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Tuesday, July 28, 2009
TWD: I Scream . . . .
This week's TWD offering was thoughtfully selected by Lynne of Café Lynnylu. Who doesn't love homemade ice cream, now?
While I like a good vanilla, I'm more of a flavor gal, myself. In fact, if I could duplicate Lemon Custard, I would be in heaven. So, when I was reading the Playing Around page and spotted nuts as an add-in, I naturally thought of Butter Pecan.
I substituted brown sugar for white in the custard recipe and, of course, prepared it my usual way, combining all ingredients and then heating to temperature. The custard was well chilled, having sat in the fridge for two days. Finally, Sunday evening, I was able to prepare the ice cream. I sauteed some chopped pecans in yummy butter, let them cool, then added them to the ice cream just before it was finished.
The first container disappeared before I could get the camera out. This morning I did the photo shoot before anyone else was up, because I just know that the second container of ice cream will be consumed in an instant.
I loved the basic custard base and the fact that it can be customized with any flavor. Great choice! Be sure and stop by the other TWD bakers to read about their variations. You can also find the recipe on Lyn's blog.
10 comments:
- Nichi said...
so good you have to sneak to get a photo! too funny!
- July 28, 2009 at 9:49 AM
- Megan said...
I'll bet the first container disappeared right about the time you finished cleaning up the dog from her encounter with the skunk!
- July 28, 2009 at 9:49 AM
- Clivia said...
I did butter pecan too, but never thought to use brown sugar. I'll try that next time.
Glad you managed to get a few photos!
- July 28, 2009 at 10:47 AM
Butter pecan ice cream sounds fabulous. I'll have to try it.
- July 28, 2009 at 12:33 PM
- Tammy said...
love your variation!
- July 28, 2009 at 4:51 PM
- Pamela said...
Oh...butter pecan!! What a great variation. I can understand why it was eaten so quickly. ;o)
- July 28, 2009 at 7:13 PM
- Engineer Baker said...
Butter pecan sounds wonderful, especially with the brown sugar addition. So you didn't temper the eggs? You just mixed everything up and then cooked until it coated the spoon?
- July 29, 2009 at 3:03 AM
- ostwestwind said...
Butter pecan flavour sounds divine
Ulrike @ Küchenlatein
- July 29, 2009 at 5:27 AM
- Fit Chick said...
This sounds so good! Nice job with the butter pecan, will try that next time.
- July 29, 2009 at 5:32 PM
- Lynnylu said...
I love butter pecan, too. We ate ours up pretty quickly, too. Glad you could get a photo in before the demolishment. Thanks for making Dorie's recipe with me.
- August 5, 2009 at 5:33 AM


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The national FWAG Association represents local Farming & Wildlife Advisory Groups (FWAGs) across the UK. These groups have helped British farmers for over five decades by providing trusted, independent environmental advice.
The FWAG Association is pleased to be working in partnership with GWCT and LEAF.
Image credits to Chris Loades and members of the FWAG Association.

subset: commoncrawl


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Rosalind Franklin (1920-58)
Rosalind Franklin's X-ray diffraction studies contributed to the double helix model of the molecular structure of DNA. Franklin had studied physical chemistry at Newnham College, Cambridge. She received her PhD in 1945 for research into the small-scale structures of coal and carbons. As a postdoctoral researcher in Paris, she became familiar with the use of X-ray diffraction as a method for analysing molecular structures. Working at King's College London, from 1951 to 1953, she applied this technique to DNA. Without her knowledge, one of the resulting X-ray images and a report on her work were passed on to Francis Crick and James Watson at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. This information helped the two Cambridge researchers to develop the double-helix model of DNA.
Later, Franklin investigated other structures, especially the tobacco mosaic virus. Diagnosed with cancer in 1956, Franklin did not live to see the Nobel Prize awarded to Crick, Watson and Maurice Wilkins, her former colleague at King's. Since her death, there has been debate over whether her contributions to the discovery of the double helix were properly acknowledged. Some of Franklin's friends and colleagues were particularly enraged by James Watson's portrayal of her in his 1968 account, The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA.
Related Themes and Topics
Related links
S de Chadarevian, Designs For Life: Molecular Biology After World War II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)
S de Chadarevian, 'Perceptions in Science: The Making of an Icon', Science, 300/5617 (2003), pp 255-257
B Maddox, Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA (New York: Harper Perennial, 2002)
A Sayre, Rosalind Franklin and DNA (Minneapolis: Sagebrush, 1975)
J D Watson, The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA (New York: Atheneum, 1968)
Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). The material of all living organisms, it stores the information, or blueprints, about every cell and is located in the genes. It is made up of two strands which form a double helix and are linked with hydrogen bonds. It was first described in 1953 by Francis Crick and James Watson.


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Each week, women from the community gather together to meditate on Scripture and to pray for one another, our church, our neighborhood, and our city. Both groups are highly relational and interactive, yet each also welcomes the visitor who would like to simply observe and grow to eventually participate.
Back to All Events
Earlier Event: April 12Worship Gathering
Later Event: April 17HS Girl's Group


text: Discover La Scala's programme month by month. Click on the dates to get a preview of the events and for the possibility to book tickets directly. On some dates two performances take place: they are indicated by the "sun" and "moon" symbol. In case you are interested in performances taking place at a particular time of day, you can use the matinee/evening filter. If you are a registered user of the website, you can add future performances to your personal diary: you will be notified by email a few days before booking opens. Discover the calendar


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Wiring & Bulb for Arctic Cat Z120 Brake Light. One available. Sold as is.
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WINCHESTER greens have criticised South West Trains over its new decked car park and its impact on pedestrians at Winchester station.
Local environmentalists say SWT have failed to think about walkers and cyclists using a short cut from the city railway station to Andover Road.
The path is blocked off and pedestrians and cyclists now have to go through the potentially dangerous car park.
Chris Gillham, of Friends of the Earth, said: "With a moment's thought and no extra cost, they could give walkers and cyclists the choice of walking in the open air. The new car park is surrounded by a metre-high barrier that prevents people from going round the edge. If they undo the nuts and bolts and take away this unnecessary barrier, people could enjoy the sunshine and greenery, and still walk under cover if it's raining."
Chris Holloway, director of Winchester Action on Climate Change, agreed: "I regularly use the car park. It's shorter, and, till now, safer and much more pleasant than going along the main road. I was shocked when I saw how SWT have turned a neglected but not unpleasant walking and cycling shortcut into a threatening and unpleasant few minutes. This is no way to encourage people to walk or cycle".
Her attempts to speak to the station manager have been met by silence.
A spokesperson for the South West Trains-Network Rail Alliance said: "The new decked car park at Winchester is providing much-needed extra car parking space for our passengers and will deliver significant improvements for passengers using Winchester station.
"We do understand that many people use the car park as a shortcut and whilst people can still gain access through the car park, which is fitted with CCTV and fully lit, it is not a public right of way and there are alternative routes that people can take.
"We have however committed to work with Hampshire County Council to look at any future opportunities for development of this area and the area surrounding the station to develop improved access."


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When we last checked on Intel's chipset roadmaps back in June, we saw Intel planning for an aggressive P35 /
G33 launch, with the X38 and G35 chipsets launching later in the year. At the time, the X38 was aimed at
supplanting the aged 975X, while the G35 would supplement and to some extent supplant the G33.
It seems Intel is slightly accelerating its chipset release schedule, possibly in response to the upcoming launch of AMD's RD790 chipset. According to DigiTimes, the X38 is set to ship to chipset manufacturers in mid-September (allowing for boards in the near future) and a new, X48 has appeared on the horizon. With support for 1600MHz FSB CPUs and DDR3-1600 memory, the X48 will obviously be Intel's enthusiast chipset of choice, and the platform on which it'll base the competition to any higher-clocked Phenom product AMD might have on the shelf by year's end.
X48 isn't a definite yet—Intel wants to test the waters with the X38 first—but if the X38 takes off, expect to see an even faster, more powerful chipset delivered to power the company's first generation of Penryn processors.


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HARRISBURG - Concerns about a spate of drug overdose deaths in Pennsylvania have put the spotlight on legislation to create a state database to monitor illegal use of prescription drugs.
The issue surfaced last month during state Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane's budget hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Passage of monitoring legislation is key to combatting illegal drug use, said Kane. Prescription drugs abuse is often a gateway to heroin use, she said.
"We have a heroin problem," Kane added. "We also have a prescription pill problem."
House lawmakers approved a prescription drug monitoring bill last October sponsored by Rep. Matt Baker, R-68, Wellsboro, chairman of the House Health Committee.
The Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee plans to consider the issue March 19. Baker's bill is before that panel, as well as a bill sponsored by panel chairwoman Sen. Pat Vance, R-31, Camp Hill.
The goal is to create a database under the state Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs with records listing the names of patients receiving prescriptions of controlled substances, the prescribing doctor, pharmacist or other dispenser, the drug dosage and source of payment.
This information would be considered confidential. The House-approved bill grants access to the database to doctors, pharmacists, certain state agencies involved in oversight or licensing investigations and coroners investigating a cause of death.
The database will give doctors and pharmacists the information they need to flag unusual or unacceptable activity, Baker said. For example, if someone received prescriptions from two different doctors for a narcotic and goes to two different pharmacies to get the prescriptions filled, that information will show up on the database, he said.
One of the purposes of the database would be to identify and help individuals suffering with an addiction, he said.
"We are one of only 12 states that does not have a comprehensive prescription drug monitoring program," Baker added. "We are hearing about more and more overdose deaths while we are waiting to get this legislation passed."
There are some outstanding issues that need to be ironed out, such as the extent of law enforcement access to the database through the use of search warrants, Baker said.
Vance said she is trying to draft a provision on this issue that would be acceptable to the coalition of groups supporting the bill.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania is a vocal critic of the bill, saying it goes too far in sacrificing privacy rights.
A major flaw is that the bill allows law enforcement to access the records without court oversight, said Andy Hoover, ACLU legislative director.
He said a provision for records to be kept in the database for six years is too long.
"That length of time creates a situation where private personal information is vulnerable to a security breach," Hoover said, adding that a two-year limit would be more appropriate.


