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Pelosi shuts down resolution on Michael Jackson
Pelosi shuts down resolution on Michael Jackson
By SUZANNE GAMBOA, Associated Press Writers Suzanne Gamboa, Associated Press Writers – 1 hr 45 mins ago
WASHINGTON – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi shut the door Thursday to a resolution honoring Michael Jackson because debate on the symbolic measure could raise "contrary views" about the pop star's life.
Lawmakers are free to use House speeches "to express their sympathy or their praise any time that they wish," said Pelosi, D-Calif. "I don't think it's necessary for us to have a resolution."
A resolution sponsored by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, cites some of the singer's charitable acts and proclaims him an American legend, musical icon and world humanitarian.
Even before Pelosi's comments, some Democrats said privately they did not support the resolution and a divisive debate would hurt House efforts to muster the votes for priorities such as health care and climate change.
Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., who posted a video on YouTube calling Michael Jackson a "pervert" and a "pedophile," has pledged to do all he could to block the resolution.
Michael Jackson was acquitted in 2005 of charges that he molested a 13-year-old boy. Those allegations, and his admission that children slept in his bed at his home but nothing sexual occurred, have led some members of Congress to put distance between themselves and any formal honor for the entertainer.
"A resolution, I think, would open up to contrary views to — that are not necessary at this time to be expressed in association with a resolution whose purpose is quite different," Pelosi said at a Capitol Hill news conference where she discussed various legislative matters.
Unbowed, Jackson Lee said she will seek support from colleagues who thanked her when she introduced the measure June 26, one day after Michael Jackson died. She said honorary resolutions don't often "pass the next day."
"On this floor we elevate people and doing that we have to work to tell your story," she said after a House vote. But she would need support from Democratic leadership for the resolution to advance to the full House from the committee where it is now.
When members of the Congressional Black Caucus held a moment of silence in the House after Jackson died June 25, some lawmakers walked out of the chamber.
Jackson Lee has pledged that the resolution, now before the House Foreign Affairs Committee where she is a member, would come to the full House for debate. Such honorary measures normally move quickly from committee to the full House and pass on a voice vote.
But Jackson Lee's resolution was in trouble early. It drew only one co-sponsor, Rep. Diane Watson, D-Calif., and was not endorsed by other black caucus members.
From the stage at Jackson's memorial Tuesday at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Jackson Lee hoisted a framed copy of the resolution.
Associated Press writer Jim Abrams contributed to this report.
Pelosi shuts down resolution on Michael Jackson - Yahoo! News
How unAmerican!
Wow I am not directly affected but if my senator was using all her time to try to get a resolution passed for a dead entertainer that will not benefit her local area I would not be happy, sounds as though she is just trying to get airplay.
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Commuter forecast for March 4, 2010
It's going to be another dry start to the day with a slight chance for some patchy fog. No major traffic delays are expected so just drive safely!
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It's been speculated for more than six months that prize South Plantation running back Alex Collins would be reneging on his commitment to the University of Miami and finally Wednesday, that prediction came true.
247sports.com reported that Collins told the UM coaching staff on Wednesday he is no longer considering the 'Canes his top option, leaving the door open for the remainder of speculation that Collins is all but signed to be a Florida State Seminole.
Collins, whose team qualified for the Class 8A state playoffs with a District 11 shootout win over Deerfield Beach in overtime on Monday night, seems closer than ever to pulling the trigger on an FSU commitment. Teammate and good friend ATH John Franklin, who quarterbacks the Paladins, committed to the Seminoles last week and it's highly likely that Collins will follow.
The 5-foot-11, 207-pound Collins took an official visit to Florida State three weeks ago for the Seminoles rout of Boston College. He has also visited Wisconsin. Both FSU and Wisconsin already have one running back each committed to the 2013 class, but would welcome Collins, the top runner in Broward County last season. Collins has rushed for 1,263 yards this season, not counting Monday night's shootout.
FSU's lone running back commit, so far, is Ryan Green of St. Pete Catholic. Green played just one game this season before deciding to have surgery on a lingering shoulder issue. His father, Vader Green, said two weeks ago that the procedure on his torn labrum went well and that Ryan had already been cleared for workouts. He is also a standout basketball player.
Green, an Under Armour All-American Game selection, said he plans to play in the annual all-star game at St. Petersburg's Tropicana Field, Jan. 4.
FSU is currently shopping for one more back in the 2013 class, with Collins being the front-runner. The Seminoles have also shown interest in A.J. Turman of Orlando Boone and Greg Bryant of Delray Beach American Heritage, but those two will be an afterthought if Collins holds true to the speculation.
Chris Hays is the Sentinel's recruiting coverage coordinator and can be reached at email@example.com. Follow us on Twitter at @Os_Recruiting and Facebook at Orlando Sentinel Recruiting and now on Pinterest at Orlando Recruiting.


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"A Fierce Green Fire"
Experience the battle for a living planet in the first big-picture exploration of the environmental movement, spanning 50 years of grassroots and global activism. Narrated by Robert Redford, Ashley Judd, Van Jones, Isabel Allende and Meryl Streep. G
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About 6 years ago, when we lived in our first apartment in TX, we had a ghost. We had a pole lamp that sat against the wall in the living room. This lamp was pretty heavy...the electric cord was coiled up underneath the base, and the weight of it made an indention in the carpet. Quite often, when we would get home, the lamp would be moved...down one side or the other a few feet, to the middle of the floor...just moved. We could move it back, leave to get dinner, and it would be moved again when we returned home. It was kind of freaky, but hey...the only thing that ever happened was the moving of the lamp.
From there, we moved to a different apartment...I don't remember any weird happenings there. Then, we moved into our current house, almost 3 years ago.
After moving into our house, the ghost returned. The lamp mentioned above is now upstairs, and has never been moved again. The ghost's attention was turned to a Japanese carved camphor wood chest that we have in our bedroom...it was passed down from El Guapo's grandparents. This chest is very heavy...it is about 4' long x 2.5' deep x 2.5 ' high...and it is filled with blankets and things. We started to notice that the chest wasn't always in the same place as where we placed it. The same as the lamp, it would be moved down the wall a foot or two, or out from the wall. There was no reasonable explanation for it...the bedroom door would be closed, just like when we left the house, but the chest would be moved...with indentions in the carpet where it originally was sitting. After this freaking me out for a couple of years, I asked the ghost to leave. The chest hasn't moved since.
Our sweet kitty Cloud passed away just over a year ago...in December 2006. I found her when I got home from work one night, and obviously took it very hard. We spoke to our vet, and her death was textbook for a feline heart condition. She had no symptoms, and died in her sleep. I was heartbroken and still cry about her occasionally. In our living room, across from where she was found, in a niche where our tv is located, we have some staggered shelves. On the top shelf, I have pictures of Cloud, along with her 3 brothers...all black & white pictures, and all in matching frames. Each picture has a tealight candle holder in front. More times than I can count, since her death, Cloud's picture has moved. All the other frames are exactly where they should be, but hers is turned to one side or the other. This has freaked me out as well, and once again, I asked the ghost to leave...it hasn't happened since then.
One night last week, me & El Guapo were laying in bed, chit chatting...and for some reason we started talking about our past ghosts, and that they hadn't been around in a while. I told him I had asked them to leave, and that apparently they had. He made a statement that got me thinking...he said that he wished they would come back, b/c things went better for us when they were around. So, a few nights later, I was sitting on the couch in the living room, and I asked the ghosts to come back and take care of us. El Guapo was not home, and I did not tell him that I did this.
Well, last night, we got home after work, to a surprise. The picture of Cloud had fallen off of the top shelf, along with the glass tealight holder...hit a stack of dvd's and scattered them all over the living room floor. Cloud's picture frame was upside down on the tv shelf, 5 feet below the shelf...and the glass was not even broken. One of the other frames on the shelf was turned a tiny bit, but her picture was the only one that had fallen. I do believe Cloud's ghost is back to take care of us. It is just quite freaky that only a few nights earlier I asked the ghosts to come back. I've thought about this...there is no way that my other cats knocked this frame off...nothing on the other shelves was moved to make me think they had climbed up to the top. Her frame is the third in a row, and there is no way that hers is the only one that they would have knocked off. I'm not an overly superstitious person, but I really believe this is a ghostly experience. Freaky...my ghosts are back...hopefully that means this will be a better year for us.
Has anyone else had anything like this happen? I'm interested to know if I'm the only weirdo that has things like this happen in my house...


