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December 12, 2013
By Rachel Kremen
People with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) spend a lot of time waiting: waiting for a diagnosis, waiting for therapeutic services, or waiting to see a doctor about medication. Participants in the Collaborative to Improve Care for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder, a quality improvement collaboration led by NICHQ and the Autism Speaks Autism Treatment Network (AS ATN) / Autism Intervention Research Network on Physical Health (AIR-P), looked closely at how patients with the neurodevelopmental disorder move through the system.
With coaching from an external expert on access to care, teams found ways to significantly reduce waiting times by applying quality improvement methods to collect wait time data and make informed changes based on the information. The two hospitals participating in this work made notable progress.
"With the increasing prevalence of ASD across the country, one of the biggest issues we see today is actually getting access to a provider. Wait times are rising exponentially," says NICHQ senior project manager Meghan Johnson.
After being referred for services or diagnosis, patients often spend several months on a waitlist before their appointment is even scheduled, then wait several more months to see a professional. Some can wait a year before receiving therapy or medication. This problem isn't just inconvenient for families: the earlier children with ASD receive intervention, the better their outcomes tend to be.
To alleviate the problem, staff from the Autism Speaks Autism Treatment Network sites at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and Nationwide Children's Hospital in Ohio engaged with access specialists from Mark Murray & Associates. Together, they examined their patient flow systems and analyzed how it affected the number of patients they saw.
The team measured and analyzed demand and supply of providers' time, and activity in relation to delay. "We measure delay as the third next available appointment because it gives us the truest sense of where they have open spaces and real availability exists," notes June Austin, a consultant with Mark Murray & Associates and coach for the access work. The first and second available appointments might be due to last-minute cancellations and not representative of true delay. Using this data, the organizations were able to identify system imbalances and implement effective change.
Staff at Cincinnati Children's felt they were short-staffed before they started the improvement project, but after looking at the collected data they discovered they could make big improvements to wait times without hiring. Typically, primary care doctors refer patients to Cincinnati Children's for a diagnosis of ASD. But patients had to first see a developmental pediatrician at the hospital before they could be evaluated for ASD, and the wait times for developmental pediatricians were several months long. Allowing patients to make appointments for diagnostic testing before seeing the developmental pediatrician decreased the delay from 91 days to 22 days for children between 19 and 36 months old.
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text: Ahhhhh...noooooo!! I have been working on my car slowly but surely and i used the guide online @ http://www.carstereoremoval.com/htm/stereoremovalCadillacCatera97_01P.htm to remove my radio, console etc.. Awesome link!!.. a year ago that was!! Now they are charging pay-per-view to see those instructions. I know generally how to put it all back together but I wanted to use that as a guide so i dont mess anything up. I checked around and couldnt find nething. Does anyone have any suggestions on how i can get instructions w/o having to pay $5 for something i got for free a couple of months ago??

subset: commoncrawl


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I don't know what the answer is because it should be "use your common sense" but that is subjective so it won't work.
Maybe there should be some sort of arbitration panel that lawsuits should have to pass before they are allowed to to forward. A first line of defense so to speak. That way suits by people that make a living suing other people would be stopped before they clog the system.
One time "60 Minutes" (I think it was that show) did a report on a woman that constantly sued everyone she could. She acted as her own attorney so all it cost her was time. She sued one of her neighbors because their kids played basketball in their driveway and the bouncing ball gave her "severe headaches". She sued stores constantly because many of them would just pay her off rather then pay the cost of the court and defense. At any one time she would have as many as 20 cases in the works. Her whole neighborhood was terrified of her because of the lawsuits. She made a fortune causing legal misery for innocent people. Whenever I think of frivolous lawsuits, I think of her. I know she's an extreme case but I bet she's not the only one who does this.


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Available 24 hours per day, seven days a week
1300 DRIVER is anonymous, confidential and staffed by experienced health professionals. Your phone number does not appear when you call and calls are not recorded.
Education, information, one-off and ongoing support, and referrals for long haul truck drivers and their families with issues related to health, wellbeing, stress, anxiety, alcohol, tobacco and other drugs, and lifestyle.
1300 DRIVER offers support via telephone, Twitter, and website 1300DRIVER.org.au.
If you are a long haul truck driver, and have questions or experience issues related to alcohol, tobacco or other drugs, including
- Struggling with managing sleep, long hours, alertness and thinking about stimulants;
- Having problems relaxing and getting sleep when you get home, and thinking about substances as a way to come down;
- Have anxiety and stress issues as a result of the job demands, and are looking at substances as a way to manage;
- Changing smoking habits to meet work demands;
Talk to 1300 DRIVER, get some answers and some support now.
If you have a truckie in the family and you are worried about them, call 1300 DRIVER for information and referral. Check out the 1300DRIVER website.
Ring 1300 DRIVER (1300 374 837)
Calls from landlines are the cost of a standard call.
Calls from mobiles are charged at the standard rate.
National organisation supporting #Truckies, including respite facility- Trans-Help Foundation


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A collection of eleven short plays from 1989. Includes: "The Author's Voice" - Richard Greenberg; "San Antonio Sunset" - Willy Holtzman; "There Is No John Garfield" - Ernest A. Joselovitz; "The Mask of Hiroshima" - Ernest Ferlita; "Penguin Blues" - Ethan Phillips; "Haiku" - Katherine Snodgrass; "Chemical Reactions" - Andrew Foster; "Dolores" - Edward Allan Baker; "April Snow" - Romulus Linney; "Trout" - William R. Lewis; "A Poster of the Cosmos" - Lanford Wilson.


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For over 20 years, Jimmy's has been providing help for the homeless in Cambridge. We work with the local Community, Volunteers and Partner agencies to deliver 24/7 emergency accommodation and supported housing for those who would otherwise be homeless or vulnerably housed. In the last year, we have worked with over 400 different people, supporting them through positive changes and we have helped over three quarters of them resettle into more suitable and stable accommodation, leading them towards an independent lifestyle.
Celebrating 20 Years of Jimmy's: An Exhibition of Homelessness from Jimmy's Cambridge on Vimeo.


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Items in Cart:
You are bidding on an OLD BROOK BOND BEEF CUBES TIN The tin is in lovely condition for age and would look wonderful in an old farmhouse kitchen or cottage. I am selling off some of my collections that I purchased over the years when I lived in England. I will be listing tins, Toby jugs , Dinky Toys and other collectables. Please note the tins I am selling mostly date back to the late 1890's - 1930's , they are not modern reproductions. I will try answer any questions you may have. I try take close up photos to give the best indication of condition. I will combine postage for multiple items purchased


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Modern Furniture and Gift Ideas - Mocha - Herb Keeper
Finally! my herbs wont wilt the day after i buy them!
Added to my Shopping Guide Wish List
Handy little herb keeper that fits in your refrigerator door. Holds a lot of herbs & keeps them useful longer. Will come in handy as I harvest from the herb section of my garden. Great for healthy cooking!Tags: kitchen, green, herbs, kitchenware, Garden, herbal, containers, herb keeperAdded 6 Years Ago from Amazon.com


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Fifteen Minutes of Infamy
- By Ray Paulick
By Ray Paulick -- With racing broadcasts taking a backseat to other sports on ESPN, producers should be prepared for an altered time period.
By Ray Paulick -- With racing broadcasts taking a backseat to other sports on ESPN, producers should be prepared for an altered time period.
By Ray Paulick -- Maybe the horse industry should borrow a page from the marketing program for the modest, but fast-growing the Alpaca Owners and Breeders Association.
By Ray Paulick -- Concern for the racing fan and the industry doesn't appear to be driving some of the decisions regarding account wagering in California.
By Ray Paulick -- If racing commissions can't decide which national organization should represent them, it seems almost absurd to suggest the industry should move toward uniform medication rules.
bloodhorse.com, the Thoroughbred industry's leading online Web site for Thoroughbred racing and breeding news and information, is now offering free daily Leading Sire Lists for Leading Sires, Leading Broodmare Sires, First Crop Sires, Second Crop Sires, and Third Crop Sires.
The agribusiness of Thoroughbred racing and breeding will be the subject of a segment on PBS's American Farm Review series that will be filmed Friday at Bridlewood Farm in Ocala, Fla.
By Ray Paulick -- Without question, the TV Games Network has fallen short of the mark in its first 18 months of existence.
By Ray Paulick -- The conclusions and recommendations given the NTRA in a draft memo should be reviewed carefully by the NTRA's board of directors and executive team.


text: The last time I was in this situation was in Hickory NC. Big bar fight and I was at the bar and stuck in middle of it. Me and another large guy stood back to back and pushed people away from us. When the dust settled, I gathered my 2 drunk buddies and we cut a trail as the police arrived. I was driving one of their cars (I was sober) and about 4 miles down the road a car full of guys had followed us and ran us off the road. The curb blew a tire and I darted onto the interstate and lost them (they could not make turn onto ramp). I took the next exit and did a NASCAR pit stop tire change at midnight and got the heck out of there. Tore his rim and car up, but we avoided another encounter. I don't hang with those guys anymore. Point is even after you leave, watch out down the road.


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in a real combat situation where you at least had to present your weapon in order to diffuse a situation? You don't have to go into details (unless you want to) I'm just trying to get some feedback.
I've always had a gun accessible to me in one way or another especially when I used to travel a lot with work. I've had to pull a gun on a person 2 times in my life and thank GOD each time just showing the weapon ended a situation that could have turned out badly.


