportunities and delivers all bounties.
Steve's just not as good at being evil as Bill was. Bill did evil _well_. Steve's more of a Batman villain kind of evil: dire in intent and completely incompetent at execution.
Anyway, Steve's doing the job Bill wants him to do - holding the company still while he sucks the rest of his money out to fund his new philanthropy game. At the end the company will be a dry hulk of course.
And I'm OK with that.
Throwing Jobs in here is a bit of a red herring. Some people keep their charity private, and I can respect that.
It is not as though Ballmer has had that bad of reign at Microsoft. They did make $18.8 billion in profit (not sales, profit) last year. The last few versions of Windows were lackluster, but they still sold. No one was going to be able to hold on to Microsoft's performance over the 1990s and early 2000s (near monopoly dominance) forever... which is a good thing.
I agree though. Apple makes better computers than Wintel, which is embarrassing for Microsoft, but they are blushing all the way to the bank.
Great. Gates was Microsoft's chance to recover. With Balmer at the reigns, they are doomed. I moved on to a Macbook Pro. While my Windows Desktop is crashing, my Macbook Pro is not. Guess I'll be using the PC mostly for games. WAY TO GO GATES!!! Maybe we'll get lucky and the board will oust Balmer anyway.
@Gil Grissum: Bill Gates is the Chairman of the Board at Microsoft. He's the Boss. The other members of the Board are hand-picked by him. Steve Ballmer is Bill's guy, his college roomie, a guy that can be trusted to do what you tell him enjoying far more success than he might have hoped for in his wildest dreams. Steve knows Bill's goals are his bread and butter. A wise guy like Bill keeps predictable fools in reserve. The board is not going to oust Steve Ballmer until Bill Gates tells them to, and that ain't gonna happen as long as Steve delivers what Bill wants, and Steve's perfectly on target.
Steve Ballmer's not doing what YOU want him to do - but you're not the boss of him. Bill Gates has found a way to own less than 1 percent of a publicly held corporation, nor show up every day, and yet control it utterly. He started these lessons in 1984, and being the brilliant guy he is has mastered them.
There are lots of voracious competitors in Microsoft, Sinofsky chief among them. How Sinofsky has failed to figure this out I don't know, since he's also brilliant. None of them are going to win the top spot because they're not the predictable committed fool. As soon as they figure this out, they're outta there, because they're voracious competitors and need to win to have internal validation.
Steve is doing the job Bill gave him, and he's doing well at it or he'd be long gone because Bill Gates considers personal loyalty a weakness. Now if you're an investor or a consumer and aren't happy about what Steve is doing, you know what to do about that. But Bill doesn't care because Steve's going to help him get the maximum money out. That means that the pathologically competitive Bill Gates is going to max the all-time "giver" score in the game he's now (and some would say since 1987) playing in.
Modern pundits and analysts are really lost about what Bill Gates' strategy is because it predates the rise of Google and the Internet. But he was alway crystal clear: he understands that incredible, unspendable wealth is a burden his children should not bear. He's a brilliant competitive ass, and having wonthe IT game and become bored with it he moves to another. Having won the computer game before his 26th birthday it's natural that he should search about for a new challenge to keep him occupied until he reach his dotage. That he counts coup on competitors after telling them what his strategy is is just gravy. There's no reason why he should not use his victory over IT to give advantage in the next game. To give up earned advantages is plain stupid.
I'd give that he's won the "giver" game now too, as his program to cajole the world's billionaires has leveraged his own personal wealth dozens of times, to the point where it pledged wealth exceeds the US national debt in the year Microsoft was founded. He's playing a bigger game now than Microsoft ever was, nor ever could hope to be. At least it doesn't have the prevention-of-progress taint of his previous game. This new game has no top end, no true victory because the goal isn't to be the biggest giver ever. It's to raise the best giver bar so high that nobody else in subsequent history can get over it. No matter how much wealth and effort is poured into it, there is always more to it. It's the global philanthropist version of a Zynga game, and good to occupy him until the end of his days.
Microsoft has to die for Bill Gates to rise from its shadow and be recognized for the great giver that he is without the taint of its dire methods which, if it were killed, will be lost to time. The process of killing Microsoft is under way, and Steve Ballmer is the chief assassin whether he knows it or not. Sometimes - rarely - you have a job that only a fool can do.