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Florida-Friendly Landscaping
A Florida-friendly yard doesn't merely offer a beautiful landscape — it also becomes an asset to the environment, protecting natural resources and preserving Florida's unique beauty. Recognizing that the home landscape is part of a larger natural system will help in creating a Florida-friendly yard.
The University of Florida's Florida Yards & Neighborhoods (FYN) Program provides science-based education to the public on how to create a Florida-friendly yard. The Southwest Florida Water Management District partners with the university to provide the education outreach by supporting FYN programs through county Extension offices in 11 of its 16 counties.
Florida-Friendly Landscaping can be considered an expansion of Xeriscape. A Florida-friendly yard goes beyond Xeriscape, which was started in Colorado, to better fit our unique geography. It includes best management practices concerning stormwater runoff and living on a waterfront.
A properly maintained Florida-friendly yard can help homeowners conserve water and reduce pollution of water resources. The Florida-friendly approach to landscaping emphasizes nine interrelated principles.
Learn more about Florida-Friendly Landscaping:
The Florida-Friendly Landscaping™ Guide to Plant Selection & Landscape Design
The Nine Florida-Friendly Landscaping™ Principles
Florida-Friendly Landscaping Plant List
The nine principles
Right plant, right place
Plants selected to suit a specific site will require minimal amounts of water, fertilizers and pesticides. Learn more...
Water efficiently
Irrigate only when your lawn needs water. Efficient watering is the key to a healthy Florida yard and conservation of limited resources. Learn more...
Fertilize appropriately
Less is often best. Overuse of fertilizers can be hazardous to your yard and the environment. Learn more...
Maintaining a 3-inch layer of mulch will help retain soil moisture, prevent erosion and suppress weeds. Learn more...
Attract wildlife
Plants in your yard that provide food, water and shelter will attract Florida's diverse wildlife. Learn more...
Manage yard pests responsibly
Unwise use of pesticides can harm people, pets, beneficial organisms and the environment. Learn more...
Grass clippings and leaves provide nutrients to the soil and reduce waste disposal when reused on the landscape. Learn more...
Reduce stormwater runoff
Water running off your landscape can carry pollutants such as soil, debris, fertilizer, gasoline and pesticides that can adversely impact water quality. Reduction of this runoff will help prevent nonpoint-source pollution. Learn more...
Protect the waterfront
Waterfront property, whether on a river, stream, pond, bay or beach, is very fragile and should be carefully protected to maintain freshwater and marine ecosystems. Learn more...
Florida-Friendly Fertilizing en Español – Fertilizando en la Florida
Featured site
This searchable database features more than 800 plant species and provides information on growing conditions, such as sunlight and moisture needs.
A comprehensive resource about Florida-friendly landscaping practices. Features an interactive yard, a plant database and resources for landscape professionals.
Related publications
Download the Do-It-Yourself Guide to Florida-Friendly Fertilizing booklet (20 pages)
Download Florida-Friendly Fertilizing Tips (2 pages)
Download A Guide to the Basics of Micro-Irrigation, (2 pages)