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Quiet place on artistic city island
Size35 m²
Floor No.1
- Family/child friendly
- Internet/WiFi
- Kitchen
- Lockable room
- Balcony/terrace
- Towels
- Parking available
Accommodation summary
|Prinseneiland, 1013 LL Amsterdam, Netherlands
|Property type
|Property ID
|Acceptance rate
|Response time
|A few hours
|Calendar updated
|2 days ago
The apartment has a very nice feel with an "authentic" style, an open, fully equipped kitchen, a private bathroom with shower, wireless internet, a TV with international channels and of course a coffee maker. There are a double bed and a sofa that can accommodate up to 3/4 people.
Everything in this apartment is in great condition!
The neighborhood is ideal located at about a 3 minutes walking distance from the busy city center with lots of restaurants and shops, The Ann Frank House, the Central Railway Station, the Red Light District, Dam Square and Westerpark and 3 nice markets on Mondays (arts and crafts), Wednesdays (organic) and Saturdays (farmers).
In short, the perfect place to stay when in Amsterdam!
House rulesNo smoking (very strict), please respect the quietness and friendliness of the neighborhood.
Private parking is available, costs are 25 euro per night. Please, make reservations for it because there are limited spots to park.
|Check-in after
|On arrangement
|Check-in before
|On arrangement
|Check-out before
|On arrangement
|Cancellation Policy
Reviews of this property
The appartment is small but very cute. The position is very near to the centre of Amsterdam. You walk 5 minutes to the Harlemplein (Harlemplace) where you can find shops, supermarkets what ever you need and of course access to the public transports. The small island on which the appartment lies is very beautifull. There is no stress or hecticness, a welcome change to the centre, which apparently never sleeps.
Emmy is a great hostess, always nice and kind. Don´t think any further, just book this appartment!
Super leuk en schoon appartement op een perfecte locatie! Emmy regelde zelfs een parkeerplaats bij de deur voor ons (uiteraard tegen betaling) jammer dat het regende anders hadden we zeker gebruikt gemaakt van de fietsen die ze in de verhuur heeft. Prijs/kwaliteit dik in orde!
The apartment is situated close to everything! You can walk 4 minutes to the city part called "jordaan" and 10 to 15 minutes to all the other attractions like red light district etc.. The apartment itself is small but it has everything you need. I would recommend it for 2 people. The host was very reliable and friendly!
Great apartment in a lovely quiet area of Amsterdam. We were 2 couples sharing so space was a little bit tight but we managed and we all loved the apartment. Emmy provided info on local shops, restaurants etc which was really helpful.
Emmy, our landlady and hostess is very gracious, interesting, helpful and uncomplicated. The apartment is located in a quiet and pleasant little island. The town center is on foot within easy reach. Bus and tram are nearby and there are many restaurants and cafes in the vicinity. Emmy has prepared us a lot of suggestions.
Emmy, unsere Vermieterin und Gastgeberin ist sehr liebenswürdig, interessant, hilfsbereit und unkompliziert. Die Wohnung liegt auf einer ruhigen und angenehmen kleinen Insel. Die Stadtmitte ist zu Fuss rasch erreichbar. Bus und Tram sind in unmittelbarer Nähe und es gibt viele Restaurants und Cafés in der näheren Umgebung. Emmy hat uns viele Vorschläge dazu vorbereitet.
Myself, my husband and our 18yr old son stayed here at the end of May for 3 nights and had an amazing time. The apartment is very quaint and is very well equipped. The are surrounding the apartment is very peaceful and friendly but having the benefit of being a 10 minute walk to the centre and train station. There are plenty of places to eat and shops nearby. Emmy is very welcoming and informative on arrival and close at hand should you need her for anything. Many thanks Emmy.
The house is a dream, the apartment tastefully decorated, clean, all necessary equipment, the area is a Genuss.Hervorzuheben Emmy`s hospitality and the effort towards your guests, very pleasant and highly recommended.
The city is a dream and when we come back, again and again to Emmy !!!!
Das Haus ein Traum,die Wohnung geschmackvoll eingerichtet,sauber,alles Nötige vorhanden,die Gegend ein Genuss.Hervorzuheben ist Emmy`s Gastfreundlichkeit und die Mühe gegenüber Ihren Gästen,sehr angenehm und sehr zu empfehlen.
Die Stadt ein Traum und wenn wir wiederkommen ,immer wieder zu Emmy!!!!
Nice and clean accommodation. Friendly landlady.
Quiet and well-situated place.
Nette und saubere Unterkunft. Freundliche Vermieterin.
Ruhiger und gut gelegener Ort.
The stay was great. We have felt very comfortable and even enjoyed a private canal tour, which has organized us Emmy.
Very simple and very friendly!
Der Aufenthalt war toll. Wir haben uns sehr wohl gefühlt und sogar eine private Grachtenfahrt genossen, die uns Emmy organisiert hat.
Sehr unkompliziert und sehr freundlich!
The accommodation is very nice and cozy and stylish furnishings. The apartment is centrally located, you can reach the main station on foot in 20 minutes and in less than 5 minutes at the next station Tramm.
We would book the hotel in any case again.
Die Unterkunft ist sehr schön und gemütlich und stilvoll eingerichtet. Die Wohnung liegt zentral, man kann zu Fuß in 20min den Hauptbahnhof erreichen und ist in weniger als 5min an der nächsten Trammhaltestelle.
Wir würden die Unterkunft auf jedenfall nochmal buchen.
- Quality assured accommodation
- Every host is verified by telephone
- Secure payment via SSL encryption


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The Menagerie: Bradt's Mammals & More
Alva, OK 73717
Head to The Menagerie: Bradt's Mammals & More in Alva to experience animals like you never have before. This...Learn More
Head to The Menagerie: Bradt's Mammals & More in Alva to experience animals like you never have before. This...Learn More
Rustic Acres features a vegetable market and u-pick produce. Rustic Acres offers cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes,...Learn More
Did you know the Tulsa Municipal Airport was the busiest airport in the world in 1930? Experience 100 years of...Learn More
Jahn's Pumpkin Hill, a working farm near Cyril, offers u-pick pumpkins and fun fall activities during the month of...Learn More
Join family and friends at Chuck E. Cheese's in Oklahoma City for a fun-filled day. Kids can play exciting video...Learn More
Riversport Adventure Park at the Boathouse District is your passport to the most exciting adventures on the...Learn More
Soak up some cool, refreshing thrills at Comanche Nation Water Park in Lawton. Enjoy 12 acres of family fun from...Learn More
The Straw Family Farm in northeastern Oklahoma is a fully functional farm caring for a wide variety of livestock...Learn More
The Express Clydesdales Ranch, located on the historic Chisholm Trail in Yukon, is home to some of the world's most...Learn More
Featuring the latest in ramp construction, this skate park offers a total of 24 different elements, including half and...Learn More
Route 66 Park sits along the shores of Lake Overholser in Oklahoma City. This 148-acre park celebrates historic...Learn More
Broken Arrow Roller Family Sports is a roller skating facility that is perfect for all ages. Skate the night away or...Learn More
The Woodbine Farms Pumpkin Patch is set on a real farm near Ardmore, surrounded by beautiful trees and nature. This...Learn More
With multiple levels of fun, Brickopolis in Oklahoma City's Bricktown District provides a great spot for all day...Learn More
Every fall, The Busy Bee breaks out its finest orange gourds for its seasonal pumpkin patch. This Lexington farm...Learn More
Bring the entire family to the Tulsa Zoo, a unique family friendly destination featuring animal encounters on 84 acres....Learn More
Take a stroll through Tulsa's Centennial Park for a broad view of the downtown skyline. After trekking across the...Learn More
Lake Murray Water Sports & Mini Golf is located in Lake Murray State Park. Lake Murray Water Sports prides itself on...Learn More
Visit the Tulsa Children's Museum Discovery Lab for a fun, educational and exciting experience for the whole...Learn More
The Crystal Beach Aquatics Center features a large enclosed water slide, large open water slide and plenty of lap lanes....Learn More
Anyone with a child knows the importance of hands-on activities in order for children to learn. The Jasmine Moran...Learn More
Located at Roman Nose State Park, Roman Nose General Store & Riding Stables offers everything you need to make your...Learn More
Oklahoma Children's Theatre provides entertaining, educational and accessible experiences through theatrical...Learn More
The City of Miami Water Park features Oklahoma's largest municipal swimming pool, covering 20,000 sq ft of summer fun. ...Learn More
The Beavers Bend Depot and Stables in beautiful Broken Bow offers you the ride of a lifetime on a 1/3 size replica of...Learn More
Stock up on fresh seasonal produce at Canadian Valley Farms in Lexington. Vibrant, green okra and juicy red heirloom...Learn More
Lazer Zone Family Fun Center, located in Ada, offers 60,000 sq ft of exciting fun for the whole family. Come to...Learn More
Upstage Theatre & Performing Arts Studio is Edmond's community theater and performing arts studio. They host...Learn More
Laser Quest is a combination of hide-n-seek and tag, with a high-tech twist. Played in a 10,000 square foot black light...Learn More
A trip to the Sand Springs Pumpkin Patch is a family friendly way to celebrate the season with something for everyone....Learn More
Enjoy a bay with an incredible view with your favorite people and an evening of fun at FlyingTee in Jenks. At...Learn More
Incredible Pizza features a family atmosphere with attractions for all ages. n on-site restaurant serves up fresh pizza...Learn More
Andy B's of Tulsa offers 40 traditional lanes of bowling plus 16 VIP lanes. An arcade, game room, indoor go-karts and...Learn More
Celebrate the magic of autumn with a trip to The Maize at Reding Farm in Chickasha and enjoy over 35 acres of cornfield...Learn More
This upscale entertainment center in Norman features something for everyone and has been the winner of national...Learn More
The Oklahoma Aquarium is the largest indoor ocean in the four state region with thousands of aquatic creatures featured...Learn More
Combine small town charm with a big city pool and you'll get the Ardmore Community Water Park. What was once a...Learn More
Norman's Sooner Bowling Center in Norman is a family-friendly, multi-purpose bowling alley featuring 24...Learn More
Wacker Park has been a recreational spot for families and the town of Pauls Valley since it opened in the 1940s. There...Learn More
Book a party or private event at Chester's Party Barn & Farm in Piedmont. Clowns, stilt walkers, magicians and...Learn More


