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As a collector of Tibetan Buddhist art, Alice Kandell was off the radar screen of the art world, keeping her exquisite objects in what had been the dining room of her Manhattan home. Her collection, unique in quality and size, "has been a secret," according to Dr. Kandell, a retired child psychologist, "never seen except by friends."
It's a secret no more. A sumptuously illustrated book, "A Shrine for Tibet: The Alice S. Kandell Collection," with essays by renowned Tibetan scholar Robert Thurman and art expert Marylin Rhie, has been published by Tibet House US. The artworks – gilded statues and scroll paintings, as well as banners, painted furniture, and ritual objects – are also the centerpiece of an exhibition, "In the Realm of the Buddha," at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington, D.C., through July 18.
"None of the objects have been shown publicly," according to Debra Diamond, the Sackler's curator of South and Southeast Asian Art. Not only are the works unfamiliar, but the manner in which they're displayed is a departure. Organized as a sacred shrine rather than set on pedestals or hung on walls with labels, the assembled pieces, Ms. Diamond says, "offer a powerful aesthetic revelation."
Julian Raby, director of the Freer and Sackler Galleries, calls stepping inside "the hallowed space of the magnificent Tibetan shrine room ... an immersive encounter."
The installation marks "a new direction," Diamond says, aimed at engaging people's emotions. Mr. Raby agrees, predicting that entering the shrine will "override the authority of the rational mind" and "activate emotional understanding."
A pronounced effect of sensation overload is unmistakable. Intense red and gold colors and teeming imagery saturate the eyes, almost rendering a viewer snow-blind. While most blockbuster exhibitions feature 200 works spread over multiple galleries, this shrine crams 250 brightly colored paintings, glittery statues, and ritual objects into one dimly lit, 14-by-20-foot room. Liturgical music floats through the air, heightening the emotional clout. The intention is to duplicate an actual shrine in a Tibetan temple or an affluent family's house.
Kandell's curator is Philip Rudko, an art conservator and Russian Orthodox monk who began the collection 40 years ago and merged his pieces with hers in 1994. He says that seeing the profusion of religious works as presented in their original context should give the impression of "an overwhelming totality" into which the individual pieces meld.
The vivid cinnabar, gold, and blue hues, Mr. Rudko adds, "inspire the individual to be in tune with the environment and make a person feel good." In the arid Himalayas, these brilliant mineral pigments must have created a sizable jolt, seducing the eye and directing the mind to contemplation.
The images symbolize deities of all persuasions: male, female, fierce, and friendly. But they are not icons to worship – more like doorways to enlightenment. As Ganden Thurman, executive director of Tibet House US in New York (and Robert Thurman's son), puts it, "That golden image of a Buddha represents human potential to become enlightened" and the possibility of attaining "the ultimate power of knowledge, wisdom, and compassion – a power that ennobles rather than corrupts."
Another rarity is the fact that these works from the 13th to 19th century are complete, in pristine condition. A gilded Tara figure, for example, radiates benevolence with her gem-encrusted crown, necklace, and earrings intact. Prayers and jewels are still sealed in the lotus base.
Many of the pieces were smuggled out of Tibet in the early 1960s by aristocratic families who packed them on mules and crossed the mountains seeking sanctuary in India. The sacred art from their family shrines became currency for these refugees, who surrendered the pieces to Rudko on the condition that he keep them in a devotional setting. "Had these pieces been left in Tibet, they would not exist today," Kandell acknowledges.
Ganden Thurman offers a guesstimation that, after the full-scale Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950 (or "peaceful liberation" in the Chinese version), the People's Liberation Army destroyed 95 percent of Tibet's material culture. Bejeweled gold and silver statues in monasteries "loaded with loot and defended by a bunch of monks committed to nonviolence," he says, were melted down into ingots, hauled away, or smashed.
Rudko agrees that "a vast majority of sites and materials were destroyed during the Red Guard period" of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76). Around 6,250 Tibetan monasteries, furnished with sublime art, were razed. Only 13 remain today. A Tibetan adage says that when a pickpocket meets a saint, all he sees are the other man's pockets. To young Maoists intent on eradicating the past, Tibet's holy sites were anachronisms to be plundered.
In 1959 the country's spiritual and secular leader, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, fled to Dharamsala, India, to set up a government-in-exile. In a foreword to the book on the shrine, the Dalai Lama thanks Kandell for preserving his country's cultural heritage and for sharing it with the public. In a world where most think of Tibet as a primitive land of yaks and yurts, the presentation of its sacred objects "will certainly help visitors to form a deeper appreciation of the richness and refinement of Tibetan culture," he writes, adding his hope that "it may inspire further efforts to save Tibetan culture from disappearing forever."
Kandell became inspired by Tibetan art when she traveled to Sikkim (an independent kingdom before joining India in 1975) for the coronation of her college friend Hope Cooke as queen of Sikkim. "The first shrine I ever saw," she recalls, "was in the royal palace. I couldn't enter, but I peeked in. It was so beautiful; the art just blew me away."
During many visits to the Buddhist country, she remembers the shrine as "so sacred – secret and special. I always wanted to be there." Over decades of collecting she created her own shrine but has come to feel, she says, "it wasn't fair to keep it in my apartment. Great art belongs to the world."
One Washington visitor, a young Tibetan woman dressed in a traditional long, silk dress, described her reaction to the shrine: "It is our heart."
One can almost hear prayer flags whipping in the wind or prayer wheels spinning to diffuse blessings to the sky. Ngawang Chojor, a mandala master and venerable monk from Lhasa who now lives in Madison, Wis., was touched by the shrine, saying the experience was like being back in Tibet.
Robert Thurman, a professor of Indo-Tibetan Studies at Columbia University in New York, has written many books that describe the expansion of Tibetan Buddhism across East Asia from 1400 to 1800, as monasteries and temples proliferated in Inner and Outer Mongolia, Siberia, and Manchu-dominated China. From roughly 1640 to 1950, he maintains, Tibet developed a unique, peaceful society where 20 percent of the male population entered monasteries. Spirituality and prayer permeated the culture. As monasticism replaced militarism, the country prospered, devoting its budget to religious education, welfare, and celebrations. Mr. Thurman credits the spread of Buddhism with "taming" neighboring aggressive, barbarian nations.
Asked if the display of Tibetan Buddhist art might have a similarly pacifying effect today, Kandell brightened. "In Washington, D.C., with its constant bickering? What a wonderful idea!"
• The shrine will tour the US for three years. It is intended to be at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York for 18 months, beginning in October, as part of the exhibition "Gateway to Himalayan Art."


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Independence Police Department
223 N. Memorial Drive
Independence, MO 64050-3013
Public Information Office
Officer Tom Gentry
(816) 325-7258
News Release
For immediate release: September 15, 2013
Attempt to Locate Person of Interest in Shooting
On September 15, 2013, an aggravated assault occurred at 1306 S. Sterling Ave. Independence. The victim is a white male in his 30s and appeared to have been shot. He was transported to a local hospital with apparent life threatening injuries.
A person of interest in the shooting is identified as Nicholas L. Cannon,
AKA "Nick". He is a white male 28 yrs old, 5' 9" tall, 160 lbs, brown hair and brown eyes. His last known address is 2630 S. Arlington Ave. Independence, MO.
Cannon was last observed leaving the scene of the shooting in a white, older model Chevrolet SUV bearing Missouri license plate number 9FK-313.
Cannon also has his 4 yr old daughter with him.
Cannon is believed to be armed, and is considered dangerous. If anyone sees or has any knowledge of where Nicholas L. Cannon may be, do not attempt to make contact with him. Please call the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-8477 or the Independence Police Department at 816-836-3600.
Nicholas L. Cannon

subset: commoncrawl


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Doctors Find Success Using Retooled HIV to Fight Leukemia
(PHILADELPHIA) -- In April, Emma Brooke Whitehead's leukemia seemed unbeatable.
Emma, a 6-year-old from Phillipsburg, Pa., had been fighting the disease for nearly two years and doctors at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia said there were no standard treatments left. So they took a gamble on a new, potentially groundbreaking treatment -- using HIV.
They removed millions of Emma's disease-fighting white blood cells and used genetically altered HIV -- a virus that easily gets into human immune systems -- to turn Emma's cells into a kind of immunological "directed missile," specifically programmed to destroy the leukemia cells. The cells were then returned to Emma's body.
"All of the things that make the HIV virus able to cause disease have been removed from this particular virus whose only purpose is to put a gene into a cell," said Dr. Stephan Grupp, a pediatric oncologist at CHOP who uses HIV to infiltrate the immune system. "There is no danger of infection and there is no longer the HIV virus."
Kari Whitehead, Emma's mother, said that initially after the treatment Emma became very ill -- she had a fever as high as 105 degrees -- and doctors warned the family that she might not make it through the night.
Grupp then gave the second grader a rheumatoid arthritis drug "off label." In arthritis, the drug was meant to block a specific part of the body's immune reaction, part caused by white blood cells called T cells. In Emma's case, it blocked the side effect of the cancer treatment. In just 12 hours, she stabilized.
"She was the first child in the world they tried it on and they told us they didn't know what to expect," Whitehead told ABC News. "They do feel now that the arthritis drug that they used will keep the kids in the future from getting any where close to that [sick]."
Grupp says that Emma, now eight months past her treatment, is in complete remission.
"She has no leukemia in her body for any test that we can do -- even the most sensitive tests," he said. "We need to see that the remission goes on for a couple of years before we think about whether she is cured or not. It is too soon to say."
He said that the treatment is being tried experimentally at two hospitals and was intended for childhood leukemia that has returned and no longer responds to chemotherapy. He said doctors hoped the T cell treatment would eventually replace bone marrow transplants.
"This treatment was really her [Emma's] only chance," Grupp said. "She has been treated with extended chemotherapy and she wasn't getting any better. … For me, it's incredible."
Whitehead said Emma, now 7, looked and felt "amazing" and had reunited with her dog Lucy.
"There is a big difference," she said. "She has a ton of energy. She's back with her class. She was even able to play a little bit of soccer. So she's doing wonderful right now."
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio