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Games company Kaiparasoft isn't in the big league yet, but the TIN100 list's compilers say it's one to watch.
The idea of a monkey popping a balloon sounds simple enough, but it can help create a $5 million dollar company, as it has for brothers Chris and Stephen Harris.
Their Kumeu-based games software company, Kaiparasoft, made the TIN100 Report's "10 Hot Emerging Companies" list this year with $5 million in revenue, up 67 per cent on the year before.
With their most popular game, Bloons - featuring the balloon-popping monkeys - and some 60 other games, they are making money from advertising on their Ninjakiwi games site, by selling virtual currency and from their apps for Android and Apple devices.
One version of Bloons went live in Apple's App Store on November 2010 and has since been in the top 100 apps in the US.
The company has been growing at this rate for several years, says 37-year-old Chris Harris.
"It's the nature of being in an exciting, growing environment and having some strong IP."
Worldwide, games are big business. Market researcher DFC Intelligence forecast in July that the video-gaming industry will have reached US$82 billion in five years' time, up from US$67 billion this year.
Kaiparasoft, named for Chris' view of the Kaipara when he lived in Woodhill, had its beginnings in late 2005 when brother Stephen called for a chat, wanting to start an e-commerce site.
Stephen, now 35, had a degree in geophysics, but his postgraduate diploma in game design from the Media Design School had led to a job as a Flash developer at Saatchi & Saatchi. Chris was in banking and financial advice, but not particularly enjoying it.
The brothers thought they should start making games instead, and Bloons, one of their first, was a smash hit in late 2006.
So far, Kaiparasoft's path has been relatively free of stumbling blocks.
"We've been smart in managing our IP," says Chris Harris. "We have come close a couple of times to licensing it all away to somebody else, but then taken 11th hour legal advice and not done it - so we've been able to control our own destiny and we are in control of all our own IP."
In 2010 the company had an injection of experience when Scott Walker, from gaming giant Electronic Arts, expressed his interest in working for Kaiparasoft, which Harris thought was hilarious.
"We were seven people at the time and he is a guy from a company with several thousand employees."
Walker's wife was from New Zealand and he wanted to see what the things were like here. The brothers met Walker and realised he would bring experience of managing large teams and multiple projects that could help their business to grow. "He's probably one of only a couple of people in New Zealand with his skillset so that was really, you know, planets aligning for us."
The brothers run their company from New Zealand because this is where they want to live, but it can be hard to lure talented staff.
However a close friendship with the Media Design School has paid off; eight of the 19 people in the office are graduates.
"[The school is] really attentive as to what the industry wants and they offer good courses," says Harris.
In the near future, Kaiparasoft has been working with a Scottish developer, which promises to yield some results soon.
The far future? While someday, someone may come knocking with serious money, says Harris, "for the time being, the cashflow's good, and growing, and it's really fun being your own boss."
Skope Industries
Commercial refrigeration
TIN100 ranking: 15th
Revenue: $105 million
Earthquakes weren't enough to prevent refrigeration company Skope passing $100 million in revenue for the first time - up 12.9 per cent on the previous year according to the TIN100 report, to $105 million.
The Christchurch-based, family-owned business designs, manufactures and supplies commercial refrigeration, food service and heating products to clients globally.
Managing director Guy Stewart says Skope has been growing steadily year on year; 10 years ago annual revenue was $50-$55 million. "It's been a matter of maturity - understanding the customers more - and also a new major corporate beverage partner (Coca-Cola)."
Long known for making heaters, Skope is getting out of that market and focusing on new Australasian target markets. Research and development continues - Skope's team of 400 includes 25-30 designers. Among other achievements they have cut their appliances' power use by 70-80 per cent in 10 years.
Catalyst IT
Open-source IT services
TIN100 ranking: 87th
Revenue: $16 million
A long-time commitment to open-source software is paying off for Catalyst IT. Last month it launched a new online news portal for the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong's leading English-language newspaper. The company is now working on a 2 million-user eLearning service in the Middle East and is also building a North American cloud infrastructure for Totara, a corporate training system.
Director Mike O'Connor attributes Catalyst's 20 per cent annual growth to changing attitudes about the capability and reliability of open-source computing.
The company helps businesses and other organisations set up web services using open-source software, with clients paying for the development expertise, not the software itself, which is free to download.
Local clients include Fairfax's Stuff website, the Otago Daily Times and Scoop sites, the Electoral Enrolment Centre, TAB, Open Polytechnic and Telecom.
SLI Systems
E-commerce solutions
TIN100 ranking: 88th
Revenue: $16 million
Launched 11 years ago, Christchurch-based SLI Systems this year appears on the TIN100 list for the first time.
SLI offers a variety of services to improve the effectiveness of clients' websites. These include search engine optimisation - increasing the chance of an online search finding the site in question - and tools that make it easier for site visitors to find the content or products they want.
Selling to online retailers globally, 70 per cent of the company's sales are in the US. Another 15 per cent comes from Britain and the company is also also doing well in Australia. Now SLI is focusing on its next target market: Brazil.
The company has formed partnerships with two large companies in Brazil and provides its site search services to several Latin American e-commerce brands.
Chief executive and co-founder Dr Shaun Ryan describes Brazil as "a huge market with a lot of potential - and with less competition."
Wyma Engineering
Processing equipment
TIN100 ranking: 69th
Revenue: $25 million
Vegetable experts Wyma lifted revenue 56 per cent in the latest financial year. The Christchurch firm, which began in the 1980s, designs and manufactures machinery for processing vegetables: receiving, washing, grading and packing them.
With about 100 staff, the company supplies 40 countries and 22 dealers globally, and has offices in Christchurch, Australia and the Czech Republic. Main markets are Europe, Australasia and the Americas.
Overseas distributors have been important in spreading the brand name, and in providing an understanding of the local business environment and language skills.
As well as fluctuating exchange rates, the distance to those markets has been a challenge when exporting large, heavy equipment.
However the past year has been good, something managing director Peter Suckling attributes to continuing sales of the company's Vege-Polisher equipment, adding more products to their range, and several new projects.


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SQL Injection AttacksSQL Injection attacks use crafted, unusual user input to cause undesired SQL statements to be executed. An application is vulnerable to such attacks whenever it builds SQL statements directly out of raw user input. If an application builds SQL statements out of user input by using PreparedStatement correctly, then it will be protected from SQL injection attacks. If, on the other hand, it uses Statement to dynamically build SQL, or uses PreparedStatement incorrectly then it will not be protected from such attacks.
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) AttacksHTML allows for scripting. Scripting needs some extra care, since it allows all kinds of code to execute on the client, where it has access to the user's private environment. If you do not exercise care, it is very easy to create web applications that allow users to enter malicious scripts as regular data, into forms or URLs. When such malicious input is later fetched from the database and rendered in a view, it becomes available for execution by the browser.
Note that such scripts will execute in any browser that renders the data, not just for the browser of the hacker who happened to enter the script. When the malicious script is executing in an innocent victim's browser, it gets access to sensitive information, and sends it back to the hacker. This is called a Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attack.
To prevent XSS attacks, ask yourself two questions:
- can this form control accept a script as input?
- if so, how will the script be disabled when the user input is ultimately rendered in a page?
When the user POSTs this form, the data should always be validated as strongly as possible by the server. For instance, the Movie Decade should be checked against a fixed set of values, to ensure that form has not been altered by a malicious user. If the Movie Decade is indeed checked in such a manner, then it's not possible for the user to enter an arbitrary script as a value for the decade. If such strong checks are performed, then no special precautions against XSS attacks are needed.
The Movie Title is a different story, however. Since it's free-form user input, it's not possible to tightly constrain the Movie Title. The server cannot perform tight validation checks on its content, since there is no 'whitelist' of allowed values.
In this case, the user may indeed enter a script. To prevent the script from being activated when rendered in a page as regular data, special care must be taken: any special characters in free-form user input must be escaped. The Open Web App Security Project recommends that you escape these 12 characters :
The escaping can be performed in various places :
- in the view, when the data is ultimately rendered
- in the Model Object
- in the database
The WEB4J tool, for example, recommends performing the escaping in the Model Object, by using its SafeText class to model free-form user input instead of String.
In any case, remember that data should not be escaped more than once.
Note as well that JSTL's <c:out> tag performs escaping only for XML (5 characters), and not for HTML (12 characters). In addition, note that the JSP Expression Language performs no escaping at all.
Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) AttacksThe fundamental idea in a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attack is that of hijacking a victim's session to perform a malicious task. Since the session becomes available to the hacker, the hacker can perform tasks that would otherwise not be possible.
For example, consider a simple logging-off operation. On many sites, logging off is implemented with a simple link (GET), and not a POSTed form. A hacker can log you off such a site simply by sending you an email. Here's the scenario:
- you legitimately log in to the target site
- the hacker sends you an email containing a bogus IMG tag whose 'src' attribute points to the log-off link
- you receive the email and open it in some client (while still logged in to the target site)
- your email client automatically parses the email content
- when the IMG tag is encountered by your email client, it extracts the src target and sends an HTTP GET request over the network, ostensibly to fetch the 'image'
- bingo! you are now logged out, just by opening an email
Defending against CSRF attacks isn't as simple as defending against XSS attacks. Usually, the defenses take this form:
- for operations that have side-effects of any kind (database edits, logging off), use a form with method='POST'
- for operations without any side-effects (listings, reports, search operations), use either a form with method='GET' or a link
- for each user log-in, create a random, hard-to-guess token, and store it in the session. This token (also called a nonce) is injected as a hidden parameter into each form served by your application. For each POSTed form, the server verifies that the hidden parameter is present, and has the expected value for the current session. All of this has the intent of answering a simple question: 'Did this POSTed form really come originally from the legitimate server, or from some unknown third party?'
- specify the content-type of the response as an HTTP header. When using form tokens, the content-type lets tools know when you are serving HTML - if your are serving plain text or XML (which doesn't contain a form), then there's no need to inject form tokens.