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Here at Focus on the Family, we are all about family and adoption. Adoption is something that now that my kids are older, my wife and I have seriously considered. We know we have lots of love to give and we feel our hearts being prompted to look into this. One of my dear friends has adopted several children and works for an organization that sees families through the adoption process. Recently,she asked me about adoption and how dads view the process.
My 4-Year-Old Hasn't Seen Frozen
I have a confession to make. Is this blog a safe place? Okay … here it is:
My 4-year-old daughter has not seen Frozen.
There – what a relief it is to get that off my shoulders.
What? Is that so uncommon?
It is? Well, given the success of the movie at the box office and it's Blu-Ray sales (and all of that, ka-ching! ka-ching!, merchandise), the film was well-watched by kids of all ages. Except for Daughter #1 and Daughter #2 (and their parents).
I Am Your Father. Come to the Normal Side.
My daughter is getting married. She also wants me to walk her down the aisle while the Darth Vader theme song is playing.
No "Here Comes the Bride." No sappy ballad from the 1970s. Emily wants the music of the evil galactic empire—killer of Jedi, maimer of ewoks—to bounce through the church as she enters into her new life.
I have several questions about this musical selection: Am I supposed to be Darth Vader in this scenario?
Parents Can't Fix Everything… And That's Okay
Sickness has descended upon our family's home and hung around like that one party guest who you wish would leave early but who stays until 2 A.M. We've been like a bunch of sickly domino pieces crashing down on one another, and the kids have had it particularly rough.
Which is, like, one of the lamest things for a parent.
There really aren't many things as sad and pitiful as watching your child get sick. It is especially heartbreaking (and frustrating) when there isn't much you can do to fix them.
A Neighborhood of Snow Angels
This past weekend brought a lot of snow to Colorado Springs. Nothing on the scale of what the northeast is experiencing this winter (thank you God!), but the 7" that fell on our driveway over the course of two days was the most I remember shoveling in the 6 ½ years since we moved to the Rocky Mountains (believe it or not).
The snow brought along with it a gift – a snow day for Focus on the Family on Monday … plus a delayed start on Tuesday!
6 Things That Rock About Being a Dad
On a long car ride back from skiing this weekend, two good friends and I got to talking about what we most enjoy about being dads – things big and small. In no particular order, here are six of the things we landed on that we most relish about being … Dad.
Broadening your horizons. If you approach life willing to experience new adventures, having kids is a great way to do it. While we hope our kids will adopt some of our interests, their varied personalities mean that they will have interests of their own that we'd otherwise never be exposed to.
Father Oscar: What the Academy Awards Can Teach About Fatherhood
The Oscars were held last night, and while Birdman took home the most prestigious award of the evening, fathers were just as much on center stage.
The stories we saw weren't always easy to see or hear. In both Boyhood and Birdman, considered to be the two front-runners for Best Picture when the evening began, we see strained relationships between father and child. In Boyhood, Mason's dad is great when he's around … but that's not often enough, and Mason feels the hole his father leaves behind.
Do Unto Others' Children As You Would Have Them Do Unto Yours
My wife and I did something daring recently. Not because we're "daredevils" or because we like to "live life on the edge," but because we knew—in spite of the "risks"—that it was what we were supposed to do.
We became licensed as foster parents.
Maybe it's not really such "daring" thing to do. Many other parents have done it before us and are doing it now. But to hear the concerns often voiced over our decision to become foster parents one would think we had just agreed to sell our family—and our children, in particular—up the river.
Human Life: How Important Is It?
OK…I know I am going to open a can of worms with this one, especially with all of the debates and bills that were up before the Senate and Congress several weeks ago. But as I have been thinking and praying this week, I realized that we just recently celebrated Sanctity of Human Life week and it is the opportunity to celebrate the value of a human being.
As I reflected on it this week, I pondered what would have been different if my parents had chosen abortion, or if I had chosen abortion with my kids.
I Miss the NICU…
"Dad, can you tell Zach to stop bothering me?!?"
"Dad, can you make me some lunch???"
"Dad, why can't I have some ice cream???"
"Dad, why….???"
"Dad, what…???"
"Dad, when…???"
I miss the NICU.
With a family of six, there is always something happening and a Daddy's job is never done. Making dinner, putting out fires, stopping fights, comforting tears, praying at bedtime, changing diapers….you know the drill. In contrast, the NICU was so much quieter and less chaotic (most of the time).
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The cake in Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was marked in currants with "EAT ME". A century and a half later, we are following in Alice's footsteps, as Victorian desserts experience a remarkable revival.
Menus at restaurants such as at Heston Blumenthal's Dinner and Mark Hix's eateries now feature Victorian favourites blancmange and brown bread ice cream; and supermarkets are seeing an increase in sales of Victorian staples including Bakewell tart, coconut pudding, Eve's pudding and steamed treacle puds.
The trend for Victoriana coincides with the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Dickens, who wrote in A Christmas Carol that Mrs Cratchit's plum pudding was declared by her husband to be "the greatest success achieved by Mrs Cratchit since her marriage".
The National Trust has also caught on to the trend for bygone desserts by introducing the lemon-flavoured Winifred pudding at its properties nationwide. The food historian Caroline Yeldham, who worked with the National Trust and breadmakers Allinson to revive Winifred pudding, believes traditional puds are just the thing in uncertain times.
"The Victorian era was a time of boom and bust, of irresponsible bankers and businessmen, as satirised in Anthony Trollope's The Way We Live Now. What people wanted from their food was comfort, and this is solid, comforting food," she said.
Sales of traditional puddings have increased: at Asda, steamed puddings in jam, coconut and syrup flavours are up 33 per cent year on year, while sponge and currant spotted dick is up 39 per cent on last year, bread and butter pudding up 25 per cent and Bramley apple crumble up 56 per cent. Waitrose has seen similar rises, with Bakewell tart up 43 per cent, treacle tart up 30 per cent and Eve's pudding, made with apple and sponge, up 23 per cent. Rosalynde Kennedy, Asda's cake and dessert buyer, said: "The nation's increased interest in home baking and cookery programmes has reignited our love of retro Victorian pudding classics over more exotic alternatives such as tiramisu."
Ms Yeldham believes the revival stems from a re-examination of overlooked foods and forgotten recipes. Ronnie Murray, group pastry chef at Hix Restaurants, added: "We are going back to old classics, reinventing those and making sure they're done really well." He currently has sea buckthorn blancmange on his menu, and will be bringing back Sussex pond pudding, made with beef suet and whole lemon inside.
Ms Yeldham says many Victorian puddings went out of fashion in the 1920s and 1930s, in part because of the time required to make them. The rise in "modern" desserts such as ice creams matched the increased availability of better refrigerators.
Food tastes also moved away from suet-heavy fare to lighter dishes, although Ms Yeldham insists many were not synonymous with stodge. Winifred pudding is based on a recipe by the Victorian breadmaker and former doctor Thomas Allinson. He was struck off the medical register in 1892 for his radical views as he promoted healthy eating, vegetarianism and the benefits of wholemeal flour in bread.
Winifred pudding has proved so popular with National Trust diners that some properties, including Lanhydrock in Bodmin, will continue to serve it. Melanie Claridge, catering manager at Lanhydrock, said: "Visitors were suitably intrigued, with many asking for the recipe. It's fantastic to make that connection with the history through food but it's not always popular. For example, calves' feet in aspic was the height of fashion in Victorian times, particularly at Lanhydrock, but I'm not sure it would work on the menu today."
Winifred Pudding
Thomas Allinson's recipe
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 35-40 minutes
Serves 6-8
1 slice wholemeal batch bread, crusts removed
5 tbsp whole milk
85g (3oz) unsalted butter, softened
85g (3oz) caster sugar
2 medium size eggs
Juice of 1 large lemon
1 tsp lemon flavouring or lemon oil 250g
(9oz) puff pastry, thawed if frozen
To decorate
1 tbsp caster sugar
Preheat the oven to 180*C/fan oven 160*C/Gas mark 4.
1. Lightly butter and flour a 9in (20cm) shallow plate pie dish. Roll out the puff pastry on a lightly floured work surface. Chill until ready to use
2. Crumble the bread into fine crumbs (if you are not trying to use Victorian cooking methods, use a food processor) and tip into a bowl. Gently warm the milk and pour over the breadcrumbs and allow to stand for 5 minutes until cooled slightly and the breadcrumbs have absorbed the milk
3. In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until they are pale and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time until they are well incorporated.
4. Beat the breadcrumbs mixture with a fork until it is smooth and then stir into the creamed mixture. Stir in the lemon juice and lemon oil and pour into the prepared pastry case.
5. Bake for 30 minutes until it has risen and is golden. Remove from the oven and sprinkle with the caster sugar and bake it for a further 5 minutes - this will give the pudding a crunchy top. Serve warm with pouring cream.
To serve cold:
Mix together 2 tbsp icing sugar and a little water or freshly squeezed lemon juice to make a smooth icing. Drizzle over the pudding and serve.
Seabuckthorn blancmange
On the menu at Hix Restaurants
Makes 12 desserts, divide ingredient quantities depending on number required.
This works in two layers - jelly and blancmange.
[Note: Sea buckthorn juice can be exchanged for other fruit purees.]
To make the jelly:
300ml sea buckthorn juice
200ml water
100g caster sugar
3 1/2 leaves of gelatine
1. Soak the gelatine leaves in a bowl of cold water.
2. Bring 200ml water and caster sugar to the boil. Remove from the heat, and squeeze out the gelatine leaves into the hot water, and stir.
3. Pour in the juice and pass mixture through a sieve.
4. Pour mixture into the moulds, just covering the bottom.
5. Place in the fridge to set.
To make the blancmange:
6 leaves of gelatine
420ml full fat milk
320ml double cream
520ml sea buckthorn juice
230g caster sugar
1. Soak gelatine in a bowl of cold water.
2. Put milk, cream and sugar into a pan and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat, add gelatine and stir.
3. Pass mix through a sieve and into a bowl which is placed over a bowl of ice water to start the chilling process. Keep stirring until almost set.
4. Take moulds out of fridge, and top up with the blancmange.
5. Put back in the fridge over night.
Food historian Caroline Yeldham's Eve's Pudding
This is a simpler version of an 18th century boiled pudding known as the Duke of Cumberland's pudding, which surrounded an apple mixture with a richly egged suet crust and was served with melted butter, wine and sugar.
2 apples
2 tablespoons caster sugar
Finely grated lemon rind
Icing sugar for topping
75 g self-raising flour
50 g butter
50 g caster sugar
1 egg
1 tablespoon milk
1. Heat the oven to 375degree F/190 degree C/Gas Mark 5.
2. Butter a 1.5 pint baking dish.
3. Peel, core and slice the apples and lay in the dish. Sprinkle on the sugar, lemon rind and water and set aside.
4. Sift the flour into a separate bowl, add the butter, caster sugar, egg and milk, and beat with a wooden spoon until it forms a smooth cake batter.
5. Pour over the apples and smooth the top.
6. Bake for 35 - 40 mins until golden brown and set. Use a metal skewer to test the apples - they should be soft.
7. Sprinkle with icing sugar and serve with cream and custard, or with the butter, wine and sugar sauce mentioned below.
Coconut Pudding, recipe by Thomas Allinson
10oz fresh grated coconut
8oz Allinson breadcrumbs
4oz stoned muscatels, chopped small
3oz sugar
3 eggs
1 pint milk
1. Mix the breadcrumbs, coconut, muscatels, sugar and the butter (oiled).
2. Add the yolks of the eggs, well beaten.
3. Whip the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth and add these to the mixture just before turning the pudding into a buttered pie-dish.
4. Bake until golden
Food historian Caroline Yeldham's Bakewell Pudding (or Tart
Shortcrust pastry, made using butter and 100gm plain flour
1 tablespoon raspberry jam
25 gm plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
50 g ground almonds
50 g butter
50 g caster sugar
1 egg
Almond essence - optional
Flaked almonds and icing sugar - optional topping
1. Heat the oven to 400 degree F/200 degree C/Gas Mark 6. Roll out the pastry and line an 8 inch/20 cm tart tin. Spread with the jam and set aside.
2. Sift the flour and baking powder, and mix with the almonds. Cream the butter and caster sugar until light and pale. Beat the egg and almond essence, if using, and beat into the creamed butter and sugar. Fold in the flour and almonds with a metal spoon and spoon over the jam.
3. Sprinkle with the almonds and bake for 30 mins until risen and firm.
4. If you want a version more like the Bakewell ones, or the medieval ones, then leave out the flour and baking powder, and add another egg. You will want a softer set, more like a custard than a cake.
5. This pudding is based on medieval flans or 'flathons' which were a rich egg custard tart, with candied fruit between the pastry and custard. For Lenten days, when eggs were forbidden, a version using almonds and sugar replaced the egg custard. Bakewell puddings are a mixture of the two, with raspberry jam, or strawberry in some of the victorian recipes, replacing the candied fruit.
Sussex Pond Pudding
Recipe from British Food by Mark Hix, published by Quadrille
This unusual pudding is steamed with a whole lemon inside that serves two purposes: one to hold the pudding up and secondly to permeate the rich buttery sauce with a delicate lemony flavour as it cooks. Once the pud is turned out on to the serving dish, it will be sitting in a pond of delicious sweet lemony sauce.
Serves 4-6
250g (9oz) self-raising flour
125g (4oz) shredded beef suet
150ml (1/4 pint) milk
200g (7oz) soft light brown sugar
300g (11oz) unsalted butter, softened
1 large unwaxed lemon
1. Mix the flour and suet together in a bowl, then gradually mix in the milk to form a dough. The dough should be soft but firm enough to roll out.
2. Roll out the dough to a circle large enough to line a 1.5 litre (21/2 pint) pudding basin. Cut a quarter out of the circle for the lid and to ease the lining of the bowl. Butter the pudding basin well, drop the pastry into it and join up the edges where the quarter was removed.
3. Mix the sugar and butter together and put into the lined basin. With a roasting fork or skewer, prick the whole lemon all over as much as you can so that the juices can escape during cooking, then push it into the butter mixture.
4. Remould the pastry for the top and roll it out to the correct size. Lay it on top of the filling and press the edges together to seal in the filling. Cover the top of the basin with a generous piece of foil, making a pleat down the middle to allow for expansion. Secure in place under the rim with string, making a string handle so it can be lifted out easily.
5. Lower the pudding into a pan containing enough boiling water to come about halfway up the side of the basin. Cover and simmer for 4 hours, topping up with more boiling water as necessary.
6. To serve, lift out the basin and allow to stand for about 30 minutes, then remove the foil and loosen the sides with a small sharp knife. Put a deep serving dish over the basin and quickly turn the whole thing upside down – it may collapse a little but the flavour will be incredible.
Apple Charlotte, recipe by Thomas Allinson
Preparation:15 mins
Serves 4
500g Bramley apples
225g Cox or Braeburn apples
50g caster sugar
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon (optional)
1 egg yolk
9 slices of Allinson Brown Batch with the Taste of Sourdough
100g soft butter
Fresh cream to serve
1. Peel, core and slice the apples. Place in a pan with 2 tbsp water and the caster sugar and lemon zest if using. Cover and cook the apples over a medium heat for about 10 mins, stirring occasionally until the stewed, soft and fluffy. Leave to cool.
2. Preheat the oven to 200oC, 400oF(180oc Fan) Gas Mark 6. You will need 4 x 300ml ovenproof pudding moulds. Remove the crusts from the bread, draw around and cut out four circles to fit the base and top of the pudding moulds. Cut the remaining bread into 5cm wide fingers.
3. Generously butter the bread on both sides and use it to line the base and sides of the moulds, overlapping the slices and making sure there are no gaps. Press the bread firmly into the sides of the tins.
4. Beat the egg yolk into the apples then spoon into the bread lines cases, top with the remaining circles of bread, press down firmly. Place the puddings in a baking tray and bake for 25-30 mins or until they are golden brown and crisp. Remove from the oven and leave to stand for 5 mins.
5. Invert the moulds onto four plates and serve hot with the cream poured over.
- More about:
- Almond
- Apple (fruit)
- Baking
- Coconut
- Cream
- Eggs
- Kitchen (room)
- Pies And Pastries