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Over the weekend, Alan Moore engaged in a 2.5-hour webchat as a fundraiser for Cleveland's Harvey Pekar Library Statue. During this frank conversation, the Bearded Master addressed questions about his feud with Grant Morrison (short answer: there isn't one), why he wrote Neonomicon ("Because I had a massive, massive tax debt."), and the difference between DC resurrecting Watchmen and Moore appropriating literary characters for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen:
In literature, I would say that it's different. I would say, and it might be splitting hairs, but I'm not adapting these characters. I'm not doing an adaptation of Dracula or King Solomon's Mines. What I am doing is stealing them. There is a difference between doing an adaptation, which is evil, and actually stealing the characters, which, as long as everybody's dead or you don't mention the names, is perfectly alright by me. I'm not trying to be glib here, I genuinely do feel that in literature you've got a tradition that goes back to Jason and the Argonauts of combining literary characters [...]
It's just irresistible to do these fictional mash-ups. They've been going on for hundreds of years and I feel I'm a part of a proud literary tradition in doing that. With taking comic characters that have been created by cheated old men, I feel that that is different [...] and that's my take on the subject
And most importantly, Moore announced that he's working on a new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen project with Kevin O'Neill, the 48-page one-shot comic Nemo: Heart of Ice.
In this comic — which takes place in Antarctica in the 1920s — Jules Verne will collide with H.P. Lovecraft. "It takes place in Antarctica and [the work of H.P. Lovecraft] is a major component. You figure it out," promised Moore. If all goes according to plan, Heart of Ice will be out by the end of 2012. The next League book, Century: 2009, is slated for June.
[Via Bleeding Cool]


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One day after a suicide bomber killed at least 35 people in Russia's busiest airport, Russians are asking whether the repeated ability of jihadists from the turbulent northern Caucasus to strike at will in Moscow means that the country is losing its own version of the war on terror.
A few are even voicing the previously unthinkable suggestion that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin should resign, since he is the leader most closely associated with setting policy during the decade-long cycle of terrorism and brutal security countermeasures in the seething north Caucasus.
"We should urgently change our agenda, and insist that Putin and [Interior Minister Rashid] Nurgaliev come before the Duma [parliament] to explain themselves," says Vladimir Ulas, a Duma deputy with the Communist Party, which is usually loyal to the Kremlin on security issues. "The authorities have failed in the struggle against terrorism, they can not guarantee national security, so why shouldn't we be discussing the resignation of Putin's government?"
Experts say Russian authorities failed to heed the alarms set off by terror attacks in Russia's heartland over the past couple of years, including a deadly 2009 blast that hit a luxury train near St. Petersburg and a twin suicide bombing in Moscow's crowded metro last March that killed almost 40 people.
"It seems that we live from one terrorist assault to another," Igor Korotchenko, a former high-ranking security officer, told the independent Ekho Moskvi radio station Tuesday.
"When it happens, we see authorities react. They give instructions and order intensive antiterrorist operations, but it all comes to naught until we are shaken by the next explosive terrorist act," he said.
New wave of militants
Chechen warlord Doku Umarov, one leader of the new wave of Islamist militants who have supplanted the Chechen separatists of the past, claimed responsibility for the Moscow metro bombings and is widely cited as a suspect in Monday's Domodedovo blast.
Mr. Umarov is rumored to maintain a secret camp in the Caucasus Mountains for training female suicide bombers, known as "Black Widows," such as the two that struck in Moscow's metro last year.
But most Russian press coverage appears to agree that it was probably a male attacker who detonated the equivalent of 7 kilograms (15.4 pounds) of TNT in Domodedovo's international arrivals area Monday, killing at least eight foreign citizens along with more than two dozen Russians.
Medvedev slams security measures
President Dmitry Medvedev slammed lax security measures and promised that the terrorists would be caught and punished. After canceling his plans to attend the Davos International Economic Forum, Mr. Medvedev decided to deliver his previously scheduled address on global economic reform on Wednesday, then return immediately to Moscow.
In any case, many critics say that Putin is the man who should be held to account for Russia's perennial vulnerability to terrorist attacks against crowded urban targets.
"Putin came to power under the slogan of struggling against terrorism, and it was he who proclaimed 'mochit v sortire [wipe them out in the outhouse],' " says Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister who is now co-leader of the Solidarnost anti-Kremlin opposition coalition.
"That was his key election idea, and over the 11 years that he's been in power one can say that the struggle against terrorism has failed. Terrorist acts – including nearly daily violence in the north Caucasus – have grown in number by six times, to 780 last year," he says.
Trail of terror
Russia's decade-long battle with terrorism opened with a series of still-unexplained 1999 apartment bombing that killed 300 people in Moscow and other cities. Putin, then prime minister and anointed heir to former President Boris Yelsin, responded with a massive military invasion of the rebel republic of Chechnya.
A wave of bloody terrorist attacks followed, including a 2002 theater siege in central Moscow that caused the deaths of more than 120 people and a mass hostage taking at a school in Beslan, North Ossetia, where 330 people – more than half children – died amid the mayhem of an assault by Russian security forces.
At Domodedovo airport in 2004, two "Black Widows" managed to get past security and two different domestic airliners; both were blown up in mid-air and killed more than 100 people.
Though Chechnya has since been largely pacified under the heel of pro-Moscow local strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, terrorists were able to strike the Chechen parliament in Grozy last year during a visit by Russia's Interior Minister.
"The northern Caucasus, especially the republics of Dagestan and Ingushetia, are not stable," says Mr. Korotchenko. "This is where we find the roots of terrorism. Right now, instead of systematic measures, we send the money to prop up the local elites. It's not working. We see mass unemployment and poverty against the backdrop of palaces for local elite. This is a reliable recruiting tool for the terrorists.... [Russian security forces] do not have enough agents down there even to warn of coming terrorist attacks."
Viktor Ilyukhin, deputy chair of the Duma's security commission, agrees.
"Our special services need to stop terrorist attacks at the preparation stage, but they are lagging behind," he says. "Foreign intelligence services seem to have learned these lessons after 9/11. Yet we did not, even though we've given up some of our freedoms to fight terrorism.... We forget these bitter lessons too quickly. I fear we'll talk about this one for a couple of weeks, then forget about it until the next terrorist strike hits."