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Hamilton County residents can drop off their trees for recycling at any time of day at any of the household recycling centers throughout the month of January.
Each center has a designated space outside the gate for old trees, officials said.
Curbside tree recycling can be requested by calling 311 or entering a request online here.
The trees will be used by the Tennessee Department of Wildlife and Forestry Division and the Hamilton County Highway Department.
State officials with the Department of Wildlife then submerge the trees as "fish attractors"; and the Highway Department chips the trees into mulch for walking trails, landscaping and landfill ground cover.
Residents can pick up mulch from the chip yard on Standifer Gap at no charge.
Household recyclables are accepted at the centers during normal hours, including electronics at certain locations.
Updated @ 10:19 a.m.on 12/28/12 to add more information as it became available.


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Original URL: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/19/songwriters_guild_on_choruss_p2p/
Why songwriters couldn't join the Choruss
Legal P2P failed because it was too vague - and risky
Posted in Policy, 19th October 2010 15:51 GMT
Jim Griffin's bold plan to take P2P file sharing out of the black economy, and into the one that deals with green folding stuff, flopped because it couldn't explain to songwriters how they'd get paid.
That's president of the Songwriters Guild of America Rick Carnes's view of Choruss' demise and he says it's why the songwriters didn't back the plan. Similar blanket licence proposals have been made by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and others; but for Carnes these are little more than a rhetorical fig-leaf.
"The EFF doesn't have a plan, they barely have a theory," he says on the MusicTechPolicy blog.
Could a similar plan to take P2P legal work? Well, in 2007, the Canadian songwriters proposed a similar blanket licence - creating a "right to remuneration for music file sharing" - one backed by a tax. In their scheme, both end-users and songwriters who don't like the terms could opt out.
It's hard to find any other organisation that backs such a proposal, because few volunteers would be found - and the small amount they pay would not compensate for the possible destruction of other online businesses, such as Amazon, iTunes and Spotify. Nor would overseas artists take kindly to a unilateral step.
Nevertheless, it's won tentative support from US songwriters.
"The SGA will continue to support the initiative as long as there is an opt-out included. Without the opt-out we cannot support them without more discussion about the details of the system. One of the things we tell songwriters is never sign a contract without understanding all the details. We adopt that same attitude in supporting legislation," says Carnes.
Paul Sanders whose company came within a whisker of launching the first legal P2P service with Virgin last year, says Choruss fell down on the issue of liabilities. A legal P2P offering can't hope to get every licensee in the world signed up - every owner of master recordings, every publisher and every song writer.
So there will be an exposure to infringement litigation. That's fair enough if you're a network owner - an ISP - or a service provider; you can reasonably claim good intentions. Instead, Choruss revived the old client/server model of Napster, this time with a revived AudioGalaxy.
"Once they went to the client model they became potentially liable, in my opinion. You can deal with what you can't see in a free flowing network much more easily when your software does not actually hold an infringing copy in managed storage," he told us.
You can read the Carnes interview at MusicTechPolicy.®


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Search Jim Cramer's "Mad Money" trading recommendations using our exclusive "Mad Money" Stock Screener.
NEW YORK ( TheStreet) -- Here are some of the hot stocks Jim Cramer talked about on Friday's "Mad Money" on CNBC: JCI data by YCharts
Johnson Controls ( JCI): Cramer said this company's three divisions are worth considerably more as separate entities, which makes the company an excellent breakup candidate.
JDS Uniphase ( JDSU): Cramer said this speculative telco equipment maker is entering another boom phase and investors should buy in on any weakness.
Google ( GOOG): Cramer said that with the FTC's investigation closed, now might be the time to buy into the search giant. To read a full recap of "Mad Money" on CNBC, click here. To sign up for Jim Cramer's free Booyah! newsletter with all of his latest articles and videos please click here. To watch replays of Cramer's video segments, visit the Mad Money page on CNBC. -- Written by Scott Rutt in Washington, D.C. To email Scott about this article, click here: Scott Rutt Follow Scott on Twitter @ScottRutt or get updates on Facebook, ScottRuttDC


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MORRISON – Extreme Image Salon won't be by itself after its move.
When the beauty salon moves June 15 from rural Morrison to downtown, Annabella's, a nail salon, is joining them in the new location at 207 W. Main St.
The nail salon will not be moving far; it is now at 207 E. Main St.
Annabella's has been in Morrison for 3 years and was in Fulton for 6 years before that, owner Anna Ryder tells me.
"We are having a lot more room than I'm at now," Ryder said.
Ryder offers pedicures, manicures, foot massages, paraffin waxes, and acrylic nails. She also offers shellac manicures and pedicures, which involve curing a lacquer on the nails with UV light so as not to harm them.
Ryder, 48, is from Mount Prospect, but now lives in Morrison.
For more information, call 309-235-7462 or find Annabella's on Facebook.


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Coulee Cops
Reports compiled from police files
Grand Coulee
5/3 - Police assisted a family in Electric City who had found a male member of the family deceased.
- A man on Roosevelt Drive told police that someone had used a glass cutter around the lock on his sliding glass door trying to get in.
- An Electric City woman told police that her son was the victim of sexual harassment at a location in Lincoln County. Police are investigating.
- A Spokane man, breaking up with his girlfriend at a Hill Avenue location and trying to get his things, called police when his girlfriend's mother started yelling at him.
5/4 - A man who had loaned a truck to a man so he could go to Spokane reported it stolen after the man failed to return.
- Police went to a residence on Kelso in Electric City where it was reported that five juveniles were at a vacant house and that the door had been kicked in. The juveniles told police they were helping an aunt move in, and the door had been taken off to get a sofa inside.
- A man who gave his address as Royal City was arrested and jailed for domestic violence and malicious mischief after he allegedly pushed his grandmother, who then allegedly hit him in the head with a frying pan. The man had broken a rabbit statue, and when his grandmother threatened to slap him, he allegedly pushed her.
5/6 - An Electric City woman told police that her 18-year-old daughter had shoved her around and started throwing things inside their apartment. She told the officer that she wanted her daughter and her boyfriend out of the apartment.
- An Elmer City dog visiting on Bowen Street in Grand Coulee bit a 7-year-old girl. The owner of the dog was cited and will have to pay a $190 fine.
- Police responded to a 911 hangup call and found that a Sandpoint man who had been rock climbing all day was starting to lose consciousness. An ambulance was sent to take the man to the hospital.
5/7 - A woman reported that someone had taken prescription medicine from her purse as well as $400 that was in an envelope.
- A man on Roosevelt told police that several neighbors in the area were using pesticides, and his wife was allergic to them.
5/8 - Police checked in on a barking dog complaint on Park Avenue in Electric City and found two neighbors that were trying to talk with each other through the police. The man with the barking dog said he would build a higher fence so the dog couldn't see the neighbor.
- Police responded to a report of a dog covered in blood. The officer found two boys with a pit bull that had a cut tongue. One of the boys took the dog home.
- An Electric City man who lives on Grand Avenue in Electric City could be charged with domestic assault as the result of a call officers made to his home. The man had left the residence before police arrived and later called police but declined an invitation to come to the police station. The report stated he had struck a woman with both open hand and closed fist. The report is going to the Grant County Prosecutor's office.
5/9 - A Nespelem man was stopped near the overlook area just above Grand Coulee Dam when an officer noticed a brake light wasn't functioning. The driver's license was suspended and the woman passenger, who owned of the car, said the man was a mechanic and driving because the vehicle was pulling to the right and she wanted him to tell her what was wrong with the car. She was told that if there was something wrong with the car it shouldn't be on the road. The officer is sending the report to the prosecutor for possible charges against the driver.