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On Fridays this July, the McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture invites the community to join the museum for "A Month of Mindfulness." Each hour-long session will allow participants to step out of the heat and hustle of summer and into the museum for an hour of guided meditation, lecture, and yoga practice.
Frank H. McClung Museum News
News Sentinel: McClung Museum Gets fifth AAM accreditation
The Knoxville News Sentinel highlighted the Frank H. McClung Museum's recent accreditation renewal in this story. Of the 160-plus museums statewide, McClung is one of only thirteen that are accredited. The recognition also puts it in the top four percent of museums nationwide.
Friends to Gather at McClung Museum in Honor of Late Curator
A gathering of friends will take place at the Frank H. McClung Museum at 4:00 p.m., Sunday, May 6, in honor of curator Elaine Altman Evans who died this spring. The museum's Egyptian gallery will be named in her honor. Altman died March 17. She joined the McClung Museum in 1971 and was curator for 41 years.
Home for the Holidays? UT Campus Has Fun Options for 'Staycation'
Classes may be over and most students gone, but there's still plenty to do on the UT Knoxville campus. So if you're anticipating a holiday at home—a "staycation"—there are some happenings you won't want to miss.


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I'm trying to put together a little project for my car and am looking for a little help or guidance. I know my cars circuitry well, as well as intermediate computer circuitry but unfortunately I missed the generation of the circuitry I'm trying to set up. I have basic knowledge of circuitry components and such. I attached a crude drawing of what I am trying to accomplish. I know this is newbish but please don't flame and I have been studying ways to accomplish this sparingly and a microcontroller seems like the best way unless you guys have alternate ideas.
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Manufacturers talk shop at breakfast session
Business growth and the future of manufacturing in Western New York were overarching themes at a manufacturing-themed panel discussion Jan. 30.
Approximately 160 people attended the first of this year's Business First Power Breakfast series. The event was held at Salvatore's Italian Gardens in Depew.
A four-person panel discussed international trade challenges, how to find quality workers, government regulations and health insurance issues.
Panelists were Benjamin Harp, COO of Polymer Conversions Inc.; Terry Galanis Jr., president of Sealing Devices Inc.; Rick Smith, president of Rigidized Metals Corp.; and Kenneth Snyder, president of Hebeler Corp.
Panelists talked about growth and their experiences in deciding whether to move their companies to be closer to a skilled labor force and customers. While Smith said he wouldn't consider doing so, Snyder and Galanis said they would.
Harp was intrigued by the idea, as it made his company seem more diverse to existing and potential customers.
Snyder told a story about meeting with a client regarding the conversion of truck fleets to natural gas and someone was there to talk to him about moving the business. There was an accompanying incentive package to do so.
Regarding the difficulty in hiring skilled workers, a common lament among manufacturers, Smith said those with engineering skills are now being sought to do what amounts to what he called an "artful approach" that more-experienced craftsmen are adept at.
Galanis agreed, adding that expertise for design is difficult to come by.
Business First hosts Power Breakfasts year-round, with area business leaders discussing issues that affect their companies and industries. As the events are scheduled, they are posted on the events tab at buffalo.bizjournals.com.