The only fly in this ointment is if Steve Ballmer should find out about Bill Gates' contempt for him, his intellectual deficiency, his religious faith in The Bill, and then be able and willing to figure out how to counter it before Bill kicked him out rather than accept it's good money for a guy like him - which seems unlikely in the extreme. Which, if you think about it, is the right way to choose your henchmen if you're an evil genius.
In my opinion they'll ride this horse all the way down to the end, and frankly it's taking longer than they would like.


text:
Hannity, Andersen advance discredited claim that Ayers helped Obama pen his autobiography
Written by Media Matters Staff
During an interview on Fox News, Sean Hannity and author Christopher Andersen agreed that "Bill Ayers helped [President Obama] with his book" Dreams From My Father and that "literary devices and themes [in the book] bear a jarring similarity to Ayers' own writings" -- a conservative talking point during the 2008 election that Andersen also advances in his new book, Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage (William Morrow, 2009). However, an Oxford professor who conducted a computerized analysis of Obama's book and Ayers' memoir Fugitive Days at the suggestion of former Rep. Chris Cannon (R-UT) reportedly found that it was "very implausible" that Ayers helped Obama write his autobiography.
Hannity: Andersen "found the literary devices and themes" in Obama's book "bear a jarring similarity to Ayers' own writings"
From the September 22 edition of Fox News' Hannity:
HANNITY: You write a lot about Bill Ayers and Reverend Wright. And Reverend Wright even weighed in on the "yes, we can" slogan very positively. And you write about that. Page 210, I just happen to remember it. But Bill Ayers helped him with his book, and you actually pick up -- you found the literary devices and themes bear a jarring similarity to Ayers' own writings.
ANDERSEN: That's true. And they were good friends. I mean, during the campaign, of course, he tried --
HANNITY: They were good friends.
ANDERSEN: Yes, of course, they were.
HANNITY: He denied it.
ANDERSEN: It was kind of -- yes, he did. And it was a little like a literary cabal there that was interesting in Chicago. They were all giving each other quotes for, you know, the blurbs to promote their respective books.
HANNITY: So Sean Hannity was right when I said that they were close friends.
ANDERSEN: Yes.
HANNITY: He started his political career at his house.
ANDERSEN: Yes.
HANNITY: He, you know, sat on boards with him, gave speeches with him. They were good friends.
ANDERSEN: Yes, they were.
In Barack and Michelle, Andersen writes that "Ayers's contribution" to Dreams was "significant"
From Barack and Michelle, pages 165-166:
In the end, Ayers's contribution of Barack's Dreams from My Father would be significant -- so much so that the book's language, oddly specific references, literary devices, and themes would bear a jarring similiarity to Ayers's own writings. Even the caveat at the beginning of Dreams, in which Barack points out that he uses invented dialogue, embellished facts, composite characters, inaccurate chronology, and pseudonyms to create an "approximation" of reality, resembles Ayers's defense of the inaccuracies in his memoir Fugitive Days. In the foreword to his book, Ayers states that the book is merely a collection of his personal memories and "impressions."
"There was a good deal of literary back-scratching going on in Hyde Park," said writer Jack Cashill, who noted that a mutual friend of Barack and Ayers, Rashid Khalidi, thanked Ayers for helping him with his book Resurrecting Empire. Ayers, explained Cashill, "provided an informal editing service for like-minded friends in the neighborhood."
Thanks to help from the veteran writer Ayers, Barack would be able to submit a manuscript to his editors at Times Books.
But Oxford professor who conducted computer study found claim to be "very implausible"
In a November 2, 2008, article, The Sunday Times of London reported:
The Republicans have made a last-minute attempt to prevent Barack Obama's ascent to the White House by trying to recruit an Oxford academic to "prove" that his autobiography was ghostwritten by a former terrorist.
With two days before the election, Obama is poised to become America's first black president, according to polls showing he has an average six-point lead over John McCain, his Republican opponent.
Dr Peter Millican, a philosophy don at Hertford College, Oxford, has devised a computer software program that can detect when works are by the same author by comparing favourite words and phrases.
He was contacted last weekend and offered $10,000 (£6,200) to assess alleged similarities between Obama's bestseller, Dreams from My Father, and Fugitive Days, a memoir by William Ayers.