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Sponsored Link:
Woodway Treadmill Review Index
General Information:Woodway has an interesting history and an even more interesting design. There is no belt and deck like you would find on other treadmills. They combined the two into one unit and so the belt moves around the machine in slats that are joined together and bend around the corners like a tank track. If you want a treadmill that will be the last one you buy, this could easily be it in home use.
Manufacturing Philosophy:Here's the interesting part. The design is so good that with our 400 lb. test, the treadmill never pulled more electricity than what other treadmills pull without a person on them. That means very little strain?ever?on the drive system. Woodway put a great deal of effort this year into their fit and finish and it was a HUGE help! The new models we just looked at are really well done. Although they are still a relatively small factory due to the price point (how many $12,000 treadmills can anyone sell?) they no longer look like they were built in someone's basement.
Company Outlook : Woodway has an interesting business. To government institutions, pro teams and athletes, and universities, Woodway is a dream. As long as they can get the budget, they get a treadmill with a unique design. Their popularity, according to the company, in the home market is growing by leaps and bounds. We would still like to see Woodway put about $50 more into the drive system but when you only charge $12,000 for your top model, you have to watch your nickels.


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I don't think it's rude to post in a language only you understand. It might annoy your friends but, that's not the same as being rude.
I don't think it's rude to post in your other language, if you speak well and aren't trying to flaunt your ability or talk about someone else in a behind-her-back-in-front-of-her-face way. I have a FB friend who tries to post in French, just to show off, and that bugs me a little. She doesn't speak well, isn't fluent and sounds pretentious. Actually, she kind of reminds me of Charlotte from Lolita - desperate and crazy. But I have another friend who is from Mostar, and she regularly posts in her native language. I don't understand her posts, but I think they're kind of neat.
OP, if I may, where do you live that your friend hasn't got other bi/multi lingual friends? I have Farsi, Welsh, French, Danish and the Philippine language (forgotten it's name, sorry) pop up on my news feed regularly. In fact, my non-Welsh friends have often google translated something I've posted on a mutual welsh friend's wall, formed a reply, put THAT through google translate and posted it. That was cute. Short answer then: oh for goodness sake, no! English (if so it is) is not the only language in the world, nor is she your only friend. Ignore!
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" The Seville Baroque Orchestra (OBS) was founded by Barry Sargent and Ventura Rico in 1995, with the desire to create an ensemble able to perform XVII and XVIII century repertoire vivaciously and with a clear sense of communication. OBS has since then become a major reference on the Spanish music scene.
From its first performances onwards, OBS has always enjoyed the support of the audience and the specialised press. The quality of its performances, as well as the high interest of the programmed works, have always received unanimous critical acclaim.
Amongst the nearly 50 programmes that OBS has offered at the most important venues in recent years, feature works such as Mozart's Requiem or the Coronation Mass, Haendel's Messiah, symphonic programmes dedicated to Haydn and C.P.E. Bach… as well as unedited works of great interest, such as the Oratorium "Colpa, Pentimento e Grazia" by A. Scarlatti and many other works by XVIII century Spanish composers (Baguer, Buono Chiodi, Moyá, Moreno, Garay…).
Highlights in the operistic field include OBS' production of Haydn's Lo Speziale and Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea in the Maestranza Theatre (Seville) or Purcell's Dido and Eneas in the Teatre Principal (Palma de Mallorca). ... " Visit website for more information. (ed.)
Category: Ensembles/Performers/Associations/Societies / Orchestras/Chorus
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When the bulk of the homepage on your website is a chronological listing of activities and local involvement that goes back 50 years, you can lay claim to being a truly active member of your community.
Marce Van Glabek's website has that quality -- and Friday night, she added the achievement of being the 2012 Charlemagne Award winner in St. Charles.
The award is a recognition of lifetime achievement bestowed by the St. Charles Chamber of Commerce on individuals who have truly left an imprint on their community.
Van Glabek's cornerstone is a 50-year history in real estate. But while her professional passion is selling homes, Van Glabek has heavily influenced several key community organizations.
She was the president of the Fox Valley Association of Realtors. She was the first female president of the St. Charles Chamber of Commerce. She served as a director for the Ecker Mental Health Center, Tri-City Family Services, the Fine Line Creative Arts Center and the Glenwood School.
She was heavily involved in Zonta International, a global organization of business executives working to advance the status of women. She helped write the plan to redevelop downtown St. Charles. And, last year, the St. Charles Chamber of Commerce recognized her with the LEAP Award for demonstrating Leadership, Excellence, Achievement & Professionalism.
Van Glabek is a 51-year resident of St. Charles and lived in Batavia for 10 years before that. She received the Charlemagne award as a surprise part of the St. Charles Chamber of Commerce's annual awards dinner.
"Our recipient is well-known in St. Charles and has served the community for decades through many organizations and continues to volunteer, helping others and beautifying the community," read the explanation for Van Glabek's selection.
She is the 46th recipient of St. Charles' most prestigious award.