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Kids' Books
December 2017
"I am fairly certain that a dilemma is a kind of ferocious desert animal. I am surprised that Principal Jones thinks I might have one."
~ from Matthew Swanson's
The Real McCoys
Recent Releases
Sarah Cannon
Fantasy. Aliens, zombie rabbits, scary puppets, and carnivorous dumpsters are all totally normal in the town of Oddity, New Mexico. What isn't normal is the disappearance of Ada Roundtree's twin sister, Pearl. You can follow along with determined Ada and her diverse friends as they search for Pearl in this delightfully weird mashup of horror and humor.
Mr. Gedrick and Me
Patrick Carman
Fantasy. Ever since the death of their stay-at-home dad, Stanley Darrow and his family have been having a tough time. They decide to hire someone to help around the house, but they get much more than they bargained for in Mr. Gedrick, their colorfully dressed -- and possibly magical -- new nanny. Before you can say "supercalifragilous," you'll be won over by Mr. Gedrick's Mary Poppins-style charm.
The Secret of Nightingale Wood
Lucy Strange
Historical Fiction. In 1919 England, bookish 12-year-old Hen is desperate for her father to return home and her mama to get better. They moved to a country estate for a fresh start, yet creepy Dr. Hardy seems to be keeping Mama sick on purpose. Feeling sad and lonely, Hen follows an eerie light into the nearby woods and finds a mysterious, life-changing new friend.
The Real McCoys
Matthew Swanson; illustrated by Robbi Behr
Mystery. Fourth-grade detective Moxie McCoy makes it her business to live up to her name, whether she's searching for a new best friend or for Tiddlywhump Elementary's missing mascot. Her enthusiasm, however, outweighs her sleuthing skills, leading Moxie to some offbeat conclusions and plenty of trouble. This zany, cartoon-illustrated mystery is the 1st in a new series.
How Oscar Indigo Broke the Universe (And Put It Back Together Again)
David Teague
Science Fiction. Oscar Indigo doesn't want to disappoint his baseball team when he goes to bat, so he uses his super-special watch to stop time and fake a home run. Unfortunately, the missing time is causing the universe to unravel. Oops? If you like this time travel adventure, be sure to try
Saving Lucas Biggs
, co-written by author David Teague.
At Last!
Right now, you might be hearing a lot about
The Last Jedi,
but as 2017 winds to a close, you may want to try some of these other "lasts".
Ms. Bixby's Last Day
John David Anderson
Fiction. Ms. Bixby is one of "the Good Ones," the kind of teacher who really understands. When she has to leave school to start cancer treatments, students Topher, Steve, and Brand band together to give their teacher the kind of send-off she deserves. All three boys take turns describing their not-entirely-legal plan, as well as the ways in which Ms. Bixby changed their lives.
Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard
Jonathan Auxier
Fantasy. A devoted reader and bookmender, 12-year-old Sophie Quire works in her father's shop in Bustleburgh. When thief Peter Nimble turns up asking for repairs to a magical book, Sophie agrees to help -- and unexpectedly discovers her own destiny. Packed with colorful characters, this sequel to
Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes
is a smart, silly, breathtaking tale that's perfect for book lovers and fantasy fans.
Allie, First at Last
Angela Cervantes
Fiction. "Epic greatness" is a family tradition for Allie Velasco: her parents and siblings all have piles of trophies. Determined to win something herself, Allie enters an arts contest -- winning it can't be any harder than figuring out why her friendships have gotten so confusing, right? Allie's honest, funny voice will ring true for anyone who's ever worried about keeping their friends or making their family proud.
The Last Wild
Piers Torday
Fantasy. Kester Jaynes hasn't spoken since his mom died, but when a cockroach asks him for help, Kester discovers that he can communicate with animals. Though most animals have been wiped out by the deadly red-eye virus, the cockroaches are among the wild survivors who convince Kester to take on a quest to save the last animals on Earth. Fans of the heroic (but not-so-cuddly) animals in Suzanne Collins' Underland Chronicles should definitely pick up
The Last Wild
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Undergraduate Degrees, Majors and Concentrations
THEA1040 - Fundamentals Of Acting
Summer 2019
Students will build on their technical skills begun in Intro to Theater and begin to explore the nature of Acting Technique as having both an Internal and External nature. The students will create characters by applying their technique to various texts both in scene and monologue work. The students will be aware of the stage as a place where Truth in communication is an accepted practice and the power of applying this Truth to the human condition.
3 Credits
Schedule Book for All Active and Available Future Terms, Course starting with THEA1040
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Oklahoma eGov News I Online Services & Websites I Upcoming State Holidays I Upcoming Events I Share Your eGov Story I About OK.gov
Oklahoma eGov News
1st Annual Oklahoma RoundUp IT Conference Slated for Dec. 11th
OKLAHOMA CITY– December 8, 2013 – OpenRange, an Office of Management and Enterprise Services (OMES) program that provides Oklahoma State agencies and affiliates access to shared IT resources, will have the first annual OpenRange RoundUp on Wed., Dec. 11 at the NCED Conference Center and Hotel in Norman, OK. Registration is free for all Oklahoma state agency and affiliate employees. To register, go to openrange.ok.gov.
The RoundUp will help to educate State of Oklahoma agencies and affiliates on shared technology resources and information technology procurement contracts with exhibits, breakout sessions, keynote speakers and networking opportunities.
Town of Kiowa, Oklahoma, Launches Online Payment Center
Kiowa, OK– December 30, 2013 – Conducting business with the Town of Kiowa is now faster and more convenient. Town of Kiowa residents and businesses now have the ability to securely pay water bills online through its website, http://kiowaoklahoma.com.
"We are so pleased to unveil our new online bill pay system to the citizens and businesses of Kiowa," said Janelle Beaver, Mayor of Kiowa. "We strive to provide user-friendly methods to transact business with the city over the internet, resulting in convenience, fast access to information, and increased productivity for our staff."
Payments can be made 24 hours a day and are processed through OK.gov's secure payment engine. OK.gov abides by rigorous policies and procedures to safeguard all personal information, such as banking information and personal data. This ensures that residents and businesses can be confident that their payments are safe, private, and secure.
Oklahoma Thunderbird Youth Academy Launches New Website
Pryor Creek, Okla.– December 27, 2013 –Oklahoma's Thunderbird Youth Academy recently launched a new program website (http://www.ok.gov/thunderbird). The site provides information about Oklahoma's Thunderbird Youth Academy, and the National Guard Youth ChallenNGe Program, a community-based program which trains and mentors 16-18 year old high school dropouts so that they can become productive citizens in America's future.
Town of Kiowa Online Payment Center
Thunderbird Youth Academy Website
Monday, January 20th
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Oklahoma Mentor Day
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OK.gov is the official website of the state of Oklahoma and a collaborative effort between the Oklahoma Office of Management and Enterprise Services (OMES) and Oklahoma Interactive, LLC to help Oklahoma government entities Web-enable their information services. OMES is responsible for OK.gov. Oklahoma Interactive operates, maintains, and markets OK.gov and is part of eGovernment firm NIC's (NASDAQ: EGOV) family of companies.
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"Celebrating Freedom" at the Lincoln Memorial
NEH and Howard University announce performers for September 17 Emancipation Nation
Oscar-nominated actress Alfre Woodard will read Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl at the Lincoln Memorial on September 17 as the National Endowment for the Humanities and Howard University sponsor "Celebrating Freedom," a commemoration of the issuance of the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.
The hour-long program will feature readings, dance, and musical performances marking the 150th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln's announcement of his intention to free the slaves in the Confederacy.
Howard University's Afro Blue vocal jazz ensemble will perform, a university color guard will march, and dramatic readings of historical narratives, essays and poems will mark the momentous event.
The performance will take place from 4 to 5 p.m. at the base of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC on Monday, September 17. The event is free and open to the public.
The Lincoln Memorial performance is the culmination of NEH's Emancipation Nation day long commemoration of the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's 1862 Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. It follows a 1:30 p.m. panel discussion by Civil War scholars on the events leading up to the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation from the perspective of President Lincoln, enslaved African Americans, Civil War soldiers, abolitionists, and Northern free blacks. This panel will be live-streamed from Smithsonian's National Museum of American History to "watch parties" of viewers around the country. To register to host a watch party, or find one near you, visit: http://emancipation.neh.gov/live/host-a-watch-party/
In conjunction with the Emancipation Nation events, NEH is sponsoring a student contest for young people 18 years of age or older to submit essays or other original works based on documents presented in two NEH-funded digital projects: The Freedmen and Southern Society Project and Visualizing Emancipation. Winners will receive cash prizes and a trip to Washington. For details about the contest, please see: http://emancipation.neh.gov/student-contest/
The Emancipation Nation program coincides with Constitution Day. In 2004, Congress declared September 17 as Constitution Day, mandating that all federally funded educational institutions study the U.S. Constitution. The Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation is a key moment in the process that led to the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment, which outlawed slavery.
For more information about the September 17 events, please see http://emancipation.neh.gov.


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It's an idea that is tempting politicians the world over, from Barack Obama to China's rulers and Indian parliamentarians.
Now, the notion of a windfall tax on energy companies to pay for increasing fuel costs borne by poor people is catching on in Britain, where a growing cohort of legislators in the ruling Labour Party is calling for action from Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
It looks like an alluring proposition. Slumping in the polls, Mr. Brown is seeking measures that would pep up his popularity and help struggling Britons cope with the economic downturn. A recent survey found two-thirds of the public favor the idea of hitting Big Oil and energy utilities with a one-time levy to help fund those facing a winter of skyrocketing fuel bills.
But the windfall tax proposals are highly controversial. Supporters say it's only fair that those who have benefited from runaway global oil prices should give something back. Critics say it's a subversion of the very idea of a capitalist market system and point out that no other industry is punished this way. Nor, they say, is Big Oil bailed out when oil prices tumble.
For Brown the more immediate concern is the large group of his own MPs (members of parliament) calling on him to act. At least 80 (enough to make trouble in parliament) have signed a petition, and the issue will loom large over a crucial Labour Party conference later this month, which could be a make or break moment for Britain's prime minister.
'Immoral wages' for CEOs?
Lindsay Hoyle, an MP behind the petition, concedes that companies should have a right to make a profit. "But these are excessive profits and immoral wages being paid to chief executives," he says. A windfall tax is necessary, he says, because "what we are talking about is whether people can have their heating on as we go into winter."
He argues that even though oil prices have retreated sharply from peaks above $140 a barrel, utility companies are still raising prices. Key providers have recently told customers that prices will rise by a third or more as winter approaches.
"There is a credit crunch and we all have to tighten our belts, but [firms] are tightening other people's belts."
The energy industry is protesting that the move would unjustly penalise companies, discourage investors at a time when billions are needed to upgrade energy infrastructure, and unfairly intervene in the normal risk-reward capitalist paradigm.
"The impact of higher energy bills is a problem, but, in today's volatile political environment, we need to think more carefully about how we solve it," says David Porter, chief executive of the Association of Electricity Producers. "A windfall tax would be neither just, nor sensible. It would also send out a very negative signal to investors."
The issue drives at the heart of a fundamental question about capitalist democracies: To whom is a company answerable? The answer is normally those who underwrite its risk – the shareholders. And indeed, if a retailer or restaurant chain suddenly landed in good times with profits soaring, few would call for a windfall tax on them.
Energy is different, claim windfall tax proponents. First, it benefits from factors that have nothing to do with good management, entrepreneurship or product development (the surge in oil price). BP reported first half profits last month of £6.7 billion ($12 billion) – or £37 million ($66 million) a day. The Centrica power utility recorded first half profits of almost £1 billion ($1.8 billion) – and then raised gas prices 35 percent.
Second, the service it provides is a vital necessity. Recent hikes in gas and electricity prices mean average bills will soar to more than $2,500 a year. Retirees in particular will suffer – already more than 2 million older households live in 'fuel poverty' (they spend more than 10 percent of their income heating their homes).
"This is about fairness," says Gordon Lishman, director general of the Age Concern charity. "Energy companies are making healthy profits while people up and down the country are struggling to pay their bills and fuel poverty levels are escalating."
Individual energy companies are reluctant to be drawn on the issue before it has become formal government policy. "Tax is a matter for governments," said one BP spokesman, even though clearly its remittance is a matter for companies.
Tax may scare investors
But industry associations and experts cite several reasons why the energy sector is being unfairly treated, and why windfall taxes could be disastrous.
Mr. Porter says British electricity companies are readying £100 billion ($1.8 billion) of investment on new power stations, and that every pound "extorted" from them would have to be found elsewhere – presumably from customers. He adds that the tax would send a poor signal to global investors about the quality of the British investment environment. "[Britain] could be downgraded as a suitable place to invest."
For a generation, Britain has relied on North Sea oil and gas. With fields depleting, costs of extraction are rising.
"North Sea oil and gas fields are already proving harder and more expensive to tap and if the government is serious about Britain's energy producing capabilities then a move like this will not help," says Julian Lee, a senior energy analyst with the London-based Center for Global Energy Studies. Big companies like Shell and BP would in any case argue that Britain has no jurisdiction over the majority of their assets – and profits – which are generated overseas.
History provides few examples of a windfall tax with a happy ending. A US windfall tax in the 1980s raised far less than had been hoped for, and resulted in domestic oil production falling sharply. In Britain, a levy was imposed on privatized utilities by the new Labour government in 1997, though on that occasion the justification given was that these companies had been sold off too cheaply. A levy three years later, in the form of third-generation mobile licenses, hammered the telecom sector and deprived it of billions of pounds needed for investment.
A better solution, according to a group of local officials, would be to impose an annual levy on energy firms to fund a program to insulate British homes. That way, fuel bills would fall and companies would be able to spread the tax hit over the years.