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How do I delete lipsmedia.net profile?
Cancel your account immediately with our Express Online Cancellation service. Paying a small fee of just ( during trial) will push your cancellation request to the top of the queue so it is effective immediately. You will receive an email confirming the details of your cancellation shortly after.
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The Sun Sound Corporation monthly premium expense is substantial for an initial period beginning on the date your paid service starts, and it will proceed until through your next renewal date. To outline, if your trials completes on the 13th of August, and your paid month to month premium begins on the 14th of August, your monthly premium expense provides for you to get Sun Sound Corporation services and benefits until the 13th of September, and after that you will be invoiced on September 14th (which is your date of renewal) for the next monthly period (the 14th of September to the 15th of October). You can cancel this anytime, and you won't be charged.
Along these lines, for that same case, on the off chance that you cancel on the 31st of August, you won't get invoiced on the 14th of September, yet you will still have the benefits until the end of the period that you had paid for. To cancel any or all of your arrangement, call 44-808-189-3382 for Canada and the United States, or 1-347-983-7548 for global clients; these numbers are accessible 0AM to 12PM. When you call to drop, you will need to give information to Sun Sound Corporation regarding why you are doing as such.


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Home >> Course Descriptions >> College of Education
Articulatory and Phonological Disorders
Three semester hours.
This course is designed to introduce the student to the identification, analysis, and remediation of phonologic and articulation disorders of speech. The course introduces the student to these disorders in both the monolingual and bilingual child. Prerequisite: CSDO 3325.
Home - General Information - Student Services -
Academic Undergraduate Regulations -
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Health and Social Care (Applied) - Yr 11 at East Barnet School
Course description
APPLIED GCSE (COLLABORATION WITH Barnet college)
Future opportunities
You could take this course to prepare for advanced level courses such as an A/AS Level in Health and Social Care or you may need to strengthen your grades by completing a foundation or intermediate vocational qualification. With further training, you could go into a job related to Health and Social Care such as a Care Worker, Healthcare Assistant or Playworker You could also go straight into employment and do further training or part time study with the support of your employer.
Further information
To find out more about this qualification, contact us, ask your Connexions Personal Adviser or school/college careers staff.
How to apply
If you want to apply for this course, you will need to contact East Barnet School directly.