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Lila Downs' music is a lot like her upbringing: threads of seemingly unrelated cultures woven into an exotic, ever-shifting hybrid. She's done everything from studying anthropology to dropping out of school to follow the Grateful Dead. She was a DIY artist and coffeehouse singer smitten with Mexican rancheras, John Coltrane and Whitney Houston who released her music on cassette in the '90s. Now she headlines theaters and arenas around the world, and sings with an opera-worthy voice in multiple languages.
On the phone from her apartment in New York, Downs converses about her life with the sounds of her nearly 2-year-old son providing a playful backdrop. Her latest album, "Pecados y Milagros" (Sins and Miracles), is typically wide-ranging, touching on everything from the traditional ballads she learned as a child from her Mexican-born singer-mother to the jazz, classical and rock references she gleaned from her British-American college professor father.
"I was born in Mexico (in the late '60s), but later studied classical music in Minnesota, surrounded by Nordic people and Germans, and I related to North American music and a particular time – the '60s and '70s and people like Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Carlos Santana," she says. "I learned from my father about jazz, and he played a lot of opera, Bach, Coltrane, Miles Davis. My mother came from a poor background; she spoke only native Mixtec language before she moved to Mexico City to work as a singer. She introduced me to ranchera music: 'These are your roots. This is where you and I come from.'
"But I couldn't relate to that when I was younger. There was so much discrimination against Mexicans (in America) when I was growing up. As a child, I realized I made people uncomfortable just by being Mexican. People would leave the room. You learn how to smooth that out so that people don't feel uncomfortable, and I pushed that out of my life for a while."
She struggled to integrate her past until she dropped out of college in the late '80s and took two years off to travel around the country with the Grateful Dead's entourage of Deadheads.
"I knew what was happening around the Dead was not the way everyone else was doing things in mainstream society," she says. "I was looking for some answers about my own life. I was very disenchanted with some elements of following the Grateful Dead, but I was very taken with other things that coincided with my Indian culture: the collective conscience, the truly democratic way they had of doing things. I learned this was my upbringing as well. I learned to love myself for who I am."
Returning to college, "I discovered this whole artistic world in Mexico through writing a thesis about weaving, and realized that women who do this create their vision of life in their very particular language. That opened my soul to art and the idea of what I could do to profoundly make people reflect. I went back to singing and started composing stuff. I became familiar with the whole immigrant situation. In (her home region of) Oaxaca, there were Mixtec people trying to get to the U.S., and one of them died trying to cross. The father brought his son's body home and asked me to translate the death certificate for him. He wanted to know, 'How did my son die?' I started writing these narrative songs, similar to the type of songs Johnny Cash once wrote that told a story about a people's experience."
She and her future husband, saxophonist Paul Cohen, released a series of cassettes in the '90s while they developed their sound and honed their stage show in the Philadelphia club scene. "We were working at the clubs for a few years before we became aware of the whole music industry," she says. "That permitted us to develop in a beautiful way. When we did finally meet some producers, the criticisms were always, 'It's too eclectic.' 'Your records are too different one song to the next.' But it was the way we did things. My husband was also a circus clown in Philly, so we were into making the shows fun. One minute, we'd have this dramatic crying about tequila and the blues, and then it was 'Get up and move out of your seats.' "
Downs broke through to international success in the last decade by sticking to her wide-ranging vision. "Pecados y Milagros" balances wrenching songs of grief with more hopeful perspectives tinged by hip-hop and rockabilly.
"The U.S. thinks of us Mexicans as these strangers with a strange language coming to take over their country," she says. "They think of all Latin Americans that way. We should look to history. We are native American and in Mexico these native American languages are still spoken by millions. There are a lot of things about our history that North American audiences don't know, that even Mexicans don't know. That is my hope for my music, that in some ways it will touch people's thirst for knowledge."
Lila Downs: 7 p.m. Saturday at Congress Theater, 2135 N. Milwaukee Av., $20 and $50; ticketfly.com.


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No. 19 Towson Pulls Off Second Straight Dramatic Comeback For Fifth Straight Win
Tigers Score Final Four Goals of the Game To Top UMBC, 12-11
TOWSON, Md. – Senior Sean Maguire scored with 17 seconds remaining to push the No. 19 Towson men's lacrosse team past crosstown rival UMBC, 12-11, Wednesday evening at Johnny Unitas® Stadium.
The Tigers, who have won five straight games to improve to 7-3, scored the final four goals of the game over a 7:30 span to pull off their second dramatic come-from-behind victory in a row.
"It's gratifying that we are finding ways to win," said Towson head coach Shawn Nadelen. However, we need to put four quarters together."
Sophomore Thomas DeNapoli and senior Carl Iacona led Towson with three goals each. DeNapoli, who also added an assist, now has 10 points in his last two games.
The Tigers, who trailed at Hofstra on Saturday by a score of 9-3 with less than 12 minutes remaining in the game before roaring back, found themselves three goals (11-8) behind UMBC midway through the fourth quarter.
DeNapoli ignited the Towson rally by scooping in a shot that never left the ground, but squeaked by Retriever goalkeeper Adam Cohen for his second goal of the night. After the teams exchanged possessions, it was DeNapoli again with his 15th goal of the season to pull the Tigers to within 11-10 with 3:43 remaining.
Junior Matt Hughes then found the back of the cage off a feed from senior Matt Lamon to tie the game with 1:06 left. The Tigers won the ensuing face-off and UMBC's Ian Gray was called for a cross-check, giving Towson a man-up opportunity.
Senior Michael Brashears then found Maguire, who scored his team-leading 17th goal of the season with just 17 seconds remaining. It was the first lead for the Tigers since holding a narrow 6-5 advantage early in the third quarter.
"Coach Gilardi kept telling us to get the ball to the middle," said Maguire. "Mike (Brashears) fed me the ball, I turned and fired low just like the scouting report said, and it went in."
The final face-off of the game was won by the Tigers after Iacona scooped the groundball after a scrum to seal Towson's fifth straight victory.
Tiger goalkeeper Andrew Wascavage was marvelous in the cage, making a career-high 17 saves.
"Andrew (Wascavage) was fantastic," said Nadelen. "His extreme effort of 17 saves kept us in the game. He made saves almost every way possible. He used his stick, elbow, face, and foot, everything he had."
UMBC (3-5) took a 1-0 lead midway through the first quarter when Scott Jones scored off a pass from Joe Lustgarten. The Tigers tied the game at 1-1 with 6:30 left in the first period when Brashears scored off a pass from DeNapoli.
With 4:41 remaining in the first quarter, Iacona gave the Tigers a 2-1 lead when he scored on a 15-yard rocket out front. After a goal by UMBC junior Scott Hopmann tied the game at 2-2, Iacona's second goal gave the Tigers a 3-2 lead with 14:10 remaining in the first half.
The Retrievers bounced back and tied the game at 3-3 when sophomore Conor Finch scored off a pass from Lustgarten with 12:23 left in the half. With 3:52 remaining in the half, Hopmann scored his second goal to give the Retrievers a 4-3 advantage. With 1:03 left in the half, the Tigers tied the game for the fourth time as Iacona matched his career-high with his third goal of the game as he scored off a pass from Lamon.
That set the stage for a wild third quarter. DeNapoli and Hughes scored back-to-back goals in the opening minutes to give the Tigers a 6-4 advantage.
However, UMBC responded by scoring three goals in a two-minute period to take a 7-6 lead. With 9:52 left in the quarter, sophomore Zach Linkous scored an extra man goal to pull UMBC within 6-5. Just seven seconds later, sophomore Matt Gregoire scored off a pass from Jones to tie the game at 6-6. With 7:52 left in the quarter, Jones put UMBC ahead when he took a pass from Rob Grimm and scored on the crease.
Less than a minute later, the Retrievers extended their lead to 8-6 on Hopmann's third goal of the game. But, the Tigers came right back and tied the game again. Current CAA Rookie of the Week Justin Mabus tallied a goal from the right side to pull the Tigers to within 8-7 before Andrew Hodgson's unassisted goal tied the game at 8-8.
The teams headed into the fourth quarter tied at 8-8, the sixth tie of the contest. The Retrievers immediately took momentum back, scoring three consecutive goals to go up 11-8 with 8:30 remaining. Gregoire tallied his second of the night and Jones posted back-to-back tallies to cap the run and give the road team a three-goal advantage.
Towson was outshot 42-30, but Wascavage balanced that stat out by making 17 saves to just seven for UMBC.
The Tigers will be seeking their first six-game winning streak since the 2004 season when the travel to second-ranked Massachusetts on Saturday. The CAA clash is set to begin at 1 p.m. from Garber Field in Amherst, Mass.