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CHATTANOOGA, TN – A husband-wife team of shoplifters at a Tennessee Walmart tried desperately to get out of their arrest!
Officer Josh Wright was off duty at a Walmart in Chattanooga, when he noticed a man trying to get by a store greeter while carrying about $2,000 in goods.
When Wright displayed his badge to the man that he suspected was shoplifting, the man told him the badge was fake and tried to get past him! He was then tackled and arrested.
His wife went a step further and faked a heart attack! She said she did not know the man, however a witness told Wright that the couple had been together in the store the whole time.
As the witness walked to the parking lot to leave, the wife followed her and attacked her!
However, the wife was the one who ended up being stabbed in the arm with a pocket knife, and was taken to a hospital for treatment.
The husband has been charged with theft over $1,000 and assault on a police officer. The wife's charges are still pending.


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WaterART Fitness International provides a series of in-depth, informative articles on topics relating to water, land and wellness programs. If you like our information - we offer much more when you join our WaterART Professional's (WP) membership program.
Sign up for the WP Membership Club Today!WaterART offers a specialized website that gives you access to all of our Newsletters as well as 88 video streaming tips, Article downloads, message board as well as other great features.
Flex Paddles - Adding equipment to programs (PDF)
Functional Resistive Paddles
Different Strokes for Different Folks
H2O Warm Down
Aquafit Mitts- Why Use Them?
Rhomboid & Middle Back Strengthening
Noodle Gym
Welcome to the Water
Why Where Footwear with Vertical Water Exercise
Water Exercise - The Wave of the Future
Managing a Healthy Weight & Exercise
Looking into Aging & Water Fitness
Dangerous & Scary Exercise
Safe Deck Work
Happy Face Water Weights - Add Fun and Strength to your Programs!
Happy Face Hand Weights
Water Walking
How to Optimize Your Cardiovascular Training
More Cardio Please (PDF)
Into the Deep
How to Create Variations or More Movement Ideas (PDF)
Water Exercise -The Wave of the Future
Biomechanics of the Shoulder
Training the Triceps with Noodle Progressions
Keep the Hip Abductor Muscles Strong & Stabilized
Understanding Exercise Safety
The Art of a Lesson Plan
Taking Charge of Your Group!
Aquatic Training - Learn to Work with Buoyancy
Why Utilze a Microphone
A Safe and Effective Shallow H20 Warm Up
Adding the Aqua Fitness Noodle to your Exercise Inventory (PDF)
The WaterART Working Positions - changing impact & intensity (PDF)
Aquatic Muscle Balancing for Injury Prevention
Helping People with Arthritis (PDF)
Shallow H20 Training
Shallow H20 versus Deep H20 - Similar yet Different
Aquatic Sports Training
Specificity of Training
Training Internal Obliques
What is Functional Movement?
Aquatic Fitness Interval Training
Why WaterART Muscles Work
A to Z Resolution for 2016
Music Keeps People Moving
Try Some Exercise in the Water Gym (PDF)
Orienting Newcomers to Vertical Water Exercise (PDF)
Buoyancy Shorts- Especially for the Sinkers
Aquatic Functional Squats
How to Evolve Your Leadership Skills
Happiness is Fun in the Water
Aquatic Fitness Splash Balls
Exercises for Swimmer's & Shoulder Problems
Aquatic Step Training
Working with Aquatic Fitness Flex Paddles
Why Start an Aquatic Running Program
Tips To Success-Welcome to Water Exercise
Training the Obliques
Guidelines to a Healthy Spine
Effective Stretching
Working Out with Two Noodles
Why Kids Fitness?
Preventing Running Injuries with Water Exercise
Foam Weights/Dumbbells
How the Body Moves - Using Plane of Movement for Effective Exercise
Get the Land Runners in the Water!
Host an Aquatic Running Clinic
The WaterART Working Positions
Balance Training for Life
Buoyancy Cuffs are Tough
Checklist of Questions to Help Organize a Balanced Program
Using the Noodle for Functional Training
Using the Flex Paddle for Functional Training(PDF)
Healthy Competition
Shape UP
Success with a Land Chair Exercise Program
Functional Movement (PDF)
New Instructors Coming to Water Fitness
The Healing Properties of Water Exercise (PDF)
Where is my Comfort Zone?
How Much Weight Are Dumbbells?
Understanding Pre & Post Natal Fitness
Why One Sized Routines Do Not Fit All
You Asked About Burning Calories
Ambassador Program
Energy Balance Equation (PDF)
How to Optimize Cardiovascular Training in the Water (PDF)
Exercise in the Water Gym (PDF)
Equipment Overload (PDF)
Mind and Body Fitness (PDF)
Aquatic Personal Training
Reviewing Common Hip Problems
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Aquatic Pointers - Student Handout (PDF)
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Questions about Dumbbells (PDF)
Programming for All (PDF)
Tips to Optimize Your Metabolism (PDF)
Buoyancy Equipment(PDF)
Resistive Equipment (PDF)
Tips to Keep Positive through Tough Times(PDF)
Aquatic Cycling(PDF)
10 Fit Tips for a Result Oriented New Year!
Training Downs Syndrome
Sports Training Gets Wet
All About Muscle Cramping
The Noodle - how did it begin?
Exercise Safety & Technique
What is a Aquatic Personal Trainer?
Get Personal (PDF)
Growing your Home Business (PDF)
Don't Let Blood Pressure Creep Up! (PDF)
What do I Get out of My Water Fitness Class (PDF)
Basic Training Pointers (PDF)
Why One Size Does Not Fit All ( PDF)
Water Gym - the Gym of the Future (PDF)
Is Anybody Really Working Out at a 6? (PDF)
Press Release (PDF)
Facing the Practical Fearlessly (PDF)
What is a Workout (PDF)
Arthritis Resources (PDF)
Parkinson's Resources (PDF)
PAR-Q's (PDF)
Verbal Guidelines for Par-Q's (PDF)
Par-Q- Prenatal (PDF)
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Why Get Liability Insurance (PDF)
Instructor Performance Evaluation (for Directors) (PDF)
Care for Fit Bands (PDF)
Care of Cuffs (PDF)
Vests & Mitts (PDF)
What is Endurance + Wear? (PDF)
An Investment in your Voice - A Voice Amplifier (PDF)


text:
Lighthouse Quilt Along Week 4: Quilt Top Assembly
This is the last "official" week of the
, but do not worry if you are still working on piecing your blocks. I know I posted at a quick pace in order to have the information available to everyone as needed. I hope you have enjoyed making your blocks, maybe learning something new about design, color, calculating fabric requirements or paper piecing.
Today we are going to focus on sewing your blocks together to make your quilt top. This is really very simple. I lay my quilt blocks out on the floor or a design wall. (Let's be honest, usually the floor.) I start at the top and sew the blocks together row by row. The most important thing for me involves pressing the seams.
I like to press my seams in alternating directions per row. For example, I will press all my seams in the first row to the right. Then I will press all my seams in the second row to the left. Then continue, right - left - right - left. These alternating pressed seams become "locked" together when you sew your rows to each other, forming the finished quilt top.
And that's it! Finish your quilt as usual. I'd love to see pictures of your completed Lighthouse Quilts (or quilt tops), so feel free to post links in the comments as you finish your projects!


text:
Other Online Certificates and Courses
Call us at:
Send email to:
Identity theft continues to grow. Now more than 50 percent of identity theft occurs in the workplace. Learn to addresses both private and workplace concerns. You will receive information about the basic, common sense steps necessary to protect your identity and assets. Then develop comprehensive expertise in how to deter data theft, detect fraud, and minimize the impact of any damage inflicted.
One month, George Vroustouris, instructor.
Unit 1: Personal Identity Security
Section 1. a: Awareness
• The truth about identity theft
• Various types of identity theft & fraud
• The real impact of identity fraud
• How & where identity theft happens
Section 1.b: Behaviors
• Improve your identity theft & fraud IQ
• Protect personal identifiable info (PII)
• Use different complex passwords
• Monitor accounts for irregularities
Section 1.c: Controls
• Recognize, access, & organize your PII
• Safeguarding your personal digital data
• Take your privacy and security seriously
…your lifestyle is at stake.
Unit 2: Workplace Culture of Security
Section 2.a: Awareness
• Any organization with data is at risk
• The cybersecurity threat landscape
• What is sensitive company data
• Workplace privacy & security
Section 2.b: Behaviors
• Practice email, internet, & BYOD safety
• Check and observe social media policy
• Detect & deter data & identity theft
• Report suspicious behaviors & issues
Section 2.c: Controls
• Adhere to workplace security policies
• Learn access control responsibilities
• Take company data security seriously
…your livelihood is at stake
Unit 3: Personal Identity Action Plan
Template and Discussion
Unit 4: Workplace Identitiy Action Plan
Template and Discussion
About online learning
Online learning is a fun, enjoyable and very productive way to learn. Millions of people are learning online each year. You will engage with the instructor and other participants. You will get to know your instructor and other participants. You may make friends. It's easy. It's fun.
How the Course Works
It is easy to participate in your online course. After you register, you will be given a web address to go to get into your online classroom. You will have a password and use your email address and password to gain access.
Once inside the online classroom, here's what you can expect.
Participate when you want
You can participate any time of day or evening. The online classroom is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
There are no live real-time requirements or meetings. You decide when you participate.
For the best learning, participants should log into the course on 2-3 different days of the week.
What you will do
For each Unit, you will:
Read the print readings (about 20 pages a week)
Have the option of accessing the online readings
Listen to the audio presentation for the Unit and view the slides
Have the option of taking a self-quiz to see how much you have learned
Engage in written online discussion with your instructor and other participants
For best learning, you should make one or more comments at 2-3 different times each week.
The content (readings, audio lectures, slides) and self quizzes are accessible for the entire course, so you can work ahead, or go back and review again, at your convenience.
Course Objectives
The objectives of this course are as follows:
- To develop an understanding of the realities and damaging impact of sensitive information theft – identity fraud.
- To develop expertise in how to deter data theft, detect fraud, and minimize the impact of any damage inflicted.
- To develop an understanding that people are the weakest link when it comes to data security as they often trade privacy for convenience. Recognize a role in managing and protecting Personal Identifiable Information (PII) and in the security and survival of your workplace.
- To create an understanding about the fraudulent acquisition of our PII, the primary data source for over 80% of identity fraud.
- To provide vetted information from trusted resources helps you develop a heightened sense of risk awareness to this serious threat. Provide best practices that adjust behaviors allowing students to identify, inventory, organize, and secure sensitive data, both personally and in the workplace.
Course Outcomes
After successfully completing the course you will:
- Have a comprehensive knowledge of the types of identity theft and sensitive data breaches
- Know how to constantly analyze cyber security threats and maintain risk awareness.
- Know how to design and adopt new best practices to detect and defend against fraud.
- Know how to securely organize and manage your Personal Identifiable Information (PII), and adhere to workplace data security policies.