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Belly + Plastic Surgery Q&A
Is It Safe Combining Breast Reduction, Tummy Tuck, and Liposuction?
I am getting a Breast Reduction, Tummy Tuck, and Liposuction under my breasts and under my armpits.I am overweight and I am really scared. Is it safe?... READ MORE
Are belly implants possible? I (not for attention, for personal reasons) would like to look about 6 months pregnant.
I have always dreamed of carrying a child but as a male it is obviously not possible, I'm very slim and healthy and believe that an impact in over the... READ MORE
Are These Multiple Cosmetic Procedures on Face and Body Safe?
Can all this be done in one surgery: Face: under eye surgery, Neck lift, Revision RhinoplastyBody: Liposuction to upper and lower belly and back READ MORE
My belly looks exactly like a "B" from the side. Is this normal ? How do I get rid of it? (photos)
It cuts right through my belly button and I have two halves the top and bottom and I can't wear tight tops because it then looks weird and crop tops... READ MORE


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The Do*Able Renewable Home
Adapting your home to allow you to remain there as you age doesn't have to be expensive. The Do*Able Renewable Home, published by the American Association of Retired Persons and authored by UD&C President and Founder John Salmen, explains in practical terms how to modify residential spaces to be accessible to elderly residents. The publication is heavily illustrated and is packed full of ideas and examples of changes that can be made to a home.


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Am I pregnant? (And, why feeling you have to lie and go without protection isn't okay.)
I had sex a few days after my period and I made sure it was over. I lied to my boyfriend bout it so that I had time to make sure it was clean. 3 weeks later I had my period. My periods are usually irregular so I figured it's okay. But I'm still so so worried. Please help! Could I be pregnant? I haven't been feeling anything at all and I've only done it once, just that night....
She took Plan B and now she has her period. Can she still be pregnant?
First thank you for taking the time to read my question. Anyways... my girlfriend (19) and I (also 19) recently became sexually active. We are both virgins and have no diseases. I got tested just in case just to make sure. Well we have had sex a few times with protection....
Will they know that I've had sex?
Hi, I have lost my virginity 3 years back. I also had an abortion based on tablet method when I was 1 and half months pregnant. Will my anyone be able to detect that I lost my virginity if they have intercourse with me? Please help!...
I took my pill two hours late. Is this okay?
Hi, my boyfriend and I have been together for a year and we just had sex for the first time the other day. I'm on the pill, but I'm still really nervous because he came inside of me. I had gotten my period on Monday and started my new cycle of the pill. My period ended Wednesday and we had sex Thursday night....
We had sex for 10 seconds; am I pregnant?
I am a 15 year-old girl and me and my boyfriend started to mess around. We ended up having sex but only for a few seconds, seriously, under 10 seconds. I know it wasn't a lot and I've read some of your other answers to others so I do know that even if it's short there is always a risk; but I honestly want to know what the chances are of me being pregnant from such a short amount of time of sex....
It's normal to start a family in the military, but do you think he's ready?
I am 19 and a Cpl in the Marine Corps. I recently got married to my high school sweetheart who is also a Cpl in the Marine Corps. I have always wanted to be a mother since before I can remember, I really want to have a baby but don't know for sure if my husband is ready for that kind of responsibility....
How do I actually get birth control?
This is really important! Okay, I need to know what I need to do to obtain birth control, by myself. My boyfriend and I have been sexually active for a few months but we always used condoms. Properly, I assure you. However, about a month ago, we both came to the conclusion that we wouldn't have vaginal sex anymore cause of how worried we both got about pregnancy risks afterwards....
I'm worried that something might have gone wrong!
Okay, I am 14 years old and my boyfriend is 16. I'm a virgin and we were trying to have sex. I'm so scared that I'm pregnant because I keep thinking that there was sperm on his finger when he fingered me. I just finished my period about two days ago. Even if there wasn't sperm on his finger, I keep thinking that there might have been a hole in the condom! I can't even think of anything else!...
My boyfriend doesn't get pre-cum!
Is it possible that some boys just don't pre-ejaculate. I don't believe that my boyfriend ever does. I have checked multiple times to see if there is ever anything on the tip of his penis after he gets an erection and there is never anything there. Also, does pre-ejaculate always contain sperm?...
The pill, and condoms, and a sponge...oh my!
I am normally on the Pill, but due to sickness, stopped taking it and began waiting for my next period to begin it again. It has been over a month since I had my last period. Anyway, my bf and I had sex for the first time recently. I wore a Today Sponge and he wore a new condom both times. He also pulled out both times, just in case (we were very careful in lubing, using condom, and sponge, etc)....