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An Analysis of Risk Factors in the North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program Alesha Daughtrey‡
Abstract This study is a first attempt to quantify attrition rates for participants of the North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program and to identify risk factors for attrition. This study finds that Fellows are more likely than other teacher candidates to enter and remain in the classroom. Access to a professional mentor is associated with large and significant reductions in attrition risk for Fellows. Factors such as teaching in a high needs school and teaching in districts geographically proximate to Fellows' home districts were also associated with a smaller, but significant, decrease in attrition risk. These results suggest mentoring and other instructional supports, as well as attention to placement in first teaching positions, are critical to improving retention of Fellows—particularly in high-needs schools.
Introduction Public schools in every state, including North Carolina, struggle with problems of inadequate teacher supply. North Carolina needs more than 10,000 new teachers each year due to enrollment growth, class size reduction initiatives, retirements, and high teacher attrition rates.[1] Attrition is a particular problem for novice teachers. Sixty percent of all teacher candidates choose not to enter the classroom at all after completing their professional training.[2] By the fifth year of teaching, about half of novice teachers have left the profession.[3] Shortages of well-qualified teachers could put school quality at risk and push schools afoul of federal and state requirements to place properly credentialed and effective teachers in every classroom. If most "leavers" depart from high-needs schools with large concentrations of economically disadvantaged or minority students, attrition might also contribute to educational inequities within districts. This study is a first attempt to quantify attrition rates for participants in the North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program and to identify risk factors for attrition.
Background The North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program (NCTFP) was established by the state's General Assembly in 1986 to recruit talented high school students into the teaching profession and provide them with intensive preparation for school-based leadership and success in the classroom. In exchange, Fellows must repay their scholarships with four years of full-time teaching service in the North Carolina public schools. This arrangement is designed to provide the state with a more stable and well-prepared supply of public school teachers. The NCTFP, then, could be an effective response to teacher supply challenges—if Fellows are more resistant to attrition risks than other novice teachers.
The problem of teacher attrition and turnover Schools' struggles to find well-qualified teachers have popularly been described as a "teacher shortage," but this phrase reflects an inaccurate depiction of the staffing problems experienced by public schools. In fact, preparation programs nationwide train more than enough teachers annually to fill current positions. Through the 1980s and 1990s, traditional certification programs multiplied, with an accompanying jump of about 50 percent in the number of teachers trained.[4] As of 2000, there were six million trained teachers in the United States—about double the number needed to fill positions nationwide.[5] The teacher shortage problem, then, is based not just on the low numbers of teachers prepared to enter classrooms, but in large part on the high number of teachers leaving them. North Carolina's teacher attrition rate has averaged 12.8 percent over recent years.[6] Although this rate is well below the national rate of 16.8 percent,[7] it is still problematic for a state in one of the fastest-growing parts of the country.
Highest attrition rates in early and late career teachers Changes in teacher labor markets have contributed to the teacher shortage. Well-educated women and minorities once had few employment opportunities aside from teaching. However, as more prestigious and high-paying careers have opened to these groups, many of these teachers have opted away from the profession.[8]
Typically, teacher attrition patterns follow a U-shaped distribution, with most departures coming either early or late in teachers' careers.[9] Almost a quarter of North Carolina's public school teachers have 20 or more years of experience, presaging a "teacher bust" as these individuals reach eligibility for retirement.[10] Yet retirements are still outpaced by all other reasons for leaving the profession by five to one.11 Indeed, attrition is most common for early career teachers.[12], [13], [14] Finding ways to retain the best-prepared and most effective novices could be a critical component of solving the challenges of teacher supply, especially in high-needs schools and districts or hard-to-staff positions.
Causes of attrition among novice teachers Reducing high novice attrition rates may be one means of assuring a greater supply of well-prepared teachers in high-needs schools, but doing so requires an understanding of why novices leave. Several studies in other states have indicated that in general, teachers prefer to teach in schools with fewer high-needs students (i.e., students who are low-performing, have special needs, or are low-income or minority).[15], [16] North Carolina does not gather data from exiting teachers about whether issues related to school composition or other school-based factors impacted their career decisions. However, novices may have to wait several years before becoming eligible for a preferred school or position; or may even be displaced to a less-desirable school by more senior teachers because transfers among schools and teaching assignments within schools are commonly granted on the basis of seniority. Some novices, then, might choose to leave teaching altogether rather than remaining in an especially difficult position.
Teacher labor markets also tend to be highly localized, with most teachers preferring to teach in schools and districts close to where they grew up.[17] Even when teachers choose to locate farther from home geographically, the pull of home manifests itself in other ways; they predominantly choose areas that are similar to the areas in which they grew up.[18]
School-level supports may be among the most important factors in retaining novice teachers. Novices often feel overwhelmed by and underprepared for the demands of real classrooms, especially in high-needs schools.[19] Prior research suggests that high-needs schools exhibit higher transiency and attrition rates for teachers of all experience levels.[20], [21] Where novices are provided with access to induction programs or mentors to ease their transition into the profession, they are far more likely to remain beyond their first year[22] and to generate achievement gains among their students.[23] North Carolina novices are supposed to receive an Initial Licensure Program (ILP) mentor to guide them through their first three years in the classroom,[24] but since each district oversees its own ILP, quality and availability of mentors may vary widely. National surveys of teachers also show that poor leadership and insufficient support from school administrators are central reasons why many teachers leave their schools.[25], [26], [27]
Low teacher salaries are often cited as the cause for departure from the profession. However, poor school conditions and insufficient teacher support seem more important in teachers' decisions to leave high-needs schools than their compensation.[28] Even so, teacher pay in North Carolina remains about four percent under the national average and well below that of state employees in other fields with equivalent experience and education levels, despite recent modest increases in teacher salary schedules.[29], [30]
Financial and educational costs of teacher attrition Attrition is a particular problem for high-needs schools. These schools often have difficulty attracting qualified candidates to begin with, since they are perceived as having the least support and the most problems with student behavior and violence.[31] Once hired, teachers are twice as likely to leave high-poverty schools as compared to low-poverty schools and equally likely to leave schools with relatively high proportions of minority students.[32], [33] The less-experienced teachers, which these schools are typically forced to hire as replacements, generate lower value-added gains for their students.[34], [35] Thus, teacher attrition can undercut educational quality, particularly in schools that most need well-qualified, effective teachers.
Beyond the intangible costs in educational quality and equity, attrition is also a costly problem from a financial perspective. Hiring and retraining expenses are estimated at a national total of between $2.6 billion[36] and $7.3 billion[37] annually. Since high-needs schools have more severe attrition problems, these costs fall disproportionately on the districts that can least afford them. Given the scope of the problems triggered by attrition in the profession, minimizing teacher attrition could be a cost-effective way for public schools to resolve both a human resources and an educational quality challenge.
The role of the North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program The North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program was primarily designed to increase the number of well-trained teachers entering the classroom, but elements of the program also correspond with research-based best practices for reducing attrition. State-allocated resources provide Fellows with more intensive clinical preparation for the real world of teaching than their peers in the state's traditional or alternate-route certification programs. Fellows also receive additional support, mentoring, and professional development through all four years of undergraduate study.[38] The intensity of Fellows' preparation and the program's emphasis on classroom experience should theoretically render participants more immune than their peers to the real-world stresses of novice teaching.
Fellows are not guaranteed specific teaching placements or assignments that might further cushion any "entry shocks" to the demands of the profession. However, because of the NCTFP's rigorous academic requirements and selection process, it is considered a prestigious program and its graduates are highly sought-after by districts statewide. Thus, NCTFP's alumni are likely to be a special group of novices, with a greater deal of control over where and what they teach than most early-career teachers.
Finally, Fellows have a strong financial disincentive to leave prior to completing a fourth year of teaching, since they must otherwise pay back their scholarship loan. This factor should provide additional motivation to remain in the teaching profession, at least for as long as their service payback period lasts.
Data and methods Data sources and key variables The primary data source used was the North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program master file, which provides information on Fellows' demographic and personal characteristics, as well as data about their academic preparedness and participation in professional development opportunities. Information about the schools and districts in which particular Fellows taught during their service payback period comes from a second NCTFP data file on Fellows' teaching career records. All NCTFP data are based on self-reports given as part of the students' applications to the program, or on written responses to annual audit surveys of Fellows' academic status (during college) and teaching status (during their payback periods). Data on the test scores and demographic composition of schools where Fellows either taught or attended, as well as current statistics on statewide teacher attrition, were publicly available from various reports produced annually by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.
Methods Non-licensure rates for each cohort (1987-2004) were calculated and compared to test for variation over time in the NCTFP's success in fully preparing Fellows to enter the classroom. In order to focus attrition analyses on only those Fellows who completed their professional preparation for teaching, attrition was defined as having occurred only among Fellows who successfully completed their undergraduate education, received teaching licensure, and went on to complete—fully or partially—a teaching service or monetary payback to the NCTFP. Thus, Fellows who failed to complete all program or degree requirements while in college, who were deceased before completing their payback periods, or for whom full personal, high school or college data were not available were not included in the analyses. The study also excluded cohorts graduating after 2000 because they did not have time to complete their service payback by 2004 (the last year of available data). To avoid any distortions in the program data due to NCTFP start-up issues, the first three cohorts were also dropped. This yielded a smaller sample of 3,440 Fellows, or about 51 percent of the full sample.
Constructing a life table for a pooled group of all ten cohorts provides a general picture of the timing of attrition problems within the NCTFP and controls for any distorting variations in attrition rates among the cohorts. Life tables are assembled for each cohort separately to indicate any changes or trends in the timing of attrition that have occurred across cohorts.
To test whether particular personal and school characteristics may be correlated with attrition, the Cox proportional hazards regression model was used,
Hj(t) = h0(t) exp (xjβ)
where Hj(t) is the likelihood that a given Fellow j will terminate her service payback (Hj) at time t. This probability is based on the fact that she has not failed (that is, continued active participation in service payback) up to that point (h0(t)), and on a vector of independent variables xj that are likely to affect the Fellow's decision to leave. These variables include the proportion of low-income students in the school in which she teaches; the proportion of minority students in the school; the school's test scores; her own test scores; her GPAs in both high school and college; her college or university; her ethnicity; the socioeconomic status of her own family of origin; and the presence of a mentor during her initial years in the classroom. To discover the extent to which known risk factors for novice attrition were associated with actual attrition among Fellows, a series of dummy variables indicating presence of these factors were added to the dataset. These included variables for high concentrations of students who exhibited low performance on state standardized tests, who received free or reduced lunch (used as a proxy for socioeconomic status), or who were non-white minorities. A dummy variable for proximity to home indicated whether students taught in their home county or adjoining ones. Finally, to test whether Fellows' decisions to leave the classroom might operate differently over time, a logistic regression function using the same variables as in the Cox model was also estimated.
Limitations of the data The lack of school-level and classroom-level information about Fellows' teaching experiences does not allow for controls for variation in teaching experiences within individual schools. The omission of controls for classroom-level effects may bias estimates, although the direction of this potential bias is unclear. Data about the quality of ILP mentors assigned is also not available.
Importantly, because of omitted variables, none of the results of the models can demonstrate a causal relationship between Fellows' attrition and the characteristics of Fellows or the schools in which they teach and learn. Fellows' career decisions, like those of other novice teachers, are influenced by a number of other variables omitted in this data (e.g., fluctuations in the overall economy, perceived career opportunities in other fields, withdrawals from the labor force, childbearing, or other changes to family structure). However, associative links between attrition and specific characteristics of Fellows or their schools can still be useful to the NCTFP and other teacher preparation programs, in terms of identifying the best leverage points for reducing attrition among graduates.
Results Preparing Fellows to enter the classroom: Non-certification trends Comparison of non-certification rates for the entering Fellows cohorts of 1987 through 2004 show that among 6,704 graduated Fellows, 1,080 of them—or 16.1 percent—did not successfully complete their teaching licensure. However, about 10 percent of these "non-certified" Fellows (111 in total) did go on to complete at least one year of service payback to the NCTFP. This fact suggests that these Fellows may have entered the classroom without having completed all licensure requirements (such as passing Praxis certification exams) or with licensure applications still pending with the state, and did become licensed soon thereafter. The timing of licensure for some Fellows may therefore have biased these non-certification numbers upward.
Figure 1: NCTFP non-certification rates, by cohort (1987-2004)
Source: Author's tabulation of NCTFP data
As shown in Figure 1, non-certification rates for Fellows have declined over time, from a high of nearly 23 percent to just over 13 percent for the most recently graduated cohort. Each of the past six cohorts has had a non-certification rate under the mean rate for the program. Since the very highest non-certification rates occurred in the early years of the program, it is possible that start-up issues for the program contributed substantially to non-certification rates, providing further justification for the exclusion of these cohorts from the models.
Attrition trends Life table analysis (see Table 1) illustrates attrition patterns among Fellows over their four years of teaching experience. The point at which Fellows have graduated, been licensed, and are preparing to enter the classroom is considered Year 0 in this analysis. Approximately 73 percent of licensed Fellows complete four years of teaching service payback. While an overall attrition rate of 27 percent might seem high, it is important to note that the greatest attrition occurs in Year 0, before Fellows have even entered the classroom. National estimates of teacher attrition prior to entering the classroom are approximately 60 percent, with which the NCTFP Year 0 attrition rate of 11.5 percent compares very favorably.
Table 1: Life table analysis for overall attrition among Fellows (1990-2000 pooled cohorts)
Source: Author's tabulation of NCTFP data
The average overall attrition rate across cohorts drops considerably, to 16.1 percent, if we consider only those Fellows who leave after having entered the classroom – i.e., only attrition in Years 1 through 3 – as the state of North Carolina does in calculating its attrition rates. (See Figure 2.)
Figure 2: NCTFP attrition rates after entrance to the classroom, by cohort (1987-2000)
Source: Author's tabulation of NCTFP data
Figure 2 also shows some variation in attrition rates across cohorts. A certain amount of variability can be expected purely as a matter of chance. It is also important to note that the data for more recent cohorts (1998 and later) are right-censored due to the structure of the program. Fellows have seven years after graduation to complete their four years of service payback, so these recent cohorts are still inside the seven-year window and may complete service paybacks at a later date. Attrition rates for these cohorts are thus likely to be biased upward.
Attrition rates among Fellows also vary by the year of teaching experience, as shown previously in Table 1 and again in Figure 3 below. As previously discussed, attrition is highest in Year 0, before Fellows' entry into teaching, then drops during Years 1 and 2 before rising again in Year 3. This pattern of upticks in Year 3 departs from what the literature suggests should be a relatively steady decline in attrition across all years, as the novice Fellows acclimate to their careers in the classroom and near completion of service paybacks to discharge their debts to the state.
Figure 3: NCTFP attrition rates, by year in which departure occurred (1990-2000 cohorts)
Source: Author's tabulation of NCTFP data
Factors associated with Fellows' decisions to leave the classroom A number of personal and school characteristics are demonstrated to impact attrition among novice teachers in general. The Cox proportional hazard regression model is used here to test whether and to what degree these factors may influence a Fellow's decision to leave the profession. Table 2 shows results from the full model. These results are discussed in greater detail below.
Table 2: Change in the hazard ratio of attrition among Fellows
Hazard ratios on the far right of Table 2 indicate the extent to which each covariate in the model affects the risk of attrition. Ratios equal to one indicate a covariate that has no impact on the risk of attrition, ratios greater than one indicate increased risk, and ratios less than one indicate decreased attrition risk. For example, reading across the top row of Table 2, we find that Fellows who are female are 8.4% less likely than males to suffer attrition in any given year, a fairly modest and insignificant percentage. The hazard ratio indicates that female Fellows have 92% of the attrition risk of their male counterparts.