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Nicholas Clark writes:In September I finally emerged from the rabbit hole of PL_main_start, that I entered into at some point in mid July. Father Chrysostomos has refactored OP allocation to always use a slab allocator, as part of fixing some very long standing bugs to do with OPs. At the start of parsing, a new slab is allocated. While parsing is ongoing, the slab is "owned" by the CV itself. To avoid the need to create another pointer in each and every CV, he took advantage of the fact that during compilation CvROOT() and CvSTART() are both unused, and stored a pointer to the slab in CvSTART(). [Once compiled, respectively they point to the root of the subroutine's optree, and to the first OP to run. At that point, the pointer to the slab can be retrieved from the OP pointed to by CvROOT()]. As he notes:
For nearly every subroutine out there, this little internal game is completely unnoticeable. The only point that it becomes exposed is with the (hidden, internal) subroutine that represents the main program, PL_main_cv. From the description above you would think that the first OP to run from the main program would be found in CvSTART(PL_main_cv). Well, to be fair, from all this build up you'd be pretty sure that it's *not*, and you'd be right. PL_main_cv is a relatively late addition, added in 5.001 (as part of adding closures), whereas PL_main_root and PL_main_start date from 5.000. Hence the main program's optree root and first OP are stored in special variables in the interpreter structure. Which means that when the compilation of the main program finishes, nothing overwrites CvSTART(PL_main_cv) with a pointer to the first OP to execute, so it's non-NULL and pointing to an OP slab, not an OP.
When a CV has a reference count on its slab (CvSLABBED), it is responsible for making sure it is freed. (Hence, no two CVs should ever have a reference count on the same slab.) The CV only needs to reference the slab during compilation. Once it is compiled and CvROOT attached, it has finished its job, so it can forget the slab.
So, I tried to work out (roughly)
a) whether this was a bad thing
b) whether it's possible to ensure that it's NULLed out
c) whether it's possible to finish the work of 5.001 and abolish PL_main_root and PL_main_start to save some space.
Given that the answer to (b) is "no", the answer to (a) is obviously "no, it's not", because any other answer would be depressing :-)(c) seems to be possible, and is currently on the branch smoke-me/abolish-PL_main_start, but relies on a test refactoring for t/op/gv.t that fails on Win32 in ways that I can't determine from logs supplied by George Greer's smoke-me server.
As to why the answer to (b) is "no" - well, that's a bit more involved.
To be clear, global destruction cleans up everything, so nothing leaks. It's just that it's not cleared up quite as soon as it might have been. But could it be cleaned up earlier?
The obvious place to start looking is the location that sets PL_main_start.
else {
if (o->op_type == OP_STUB) {
PL_main_root = op_scope(sawparens(scalarvoid(o)));
PL_curcop = &PL_compiling;
PL_main_start = LINKLIST(PL_main_root);
PL_main_root->op_private |= OPpREFCOUNTED;
OpREFCNT_set(PL_main_root, 1);
PL_main_root->op_next = 0;
PL_compcv = 0;
That works just fine, until you encounter a program such as
perl -e 'BEGIN {1}'
because that turns out to enter that block (o->op_type == OP_STUB) above. The code for that is:
PL_comppad_name = 0;
PL_compcv = 0;
S_op_destroy(aTHX_ o);
No comments explained anything.
There are now three paragraphs of comments, as a result of all my digging. Here are the first two, added by commit 22e660b408c16433:
This block is entered if nothing is compiled for the main program. This will be the case for an genuinely empty main program, or one which only has BEGIN blocks etc, so already run and freed.Historically (5.000) the guard above was !o. However, commit f8a08f7b8bd67b28 (Jun 2001), integrated to blead as c71fccf11fde0068, changed perly.y so that newPROG() is now called with the output of block_end(), which returns a new OP_STUB for the case of an empty optree. ByteLoader (and maybe other things) also take this path, because they set up PL_main_start and PL_main_root directly, without generating an optree.
So that's fine - add some more code there to fix up CvSTART, and job's a good'un.
Only it's not. Whack-a-mole continues. The arms race expands.
doesn't even pass through Perl_newPROG(). The exit opcode is called during the running of the BEGIN block, triggering a stack unwinding which flies straight up all the routines involved in the top level parse phase, only stopping in their caller, somewhat confusingly named perl_parse().
perl -e 'BEGIN {exit 1}'
But that shouldn't make a difference to the main program (although code running during global destruction might be surprised), because perl_run() isn't called? After all, main() looks like this:
Well, no, actually it can still matter. Because this program enters perl_run():
exitstatus = perl_parse(my_perl, xs_init, argc, argv, (char **)NULL);
if (!exitstatus)
If a call to my_exit() was caught by perl_parse, then value it returns is the exit status. Which in this case is indistinguishable from a successful parse. So perl_run() is entered, but returns pretty quickly because PL_main_start is still NULL.
perl -e 'BEGIN {exit 0}'
("Can you tell what it is yet?")Well, in that case PL_main_start is NULL in blead. But if you try to s/PL_main_star /CvSTART(PL_main_sv)/ then the wheels fall off. You've merged the two previously disjoint pointers. The (original) CvSTART(PL_main_sv) is non-NULL because it's pointing to an OP slab, now the former PL_main_start is the same thing, so now enter perl_run() with it non-NULL, and hilarity (well, a SEGV) rapidly ensues.
So the moral of this story is that it's rather too complex to ensure that in the corner cases the slab is freed prior to global destruction.And the practical take-away is that when CvROOT() is NULL, "CvSTART() is not the pointer you were looking for". Remember that, and you'll be fine.
While investigating PL_main_start and PL_main_root, I had reason to read the mailing list archives from July 2003, and discovered a patch from Adrian Enache which had gone overlooked, which removed PL_formfeed.
PL_formfeed is (well was), the internal interpreter variable used as a shortcut to
$^L, " What formats output as a form feed. The default is
\f." The variable is only accessed in one place, in
pp_leavewrite, in code relating to I/O, so it seems a strange trade off to dedicate a data pointer per interpreter plus various support code to something used so rarely, and not even in a speed critical location.
After 9 years the patch almost applied cleanly. However, builds would fail with it for a couple of reasons. Firstly, in a subsequent (applied) patch, Adrian Enache himself had supplied a wrapper, B::formfeed, to access the variable for the compiler suite. Secondly, Larry had added code as part of MAD which assigned the value of the CV under compilation to PL_formfeed, if that CV was called "import". It turns out that this was vestigial debugging code left over from when Larry was developing MAD - it was used as a way to easily cause gdb to gain control in particular circumstances. Similar code was removed in 2007, but this one was missed then.
So with these problems resolved, it was possible to apply the patch, and slightly reduce the (per-thread) interpreter size, without hurting performance.
In the middle of the month, black smoke started issuing from the smoke testers after Dave merged a bug fix back to blead, a fix that "worked on my machine". However, it didn't work on several of the smokers, which build with -DPERL_POISON. The intent of -DPERL_POISON is to try scribble all over freed memory, to spot use-after free errors (by promptly SEGVing). Yes, memory checkers such as Purify, valgrind or Address Sanitizer can spot these, but not on all platforms, and at a cost on the platforms that they support.
So, is this a use after free bug, or is it a bug in the PERL_POISON code itself? Turns out that it was a bug in the PERL_POISON code, specifically in part of the state freeing code related to recursive regular expressions, which had never previously been covered in the regression test suite. Run time back to commit 94010e71b67db040 in 2005 and it's possible to get PERL_POISON then to SEGV with the same test case.
So, easy, fix it...
Only that wasn't so easy, because the code in question was deeply tangled with code enabled under PERL_OLD_COPY_ON_WRITE. This is conditionally enabled code for a previous attempt at a copy-on-write scheme. It's not enabled by default because (a) it still has at least one unexplained unresolved test failure and (b) it wasn't measurably faster. But it's intentionally left in as a placeholder because (a) it's zero code by default (b) it serves as a prototype/placeholder for any future more successful copy-on-write scheme.
Both of these are my fault. So I figured it wasn't fair to ask Dave to fix them. It turned out that Dave's recent improvements to avoid big copies in regex matching had broken the build with PERL_OLD_COPY_ON_WRITE. So I fixed these, and then fixed the PERL_POISON code. Good. Then I tried both together. Kaboom. Spin time back, and it turns out from day one a bug meant that the two never worked together. So I fixed that, and finally could verify that there are no (known or obvious) bugs remaining in the save code in question.
A fair chunk of the month was taken up trying out an idea about optimising named method calls. I'm sure I'm going to get frowned upon for this, but at the london.pm social meeting we actually had a conversation about Perl. Specifically, Ash Berlin mentioned an blog post about embracing the dynamic nature of JRuby, and optimising it by trying very hard to avoid hash lookups:
The author, Charles Nutter, stated that they'd found that a single entry cache at each method call point had turned out to be most effective. ie, for code such as this:
assume that at this location $obj is (nearly) always going to be the same class as you saw last time, and so record which method
bark ended up resolving to.
This tallied with something Chip had said - that he thought that we could speed method calls up with some sort of caching. Thanks to the @ISA caching added to support pluggable MROs, we have pretty much all the infrastructure needed to detect when a cache invalidation is necessary, and a single entry (monomorphic) cache is fairly easy, so I had a go at this while offline visiting my parents. I took the simplest possible approach. First time through, remember the object's stash, and cache the address of the method. Next time through, if it's the same stash, and nothing has been redefined, use the method you remembered. If something has been redefined in the class (or its parents), repeat the lookup and remember the new address. However, if the object is blessed into a different class, assume the worst, that this call site will continue to be called with objects of different classes, and force the cache to be disabled (ie assume that it's megamorphic). I think I had it working in 3 to 4 hours.
That was the easy part.
The hard part was trying to assess how much faster it was, and more importantly how much slower it was for a cache miss.
Easy. Build two copies (optimised), and run some benchmarks. Well, apart from "what is a good benchmark?" (which is a separate thread on perl5-porters)
On one machine, the speed order was
fastest: cache hit
median: cache miss
slowest: original code (no caching)
"cache miss" is more code and data than the original code, yet it is faster
On another machine, the speed order was
fastest: original code
median: cache hit
slowest: cache miss
ie from that it seems that the only thing that I can be really confident about is the relative ordering results from the same binary. Which is less than effective at comparing the effects of different source code. :-(