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A Adobe Brasil 'fan page' é uma ótima iniciativa da comunidade brasileira. 'Like' it! "Curtir!" como o fizeram os 15,018 usuários até hoje.
A Adobe Brasil 'fan page' é uma ótima iniciativa da comunidade brasileira. 'Like' it! "Curtir!" como o fizeram os 15,018 usuários até hoje.
I had the opportunity to attend Adobe MAX last week in Los Angeles, California. It's called the Creativity Conference, and in my opinion, the organizers delivered.
A few of us from the Adobe Globalization team established a presence at the Community Pavilion as we actively sought to engage with our customers and users from around the world. We were successful in that and I will post more information about that in the coming days.
In the meantime, please watch the following intro from Adobe TV, and keep a watch for me at 43 seconds in (I'm on the left, listening intently).
I have been asked lately to talk to a couple of peers in the industry about Marketing Localization at Adobe and thought this would make an interesting blog post as well.
At Adobe, Marketing Localization is centralized and consists of a team of International Program Managers, which I manage.
I believe this is still the right model for us. Adobe has offices all over the world and decentralizing marketing localization would actually introduce inefficiencies. That said, the challenge with a centralized model is to balance productivity with the ability to provide GEOs with the right process and tools so they can participate and provide valuable input around GEO-specific nuances, country specific content, etc. This is an on-going challenge and we work very closely with our Marketing Managers worldwide to conquer it.
The challenge here is the balance between giving more flexibility and freedom of expression to the regions and the use of productivity tools such as Translation Memory. If we want to leverage the savings that TMs and other tools offer to localization (and we do), we can offer some flexibility in the target content but not as much as sometimes the regions would like to have – for instance, complete re-writes of segments.
At Adobe we are aware to these issues and the key here is to work closely with the regional offices and offer them opportunities to provide feedback early on, directly into the source content, before localization starts. It also means providing opportunity for reviews on localized content that is presented in context in a process that allows for easy feedback. Our GEOs are Field Marketing Managers and we are sensitive to the amount of time spent in reviews.
There are always challenges in localization and in particular in Marketing localization, where 'good translation' is just not good enough.
Take the Digital Marketing BU for example. Worldwide campaigns around the digital marketing solutions have to appeal to 'marketers', to professionals that create marketing content, and so the 'localization quality bar' for the content we provide to our GEOs has been raised significantly.
Here's an example of a recent campaign that was particularly challenging for localization due to the use of the very US centric expression "ticks them off". For translators is not always a clear choice of words for the target language. The 'weight' of the expression and what it conveys need to be taken into consideration.
Regional offices are free to create their own marketing materials – International Brand Guidelines are in place and Adobe's Brand team works directly with the GEOs to ensure a consistent interpretation and use of our brand.
We are very protective when it comes to the Adobe brand and although the regional offices are given some flexibility in terms of creating some of their own marketing materials (in their original language), Adobe's Brand team normally is involved to make sure the materials follow the established international brand guidelines.
What regions or international markets are most difficult or challenging for localization?
I think anyone that works in localization would start by saying that Japanese is a very challenging language to localize. The idea of 'translation' is already something that is not appreciated by the Japanese market. A very good 'translation' still means 'it's translated' and so it has a different flow and feel than the content that is originated in Japanese. This becomes an even greater challenge around marketing content.
At Adobe we do have a successful program for localizing marketing campaigns into Japanese and that involves working very closely with our in-country product marketing managers and employing in-country copy editors when necessary.
That said, every language and every country present challenges. We recently had to deal with orthography changes in Brazilian Portuguese, tonality changes in Spanish (formal to a more informal tone), imagery issues in the middle east, different 'flavors' of a single language, and so on. I guess I would say that there are no 'easy' regions. Our work is always interesting and we look at these challenges with a very positive attitude – these challenges are what differentiate translation from localization and it's always exciting to be part of this process, where you see the source messaging deployed all over the world and having the intended appropriate impact in every region, around the globe.
What aspects of branding are most important to localize for regional audiences? What channels are most important?
The emphasis has greatly shifted to online content (web pages, multimedia content and social), the larger part of the content we now localize will end up on Adobe's 57 international sites. The need for printed content has decreased but there are still certain regions that need to be supplied with printed content. We try to listen to our GEOs and provide relevant localized materials.
The Adobe 'look and feel' is very homogeneous in all our sites. Our regional offices have the flexibility to add country specific content but the site template is the same for all locales and all international sites are centrally managed.
Regional offices are also free to create some of their own marketing materials – International Brand Guidelines are in place and Adobe's Brand team works directly with the GEOs to ensure a consistent interpretation and use of our brand.
I believe the big challenge now is the creation of a strong and successful Creative Cloud brand worldwide – and we are well underway 🙂
Bottom line
The regional offices should be an extension of your team and taken into consideration in every step of your processes and tools.
One of the great things about being part of the globalization team here at Adobe is that we get to work regularly with people around the world, on an on-going basis, as if they are down the hall from us rather than well over the earth's horizon. It becomes second nature to just know what time it is now in Tokyo, Beijing, Noida, Bucharest, or Brno, all relative to each other. It's a known fact that if you must to schedule a live meeting with people in North America, East Asia, and Europe, someone will be stuck with a very inconvenient time slot.
These differences in time zones work for and against us, too, when it comes to project schedules, whether handing off files for localization, or delivering the final product. Where you are in the world can be an advantage or disadvantage, depending on where your stakeholders are located.
My main job at Adobe has been program management on the product localization team. That means that I have done my share of project schedule development and maintenance. One of the early lessons I learned being in the business, in this position, is that the details in the schedule matter, especially those that define when a task is supposed to actually happen, or rather, when it should start or be completed.
The schedules that I manage assume that the finish dates associated with any given task is relative to end-of-business-day local time for whomever the task is assigned. For example, if the task "Deliver Translated Files" is scheduled for Tuesday and is assigned to the team in Beijing, they have all day Tuesday, local time, to finish the task. If they are delivering it to a team on the west coast of North America, then they actually have longer than that since there probably won't be anyone in the office in San Jose to take delivery at 6PM Beijing local time (unless we're in end-game, crunch time, of course!).
Because my team and I are on the west coast of North America, we realize that having until the very end of the day to get things done cuts into the working day for those folks in East Asia. Therefore, we typically will account for that by adjusting the start date of the subsequent task for the folks in Asia to be their next working day. That adds a bit of flexibility for us since we then have more time to get our task done, which equates to a bit of slack in the schedule in case things don't go as planned, a not uncommon occurrence.
This strategy seems to work out pretty well. The key is that the details must be laid out explicitly and be well known and understood. I make it a point to discuss this schedule rule exhaustively during kickoff meetings, ensuring that everyone understands. In fact, it is mentioned in the footer of my schedule files, just to be sure it gets proper ongoing visibility.
Certainly, all the details of the project should be well advertised and universally understood to ensure project success and to minimize risk. That's what good communication among project managers and the projects teams can do for you. But I've seen the this time zone caused task deadline confusion trip people up enough to know that it's important.
Time zones differences can be tough to get used to, especially for those who are new to working with people in various, greatly varied regions. Time zones can help or hurt, provide you with a slight cushion or cut your day short. But if the rules are defined with your teams and stakeholders, geographical differences should not be something that slips you up.
I'd be interested to hear stories about how time zones have helped, hurt, or simply confused. I invite you to leave your experiences in the comments section of this blog post.
Rob Jaworski
International Program Manager
image: flickr user triciawang
The Localization team at Adobe is continually working at enabling more avenues and channels for our international user to provide us feedback on the internationalization and localization aspects of our products. One such channel is Localized Prerelease Programs. Through these programs, we encourage our international users to provide feedback on UI, translation, and overall world readiness of our unreleased products. These localized prerelease programs allow you to test products in your native language and provide feedback in a structured manner through the prerelease site. We welcome any feedback on the language used throughout the UI, ensuring that the product functions and appears natural in your language. Feel free to give us feedback on truncations, overlaps, clippings, flawed UI geometry or any cross-product inconsistency that you observe in the product in your language.
You can show your interest in participating in Adobe's Localized Prerelease Programs by filling this form. Make sure you select 'Yes' to the question 'Would you like to participate in a localized Prerelease Program ?' and specify the language that you are interested in.
Creating global-ready, internationalized applications requires many people: engineers, project managers, translators, and often in-country experts. If everything goes as planned, the final product is internationalized and localized to meet the needs of a specific market. The required teamwork is amazing, and sometimes the expense can be surprisingly large. The mistaken conclusion is that internationalization must always be expensive, and that the effort simply costs too much in terms of schedules, resources, and of course money. The worst part about the conclusion is that the expense can be minimized considerably by rethinking when and how internationalization is performed.
Two causes of expensive internationalization are the delays in actively thinking about it and thinking of it as a simple feature. Often product managers and engineering teams simply do not plan for localization from the beginning of their project's lifecycle. This is common in product teams that target English-only regions first. Unfortunately, engineers and product managers mistakenly think that they will be able to add the internationalization and localization "feature" at a later time when needed. This is an expensive mistake, and it comes from thinking of internationalization as a feature instead of an architectural and design style. The result is that the final product does not contain any framework for localization and has not been designed with internationalization and localization in mind. Ultimately, it is difficult and expensive to retrofit or "fix" an application that has a single language architecture and design. Internationalization simply touches too many areas of a product to be considered as a one-time feature that can be added to the product sometime in the future.
You can save yourself the expense and difficultly of retrofitting or fixing an English-only product by thinking of the internationalization step as an architectural element rather than a feature. A feature can be readily added to a product often because it has limited scope within the application or has few dependencies. A new feature is often "low-touch" or only lightly coupled with other features or areas of a product. Internationalization, however, often affects all aspects of an application. Areas of the product that involve number, date, time and currency formatting can cut across many areas. Internationalization is a "high-touch" activity that affects most areas of an application because user interfaces, strings, icons and colors, numbers, dates, and time values are used throughout an application. Finding and fixing those areas so that they are internationalized and localizable is an onerous task once the product already exists and is in production.
If you architect your product from the beginning so that localizable elements are isolated from core business logic, you make the localization task easier later. How can you think about internationalization as an architectural task rather than as a feature?
First, understand that internationalization will affect many aspects of your system. Think about all the areas that utilize strings and other localizable resources. The list may be bigger than you first imagined.
Secondly, after identifying those areas, extract those text strings and other resources so that they can be translated independently without touching your application's source code. Every programming platform has a means of isolating resources from the core application. Learn about that mechanism and use it. Think of this step as creating the generic, language-neutral scaffolding upon which the rest of your application will be built. You want to create a core set of business logic and user interface layout that is independent from language and culture. Later, the language-specific elements can be translated and added onto this core architecture.
Lastly, architect your application to load needed language modules at runtime rather than having them hard-coded into the application. Placing the right internationalization architecture in the product from the beginning costs little in terms of time lines and resources, and it pays off significantly over time when product teams discover that their "English-only" application is now desired in new language markets.
Adobe RoboHelp software is an easy-to-use authoring and multichannel, multiscreen help publishing solution.
Using RoboHelp 10 –
Adobe RoboHelp 10 supports output formats as shown in graphic below:
The help author has to concentrate on the content and need not to worry about different output formats as it would be handled by RoboHelp itself. They have to simply select the output formats and generate with required options.
How to change default Language setting?
RoboHelp 10 is shipped in English, French, German and Japanese locales but the help can be generated in many more languages.
Help authors many a times face such scenarios when they have to generate the output in multiple locales.
When you create a new project the default Project language is same as that of installed RoboHelp.
This implies that the same language is used by RoboHelp to show any text/LNG Strings in the output apart from main authored content spelling checks, and dictionaries and in generating smart indexes. Besides help content there are a lot of default text elements in output runtime user interface of help systems like table of contents, index, glossary, search, no results found etc. This is a big list of such strings which can be there in any help system commonly called LNG strings.
But if you want a different language for these then use can select it from the Project settings dialogue. For example if you are using French RoboHelp and want Spanish language settings then you can go to "File > Project Settings" and select Spanish from the Language dropdown. Refer to image below:
RoboHelp provides fine control over language setting and besides project users can define language for a particular topic or even for a particular paragraph.
To change language setting of a topic open "Topic Properties" dialog and change the language from dropdown in "General" tab.
For changing the language for a particular paragraph open the "Paragraph" dialog and define new language from here.
Language defined at the paragraph level takes precedence over language defined at a topic level. Language set at the topic level takes precedence over language defined at a project level. Language defined at the project level can never take precedence over language defined at paragraph level. If multiple languages are defined at the project, topic, and paragraph level then the effective language as per the precedence is used for dictionary or thesaurus association and for spell checking.
Users can change this default language to following 36 languages:
Bulgarian(Bulgaria), Catalan(Spain),Croatian(Croatia), Czech (Czech Republic), Danish(Denmark), Dutch(Netherlands),English(UK), English(US), Estonian(Estonia), Finnish(Finland), French(Canada), French(France), German(Germany), German(Switzerland), Greek(Greece), Hungarian(Hungry), Italian(Italy), Japanese (Japan), Korean (Korea), Latvian(Latvia), Lithuanian (Lithuania), Norwegian Bokmal(Norway), Norwegian Nynorsk(Norway), Polish (Poland), Portuguese(Brazil), Portuguese(Portugal), Romanian(Romania), Russian(Russia), Simplified Chinese (China), Slovenian(Slovenia), Spanish(Spain), Swedish(Sweden), Thai (Thailand), Traditional Chinese (Taiwan), Turkish(Turkey), Vietnamese (Vietnam)
So it is interesting to note that while we are localizing Adobe RoboHelp in 3 languages, we are enabling our users to create help with ample support in 32 more languages.
Going a step further -> Editing LNG strings for customized needs
While as part of RoboHelp localization we provide LNG strings in 36 languages, users can also modify these strings for any language to suit their needs.
The LNG strings can also be edited for any customization needs. This can be done from File > Project Settings > Advanced button > LNG file tab
All the strings are listed in the LNG File tab under different sections like WebHelp, AIRHelp etc. The desired string can be edited by selecting and clicking on Edit button. In this way help authors can also edit the LNG strings to customize existing strings.
How to create multilingual WebHelp from RoboHelp?
Please note that the system you intend to open the localized help should have the locale specific code pages installed.
Authors :-
Sumer Singh – Lead Quality Engineer
Vinay Krishan Sharma – Program Manager
Adobe's Globalization team is committed to driving continuous improvement in customer experience and improving efficiency. These are two of Adobe's areas of focus for 2013.
The top customer feedback we used to receive was that localization of our products needed to be more agile. The digital video team, for instance, moved to releasing English and localized products in one installer; they needed to sim-GM in order to release quickly and meet the market expectations. The creative products customers in Brazil and Russia, for instance, were getting tired of waiting six months to get their hands on a localized product. Like many in the industry, Adobe's Globalization team began to face pressure to localize with fewer resources, reduce localization turnaround time, and improve quality.
Our challenge is to meet the aggressive release schedules of Adobe's Clouds—Digital Media and Digital Marketing, their companion products and tools in 20+ languages. Currently, our team uses, roughly, 65% of our resources on Digital Media localizations, and 15% on Digital Marketing localizations (20% is dedicated to Print, tools development, finance, and other initiatives). The localization team is made up of approximately 150 people—international program managers, international engineers, international quality engineers, and interns located in the US, China, India, Japan, and Romania, supporting approximately 150 product and functional teams.
In this paper we will show how Adobe has been able to accelerate localization and we will, hopefully, debunk the belief that localization takes 6 weeks. With limited budget, we are meeting expectations, sim-shipping English and 20+ languages for the Adobe Cloud-based products—Digital Media and Digital Marketing– Developer/Web tools, and Touch Apps. We support any agile workflow and release schedules can be as short as every 2-4 weeks (Photoshop.com, Acrobat.com, Cloud Manager, adoberevel.com), 6 weeks (DPS, AdobeRevel), to continuous releases (CCM) varying from twice a week to monthly. In these workflows, we can complete a localization cycle as quickly as within 24 hours. Our ultimate goal? We are preparing for the day when Adobe products get released multiple times a day!
Sample SCRUM Schedule – Localized product sim-releases in 20 languages every 6 weeks
Slow is History! – Product Team Concerns in the Past and Globalization Team Response
Adobe product development models come in many flavors. In general, the 'waterfall' model was considered standard. Products such as Photoshop, Acrobat, InDesign, and Illustrator were well-suited for standard localization. That is, at UI Freeze milestone, the localization team would step in and begin the localization process. This meant that, by English GM, the localized versions were lagging behind by 4-6 weeks.
This localization model—start localization after UI Freeze milestone—had several drawbacks. Localization partners got overwhelmed at end game; localization issues were found too late and, when issues were classified as "show-stoppers," they could jeopardize the product release schedule; many critical defects ended up getting deferred for the next product release. The model was costly, time consuming, it increased stress and burnout.
With the event of multi-lingual installers, SaaS, Cloud-based products, and new development workflows used by Adobe product teams such as Scrum, Kanban, Scrumban, or Adobe's own Aphid, the Globalization team was faced with new requirements which called for a more accelerated localization workflow. The new business model required that localization should be possible in any locale, be scalable to a large set of languages, and respect various budget constraints. Product teams started to question whether the localization team was ready to keep up with the pace of the business. The answer was a big "YES, OF COURSE!"
For the sake of comparing two different models, see below a waterfall-model localization schedule and an agile localization schedule from the same period—2004. The product following the waterfall model on the left, chose to ship single-language versions in a staggered schedule; the one on the right, based on Adobe's Aphid model, released their product with a multi-lingual installer as a single binary. At this point in time, Globalization was ready to accommodate both Product Teams.
Waterfall – InDesign Agile – Audition
With the acquisition of Macromedia in 2005, Adobe Localization faced many new and exciting challenges. Dreamweaver, for instance, ran prerelease programs for all languages, which meant that localization had to be right behind English, at the same level of development, testing, and stability as English. Thanks to the many talents that we acquired and the level of cooperation between companies, we were able to leverage best practices and meet the expectations of the new Product Teams.
In 2007, Adobe acquired Scene7, a software company enabling websites to have real-time rich media; then Omniture, in 2009. In 2010, Adobe acquired Day Software, a market leader in next-generation Web Content Management. In 2011, web tool companies such as TypeKit and Nitobi, the maker of PhoneGap; Efficient Frontier, a digital marketing company; and Iridas, the maker of SpeedGrade, a professional color correction application; in 2012, Adobe acquired Behance, the leading online platform to showcase and discover creative work.
All these new cloud-based services demanded improved localization velocity, mostly through internationalization and automation. Development cycles were short – 2-6 weeks – and updates were frequent and web based. Our team needed to shift focus in order to meet these cloud-based product requirements.
The Globalization team, in partnership with the Product Teams, worked towards an agile localization model. Here were the first steps we took towards acceleration:
With these measures in place, we were able to get closer to the English product schedule and were behind by just a couple of weeks.
Currently, the Globalization team has reorganized internally to manage the localization process for the end-to-end customer experience which includes software, marketing/web content, documentation, internationalization/localization testing, and educational materials. We are better aligned and more agile, able to support localization for product cycles of 2-4 weeks (Photoshop.com, Acrobat.com, Cloud Manager, adoberevel.com), 6 weeks (DPS, Adobe Revel), to continuous releases (CCM) varying from twice a week to monthly. In order to achieve such challenging schedules, we are turning localizations around in 24 hours at times.
For instance, Adobe Creative Cloud is released with 16 localized components and its schedule today looks like this:
Looking Forward — Introducing A.L.A., the Adobe Airport
One of Globalization's biggest challenges is to meet the aggressive release schedule of Adobe's Clouds, its companion products, web tools, and touch apps in 20+ languages.
In the same way that planes have to leave on scheduled time, crew and passengers in place, in a continuous flow, so do our localized products, where the crew is formed by International Program Managers, International Quality Engineers, International Engineers and 'passengers' are the assets (strings) for translation, from any number of products. The plane may only be going to France (say) or it may be doing stops in numerous countries. The frequency of flights will also vary, depending on demand.
Airport Background
We started out with pilot projects, mostly projects which needed quick localizations at end game. Our requirements were:
Our Product Teams' expectations were:
Note that even though our tool collects strings from multiple products and sends them to the translators, we can guarantee terminology consistency and quality because the strings are first leveraged through World Server; and our translators make use of our glossaries for reference.
The Adobe Localization Airport (A.L.A.) aims to provide one-hour localization turnaround. Our tool collects strings from multiple products and sends them to the translators. Once translated, the strings are distributed back to their respective products, presto!
Turn-Around-Time (TAT) – from Q2 2012 to Q1 2013, TAT has decreased from an average of 12.7 hours to 7.8 hours. Our goal, by end of Q2 2013, is to reach 1 hour TAT or less, should the project require that much acceleration.
Airport Turn-around-time per language, per quarter
Localization does not take 6 weeks—it takes an average of 7.8 hours. Our goal, by the end of Q2 2013, is to reach 1 hour TAT or less! This is a myth that we have debunked. The Globalization tools and initiatives aim to make localization at Adobe even more agile, without compromising our products' quality as well as customer satisfaction.
The A.L.A. team—Ajay Kumar, Guta Ribeiro, Joel Sahleen, John Nguyen, and Warren Peet
Jean-Francois Vanreusel
Leandro Reis
Quynn Megan Le
This article was originally written in English. Text in other languages is provided via machine translation.
Technical help authors can use RoboHelp 10 to create help in multiple formats (like Webhelp, FlashHelp, AIR Help, MultiScreen HTML5 and Microsoft HTML etc.) and locales.
While generating localized Microsoft HTML help (CHM help) with English locale settings using RoboHelp, Help authors might face following issues:
The above mentioned issues are not encountered while:
These issues are encountered while:
The reason for these issues is that HTML Help is not fully Unicode compliant.
For the help authors who want to generate localized (take Chinese Simplified as example) Microsoft HTML help we would recommend using the following settings –
*language for the non-Unicode programs can be changed from
2. If its required to keep English locale settings for some reason (generating help in multiple locales on same machine) then follow the below steps (also refer below screenshots) –
Step 2
Step 3
We hope that this blog helps our customers facing issues generating Microsoft HTML help in multiple locales. We also endorse other help formats like WebHelp , Flashhelp and AIR help which are fully Unicode compliant.