Ayers, now a university professor in Chicago, co-founded the Weathermen, a radical 1960s underground group that bombed government buildings in Washington and New York. The Republicans accuse Obama of "palling around" with him.
The offer to Millican to prove that Ayers wrote Obama's book was made by Robert Fox, a California businessman and brother-in-law of Chris Cannon, a Republican congressman from Utah. He hoped to corroborate a theory advanced by Jack Cashill, an American writer.
Fox and Cannon each suggested to The Sunday Times that the other had taken the initiative.
Cannon said that he merely recommended computer testing of the books. He doubted whether Obama wrote his autobiography, adding: "If Ayers was the author, that would be interesting."
Fox said he had hoped that Cannon would raise the $10,000 to run a computer test. "It was Congressman Cannon who initially pointed me in that direction and, from our conversation, I thought he might be able to find someone [to raise the $10,000]."
He believed that if "proof" of Ayers's involvement was provided by an Oxford academic it would be political dynamite.
Fox contacted Millican, who said: "He was entirely upfront about this. He offered me $10,000 and sent me electronic versions of the text from both books."
Millican took a preliminary look and found the charges "very implausible". A deal was agreed for more detailed research but when Millican said the results had to be made public, even if no link to Ayers was proved, interest waned.
Millican said: "I thought it was extremely unlikely that we would get a positive result. It is the sort of thing where people make claims after seeing a few crude similarities and go overboard on them."
Limbaugh, WND's Cashill linked Obama's book to Ayers in fall 2008
Limbaugh suggested Obama "may not have written this book." In October 2008, Rush Limbaugh cited a passage from Dreams and said: "[Obama] doesn't talk this way. You know, there are stories out there he may not have written this book." Limbaugh cited WorldNetDaily columnist Jack Cashill, who theorized in an article for the conservative Web magazine American Thinker that Ayers wrote Dreams, arguing that Ayers "writes surprisingly well and very much like 'Obama,' " and that "when Ayers speaks, even off the cuff, he uses a cadence and vocabulary consistent with his memoir. One does not hear any of Dreams in Obama's casual speech." Cashill devoted several WorldNetDaily columns to advancing this claim.


text:
Some recent work
we thought healthedge might like
Key Surgical
In an industry with virtually no design aesthetic, what would happen if someone used bold design, color and white space? The answer: quarter after quarter of solid growth. With their engaging, artistic and, most importantly, memorable, designs that feature their products as hero, Key Surgical has become an icon in the sterile processing industry. From the web and trade shows to advertising and office art, Key Surgical continues to engage potential customers at every touch point possible.
Delta Dental
The rapid shift toward a consumer-driven market created an opportunity for Delta Dental to engage with people in a deeper, more emotional way. The idea: send a "Smilie" (a well intentioned selfie) to someone you care about. The campaign resulted in 3x traffic to the website, and 100% increase in sales.


text:
Happy first day of fall! Shot in Berlin, this fall fashion story follows a girl as she explores her way through the depths of the city dressed in autumn knits, denim, and pieces with a nostalgic flair. I am loving mustard and marigold hues for this fall season and would love to know what your favorite fall hue is. Comment below with your favorite color for autumn!
Photography: Sarah Winborn @s management | Styling: Mareen Aland | HMUA: Linda Burmeister @ Tom Folwarkow Management | Model: Imani
Clothing & Accessories//The Animals Observatory, Arsène et les pipelettes, Louis Louise, Young Soles, Hello Simone, Barn of Monkeys, Tinycottons, Ketiketa, Fish & Kids, Bobo Choses, Little Remix, I dig denim, Milk & Biscuits, Bellerose, Easy Peasy, Finger in the nose, Repose, Wolf & Rita, Emile et Ida, Bang Bang Copenhagen, Raspberry Plum, Soft Gallery


text:
A group of Norwegian and American researchers have shown that common variations in genes associated with microcephaly — a neuro-developmental disorder in which brain size is dramatically reduced — may explain differences in brain size in healthy individuals as well as in patients with neurological and psychiatric disorders.