So, what to do? Well, I remembered that a while back I'd had a lot of "fun" trying to assess the effectiveness of code tweaks with perlbench, and discovering that functionality completely unrelated to anything I'd touched would run in measurably different time (sometimes faster, sometimes slower). This, I eventually suspected, was due to gcc defaulting to align functions, loops, labels and jump targets heuristically - if a better alignment is nearby, add padding to get there, else don't pad. I got far more consistent results by forcing the alignment of everything and avoiding the pad-or-not roulette. So I tried this. And still I had unexplainable answers.
"when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"
Or at least, something like that. I noticed that the way I had originally implemented my test case, I selected the two behaviours (cache miss/cache hit) by an optional (true) command line argument. So I tried passing 0 as the command line argument. And the times were different from no command line argument, despite every part of the Perl code executed being identical.
At which point I discovered that there was a repeatable 10% speed difference between no command line arguments and any command line arguments. I reduced it down to this code, and ran it on a clean build of (then) blead:
sub baz {
baz() for 0 .. 1e6;
Note that it doesn't even read @ARGV, yet it is influenced by it. For some reason, the sub call is necessary.
valgrind shows that both have pretty much the same behaviour, with slightly more work done by, and slightly more cache misses from, running with arguments. As you would expect. Yet that is the case with the shorter run time.
No, it makes no sense. But it did mean that I re-wrote my test case to always take one command line argument, and call exactly the same number of Perl OPs either way.
And yet my illogical results did not go away.
Finally, I found something that seemed to make a difference. I built all the object files with functions aligned on 64 byte boundaries. That means that they are all aligned with L1 cache lines. So order should not matter. (And there is sufficient RAM that nothing is swapping.)
Yet order does matter.
I took the same object files that I'd built in the morning. Without touching them, I re-linked them in the default order specified by make, and in (forwards and reverse) lexical order. The same object files (same cache alignment) linked in reverse lexical order were 4% faster than when linked in make's default (mixed up) order.
No, I don't understand.
But yes, I can replicate this.
So I tried forcibly linking my build tree for the patched-under-test version in reverse lexical order, and comparing it with the clean version, linked in reverse lexical order. (Same compiler flags, obviously.)
Finally, I seem to have results that make some sense. For a tight loop repeatedly calling the same empty method, a cache hit was a 6% speedup. Forcing the call site to be treated as a miss (the megamorphic case) was a 1.5% slowdown. In lieu of a decent "typical program" benchmark, I used the build tool
mktables and the install tool
installman, which showed 0.7% to 1% speedups. Which is promising.
But I'm not sure how "typical" they are. 1.5% slowdown will hurt, if in reality most call sites are megamorphic. So that's the next problem. How to find "typical program" benchmarks. I asked perl5-porters and london.pm for advice:
There have been several useful suggestions so far on which areas or modules should form a reasonable area to work on. But I was hoping more for something closer to "module X already has this load test script", than "get a corpus of docs, build an inverted index out of it and then do some searches". For that I first need to write a search engine, tune it, assemble sane test data, test it, and only then can I start to turn it into a benchmark.
[To be fair to Simon Wistow, it is actually a really good suggestion of the right sort of things to test. It's just I was hoping for the final paragraph to be "and here's where you download it from CPAN" :-)]
As well as looking at the impact of the method caching proposal, I also tried benchmarking Chip's prototype patch for read only aliases ("views"). I tried unmodified (then) blead, with Chip's original patch, and then two variants of Chip's patch. Firstly I attempted to simplify the code by assuming that the only flag bit allowed to be set on SVt_VIEW is SVf_READONLY, removing the need for a bit masking operation. Secondly, I used gcc's compiler hints to indicate to the code generator that scalars were "unlikely" to be views. The final tweak helped a bit, but overall the patch causes a 15-20% slowdown for all code.
Using valgrind (on a machine with 3 levels of cache, so cachegrind is faking things as LL "last level"), I observed that between patched and unpatched, we don't have significantly different LLd cache misses. We have more L1 data cache misses, and quite a few more data cache reads. I had assumed that most of the SV heads would already be in the L1 cache, so it's a bit surprising that this goes up.
However, we have massively more I refs, and massively more I1 misses. I suspect that this is what is killing us, which I wasn't quite expecting. We're maxing out the CPU. Not idling the CPU because we're thrashing the data cache. That's interesting. It's not totally clear at the next level of detail whether it's particularly just
a) too many instructions, or
b) thrashing the I1 cache, or
c) failing branch predication, or
d) something I didn't think of.
But it's suggesting that speed improvements in the Perl interpreter generally (if anything) are going to have to come from identifying which of those four is the problem, and addressing it in a way that doesn't penalise too badly any of the others.
In the process of thinking about the implications of read only aliases versus copies, I discovered that whilst Perl 6 specifies read only aliases, right now Rakudo actually implements a read only snapshot (ie copy). I've reported this to their bug tracker, as a discrepancy between the spec and the implementation, but it's not yet clear which is going to change to bring Rakudo into conformance.
Near the end of the month, whilst offline visiting my parents, I happened to look again at the method dispatch code, and something caught my eye about PL_stashcache.
The background to this is that Perl 5 has rather quirky dispatch rules. Because neither file handles nor stashes are first class objects, barewords can refer to either (as well as (I think) 5 other things). Additionally, as file handles accept method calls, there's an inherent ambiguity. What does this mean?
Well, it depends at runtime on whether the bareword Foo is a valid file handle. If it's a file handle, that is used as the object for an instance method call. If it's not, then that is used as the class name for a class method call. Good eh? You can't even know until runtime whether a particular syntax represents a class or instance method.
Somewhat surprisingly, file handles take priority over package names:
$ ./perl -Ilib -le 'Foo->bar;'
Can't locate object method "bar" via package "Foo" (perhaps you forgot to load "Foo"?) at -e line 1.
$ ./perl
Ilib -le 'Foo>bar; open Foo'
Can't locate object method "bar" via package "IO::File" at -e line 1.
$ ./perl
Ilib -le 'sub Foo::bar {warn}; Foo>bar; open Foo'
Can't locate object method "bar" via package "IO::File" at -e line 1.
Back in 2003 Artur Bergman noticed that this runtime check for a file handle was a measurable part of class method dispatch. For any (intended) method call on string class name, correctness required first verifying that no file handle of that name existed. So he added a cache to the method dispatch code, PL_stashcache, which recorded the stash if the code resolved a name to a stash, so that subsequent calls on the same class would skip the checks and be much faster. To preserve existing behaviour, the cache was flushed if a new file handle was created (commit 081fc587427bbcef). Early bugs were soon resolved (commit 7e8961ecc77ac069, 2 weeks later), and the code has performed reliably ever since, first appearing in v5.8.1.
Looking at the code, I was wondering whether it's really necessary to flush the cache when creating all file handles, as anonymous file handles assigned to lexicals can't affect method resolution. So I wondered whether it would be possible to move the flush from the "create PVIO" code to the points where PVIOs were assigned to typeglobs. In the process of investigating this, I noticed that there seemed to be a hole in the existing flushing logic - if an existing file handle is assigned to a typeglob, nothing is flushed. So I wrote a test for this, and then spent quite a while scratching my head as to why it failed to fail.
Digging and bisecting revealed that the stash cache had inadvertently been disabled as a result of commit da6b625f78f5f133 in August 2011. As it's a only cache, quite correctly everything carried on working without it, hence nobody noticed. Fixing that made no difference to existing tests, but my new test cases then correctly started to fail. These are regressions between v5.8.0, which didn't have the cache, and v5.8.1 and all releases until maint-5.14, which do. So I then added code to flush PL_stashcache when assigning a file handle to a typeglob. This fixes all the problems which I'm aware of. In the process I also added more debugging for -Do, displaying the behaviour of the stash cache, and a lot of tests for the interaction of file handles and package names during method dispatch.
I haven't yet had time to take things further on moving the PVIO creation flush code to more targeted locations, as (a) commit 7e8961ecc77ac069 fixed bugs, but didn't add any test cases, so it's not obvious what it's actually fixing, and whether other code also catches it and (b) the "impending doom" of moving house is now much less "impending" than before.
After Florian Ragwitz shipped v5.17.4, I removed the MPE/iX port.
MPE/iX was a business-oriented minicomputer operating system made by Hewlett-Packard. Support from HP terminated at the end of 2010.
Porting/exec-bit.txt | 2 -
Porting/perlhist_calculate.pl | 2 +-
README.mpeix | 711 -------------------------------------
ext/DynaLoader/dl_mpeix.xs | 146 --------
ext/File-Glob/t/basic.t | 2 +-
ext/POSIX/t/posix.t | 2 -
ext/re/hints/mpeix.pl | 3 -
hints/mpeix.sh | 136 -------
installperl | 27 +-
lib/File/Copy.pm | 10 +-
lib/FileHandle.t | 4 -
lib/perl5db.pl | 3 +-
mpeix/mpeix.c | 802 ------------------------------------------
mpeix/mpeix_setjmp.c | 355 -------------------
mpeix/mpeixish.h | 193 ----------
mpeix/nm | 33 --
mpeix/relink | 49 ---
perl.c | 4 -
perl.h | 5 -
pod/perl.pod | 1 -
pod/perl5005delta.pod | 2 +-
pod/perlport.pod | 20 +-
pp_sys.c | 4 +-
t/io/pipe.t | 5 +-
t/op/die_exit.t | 2 -
t/op/fork.t | 3 -
t/op/magic.t | 3 +-
t/op/pack.t | 2 -
t/op/stat.t | 1 -
t/op/sysio.t | 3 +-
win32/Makefile | 11 +-
win32/makefile.mk | 11 +-
33 files changed, 30 insertions(+), 2536 deletions(-)
The list of suspected "special biologist word for stable" platforms is here:
It's worth noting that getting rid of stuff completely is actually hard. It's easy to get most of it, but often some obscure small part remains. Because of this, cruft slowly accumulates. This week, I noticed a couple of lines still referencing MiNT, support for which was removed in August 2009 by cd86ed9d430a95bb. These may be the last, or possibly there are still some tentacles hiding in obscure corners, waiting to scare innocent passers-by.
A more detailed breakdown summarised from the weekly reports. In these:
16 hex digits refer to commits in http://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git
RT #... is a bug in https://rt.perl.org/rt3/
CPAN #... is a bug in https://rt.cpan.org/Public/
BBC is "bleadperl breaks CPAN" - Andreas König's test reports for CPAN modules
ID YYYYMMDD.### is an bug number in the old bug system. The RT # is given
afterwards. You can look up the old IDs at https://rt.perl.org/perlbug/
|-DPERL_POISON failure
|MPE/iX, mint
|benchmarking VIEWs
|benchmarking, optimising
|bootstrapping Will Braswell
|darwin SEGV
|failing smoke reports
|investigating security tickets
|method_named benchmarking
|optimising sub entry
|process, scalability, mentoring
|reading/responding to list mail
|readonly ops
125.25 hours total