Presence of mentors The variable exhibiting the highest correlation with Fellows' attrition is whether they were mentored. Fellows who reported having an ILP mentor assigned to them had 97 percent less risk of attrition than Fellows who did not receive a mentor. Although substantial effects for mentoring might be expected in light of prior research on novices generally, this is still a large effect. The presence of a mentor also appears to be functioning independently of all other variables; estimates change in magnitude but not in sign or significance when the mentor variable is isolated.
Effects of high-needs schools Contrary to what would be expected from prior research on teacher attrition, teaching in high-needs schools appears to be associated with decreased risk of attrition for Fellows. High concentrations of economically disadvantaged students did not significantly impact attrition risk. Teaching in low-performing schools is associated with a 17 percent decrease in attrition hazard and teaching in high-minority schools with a 27 percent decrease, both of which are significant at the p<.01 level.
Preferences for proximity to home or familiar environments A possible explanation for Fellows' resilience in high-needs environments is that they may have attended similar schools themselves as high school students. They may therefore have a preference to match characteristics of the schools in which they teach with those of their hometown schools. However, controlling for whether Fellows attended high-needs schools themselves did not significantly affect their rates of attrition.
While Fellows do not seem to have a specific preference for matching characteristics of their teaching environments with those they experienced as students, they do exhibit a preference for returning to their hometowns. Fellows who taught in the same county where they had attended high school, or in an adjoining county, showed a 22 percent decrease in attrition hazard. This finding was robust to controls for returning to the same high school they had attended as students, and for whether they taught in school environments similar to that of their own high schools. In this respect, Fellows' preferences for home reflect the preferences of novice teachers overall.
Other factors related to attrition risk In general, individual and family characteristics of Fellows were not associated with their attrition hazard. Interestingly, a Fellow's own socioeconomic status and race showed no significant correlation with hazard of attrition when teaching in schools with high concentrations of economically disadvantaged and minority students. This finding reinforces the likelihood that Fellows are not matching their preferences for teaching environments with those of their home high schools, which are likely to serve students of similar backgrounds as the Fellows.
Prior research suggests that teachers' own cognitive abilities or academic achievements do not correspond with their level of success in the classroom, except at the secondary level, but there is currently no information on how these factors might affect their persistence in the profession. Fellows' academic profiles appear not to correlate significantly with any change in hazard of attrition, except for their cumulative college GPAs. Each .10 point increase in GPA was associated with a 18 percent decrease in attrition risk, when controlling for Fellows' prior academic performance.
Changes in effects over time Results of logistic models were roughly equivalent to those for the Cox model presented in Table 2. The few detectable differences in magnitude were extremely modest and not significant. Thus, the correlations between the above factors and Fellows' attrition decisions appear not to differ in any meaningful way from year to year over the span of their service payback period.
Discussion No data are available to indicate definitively why so many Fellows would not have fulfilled the certification requirement of the NCTFP. The most likely explanation—apart from issues related to timing of licensure—is that some Fellows realized during their training that the teaching profession was not a good career fit for them. It is hard to argue that any teacher preparation program should seek to place unwilling or under-motivated teachers in classrooms. Thus, this could be viewed as "good attrition" that may in fact improve efforts to train and place committed, effective teachers in public school classrooms.
The patterns of rising and falling attrition rates across cohorts also suggest Fellows' responsiveness to changing economic conditions. Recall that there is a four-year lag between a cohort's entrance into the NCTFP and its entry into the workforce. Reduced attrition among Fellows appears to follow a slightly countercyclical pattern, with more Fellows opting to complete service payback when the economy is less robust and the security of a teaching position is attractive in comparison with other opportunities for recent graduates. Conversely, in good economic times, Fellows' attrition might increase because they perceive more, and better paid, opportunities in other fields. This explanation would account for relatively lower attrition among Fellows in the 1990-1991 cohorts, who entered the workforce when the economy was still in recovery from the recession of the early 1990s, and the relatively higher attrition among cohorts a few years later, graduating in the midst of the technology boom. However, until the most recent cohorts have had time to complete their service requirements, it will be difficult to know whether this pattern is borne out by the data.
The fact that Fellows' attrition risk does not decline in a linear fashion between Year 0 and Year 4 of service payback appears counterintuitive. One possible explanation is that the year-by-year accrual of service payback, coupled with the fact that initial teaching licenses must be renewed after the third year,[39] offers a perverse incentive. If Fellows can pay down the bulk of their debts through teaching during their initial licensure period, they could then opt to make a cash payoff of the much-reduced balance—without going to the additional trouble of renewing their teaching licenses and with the possibility of higher earnings in another field.
Another reasonable explanation is that starting salaries for first-year teachers—currently around $30,000—are similar to or higher than those of other first-year professionals. However, because teachers' salaries rise more slowly in the first few years and do not peak until teachers are mid-career, the marginal financial benefit for remaining in the profession erodes fairly quickly. The fact that Fellows have higher than average achievement may make them attractive candidates for entry-level positions outside education, and therefore more susceptible than other novice teachers to leave the teaching profession for financial reasons.
It is likely that effects observed for presence of an ILP mentor in these models are not attributable to mentoring alone. Mentoring programs, though mandated by the state of North Carolina for novice teachers, are implemented at the local level. District administrators, and sometimes even school-level administrators, are responsible for identifying and training master teachers to become mentors, matching them with novice teachers and ensuring the success of those relationships. The quality and efficacy of mentoring programs and relationships is therefore highly dependent on a variety of district- and school-level factors. Districts and schools with strong leadership, an emphasis on cooperation and collaboration among staff, and experienced teachers who are eager to assist new colleagues (formally or informally) are more likely to be able to find appropriate mentor/mentee matches for Fellows and other novices.
Furthermore, the same qualities that foster strong mentoring programs may also be associated with working conditions that are conducive to retaining novice teachers, even in the absence of any mentoring programs. Thus, estimates of hazard reduction as a result of access to mentors are probably overstated. Data on school or district leadership styles, working conditions in the schools in which Fellows teach, and how well formal and informal professional supports function are not included in the currently available data, and thus cannot be controlled for here. Still, given the significance and magnitude of these effects, it is reasonable to conclude that mentoring relationships are a highly important factor in the retention of Fellows and other novice teachers. These results provide evidence in favor of providing all novice teachers with ready and regular access to mentors of consistent and high quality.
The reversal of usual attrition risk factors for novice Fellows teaching in high-needs schools is somewhat puzzling. It is possible that Fellows might have primarily low-needs students in their classrooms, even if they are teaching in schools with predominantly high-needs students. However, at least in the middle and upper grades, it is common practice to assign more advanced (and therefore often lower-needs) classes to the most senior teachers. Therefore Fellows, as novice teachers, are more likely to receive higher proportions of high-needs students than the average for their schools. This would tend, if anything, to bias hazard estimates negatively. Actual attrition risk based on these factors might thus be even lower than indicated here, if we were able to examine classroom rather than school composition.
It is also possible that Fellows differ from most other teachers and novices, either in their motivations as teachers or in their preparation for (and thus satisfaction with) more challenging teaching positions. Because the NCTFP requires a commitment to teaching in the public schools, Fellows are well aware that they are not likely to teach predominantly advantaged students. The NCTFP emphasizes in-school preparation for Fellows, starting with classroom observations and school visits in their first year of college, so they are likely to be better-acclimated than most other novice teachers for the realities of challenging public school environments. As a result, Fellows may have more pedagogical and classroom management tools that are appropriate to high-needs schools than other novice teachers.
Individuals drawn to the NCTFP may also have a preference for teaching in high-needs schools, hoping to make a difference in the educational outcomes of the least-advantaged students. Unfortunately, this hypothesis cannot be tested with available data. Nonetheless, these findings suggest that careful attention to motivations for entering teaching during recruitment of candidates, as well as thorough preparation for teaching in high-needs schools, may be likely to serve any teacher preparation program well in terms of reducing attrition among its graduates.
Implications for policy and practice Strengthening support systems for novices: a key to teacher retention This study finds that the primary factors associated with successfully retaining novice teachers are those related to positive and supportive working conditions within schools, including the presence of formal mentors. Fellows' relatively low rates of attrition in comparison to other novice teachers also suggest that the level of additional preparation that Fellows receive—whether as part of experiences in schools during their four years of college or in extra professional development and enrichment programs—may render them more resilient as they face the pressures of full-time teaching and thereby could improve their retention. The results presented here are in line with those of previous studies examining novice teachers, suggesting that policies and practices that enhance school-level support systems for Fellows and other novices could substantially reduce attrition in the first few years of their careers.[40], [41]
Managing preferences to teach close to home Like other novices, Fellows exhibit a significant preference for teaching close to home. Such preferences among teachers may pose challenges for placing novice teachers in districts with a particularly high demand for new teachers. Targeting Fellows' teaching service placements for high-demand districts may therefore require unique strategies. In particular, program administrators should consider: 1) advocating for pay incentives to shift Fellows' preferences towards teaching in high-demand districts; 2) intensifying recruitment for the Fellows program in the districts or geographic areas with the greatest projected demand for new teachers; or 3) ensuring, at a minimum, an even geographic distribution of students selected for the Fellows program.
Predicting retention for individual Fellows This study finds that among the numerous characteristics of Fellows and their families of origin examined, only one is associated with significant changes in attrition hazard: cumulative college GPA. Based on prior research among novice teachers, it seems fair to surmise that GPA is functioning as an indicator of increased cognitive ability or preparedness in the subject area (especially at the secondary level), either of which might increase retention of Fellows. However, no other element of Fellows' academic records, in high school or early in college, is similarly associated with attrition. This suggests that such characteristics might not prove useful for identifying and targeting those Fellows most likely to complete teaching service payback.
Conclusion The above findings regarding the importance of mentoring and proximity to home for Fellows are very much in line with what is known about novice teacher retention generally; any teacher preparation program would be well served by attending to these concerns. More interesting and unusual is that Fellows seem to be significantly more resilient in high-needs, hard-to-staff schools than other teachers, particularly early-career teachers. In this regard, the implications for other preparation programs are less clear. However, research on urban teacher residency (UTR) programs in Boston, Chicago and elsewhere suggests that their graduates are also more immune to these risk factors for attrition than other novices.42, 43 These programs share NCTFP's ties to a specific geographic region (in the case of UTRs, specific metropolitan areas) and an intensively clinical focus that is paired with one to two years of high-quality coursework on content, methods, and classroom management. It seems possible that these elements constitute best practices for preparing not only high-quality but "attrition-resistant" teachers. Additional study of these issues would be helpful to identify which program elements are most important to reduce attrition, but these preliminary findings provide a promising avenue for future policies and practices to combat novice attrition.
Endnotes [1] North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, "DPI teacher employment," http://www.ncpublicschools.org/work4ncschools/employment/. [2] American Council on Education (ACE), "To Touch the Future: Transforming the Way Teachers Are Taught," (Washington, DC: ACE, 1999). [3] Barnett Berry and Eric Hirsch, "Recruiting and Retaining Teachers for Hard-to-Staff Schools," (Washington, DC: National Governors' Association Center for Best Practices, 2005). [4] C. Emily Feistritzer, "The Making of a Teacher," National Center for Alternative Certification website, http://www.teach-now.org/supply.htm. [5] National Governors' Association (NGA), "Teacher Supply and Demand: Is There a Shortage? Issue Brief," (Washington, DC: NGA, 2000). [6] North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI), "Annual Report on the Reasons Teachers Leave the Profession, 2007-2008" (Raleigh, NC: NCDPI, 2008). [7] The National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (NCTAF), "Unraveling the 'Teacher Shortage' Problem: Teacher Retention Is the Key," (Washington, DC: NCTAF, 2002). [8] North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI), "North Carolina Public Schools Statistical Profile 2007," (Raleigh, NC: NCDPI, 2007). [9] NCDPI, "Annual Report on the Reasons Teachers Leave the Profession, 2007-2008." [10] NCDPI, "North Carolina Public Schools Statistical Profile 2007." [11] NCDPI, "Annual Report on the Reasons Teachers Leave the Profession, 2007-2008." [12[ American Council on Education (ACE), "Tapping the Potential: Retaining and Developing Highly Qualified New Teachers," (Washington, DC: ACE, 2004). [13] NCDPI, "Annual Report on the Reasons Teachers Leave the Profession, 2007-2008." [14] Barnett Berry and Eric Hirsch. "Recruiting and Retaining Teachers for Hard-to-Staff Schools," [15] Benjamin Scafidi, David L. Sjoquist, and Todd R. Stinebrickner, "Race, Poverty, and Teacher Mobility," Economics of Education Review, 26(2002): 145-159. [16] Eric A. Hanushek, Joel F. Kain, and Steven G. Rivkin, "Why Public Schools Lose Teachers," (Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2003). [17] Donald Boyd, et al, "The Draw of Home: How Teachers' Preferences for Proximity Disadvantage Urban Schools," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 24:1(2005): 113-132. [18] Benjamin Scafidi, David L. Sjoquist, and Todd R. Stinebrickner, "Race, Poverty, and Teacher Mobility." [19] Linda Darling-Hammond, "The Challenge of Staffing Our Schools," Educational Leadership, 58:8(May 2001): 12-17. [20] Hamilton Lankford, Susanna Loeb, and James Wyckoff, "Teacher Sorting and the Plight of Urban Schools: A Descriptive Analysis," Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 24.1 (Spring 2002): 37-62. [21] Wake Education Partnership, "Striking a Balance: In Support of Diversity in the Wake County Public School System," (Raleigh, NC: Wake Education Partnership, 2008). [22] Kathleen Fulton, Irene Yoon, and Christine Lee, "Induction into Learning Communities," (Washington, DC: The National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, 2005). [23] The National Commission on Teaching and America's Future. "Unraveling the 'Teacher Shortage' Problem: Teacher Retention Is the Key." [24] North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI), "Teacher recruitment," http://www.ncpublicschools.org/docs/recruitment/materials/preparingmonitoringvisit.pdf . [25] John Marvel, et al, "Teacher Attrition and Mobility: Results of the Teacher Follow-Up Survey, 2004-2005," (Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics, 2007). [26] American Federation of Teachers (AFT), "Meeting the Challenge: Recruiting and Retaining Teachers in Hard-to-Staff Schools," http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports. [27] Robert J. Quinn, and Byllie D'Amato Andrews, "The Struggles of First-Year Teachers: Investigating Support Mechanisms," The Clearing House 77:4(Mar./Apr. 2004): 164-168. [28] American Federation of Teachers, "Meeting the Challenge: Recruiting and Retaining Teachers in Hard-to-Staff Schools." [29] NCDPI, "Salary guides," http://www.ncpublicschools.org/fbs/finance/salary. [30] North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE). "2008 Legislative Session 'Wins,'" http://www.ncae.org/Images/Users/6/Wins%20Flyer.pdf. [31] American Federation of Teachers (AFT), "Meeting the Challenge: Recruiting and Retaining Teachers in Hard-to-Staff Schools," http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports. [32] Richard M. Ingersoll, "Teacher Turnover and Teacher Shortages: An Organizational Analysis," American Education Research Journal 38:3(2001): 499-534. [33] John Marvel, et Al, "Teacher Attrition and Mobility: Results of the Teacher Follow-Up Survey, 2004-2005," (Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics, 2007). [34] National Governors' Association, "Teacher Supply and Demand: Is There a Shortage? Issue Brief." [35] Helen F. Ladd, Charles Clotfelter, and Jacob Vigdor, "So School Accountability Systems Make It More Difficult for Low Performing Schools to Attract and Retain High Quality Teachers?" Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 23:2(2004): 251-271. [36] Alliance for Excellent Education. "Tapping the Potential: Retaining and Developing High Quality New Teachers." 2004:18. http://www.all4ed.org/files/archive/publications/TappingThePotential/TappingThePotential.pdf. [37] The National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (NCATF), "The High Cost of Teacher Turnover," (Washington, DC: NCATF, 2007). [38] Gladys Graves, interview by author, 29 July 2008. [39] North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI), "Steps to a NC License," http://www.ncpublicschools.org/licensure/steps. [40] Kathleen Fulton, Irene Yoon, and Christine Lee, "Induction into Learning Communities," 2005. [41] The National Commission on Teaching and America's Future. [42] Barnett Berry et al., "Creating and Sustaining Urban Teacher Residencies: A New Way to Recruit, Prepare and Retain Effective Teachers in High-needs Districts," (Washington, DC: Aspen Institute, 2008). [43] Linda Darling-Hammond, "A Future Worthy of Teaching for America," Phi Delta Kappan, 89:10(2008): 730-733.
‡Alesha Daughtrey received her Master of Public Policy in 2009 from the Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University and her Bachelor's degree in English (with secondary teaching licensure) from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1997. Daughtrey currently leads research initiatives at the Center for Teaching Quality, a national nonprofit focused on policy, research, and teacher leadership to improve student learning and advance the teaching profession.