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Curves and Chaos™ is a fashion and lifestyle blog. Founded in 2010, this blog was created with the purpose of inspiring anyone who reads it. It has evolved in so many ways and I am proud of each every post I've written. I am a brand ambassador, social media influencer, and freelance writer. I love to cover my personal life, style, cruelty-free beauty, travel, and more.
View my Fohr Card profile here.
I am based out of Los Angeles, CA and I love spending time with my family and friends, traveling, shopping, going to L.A. Dodgers games, and blogging of course. I am a proud veteran of the United States Air Force, married to an amazing man, veggie love, and the mom of my fur babies. I've written for sites like Babble.com and The Huffington Post. And I've been featured in Latina Magazine, Cosmo For Latinas, and more (see below).
For access to my freelance writing portfolio, view my Contently profile here.
I am available for collaborations, projects, freelance work, hosting and attending events, and more. If you'd like to work with me, please feel free to contact me.
- 2010 LATISM (Latinos In Social Media) Best Social Networker in California
- 2011 LATISM (Latinos In Social Media) Best Lifestyle Blogger
- 2012 LATISM (Latinos In Social Media) Best Lifestyle Blogger
- 2014 Hispanic Lifestyle's Latinas of Influence Award
- 2015 Hispanicize Tecla Award (Nominee) Best Latina Fashion/Beauty Blogger
Curves and Chaos has been featured/mentioned in:
- We Are mitu
- Mamiverse.com
- Babble
- Latina Magazine
- Plus Model Radio
- Plus Model Magazine
- Daily Venus Diva
- Daily Mail UK Online
- Skorch Magazine
- Inside Allies World
- Queen Grace Weekly Dish
- Neon Tommy
- EntertainmentWise.com
- Hungry For Fashion
- By Anika
- Shop Translated Style Blog
- Plus Size Bras and Panties Blog
- Examiner.com
- 8 Plus Divas
- Mamiverse
- Latina Bloggers Connect
- Bombshell Beauty Blog
- XOXO NettaP
- Independent Fashion Bloggers
- Curvy. Confident. Chic. by Marie Denee (ebook)
- A Plus Girl Life
- Voxxi.com
- Navabi Magazine
- MaGrandeTaille.com
- MundoFox
- PR Newswire
- Hispanic Business
- Cosmo for Latinas
- Secrets of the Red Carpet
Full Figured Fashion Week(end) Los Angeles 2010
Full Figured Fashion Week New York City 2011
Full Figured Fashion Week New York City 2012
Full Figured Fashion Week New York City 2015
The Curvy Revolution
Viva Fat Vegas 2011
BlogHer 2010 New York, NY
BlogHer 2011 San Diego, CA
BlogHer 2012 New York, NY
Plus Model Magazine Blogger Conference 2011
POSH L.A. Fashion Week 2013
We All Grow Summit 2015 (Panelist)
We All Grow Summit 2016 (Panelist)
DiMe Media Summit 2016 (Keynote Panelist)