text:
How sweet !D.T. Nethery wrote:http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2016-12- ... el--ernest
"The animators work with a computer software called TVPaint. All the other classic Raymond Briggs films – The Snowman, The Snowman and the Snowdog, Father Christmas etc – have been animated on paper; Ethel & Ernest is the first to be made 'digitally'.
This software has now become the "industry standard" according to director Roger Mainwood. Animators work on a tablet called a Wacom Cintiq, still drawing each character movement by hand, only on a digital screen rather than with pencil and paper."
Thank you David ! <3


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What do you think causes millions of people to miss work and school in developing economies? Illness? Lack of childcare? Minimal professional training? Insufficient infrastructure? While all of those certainly play a role, I'm guessing that what Elizabeth Scharpf stumbled across as a critical factor in absenteeism wasn't on your radar. While interning in Mozambique in 2005 for the one-person (!) private-sector development division of the World Bank — studying how small and medium-sized businesses can play a role in developing economies — Scharpf, now a 34 year-old graduate of Harvard's graduate schools of business and government, happened to overhear a local colleague complaining that her employees often missed work because they were menstruating.
Perplexed and intrigued, Scharpf thought this might represent a business opportunity, and decided to dig deeper.
A study fielded by the Council on Foreign Relations, "Addressing the Special Needs of Girls," underscores why missing school matters in a big, long-term way. The research found that each extra year of secondary education increases a woman's potential earnings by 25% on average. In South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, another long-term study found that "more equal education between men and women could have led to nearly 1 percent higher annual per capita GDP growth" in each country. Beyond the humiliating difficulties for millions of impoverished individual women trying to improve themselves and support their families, this is a global issue with significant consequences for the economies of developing countries.
Scharpf was passionately determined to find a solution, tackling the problem the way she always does — by talking with people. "And when you talk to people," she says, "you discover what's missing. It's that simple." Those conversations revealed that it was the economy, stupid. A study found that 18% of school age girls in Rwanda, for instance, miss school because menstrual pads are too expensive. In countries like Mozambique and Rwanda, where the per capita GDP is under $1,000, the average annual cost of $33 (12 months x 5 days x 5 pad/day x .11/pad) for the cheapest imported sanitary pad can often be simply unaffordable. Because the "unmentionable" subject of menstruation is taboo, the market failure — supplying cheaper pads — had never received the attention it deserved.
Scharpf found that absorbent wood pulp was the biggest raw material manufacturing expense for pads, and wondered if cheaper indigenous materials could be used for local production, and if also coupled with a more efficient distribution network, there might be a real business opportunity given the huge underserved populations.
Successful Social Entrepreneurship Combines Mind and Heart
Scharpf did all the traditional MBA number-crunching and analyses, but recognized that tapping into emotion — the incredulity, outrage and fellow-feeling aroused in industrialized countries by the discovery that 21st century working women are routinely reduced to sometimes using ineffective rags, or even bark or mud in rural areas, for feminine hygiene — would be essential if a fledging enterprise were to succeed. "I have empathy with these women," she told me, "because I don't think where you are born should be the biggest indicator of your potential for health, wealth and happiness. I want to change that dynamic."
Rwanda was a good place for Scharpf to launch her first initiative because local female entrepreneurs had already established their integral role to the economic renewal of the country in the years since the genocidal 1994 civil war. In 2009, with $60,000 in seed money from the not-for-profit VC organization Echoing Green, and with the Harvard Business School's first social entrepreneur fellowship, Scharpf founded Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE).
Instead of simply raising charity cash to import finished pads, Scharpf and her organization are inventing a whole new system of community-based education, business training, manufacture and distribution from locally-sourced banana fiber — that is, solving this serious problem and creating a sustainable regional business. SHE has created a franchise model — providing business skill training, technical expertise, and co-investment — to partner with women in Rwanda and other developing-country communities to distribute and ultimately manufacture and launch their own SHE LaunchPads franchises. As product is sold, some of the initial working capital that SHE puts up is paid back, with the entrepreneurs eventually owning their local franchises. In turn, SHE reinvests its profits in new geographies or other disruptive enterprises.
Emotion Creates a Common Language
Scharpf says her challenge in dealing with scientists, academics, businesspeople, community activists and policy wonks "is always, 'How do I speak in the same language to each of these different constituencies each with their unique language and objectives?'"
Scharpf and the SHE team, for example, first identified in banana-plants a local agro-waste fiber, and after experimenting, concluded that it had the potential to be an absorbent, cheap, safe material. They then approached MIT to partner on enhancing the process to make it more absorbent. She didn't initiate the conversations by tugging on the professors' heartstrings, highlighting SHE's efforts to improve girl's and women's lives, but rather by challenging the scientists to help her solve a complicated new chemical engineering problem. But she realizes that it was the practical need to pioneer new materials technology under strict cost constraints in tandem with improving lives that really accelerated the innovation process. "I've found," says Scharpf, "that the common language is the one of emotion."
Emotion Attracts Good People
Scharpf told me she recently ran an ad for SHE's first job opening in New York. "If you read the job description," she said, "beside the intro and stuff about the need to financially analyze the potential to grow a business in x y and z ways, it was very dry stuff, but when we added the emotional elements around that factual description — that we are trying to basically change the paradigm of how international development is done, that we're trying to work with communities to help improve lives, that we want to be disruptors — all those good things — well, the response was overwhelming."
Scharpf has experienced firsthand that what inspires people — a mission to improve lives — is also good for business. This elusive component is something that behavioral economists are beginning to document. As Gretchen Spreitzer and Christine Porath reported in a recent issue of HBR, for organizations to prosper today, their employees need to feel as if they are "engaged in creating the future — the company's and their own." Research is also demonstrating that basing performance purely on beating the competition or making money can actually decrease employees' intrinsic motivations to pursue a goal. In her book Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life, Winifred Gallagher cited a study in which "college students who were paid to do a puzzle were significantly less motivated than those who worked for free."
Emotion Inspires Ongoing Development and Builds Community
Scharpf intends for Rwanda to be just a phase-one proving ground. "We're looking at Costa Rica and India to explore how we can technologically and operationally increase distribution either through new natural fiber based lines and/or by distributing other sorts of products via our network." She was recently contacted by entrepreneurs from Zambia and Zimbabwe who were interested in starting SHE franchises. While doing a typical needs assessment, the first question Scharpf asks is "who is the person and what is driving them" — and then she explores the local raw materials and local business conditions. Scharpf ardently believes that SHE's performance is influenced not only by the through-put of their machines and the efficiency of their distribution network, but by their ability to align people's interests and passions with their roles.
Managing Emotion Effectively Keeps Business On Track
Scharpf says being attuned to the emotional aspect of work keeps her sensitive to issues that otherwise might not be immediately obvious — allowing her to pre-emptively deal with challenges before they grow disruptive. "The biggest challenges I have on a daily basis are with regard to human emotions," she says. "They should have a psychology class at the business school because I am finding I am most effective when I understand what drives people to do what they do, whether it's what they are passionate about, or what makes them feel insecure, or what makes them feel good about themselves, or what makes them have confidence, or what they can be proud of — keeping in mind all of those things."
The bottom line is that empathy without rigorous, rational analysis solves no important problems — but rationality without empathy simply misses plenty of important and soluble problems. To be a responsible human and to be a successful entrepreneur requires both, working in tandem.


text:
Swarm of bees causes plane to turn around mid-flight
Passengers on a plane from Las Vegas to Duluth, Minn., had to turn around mid-flight Monday for a reason you might not expect. ABC says:
"An Allegiant Air jet flew into a swarm of bees. It was so bad passengers say it smelled like the plane was on fire as thousands of bees flew into the engines and actually blocked the windshield."
Passengers on the plane told Duluth's WDIO about their experience.
"When we landed, the fire department and the cops were waiting, and they took off along the runway after us."
"It was a little scary coming back down into Vegas. I mean, you don't know what damage is done."
According to WDAZ,there were 160 passengers on the plane that had to turn around. They were all able to get on another plane at the airport in Las Vegas and make it to their destinations later the same day.
Interestingly, NBC reports bees have caused problems for flights before. Last summer, a swarm of bees got inside a device meant to tug a plane from the gate. The bees delayed the flight by three hours.
WDIO reports the passengers on Monday's flight were able to make it to Duluth only about two hours later than originally planned.