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Howard Kurtz tells us about this Tucker Carlson project, The Daily Caller, which begins today:
[Carlson's] $3 million in funding comes from Wyoming financier Foster Friess, a big-time GOP donor.
But Carlson insists this won't be a right-wing site: "I don't feel guilty about or ashamed in any way of saying we'll cover the people in power," he says, dismissing the capital's Republicans as "totally powerless."
"Our goal is not to get Republicans elected. Our goal is to explain what your government is doing. We're not going to suck up to people in power, the way so many have. There's been an enormous amount of throne-sniffing," he says, a sly grin beneath the mop of brown hair. It's disgusting."...
The focus will be on the White House and Congress; early stories will examine Medicare fraud and wasteful stimulus projects, along with a Carlson piece on the latest White House party-crasher, Carlos Allen....So I go to the website and here's the teaser for the top story:
That's what you decided to throw in my face on the morning of your first day?! I guess I'm way out of your target audience. Jeesh. That's lurid. And Carlos Allen means nothing to me. You've got an unknown black man posing with 3 breast-wielders, for no obviously apparent reason, making me reflexively assume you're trying to attract childish men and... uh... racists?
And the whole look of the place is old-fashioned and tabloid. HuffPo had a really great aesthetic from the start. Why did they make it look like that? Everyone on the staff must be design-blind. Or there's just something impossible about using Wyoming financier money to hire a great graphic designer.
Much as I like Jim Treacher — who has a blog over there — his logo is so atrocious I feel like...
... well, let's just say it makes the Pajamas Media bathrobe look chic.


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The U.S. has about the same number of private contractors in Iraq as uniformed service members, a new congressional report says — a history-making ratio that presents problems in keeping track of all the workers and highlights the difficulties of supporting extended military operations without a larger force.
The presence of private security companies has caused some consternation in military circles because some private guards are earning up to $1,222 a day, compared to $160 to $190 earned in pay and benefits by a midgrade military member with similar skills.
TVNL Comment: War is a racket and this one is a doozie!


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Please join KLRU's Overheard with Evan Smith for an interview with Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times, on Sunday, March 13 at 3:15 pm in KLRU's Studio 6A (map). Doors open at 2:45 pm. The event is free but an RSVP is required. Please RSVP here.
Bill Keller's career with the Times has stretched for more than 25 years, spanning a period of great change in the industry and the world. Keller began his career with the Times in 1984 as a Washington-based correspondent. He later served as bureau chief in Moscow, winning a Pulitzer in 1989 for his coverage of the Soviet Union. After that assignment, Keller became chief of the Johannesburg bureau. He followed that with time as foreign editor and managing editor before his 2003 appointment as executive editor.
Overheard with Evan Smith updates the successful formula of our award-winning series Texas Monthly Talks – great conversation with fascinating people, always on the news and always with a sense of humor. The new show brings you the same mix of guests from politics, the arts, literature, journalism, business, sports and more, and is available to PBS stations nationwide.Overheard airs on KLRU at 7 p.m. Thursdays, 8:30 p.m. Fridays and 12:30 p.m. Sundays. Episodes are also available online at klru.org/overheard