text:
Nexus FabricPath
Topic: FabricPath Authentication
Join the world's most highly respected and experienced team of CCIE instructors for 6+ hours of comprehensive Data Center v2 video training. This online course is taught by Brian McGahan, CCIEx4 #8593 (Routing & Switching, Data Center, Security, Service Provider), CCDE #2013::13 (Design). Follow along as Brian explains and demonstrates the technologies related to Cisco's Nexus Switching - FabricPath, and how the technology fits into Cisco's modern Data Center v2 design. This course is part of the CCIE Data Center v2 Bundle.


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Being, the oppressed
NOTE: Original post by Salam Adil restored after a little "Konfusion".
They say "If you go looking for trouble, you will find it". April Girls goes looking for beauty and finds it in abundance. She introduces herself as:
I believe in God, in humanity, in non-violent communication and in a global-unity-in-diversity that allows each and every culture its own specialness, while setting them all in the context of a universal care and fairness that honors the uniqueness of each.And she takes a unique perspective on world events. Here she writes about the second bombing of the Samarra shrine:
There are 6,601,676,326 ways to God. (Right now.) That many ways to worship, to think, to talk, to act, to take in this world. Has that not been realized? So what is with all this 'holier than thou' attitudes running rampant? And on a universal level I have to add! What is going on? Do you not believe you are walking on the One True Path? Is that not enough? Does your path force you to hurt, rape, murder and destroy this planet?