text:
Who says you can't teach a hot dog new tricks? Oh wait... Nobody says that. Anyway, we've got some fun ways to consume your favorite franks. Good doggie!!!
PER SERVING (1/2 of recipe, 3 fajitas): 310 calories, 4g fat, 932mg sodium, 54g carbs, 7g fiber, 12g sugars, 14g protein -- PointsPlus® value 8* We love taking two of our favorite foods and making a new recipe out of 'em. Weeeeeeee! Ingredients: 1/2 cup canned diced fire-roasted tomatoes, drained 2 tbsp. finely diced onion 1/4 tsp. chopped garlic 1/8 tsp. black pepper 1/4 cup fat-free sour cream 1 tbsp. Hellmann's/Best Foods Dijonnaise (or another mild creamy Dijon mustard) 3 hot dogs with about 40 calories and 1g fat each (like Hebrew National 97% Fat Free) 1 cup sliced onion 1 cup sliced bell pepper Six 6-inch corn tortillas 1/2 cup shredded lettuce Optional toppings: relish, jarred sliced jalapeños Directions: In a small bowl, combine tomatoes, diced onion, garlic, and black pepper. Mix well and refrigerate until ready to serve. In another small bowl, combine sour cream with Dijonnaise and mix well. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Cut hot dogs in half widthwise, leaving you with 6 pieces. Slice each piece in half lengthwise, and then slice each of those pieces in half lengthwise, yielding 4 even strips per piece, for a total of 24 strips. Set aside. Bring a large skillet sprayed with nonstick spray to medium-high heat on the stove. Add sliced onion and bell pepper. Stirring occasionally, cook until partially softened, about 5 minutes. Add hot dog strips to the skillet with the onion and bell pepper. Stirring occasionally, cook until strips are hot and slightly crispy, about 3 minutes. Transfer to a plate and set aside. Place tortillas on a microwave-safe plate, and warm slightly in the microwave. Serve fajita mixture with tortillas, tomato mixture, sour cream mixture, shredded lettuce and, if you like, optional toppings. Assemble, fold, and chew! MAKES 2 SERVINGS
PER SERVING (entire recipe): 131 calories, 4.5g fat, 863mg sodium, 10.5g carbs, 1g fiber, 6g sugars, 12g protein -- PointsPlus® value 3* Reuben sandwich - bread + lots of lettuce - corned beef + guilt-free hot dog = nothing like any Reuben you've ever had before. Ingredients: 1 hot dog with about 40 calories and 1g fat or less (like Hebrew National 97% Fat Free) 1 slice reduced-fat Swiss cheese 2 leaves butter, iceberg, or romaine lettuce 2 tbsp. sauerkraut 1 tbsp. fat-free Thousand Island dressing Directions: Carefully slice hot dog lengthwise without cutting all the way through. Place it flat on a microwave-safe plate, cut-side down. Break cheese into 6 thin strips and evenly place over the hot dog. Microwave for 30 seconds, or until hot dog is heated through and cheese has melted. Set aside. On another plate, stack lettuce leaves and top with sauerkraut and dressing. Use a spatula to transfer your cheesy dog to the lettuce stack. Wrap it up, and take a bite! MAKES 1 SERVING
Click HERE for Pigs on a Mattress, Cold Dog Slaw, and Hot Dog & Scramble!
If you want to whip up No-Buns-About-It Chili Dog Chili and Hot Dog–Hot Potato Hotcakes, click HERE!
And for an entire chapter of three-ingredient hot dog recipes, order your copy of Hungry Girl 300 Under 300: 300 Recipes for Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner Dishes Under 300 Calories NOW!
Unlike real dogs, these dogs have no legs. Be a lamb and click "Send to a Friend" so our hot dogs can get some exercise (and so your pals can get some good recipes)!
March is National Caffeine Awareness Month. Are you aware of your caffeine intake?
SmartPoints® value not what you expected? Click here for more info on how the values are calculated, plus more FAQs about PointsPlus® and SmartPoints® values on our website.


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Watson Confirms Velcade® Patent Challenge
PARSIPPANY, N.J., Dec. 28, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE: WPI) today confirmed that Actavis, Inc., which was acquired by Watson in October, has filed an Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) seeking approval to market bortezomib. Actavis' ANDA product is a generic version of Millennium Pharmaceuticals' Velcade ® (bortezomib), which is a proteasome inhibitor, for intravenous or subcutaneous administration, approved for the treatment of patients with multiple myeloma and patients with mantle cell lymphoma who have received at least one prior therapy.
Millennium filed suit against Actavis on December 21, 2012, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware seeking to prevent Actavis from commercializing its ANDA product prior to the expiration of certain U.S. patents. The lawsuit was filed under the provisions of the Hatch-Waxman Act, resulting in a stay of final FDA approval of Actavis' ANDA for up to 30 months from the date the plaintiffs received notice of Actavis' ANDA filing or until final resolution of the matter before the court, whichever occurs sooner, subject to any other exclusivities.
For the 12 months ending October 31, 2012, Velcade® had total U.S. sales of approximately $740 million according to IMS Health data.
About Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE: WPI) is a global, integrated specialty pharmaceutical company focused on developing, manufacturing and distributing generic, brand and biosimilar products. The Company has global and U.S. headquarters in Parsippany, New Jersey, USA, and international headquarters in Zug, Switzerland.
Watson is the world's third-largest generics prescription drug manufacturer, with more than 750 products marketed globally through operations in more than 60 countries. Watson's global branded pharmaceutical business develops and markets products principally in Urology and Women's Health, and is committed to developing and marketing biosimilars products in Women's Health, Oncology and other therapeutic categories. In addition, Watson is the fourth-largest U.S. generic pharmaceutical product distributor through its Anda, Inc. business, and also develops and out-licenses generic pharmaceutical products outside of the U.S. through its Medis third-party business. Watson has announced that it will adopt a new global name – Actavis – effective in 2013.
For press release and other company information, visit Watson Pharmaceuticals' Web site at http://www.watson.com.
Forward-Looking Statement
Statements contained in this press release that refer to non-historical facts are forward-looking statements that reflect Watson's current perspective of existing information as of the date of this release. It is important to note that Watson's goals and expectations are not predictions of actual performance. Actual results may differ materially from Watson's current expectations depending upon a number of factors, risks and uncertainties affecting Watson's business. These factors include, among others, the impact of competitive products and pricing; the timing and success of product launches; difficulties or delays in manufacturing; the availability and pricing of third party sourced products and materials; successful compliance with FDA and other governmental regulations applicable to Watson and its third party manufacturers' facilities, products and/or businesses; changes in the laws and regulations, including Medicare and Medicaid, affecting among other things, pricing and reimbursement of pharmaceutical products; and such other risks and uncertainties detailed in Watson's periodic public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to Watson's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2012 and Watson's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2011. Except as expressly required by law, Watson disclaims any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements.
Velcade® is a registered trademark of Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Lisa DeFrancesco
(862) 261-7152
Charlie Mayr
(862) 261-8030
(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20100121/LA41294LOGO)
SOURCE Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc.


text:
Explore food microbiology, from pathogenic organisms to the processes that beneficial microorganisms contribute to, such as fermentation and spoilage. You'll learn about the detection and quantification of pathogenic organisms, how they survive in food and processing environments, and how to characterize those that are emerging. You'll also discover the microbiology of health and wellness foods, learn about quality control issues, and much more.
IFT members have access to year-round opportunities to participate in discussions, share insights and learn from other colleagues through an online group devoted to this topic.
Download the free, archived IFT Scientific Status Summary on Bacteria Associated with Foodborne Diseases.
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text:
Report Ad
Expired! This ad has expired. Cd0W2Lgl
Gorgeous Englishh Bulldoggs Pu.ppies ) Need Hom (301) 636-5382.
- Price$0.00
Philadelphia, Philadelphia
Pennsylvania, USA
We have 2 beautiful gorgeous Englishh Bulldoggs boys and 2 Gorgeous Englishh Bulldoggs girls now ready for Good homes, They are 13 weeks old, they all have there own personality now. They are raised in our home, with young children and a lot of noise. please interested person should contact us for pictures and details.(301) 636-5382.
- Posted on: 2016-09-20 14:14:57
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Map location: 19104, Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Contact Seller


text:
The Maestrella Mozzarella is made using pasteurised cow's milk, used as a culinary ingredient.
Thanks to a light and uniform colouring during cooking and the strong stretching properties of Maestrella mozzarella, your meal looks tasty and authentic. Shredded, it is easy to spread on a pizza or to mix in a preparation.


text:
U.S. Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission
Pregnant Employee Denied Promotion Over Maternity Leave Concerns, EEOC Charged
LOS ANGELES – Sentinel Real Estate Corp., a New York-based nationwide provider of real estate management services, will pay $60,000 and furnish other relief to settle a pregnancy discrimination lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency announced today.
According to the EEOC's suit, a Sentinel leasing consultant sought promotion to an assistant manager position at the company's Town Center Apartments in Valencia, Calif., in December 2006. In response, a Sentinel property manager expressed misguided concerns over whether the consultant would miss work due to her pregnancy and fail to return from maternity leave, the EEOC said. Sentinel ultimately hired a non-pregnant outside applicant for the assistant manager position.
"Applicants deserve to be treated equally, regardless of gender or pregnancy," said Anna Y. Park, regional attorney for the EEOC's Los Angeles District Office. "We commend Sentinel for working with the EEOC to prevent future pregnancy discrimination at its facilities."
Olophius E. Perry, district director of the EEOC's Los Angeles District Office said, "The law expressly protects women from discrimination due to pregnancy. Employers must assess pregnant workers as they would any other employee, basing decisions solely on one's qualifications."
Employment discrimination because of pregnancy violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. The EEOC filed its lawsuit against Sentinel in September 2009 in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California (EEOC v. Sentinel Real Estate Corp., Case No. CV-09-06949-GAF(FFMx)). Aside from the monetary relief secured for the victim, the parties entered into a four-year consent decree in which Sentinel agreed to implement an internal policy, procedures and staff training to safeguard against gender bias, pregnancy discrimination and retaliation. Sentinel must also submit annual reports to the EEOC to track future pregnancy discrimination complaints.
The EEOC is responsible for enforcing federal laws against employment discrimination. Further information is available at www.eeoc.gov.