The study, which involved collaboration between researchers from the University of Oslo, the University of California, San Diego and Scripps Translational Science Institute in La Jolla, California, will be published on line the week of December 21 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
In relation to body size, brain size has expanded dramatically throughout primate and human evolution. In fact, in proportion to body size, the brain of modern humans is three times larger than that of non-human primates. The cerebral cortex in particular has undergone a dramatic increase in surface area during the course of primate evolution.
The microcephaly genes have been hot candidates for a role in the evolutionary expansion of the human brain because mutations in these genes can reduce brain size by about two-thirds, to a size roughly comparable to our early hominid ancestors. There is also evidence that four of the genes — MCPH1, ASPM, CDK5RAP2 and CENPJ ? have evolved rapidly and have been subject to strong selective pressure in recent human evolution.
"It is obvious that such anatomical changes must have a basis in genetic alterations, said Lars M. Rimol, a research fellow at the University of Oslo. "Until now, little has been known about the molecular processes involved in this evolution and their genetic underpinnings. Now we have a piece of that genetic puzzle."
Several previous MRI studies have attempted to demonstrate a link between single polymorphisms (an inherited genetic variation that is found in more than one percent of the population) in these genes and brain size in healthy human adults, all of them unsuccessful. According to the research team, the success of the current study is likely due to two unique characteristics: first, by using a whole genome scan, the scientists could access an unprecedented number of polymorphisms, including non-coding regions outside of the gene itself; second, they were able to estimate cortical surface area, using software that reconstructs the cortical surface, based on volumetric MR scans, allowing for highly precise measurements of cortical thickness and areal expansion.
The software was developed by Anders Dale, PhD, professor of Radiology and Neurosciences at the UC San Diego School of Medicine, who headed the American branch of the research team. "The most statistically significant associations were consistently found with the areal expansion measure, which has implications also for future studies," said Dale.
The initial discovery was made in a sample of 289 psychiatric patients and controls from the Norwegian Thematically Organized Psychosis research project (TOP), led by Ole Andreassen from the University of Oslo, principal investigator of the Norwegian branch of the international research team. The most significant findings were then replicated in a sample of 655 healthy and demented patients from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI), the largest Alzheimer's disease study ever funded by the National Institutes of Health. The Norwegian sample was ethnically homogenous; the ADNI sample was ethnically diverse. According to the researchers, the fact that reported associations were found across two independent studies, including healthy controls and various patient groups, shows that these effects are likely to be independent of population or disease.
Highly significant associations were found between cortical surface area and polymorphisms in possible regulatory regions near the gene CDK5RAP2. This gene codes for a protein involved in cell-cycle regulation in neuronal progenitor cells ? cells that migrate to the cerebral cortex during the second trimester of gestation and eventually become fully functioning neurons. The cerebral cortex is the outer layer of the brain, often referred to as "gray matter." The most highly developed part of the human brain, the cerebral cortex is responsible for higher cognitive functions, such as thinking, perceiving, producing and understanding language, some of which is considered uniquely human.
Similar but less significant findings were made for polymorphisms in two other microcephaly genes, known as MCPH1 and ASPM. All findings were exclusive to either males or females but the functional significance of this sex-segregated effect is unclear.
"One particularly interesting feature of this new discovery is that the strongest links with cortical area were found in regulatory regions, rather than coding regions of the genes," said Andreassen. "One upshot of this may be that in order to further understand the molecular and evolutionary processes that have determined human brain size, we need to focus on regulatory processes rather than further functional characterization of the proteins of these genes. This has huge implications for future research on the link between genetics and brain morphology."
Additional contributors include Ingrid Agartz, Srdjan Djurovic, Andrew A. Brown, Anna K. Khäler,Morten Mattingsdal, Lavinia Athanasiu, Kjetil Sundet and Ingrid Melle of the University of Oslo, Norway; J. Cooper Roddey and Eric Halgren of UC San Diego; Alexander H. Joyner, of UC San Diego and Scripps Translational Science Institute;,and Nicholas J. Schork of Scripps Translational Science Institute.
Funding for this study was provided in part by the National Institutes of Health, Eastern Norway Health Authority and Research Council of Norway, and by the National Institute of Aging of the National Institutes of Health.