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Mourinho offers 'congratulations' to officials after Chelsea loss to Sunderland
Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho fired a thinly-veiled criticism at the officials after his unbeaten home record in the Premier League was ended in a 2-1 loss to Sunderland.
The Blues' title bid was severely dented on Saturday night as Fabio Borini converted a late penalty at Stamford Bridge after Cesar Azpilicueta tackled Jozy Altidore in the area.
There did appear to be contact between the players before referee Mike Dean pointed to the spot.
Mourinho, though, appeared frustrated by Dean's performance throughout, before also seemingly criticising referees' chief Mike Riley in a short and curt post-match interview with Sky Sports.
"I just want to say four things and I'm sorry because if you ask me more questions, I'll repeat exactly the same thing," said Mourinho, who had not spoken at his previous three press conference following his fine for entering the pitch during a defeat at Aston Villa last month.
"Congratulations to my players because they gave what they have and what they don't have.
"Congratulations to Sunderland, because they won.
"Congratulations to Mike Dean, because he made a fantastic performance.
"And congratulations to Mike Riley, because what they did during the season was fantastic for the way the championship is going.
"Congratulations to all of them – and I have nothing more to say."
Mourinho walked away from the post-match interview when asked to expand on his comments, and was similarly short on answers in the press conference that followed.
"I will not wait for your questions, I'm so sorry about it," said the Chelsea boss.
"But in four quick points I can say everything I want to say, so we are not going to waste time, because every question you can ask me I will answer exactly the same way.
"So we stick with four quick points.
"The first point is to congratulate my players, they did everything they could, they fought, they played from the first to the last second.
"And I think they deserve that.
"Sometimes we praise the players when we win, I think it's fair to praise my players after a defeat.
"Secondly, congratulations to Sunderland, it doesn't matter how or why, or in which way they won, but they won, they won the three points, and it's three fantastic points for them.
"So I think it's also fair to congratulate them.
"The third point, I want to congratulate again, but this time is Mike Dean.
"I think his performance was unbelievable, and I think when referees they have unbelievable performances I think it's fair also that managers we give them this.
"So fantastic performance, he came here with one objective, the objective of making a fantastic performance and he did that.
"And fourth, I think it's also fair, congratulations to Mike Riley, because he's the referees' boss, and what they are doing during the whole season is fantastic, especially in the last couple of months, especially in matches involving the teams that were in the title race, it's absolutely fantastic.
"And I also congratulate Mr Mike Riley, thank you."


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It's nearing the end of the year and that means everyone is taking a look back at the best and worst of the past twelve months. Bloomberg Businessweek recently published a "Best Books of '14," list to their site, and five Princeton University Press titles were selected as some of the best of the year!
Mervyn King, former governor of the Bank of England, got things going; "Charles Calomiris and Stephen Haber's Fragile by Design is a magnificent study of the economics and politics of banking."
Bjorn Wahlroos, Chairman of Nordea Bank AB (NDA), selected Edmund S. Phelps's Mass Flourishing: How Grassroots Innovation Created Jobs, Challenge, and Change and wrote, "[Phelps] redraws many political front lines and provides us with an answer to those who believe more public funding for investment and innovation is the road forward for our stagnant economies. It is a marvelous book that deserves to be read by everyone, but particularly by those entrusted with the design of the European future."
Jeffrey Lacker, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond selected both Fragile by Design: The Political Origins of Banking Crises and Scarce Credit by Calomiris and Haber and Human Capitalism: How Economic Growth has Made Us Smarter–and More Unequal by Brink Lindsey as his must reads of the year.
"[Fragile by Design is] hands down the best single book for understanding the historical journey that laid the groundwork for the financial crisis."
"[Lindsey] argues the case that economic inequality is more deeply intertwined with human capital accumulation and the process of economic growth than you thought."
Dan Fuss, vice chairman of Loomis Sayles & Co., named The Limits of Partnership: U.S.-Russian Relations in the Twenty-First Century by Angela E. Stent as his choice for favorite book of 2014, while Satyajit Das, author of Traders, Guns, and Money selected The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century by Jürgen Osterhammel to round out the list of PUP titles. "Professor Jorgen Osterhammel's fine book is anything but a linear recitation of events. Instead, it swoops, shimmies, and carves ellipses and spirals through the facts to give readers a remarkable picture of the 19th century, which has shaped much of the present world."
Congratulations to all the PUP authors on the list! The rest of the article can be found, here.


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Phone: 972-883-2158
Room ECSS 4.524, Mailstop EC33
Department of Electrical Engineering
The University of Texas at Dallas
800 West Campbell Road
Richardson, TX 75080
via Ward Ober Lab
via my Google Scholar profile
Department of Electrical Engineering,
Department of Biomedical Engineering,
University of Texas at Dallas.
Adjunct Professor
Department of Immunology,
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.
Research Interests
Our research interests involve the development and use of bionanotechnology approaches to the study of biological problems.
In particular, we work on experimental and image processing approaches to fluorescence microscopy with a specific emphasis on
the detection of single molecules.
All potential students wishing to join our research group please see the following webpage:
Graduate Student Positions


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The Gershon Iskowitz Foundation and the Art Gallery of Ontario are joining forces to raise awareness of the visual arts in Canada with the renaming of an award established by the foundation 20 years ago.
The Gershon Iskowitz Prize at the AGO, administered by the foundation, will continue to recognize the contributions of Canadian artists and include an exhibition of the recipients' work at the AGO, accompanied by a publication. In addition, the AGO will become home to the archives of expressionist painter Gershon Iskowitz (1921-1988), which includes sketchbooks, early works on paper and memorabilia.
© Art Gallery of Ontario 2007
Created by Iskowitz in 1985 to acknowledge significant contributions by Canadian artists, the prize is awarded by a selection committee that will now include an AGO curator. Past recipients of the $25,000 prize include Janet Cardiff and George Burns Miller, Stan Douglas, Max Dean, Vera Frenkel, Rodney Graham and John Massey.
"Gershon recognized the importance of grants in the evolution of artists," says foundation chair Jeanette Hlinka. "It was a grant that enabled him to achieve his distinctive style. By partnering with the AGO, we elevate the prize's stature and strengthen the commitment of both organizations to Canadian art and artists."
"The addition of the Iskowitz archives to our collection is a jewel in our crown," says Matthew Teitelbaum, the AGO's Michael and Sonja Koerner director, and CEO. "We are now the study centre for Gershon Iskowitz, as we are for a number of other important Canadian artists including Michael Snow, Paterson Ewen, Betty Goodwin, Greg Curnoe, Jack Bush and Kazuo Nakamura." The archives complement the 60 Iskowitz works already in the AGO collection – the largest holding of any Canadian museum.
Born in Kielce, Poland in 1921, Iskowitz was a Second World War survivor who briefly studied painting with Oscar Kokoschka in Munich. In 1949 he immigrated to Canada, settled in Toronto and began painting landscapes of the city and Parry Sound. A grant from the Canada Council in 1967 enabled Iskowitz to formalize his expressionistic style. His works have been shown across Canada, the United States and Europe and are part of numerous collections, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Tel-Aviv Museum and the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art.
The winner of the 2007 Gershon Iskowitz Prize at the AGO will be announced in the spring.