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What is Conefor?
Conefor is a software package that allows quantifying the importance of habitat areas and links for the maintenance or improvement of landscape connectivity. It is conceived as a tool for decision-making support in landscape planning and habitat conservation, through the identification and prioritization of critical sites for ecological connectivity. Previous versions of Conefor were known as Conefor Sensinode.
Conefor includes new connectivity indices (integral index of connectivity, probability of connectivity) that have been shown to present an improved performance compared to other existing indices and to be particularly suited for landscape conservation planning and change monitoring applications (Pascual-Hortal & Saura 2006, Saura & Pascual-Hortal 2007, Saura & Rubio 2010, Saura et al. 2011). These indices are based on spatial graphs and on the concept of measuring habitat availability (reachability) at the landscape scale. This concept consists in considering a habitat patch itself as a space where connectivity occurs, measuring the connected resources existing within the patches (intrapatch connectivity) jointly with the resources made available by (reachable through) the connections with other habitat patches (interpatch connectivity). In this way, connectivity is conceived (and measured) as the property of the landscape that determines the amount of reachable habitat in the landscape, no matter if such reachable habitat comes from big and/or high quality habitat patches themselves (intrapatch connectivity), from strong connections between different patches (interpatch connectivity) or, more frequently, from a combination of both.
Conefor is simple to use and runs in any standard computer with a Windows operative system. Conefor is distributed free of charge for non-commercial use, with the only condition of citing the software (Saura & Torné 2009) and the most related references (Pascual-Hortal & Saura 2006, Saura & Pascual-Hortal 2007, Saura & Rubio 2010). Conefor has been developed by Santiago Saura and Josep Torné at the Polytechnic University of Madrid and the University of Lleida. It has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and European FEDER funds through Conefor (REN2003-01628/GLO), Ibepfor (CGL2006-00312/BOS), Montes-Consolider (CSD2008-00040), PSE-Gestiona (310000-2009-4) and Decofor (AGL2009-07140/FOR) projects. The Fortran source codes of Sensinode 1.0 (Landgraphs package) by Dean L. Urban (Duke University, USA) were the starting point for the development of the new Conefor Sensinode codes in which the new metrics and developments were implemented.
You can contact us at firstname.lastname@example.com or through the following contact form. We appreciate hearing about the applications in which Conefor is used, as well as suggestions for improvement. However, very limited user support is provided and only for specific questions regarding this software and the methods implemented in it that cannot be solved by other means (e.g. by carefully reading the user manual and the different related papers available in this website).
You can also subscribe to the Conefor email list. Only very few messages will be sent (e.g. a couple of email messages per year) and you can unsubscribe at any time.
The preferred reference for citing Conefor is the following:
Saura, S. & J. Torné. 2009. Conefor Sensinode 2.2: a software package for quantifying the importance of habitat patches for landscape connectivity. Environmental Modelling & Software 24: 135-139.
Title photograph by Javier Gordo Alonso (Junta de Castilla y León)


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Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
The Ogre Downstairs (original 1974; edition 2003)
by Diana Wynne Jones
Work details
The Ogre Downstairs by Diana Wynne Jones (1974)
No current Talk conversations about this book.
A brilliant story about kids adjusting in a blended family; a magical chemistry set creates a lot of adventure and reconciles the kids. One of DWJ's best.
Not my favorite Diana Wynne Jones book, but it was still a solid tale about families and magic. I guess it was just...sort of small? And everything was a little random?
Not my favorite Diana Wynne Jones book, but it was still a solid tale about families and magic. I guess it was just...sort of small? And everything was a little random?
The story of a gaggle of youngsters who can't stand their overbearing step-father and new step-brothers. They're given a chemistry set to bribe them into good behavior, but quickly discover that it can actually be used to make magic potions. The potions get them into ever more convoluted schemes and increasing amounts of trouble, until their dysfunctional household finally reaches a crisis point.
This is a really charming story, filled with little touches of 1970s Britain that I found quaint and sweet. Each of the children has a distinct and memorable personality, and the uses to which they put their magic are both imaginative and relatable (who wouldn't make their dolls come to life?). I was truthfully a bit troubled by
The Ogre Downstairs didn't captivate me like the Chrestimanci books did. The middle section with the living inanimates (especially the toffy) drags on and on. I really had to force myself through the taffy chapters. While I'm glad to see the Ogre revealed as a good egg the ending seems tacked on.
References to this work on external resources.
Wikipedia in English (1)
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0064473503, Paperback)Chemical Warfare?
Casper, Johnny, and Gwinny are sure they'll never be happy again when their mother marries Jack, who is as mean as an ogre. To make matters worse, two obnoxious stepbrothers, Malcolm and Douglas, move in as well. No one -- except the parents -- seems happy. But when Jack gives a chemistry set to each group of kids, bigger problems take over. These are, it turns out, not your average chemicals. In one hilarious experiment after another, the kids discover they can fly, switch bodies with one another, and even disappear. If only they could figure out how to undo all of this! Are one combustible stepfamily and two explosive chemistry sets a formula for disaster?
(retrieved from Amazon Thu, 12 Mar 2015 18:07:46 -0400)
When a disagreeable man with two boys marries a widow with three children, family adjustments are complicated by two magic chemistry sets which cause strange things to happen around the house.
(summary from another edition)
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China's luxury buyers pull back as economy slows
By Donny Kwok
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Shares of the world's largest jewelry retailer, Chow Tai Fook, tumbled nearly 8 percent to a two-week low on Thursday on weaker-than-expected sales, deepening a sector-wide stock slump as China's slowing economy saps luxury demand.
A host of Chinese companies, ranging from a steel maker to a major airline, have warned of disappointing results over the past week as the world's second biggest economy slows to its weakest growth pace in three years.
Evidence that the slowdown was spreading to China's luxury sector, which is a vital source of growth for companies worldwide, spooked investors. Britain's Burberry said on Wednesday its sales had been hit by a slowdown in China.
Shares of Italian fashion house Prada and high-end men's fashion retailer Trinity were both down nearly 4 percent in midday trading.
"An economic slowdown defers consumer spending, in particular the need for luxury items," said Linus Yip, chief strategist in First Shanghai Securities.
"Investors may reduce their exposure to the luxury segment until they see signs of a pick-up."
Chow Tai Fook said late on Wednesday that its revenue grew just 16 percent for the three months ended in June, well below the 61 percent rise it reported for the fiscal year that ended in March.
Its overall same-store sales growth was 4 percent, but Hong Kong and Macau turned in a surprisingly weak 1 percent decline because of lower sales of expensive gem sets. Same-store sales in mainland China were up 10 percent. Continued...


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Observed: 22nd August 2011 By: junesomerville@...
Added: 11th December 2011
3/4inch long, curls up when threatened otherwise very active and flexible in the hand. Brown soft spikes above on a segmented body, the black sections I thought were hard. Underside creamy with black sucker feet. Found in fallen, dry Camellia and Ceanothus leaves on sandy soil. August 2011
Other observations of Drilus flavescens
Hi Richard, is this then the
11 December 2011 - 11:48pm LordMuzzy
Hi Richard, is this then the Female which stays/looks like the larval form?? Or just the larval stage?
Drilus flavescens
This is the larva. The adult female, although 'larviform' lacks the fern-like frond tufts. Amazing looking critter. Although the males are quite widespread in chalky areas, the larvae and females are extremely rarely seen. Thank you for posting this picture.
Richard Jones
When I lived in Hampshire I saw what was either the larvae or female several times, but I've never knowingly seen the male, so either the distribution is oddly biased or I just haven't got my eye in for the male beetles! The larvae/females used to turn up on logs and the sides of paths etc., so I always thought of them as fairly easy to see if you were within right habitat and part of the country.
Entomologist and biological recorder
Males vs. larvae
6 January 2012 - 7:18pm markgtelfer
I've only ever seen males myself but I hear about Drilus larvae fairly regularly (usually in a 'what on earth is this?' context) so I suspect Martin is right.