text:
There is a wealth of information online about approaching publishers and the query process, all of which I've found invaluable. However, once your work is actually out there, under consideration, information seems to dry up. For instance:Three months ago, an Editor at a small but extremely successful publisher called me. She liked my sample chapters and asked me to send the full manuscript straight away.After scooping my jaw up off the floor, I did as she asked.So what happens next?Does the Editor make an effort to read it as soon as she can? Does it get lost in the shuffle? If she loves it, what's the next step?I know three months is NOTHING when waiting for feedback on a full, and that I'll probably be waiting for a while yet either way, but as I can't find much information on this stage of the process, I was wondering if you'd be kind enough to shed some light on what happens to a requested manuscript once it gets to a publisher.The envelope comes in and is pulled from the mail by someone (an assistant / an intern) who's never heard your name before. They just pull it because it says "requested material" on it. That person passes it to me. They may remove the manuscript from its envelope and trash the envelope.
I look at the envelope/manuscript askance because I forgot your name ten seconds after I wrote it on the letter requesting the full. But I open the envelope and look at the cover letter and realize I did request this. I may have a memory of why, too! Points for me.
But whether my reaction is "oh, good! I was looking forward to seeing this!" or "I can't remember why I wanted this, but it'll probably be clear when I look at it," the next step is the same: it goes in a pile of things I need to read. Because right now I'm clearing off my desk or chair or inbox, and once that's finished, I have huge amounts of the work I'm paid for to do.
(a digression) Many authors idealistically think that it's part of my job to read things, and that's true, in an abstract way. In practical terms, though, there's always a huge amount of work to do for the books that are already underway, so the part of my job that's reading is usually the part on the subway or the weekend or any of the other times I'm sure as hell not being paid for. Sometimes I fantasize about taking time out of my day to sit comfortably with my reading and a cup of coffee and give everything the time and consideration it deserves. And then I roll my eyes or snort or laugh a little hysterically (depending on my current emotional stability) and get back to answering emails.
Eventually, I notice that the pile is getting a tad out of hand. Depending on what else has been going on, this may be when it fills its basket or when it's almost two feet tall. Noticing may be aided by agents in that pile nagging me, or maybe not. And depending on the time of year, the growth from one inch to 24 inches may happen over the course of three months or just two weeks. Sometimes I look at it and whimper.
But this stage is where I differ from a lot of editors: I have a pile. One pile, with one place to be, so when it's out of hand I do notice, and when I want to know how long the pile's been waiting, I can look at the stuff on the bottom. What many editors have is many, many piles on their desks, all of which are of varied content, import, and antiquity. I don't really understand how anybody works that way, but the proof is right across the hall from me. Lots of people do.
Ok, let's assume your manuscript has beaten the chaos and the crushing workload of the office and is actually in an editor's hands and being read with some focus. I'll also be reading with some foreboding, because experience shows that most fulls don't live up to the potential I saw in the partial. And, damn, that feels like a waste of my time! It's frustrating.
But maybe, maybe I read each successive chapter with growing hope and disbelief and, my god, is it... pleasure? And I finish the whole thing and think, that was great! I then have to get somebody else to read it to be sure the pressure hasn't gotten to me and I'm out of my mind.
And then (assuming I'm not nuts), we start the acquisition process, which varies a great deal from publisher to publisher, and may take a week or a month further before you hear anything from me.
...So when you finally do hear from me and I make an offer, it feels to you like an asteroid has fallen from the sky. But to your manuscript, it's the end of a journey full of perils and close calls, suspicion and doubt. It's like a beloved dog that you thought was dead suddenly showing up in your front yard covered in tire tracks and limping a little, but wagging his tail, happy to see you again. And with a suitcase full of money in his mouth!
...And then comes the really hard part.


text:
Do Something Wild...in your backyard
Do Something Wild in Your Backyard
Backyard Wildlife Habitat Certification Program
If you manage for wildlife in your backyard, Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism would like to give you credit through the Backyard Wildlife Habitat Certification Program. This program gives recognition to citizens who improve living conditions for wildlife on their property. The Backyard Wildlife Habitat Certification Program is not restricted to home owners. Residents of high-rise apartment balconies and places of business can apply also.
Just follow the directions on the back of this brochure and send it to the Pratt Operations Office with $5. Once approved, you will receive a handsome certificate and an attractive sign to display in your yard. Your name will be included on future mailing lists for special backyard wildlife materials. Good luck with your efforts!