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|2010-06-27, 08:58
|Link #41
Mama there goes that man!
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: UK
|2010-06-27, 09:26
|Link #43
Mama there goes that man!
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: UK
Also, I just read the translations in their entirety and I'm probably wrong but it seems Sally Po is dead. Also, it'll be interesting to see how Dorothy has changed for her to become the president in a time of peace.
|2010-06-27, 09:31
|Link #44
Powered by AMD Athrun 64
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Washington, DC
Before adopting Total Pacifism:
*Episode 14: When she called out Romefeller on stage. This was during her "Revenge" phase, when she learned that it was Romefeller and OZ who killed both her adoptive and real fathers:
Relena: You're all very mistaken. And the Gundams will come to rectify your mistakes. On behalf of those who're trampled by this whitewash!
*Episode 16: When she encouraged Heero to kill Zechs before discovering that Zechs was her brother
After adopting Total Pacifism:
*Episode 29: Relena admits that she's still learning about Total Pacifism
*Episode 33: After surviving an assassination attempt by Romefeller, Relena had doubts about Total Pacifism, before Quatre calmed her down:
Relena: Maybe "Total Pacifism'' is nothing but nonsense spouted only by those unable to fight.
Also forgot to mention that after Quatre calmed Relena down and encouraged her to follow her beliefs, notice that Relena was in a trance-like state.
Last edited by Washu-Chan; 2010-06-27 at 10:20.
|2010-06-27, 10:18
|Link #46
Mama there goes that man!
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: UK
|2010-06-27, 10:37
|Link #47
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2009
Dorothy supports herself and what she believes to be good for everyone else from her point of view. Let's just put it that way. I mean she wanted the ultimate war to bring the world to its senses after she lost her father.
In Battlefield of Pacifists, she's openly disappointed about Heero and Relena's reunion not being "passionate" so one can at least say she's perceptive about those two. Strikes me as the sort of person who get up in other people's business a lot. Just look at her appearance in EW Special Edition.
|2010-06-27, 12:13
|Link #48
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Indiana
*pops in* Man, after years and years, I finally make an account here. Oh Wing, what you do to me.
Yikes, what a curve ball. I thought W was long dead and closed. I'm excited at the concept of more, but equally scared. If it's done well it could be brilliant... or it could just read like awful fic. I would hope Sumisawa would do a good job though.
To me this looks branched from the EW manga ending. I'm guessing Aurora is Relena and she's cryogenetically frozen for some reason. The fact that Dr. J seems to have made the chamber leads me to believe Heero was in on it.
Also, I'm on the boat for the theory that Duo is watching over Heero's kid while daddy is MIA. Though, I think Heero would punch Duo in the face if he knew Duo was calling his son 'Duo' as well. I'm guessing the kid's name of 'Duo' is an alias, which makes me wanna say '1xR' because the kid's name would have been public knowledge were he Relena's kid.
Though, we could all be wrong and it's just a repeat of Episode Zero with Duo taking in a streetrat. That would be kinda lame though, Idea reuse much?
Also, I'd hate to see Sally dead. She was my favourite female after Relena.
Does anyone have scans or transcripts of the whole prologue?
In regard to the 'official' status being granted almost exclusively to animated stuff, thus counting out Ground Zero and Blind Target... what of the Blind Target radio drama? I tend to consider bringing on the seiyuu to be a sign of at least semi-canon.
President Catalonia... we're all going to die. =X
Last edited by akigakuyuu; 2010-06-27 at 12:16. Reason: Forgot the initial reason I was posting. 9_9 Go me.
|2010-06-27, 12:14
|Link #49
Mama there goes that man!
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: UK
I haven't read Battlefield of Pacifists yet(really want to but haven't been able to find it on the net) but that's interesting she wanted Heero and Relena to be a couple.
Her appearance in EW was somewhat surreal in my opinion with her having trucks on standby to take the people to Brussels but no one could've "goaded" them to fight like she did.
|2010-06-27, 12:15
|Link #50
~Night of Gales~
Join Date: Dec 2005
A fair payback, not?
|2010-06-27, 12:23
|Link #51
Mama there goes that man!
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: UK
|2010-06-27, 12:30
|Link #52
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Indiana
I'd be fine with the 2xH. That's on my list of prefered pairings and it always seemed rather canon-hinted to me. Would Duo be fronting as 'Father Maxwell' then, or did he take vows... are vows taken in Gundam, I wonder... as a priest post-child. Something happen to Hilde? It would be rather annoying if they ditched Sally and Hilde.
Though, the whole wearing a braid thing doesn't automatically make me think it's his kid.
I think the 'unpleasant stare' line just has us all going because we haven't heard from Heero yet. haha. Come on guyz, tell us the kid's eye colour~ Is it colbalt, prussian, or light blue? Hahaha.
|2010-06-27, 12:39
|Link #53
Mama there goes that man!
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: UK
I'm sure Hilde's fine.
If the boy was someone else's son, I think it would have been hinted.
|2010-06-27, 13:01
|Link #55
Mama there goes that man!
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: UK
|2010-06-27, 13:14
|Link #57
Mama there goes that man!
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: UK
|2010-06-27, 13:41
|Link #58
Join Date: Jun 2010
(lol, hi, another migrant from the LJ discussion. o/)
Another one here who would really like to see some actual scans, but... Hm... I'm going with either the speculation that "Princess Aurora/Sleeping Beauty" is either Relena or that it's a 1xR daughter, but honestly we don't know enough yet to make much of a leap of faith for any of this. Either way it makes perfect sense to focus the story on the child of the main characters of the series.
Duo's kid, I'm assuming he's either masquerading as a priest and it's a 2xH baby or he really is a priest and it's an adopted orphan. Or maybe he and Hilde adopted, who knows! Either way, he's got a really lame pun going with the name. If it's Hilde's I hope she popped on the head for it :P
As for Kathy we haven't even heard her speak yet so we still can't say squat about her.... We don't even know her age. Or anyone's age. It's kinda annoying that they gave an arbitrary year without saying exactly how much time has passed ("middle aged" or "elderly" Duo could mean anywhere from 20 to 50 years, after all...)
Always knew Dorothy would take over the world.
(On the topic of the side mangas, I always considered Blind Target the only- or most- canon one because it was a radio drama... but that's just me. I also have never gotten to read BoP.)
|2010-06-27, 13:51
|Link #59
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Indiana
Middle-aged says 40+ and elderly is more, but since the pilots were all the same age...
Oh god, Hilde's become the sister and it's a rewrite of Duo's Episode Zero story. Man.
I assume if the pilots are like... say 40-45... Then Sally is/would have been about 44-51. I'd peg Kathy at 20ish? Normally I'd peg this new 'Duo' (are we going to have to make up nicknames for them like the multiple Syaorans in Tsubasa?) at about 15 normally. Haha, that'd keep consistent with the Wing ages. The kid struck me as being younger for some reason though. Which doesn't even make sense becaue we barely got a description of him. I'm just going crazy.
|2010-06-27, 14:18
|Link #60
Join Date: Jun 2010
I doubt they'll repeat Duo's story XD Though Duo might be lame and do something like that, I doubt Hilde would though.
If they were 15 (the Wingkids, I shall dub them), that would be hilarious. And you know what? I bet that's what they're aiming for.... Though you're right, something about him comes off as younger. That he didn't speak, maybe? Or that Duo spoke for him. if he is younger, and this novel is a branch to a sequel, maybe they would intend for them to be 15 in the sequel. Ahhh, speculation...
On the idea of that "Duo" being just a codename and Duo's looking after the 1xR kid, though, I just suddenly got this mental image of Heero punching the shit out of Duo for growing his kid's hair out into a stupid braid while he was away >B|
|frozen teardrop, glory of the losers, gundam wing
|Thread Tools


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Infographic: Batman and the history of the bat-suit
Really enjoyed this.
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The Real Truth About Boring Men
Ann Voskamp:
Romance isn't measured by how viral your proposal goes. The internet age may try to sell you something different, but don't ever forget that viral is closely associated with sickness – so don't ever make being viral your goal. Your goal is always to make your Christ-focus contagious – to just one person.
Losing Weight You Weren't Meant to Carry
Nick Horton:
Ladies, I want to help you lose a burden you weren't meant to carry. But first, you need to take a minute and read Proverbs 31:10-31. Done? Okay, let's talk.
Do you feel the weight? Few women read this passage without guilt. Many are under the impression that they must live out this example to be a worthwhile wife. "Wife" guilt morphs into "mommy" guilt and each verse adds a little weight. Stone, upon stone, upon stone, added to the back of over-burdened and exhausted women that are already on an arduous performance treadmill set to maximum incline.
I want to help you take some of that weight off. Ladies, Proverbs 31 isn't a checklist or a performance guideline for you.
5 Things to Do Before Leaving Your Church
Thabiti Anyabwile:
Everyone will leave their church at some point. Whether God calls us home to glory, move to another city, or decide to try a different local church, we are going to leave.
Leaving a local congregation should be one of the most difficult decision we face. It should be filled with the recollection of our love for the saints, their love for us, our service together in the name of our Lord, and our sorrows and joys in the faith. A church is family and we ought never feel it easy to leave family–even an unhealthy family.
But we do sometimes find ourselves at that crossroads. When we've decided to leave, there are at least five things we want to do before we go.


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Table of contents
All Cheats & Hints
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text:
While taking the subway to work into Manhattan, Sean O'Connell sees a familiar scene. He has to endure the same guy being a jerk-off to his wife every morning. So he channeled his rage into one helluva Top 10 list for us here at Scene-Stealers.
Sean has compiled some of the worst husbands in movie history and boy, there are some real doozies. Can you say "over the top"? Coinciding with that notion, two of the performances were actually Oscar nominated. Click here to see the Top 10 Worst Movie Husbands.
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In this section we present some of the findings we obtained through our observation of botnets. Data is sanitized so that it does not allow one to draw any conclusions about specific attacks against a particular system, and protects the identity and privacy of those involved. Also, as the data for this paper was collected in Germany by the German Honeynet Project, information about specific attacks and compromised systems was forwarded to DFN-CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) based in Hamburg, Germany. We would like to start with some statistics about the botnets we have observed in the last few months:
A typical DDoS-attacks looks like the following examples: The controller enters the channel and issues the command (sometimes even stopping further spreading of the bots). After the bots have done their job, they report their status:
Both attacks show typical targets of DDoS-attacks: FTP server on port 21/TCP or IRC server on port 6667/TCP.
(Note:We sanitized the links so the code is not accidently downloaded/executed)
As you can see, the attackers use diverse webspace providers and often obfuscate the downloaded binary. The parameter "1" in the command tells the bots to execute the binary once they have downloaded it. This way, the bots can be dynamically updated and be further enhanced. We also collect the malware that the bots download and further analyze it if possible. In total, we have collected 329 binaries. 201 of these files are malware as an analysis with "Kaspersky Anti-Virus On-Demand Scanner for Linux" shows:
Most of the other binary files are either adware (a program that displays banners while being run, or reports users habits or information to third parties), proxy servers (a computer process that relays a protocol between client and server computer systems) or Browser Helper Objects.
An event that is not that unusual is that somebody steals a botnet from someone else. It can be somewhat humorous to observe several competing attackers. As mentioned before, bots are often "secured" by some sensitive information, e.g. channel name or server password. If one is able to obtain all this information, he is able to update the bots within another botnet to another bot binary, thus stealing the bots from another botnet. For example, some time ago we could monitor when the controller of Botnet #12 stole bots from the seemingly abandoned Botnet #25.
We recently had a very unusual update run on one of our monitored botnets: Everything went fine, the botnet master authenticated successfully and issued the command to download and execute the new file. Our client drone downloaded the file and it got analyzed, we set up a client with the special crafted nickname, ident, and user info. But then our client could not connect
to the IRC server to join the new channel. The first character of the nickname was invalid to use on that IRCd software. This way, the (somehow dumb) attacker just lost about 3,000 bots which hammer their server with connect tries forever.
Something which is interesting, but rarely seen, is botnet owners discussing issues in their bot channel. We observed several of those talks and learned more about their social life this way. We once observed a small shell hoster hosting a botnet on his own servers and DDoSing competitors. These people chose the same nicknames commanding the botnet as giving support for their shell accounts in another IRC network. Furthermore, some people who run botnets offer an excellent pool of information about themselves as they do not use free and anonymous webhosters to run updates on their botnets. These individuals demonstrate how even unskilled people can run and leverage a botnet.
Our observations showed that often botnets are run by young males with surprisingly limited programming skills. The scene forums are crowded of posts like "How can i compile *" and similar questions. These people often achieve a good spread of their bots, but their actions are more or less harmless. Nevertheless, we also observed some more advanced attackers: these persons join the control channel only seldom. They use only 1 character nicks, issue a command and leave afterwards. The updates of the bots they run are very professional. Probably these people use the botnets for commercial usage and "sell" the services. A low percentage use their botnets for financial gain. For example, by installing Browser Helper Objects for companies tracking/fooling websurfers or clicking pop-ups. A very small percentage of botnet runners seems highly skilled, they strip down their IRCd software to a non RFC compliant daemon, not even allowing standard IRC clients to connect.
Another possibility is to install special software to steal information. We had one very interesting case in which attackers stole Diablo 2 items from the compromised computers and sold them on eBay. Diablo 2 is a online game in which you can improve your character by collecting powerful items. The more seldom an item is, the higher is the price on eBay. A search on eBay for Diablo 2 shows that some of these items allow an attacker to make a nice profit. Some botnets are used to send spam: you can rent a botnet. The operators give you a SOCKS v4 server list with the IP addresses of the hosts and the ports their proxy runs on. There are documented cases where botnets were sold to spammers as spam relays: "Uncovered: Trojans as Spam Robots ". You can see an example of an attacker installing software (in this case rootkits) in a captured example.


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Download of the Day: CDBurnerXP 220.127.116.114
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Our Download of the Day today is CDBurnerXP 22.214.171.1244.
CDBurnerXP is a free application to burn CDs and DVDs, including Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs. It also includes the feature to burn and create ISOs, as well as a multilanguage interface. Everyone, even companies, can use it for free. It does not include adware or similar malicious components.
Key Features include:
burn all kinds of discs
audio-CDs with or without gaps between tracks
burn and create ISO files
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create bootable discs
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Operating Systems: Windows 2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista/Windows 7
The latest version includes the following changes:
Changes in Version 126.96.36.1994
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Changed/Improved Feature :
* Simplified ISO burning dialog
* Simplified status bar information a bit
* Made audio sizebar more useful if no or a finalised disc is inserted
Fixed Bugs :
! Fixed a COMException when starting the audio burning process
! Fixed a COMException while waiting for appropriate media
! Fixed an incorrect "You did not select a burning device" error message
! Fixed a duplicate "do you want to save" message box when shutting down
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text:
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|Scientific Classification
Family Ankylosauridae
Familia: Nodosauridae
Familia: Scelidosauridae
Ankylosaurs are a group of extinct armored dinosaurs belonging to the taxonomic superfamily Ankylosauria. Their name Ankylosaur means "stiff lizard", and they are often called the armadillos of the dinosaur world because of the bony armor covering their back and head. Many also wielded a club on the end of their tale that would be used as a defensive weapon.[5]
They have been found on every continent except Africa.[6] In 1988 researchers on an expedition to the South Pole discovered a fossilized Ankylosaur[5] It was the first dinosaur ever discovered in Antarctica and was thus named Antarctopelta, meaning 'Antarctic shield'.[7] They had a toothless beak (similar to birds) combined with small teeth on the sides of the mouth and the lower jaw. [8] This indicates they were herbivores that probably fed mainly on tender ground level plants.[5]
Ankylosaurs are found in abundance in the fossil record due to the size and durability of their bones. Most creation scientist interpret the existence of such fossils to mean that the organism was alive at the time of the global flood, which is described in the Biblical book of Genesis. Furthermore because the text says that all land animals were placed on Noah's ark, if correct the dinosaur was also included in their number, and became extinct very recently.
Ankylosaurs are quadrupeds (walk of four legs) with short, powerful limbs and possess the bird-like hips similar to all ornithischians.[6] There are two taxonomic families (Ankylosauridae, Nodosauridae) that are primarily distinguished by the differences in design of the knobs and spikes in their armor.[5] Nodosauridae species have large spikes protruding from their bodies, and narrower heads. They also lacked the bony clubs at the end of their tails possessed by most Ankylosaurids.[6]
Their type genus Ankylosaurus was only about 6 ft tall, but measured between 18-35 ft in length and weighed an estimated 2-5 tons. Its skull was broad and short with a thick armored helmet and cone-shaped horns on the back of its head. Its neck and back were also covered with thick hide and rows of bony lumps and spikes.[5] The bones of its head and back were fused together to increase their strength and shielding capability, and its skin had bony plates embedded within forming scales called osteoderms (or scutes) similar to those possessed by alligators or armadillos. Its most remarkable defensive feature was its tail, which was used as a club and capable of producing sufficient force to break bone during impacts. It was made of ossified (bony) tendons and capped at the end with several large osteoderms.[9]
Polacanthus is somewhat smaller - about 4 ft tall and between 13-18 ft long. But the spikes on its back were much more pronounced, pointing outward on both sides.[10] To date no skull of Polacanthus has been found.[10][11] The genus that was once placed in the family Nodosauridae due to their lack of tail clubs.[5] More recently, it has been found that they were more closely related to the Ankylosauridae. Opinions still vary about how to place them as they are distinct from other species in the two Families of Ankylosauria. Some suggest that they belong to a subfamily of the Ankylosauridae (Polacanthinae), while others believe they should be assigned their own family Polacanthidae.[6]
Nodosauridae is a lesser known Ankylosaur whose name means "node lizard"[5] or "knobbed lizard". Its type genus Nodosaurus was between 13 to 20 feet long and also possessed bony dermal plates covering the top of its body. It may have had spikes along its side as well. Nodosaurids had a club-less tail and it is thought they probably dropped to the ground when threatened so that only its armored back and sides were exposed.[12]
- ↑ Ankylosauridae by Wikispecies.
- ↑ Nodosauridae by Wikispecies.
- ↑ Scelidosauridae by Wikispecies.
- ↑ Incertae sedis Ankylosauria by Wikispecies.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 Gish, Duane T., Dinosaurs by Design. Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 1992. p36.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Ankylosauria by Wikipedia
- ↑ Antarctopelta by Wikipedia
- ↑ Ankylosauridae by Wikipedia.
- ↑ Ankylosaurus
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Gish, p37.
- ↑ Polacanthus by Wikipedia
- ↑ Nodosaurus by Wikipedia
External links
- Ancient Terra Cotta Depicts Dinosaur?--or "Horned Toad? by OOPARTS & ANCIENT HIGH TECHNOLOGY
- First or Second Century B.C. Colima Toad, or Ankylosaur? by OOPARTS & ANCIENT HIGH TECHNOLOGY