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Read 080514_medical-device-technology.pdf text version
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06 - MDT_muller1.ind
In Vitro Biocompatibility Testing of Biomaterials and
Medical Devices
U. Müller
BMP Labor Für Medizinische Materialprüfung GmbH, Aachen, Germany
Biomaterials used for medical devices must be thoroughly tested according to ISO 109931 before their introduction so that any negative effects on the body are known about and prevented. By using in vitro laboratory tests, dangers for patients and unnecessary animal experiments can be avoided. Here, in vitro tests for cell compatibility (cytotoxicity) and blood compatibility (haemocompatibility) are described.
This article was first published in Medical Device Technology, vol. 19, no. 2, March/April 2008.
Practical application For many manufacturers and developers of medical devices, ISO 10993, Biological Evaluation of Medical Device,1-5 is a necessary evil. However, those who are fully conversant with the different parts of the standard and able to apply it will gain a significant advantage in their new product development and production processes. This article outlines methods of biological evaluation, describing haemocompatibility and cytotoxicity testing. The article also makes recommendations from the perspective of an accredited test laboratory that focuses on in vitro testing of the biocompatibility of biomaterials and medical devices, and these serve to highlight important aspects of applying the standard. The basic requirements of the clinical evaluation of a medical device are set out in the Medical Device Directive6 and the Active Implantable Medical Device Directive.7 Checking biocompatibility of
a product and/or its components based on ISO 10993 is one way of meeting these requirements. ISO 10993 is a "horizontal" standard and therefore it is applicable to approximately 70 0000 different medical devices. For practical use, it offers different starting points. The biological evaluation of medical devices is one important way to gain the CE mark. Particularly with in vitro tests according ISO 109934, Selection of Tests for Interactions With Blood,3 and ISO 10993-5, Tests for In Vitro Cytotoxicity,4 the standard offers the opportunity to test early in product development the materials that are being used for the medical device. Potential toxicity can be tested and therefore expensive and undesirable development work can be avoided. In addition, products that are already on the market can be tested regularly with regard to cytotoxicity. In this way, the production process is monitored and, for example, toxic residues from the production and
cleaning process can be detected. The following discussion focuses on the practical aspects of employing Parts 4 and 53,4 of ISO 10993 in the development and manufacture of medical devices.
Haemocompatibility Part 4 of ISO 10993 deals with the requirements of evaluating interactions of medical devices with blood.3 The so-called "blooddevice interaction" is defined as "any interaction between blood or any component of blood and a device resulting in effects on the blood, or on any organ or tissue or on the device. These effects may or may not have clinically significant or undesirable consequences. Generally, it is valid that: Testing shall be performed on the sterile final product, or representative samples from the final product or materials processed in the same manner as the final product (including sterilisation)."3 However, single components of the products can be tested by
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Figure 1: SEM shot of investigated stent sample after direct contact with human blood (deposition of blood components).
a quicker screening procedure to exclude haemoincompatibility and this is best undertaken during the development process. Testing of controls used for validation is required together with proof of the validity of the different methods. The properties of the reference materials must be well known and comply with the regimes of the manufacturers and the test laboratory in terms of quality control and quality assurance. Because there are no limiting values for the evaluation of haemocompatibility, evaluating the test results is even more difficult. Therefore, it is useful to test a reference device that is well known and/or already available on the market at the same time as the device under development. The qualification and experience of the laboratory staff also play an important role. ISO 10993-4 requires that human blood is used for in vitro tests where possible because of species differences in blood reactivity. Pig and baboon are suitable animal models, but species differences may be significant; for example, platelet adhesion, thrombosis and haemolysis tend to occur more readily in the canine species than in the human. Thus, all results of animal studies should be interpreted with caution because they run the risk of misjudgement. Animal blood should only be preferred if special methods or test parameters
march/april 2008 medical device technology
require it. Therefore, many test laboratories only test with human blood. Taking into account the different reactions of the different donors of human blood, several test runs with different donors are performed. In addition to the consideration of different variables such as the circumstances of the sampling, the addition of anticoagulants or the flow conditions in a dynamic testing system, particularly the shear forces at the blood vessel epithelium, mean fast processing after blood collection is important. ISO 10993-43 requires that tests are performed with minimal delay, usually within 4 hours, because some properties of blood change rapidly following collection. However, from experience, it is recommended that tests are started within 30 minutes to help ensure valid results.
Caution with the haemolysis test The test for haemolysis should be regarded with care. It is the only recommended test for some medical devices such as atherectomy or embolisation devices, as stated
in Part 4 of ISO 10993.3 Experience has shown that evaluation by haemolysis is insufficient for many devices with direct blood contact, because important reactions of blood, for example, coagulation activation, cannot be detected by this single test. In addition to haemolysis, determination of the blood count is highly recommended. With a blood count, the interaction between the blood and the reference material can be determined and the change in the quantity of erythrocytes, leukocytes and thrombocytes can indicate important foreign body reaction. For evaluation of thrombocyte adhesion, the investigation of the surface of the medical device by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) is ideal to determine the activation of thrombocytes, the deposition of blood components or the formation of fibrin. This information, which directly influences the haemocompatibility of the medical device, cannot be gained by a single haemolysis test. Thus, evaluation for prolonged exposure and permanent blood contact that is limited to only this test is definitely not advisable. Testing strategies should always be orientated towards the intended use (nature of body contact, duration of contact) of the device and include the necessary blood properties. The choice of technological investigation parameters is important: if the
Figure 2: Influence of the stent sample on haemolysis measured as free plasma haemoglobin.
Determination of haemoglobin
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medical device is to be employed in a dynamic system, the tests should also be done in a dynamic system and not in a static one. Figure 1 shows stent material after contact with human blood. There is a massive deposition of blood components such as fibrin meshes with caught erythrocytes and leukocytes, whereas the haemolysis test showed no significant influence (Figure 2). This example shows that only investigation of several parameters delivers a safe result with respect to the haemocompatibility of biomaterials and medical devices.
Figure 3: Nontoxic result after indirect contact of implant material (mitochondrial activity).
XTT test
Cytotoxicity Part 5 of ISO 109934 describes tests for in vitro cytotoxicity. Methods for direct and/or indirect cell contact can be used depending on the nature and duration of the device contact with the body. Quantitative and qualitative analysis methods are available. As in testing haemocompatibility, sample preparation and a product orientated choice of test system is important. If the investigation sample is, for example, an implant, a combination of direct and indirect cell contact should be chosen. It is important to bear in mind, for example, that unleachable toxic substances that do not pass into the extraction medium can be proved by the direct cell contact, but not by testing indirectly via extraction method. As an example, Figures 3 and 4 show a combination of direct and indirect test methods with different results of cytotoxicity for the investigated implant material. Comprehensive evaluation of a possible cell rejection response is only possible by considering the results of direct contact. Positive and negative controls should be employed with the tests wherever possible to evaluate the effect of the investigated material compared with the controls. Before the tests, the morphology and the subconfluency of used cells should be controlled with the microscope.
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The samples must be sterile to Reasons for repeat testing avoid contamination of the cells A general requirement of ISO and a resulting misjudgement of 10993-125 is that there are several cytotoxicity. repetitions of in vitro tests. This If the sample is delivered in an not only refers to the validation of unsterilised state, it must be sterthe analytical methods, but also to ilised using the manufacturer's cells (ISO 10993-54) and blood recommended method. The choice (ISO 10993-43), which are biologiof the sterilisation method plays cal media and can fluctuate within an important role, because it has their normal fluctuation margin a direct influence on the materials and are restricted to only generalisused to fabricate the medical device. ing validity. For example, plasma sterilisation For some manufacturers, who of can influence the polymer struccourse have to meet budgets as well ture and lead to negative effects. as biocompatibility, repetition of If extracts of nonsterile test items several test runs involving different are sterilised by sterile filtration, samples of one product, the differthere is a risk that toxic components ent cell passage and using a testing remain in the syringe filters and the strategy that employs more than test results will be falsified. one property of the cells seems to New medical Figure 4: Slight toxic result after direct contact of implant devices show a material (vitality with some rounded cells and some redmarked increase coloured damaged cells). in complexity. In many cases, they consist of several materials from different material groups. Here, the choice of the right testing strategy is important. The component with the toxic influence needs to be found and this can only be achieved by testing each single component.
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be exaggerated and too expensive. There follows the counter arguments to this view. n As already mentioned, the blood of different donors can react differently on the tested material. A secure result can only be achieved by repetitions with blood of different donors combined with different samples of one product. n When the cell passage shows a hidden source of errors and the tests are performed with one test run, the cytotoxicity results do not refer to the product, but to the cell passage itself. Therefore, for every replication, an additional, separate cell passage has to be used. n When there is only one sample that is tested, and if that one sample shows a cytotoxic effect, the sample will be declared cytotoxic in the investigation report. But what happens if this effect is only on that one sample and the samples of the other test runs show no toxicity? This would suggest an unstable batch and the manufacturer is then able to optimise the production process. In this way, the simultaneous testing of several products from one batch can be a validation of the properties of the production process. Experience in recent years has shown that this is a considerable advantage for manufacturers, because the production process can be changed at an early stage. n In recent years, testing systems have been established. These include evaluation of morphology and membrane integrity, and metabolism efficiency of the cells by measuring proliferation activity of the cells (BrdU-test) and mitochondrial activity of the cells by measuring dysfunction of mitochondrial activity as a sensor for a disturbed cell function (XTT-test). These complex systems allow, for example, a clear and comprehensive evaluation of biological efficiency of materials with nonadhesive properties such as some coronary stents. Unsuitable materials can be eliminated by in vitro screenings, and the subsequent
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animal experiments can be reduced because unsuitable materials can be excluded from animal experiments.
Batch testing of cytotoxicity Employing in vitro tests for cytotoxicity after the CE-marking of products offers manufacturers and patients increased confidence in the safety of the products. One element of batch testing is the microbiological (bioburden) test, but this not the only aspect of the production monitoring. Microbiological tests, for example, do not show residues of the production or cleaning processes. Small changes within the cleaning and/or production processes can lead to devastating effects such as increased endoprothesis loosening. In most cases, technical defects or human errors within the production process cannot be detected by the microbiological test. That is why manufacturers are increasingly expanding their quality assurance with one efficient and simultaneous inexpensive method: batch testing by cytotoxicity tests. Today's advantages This article describes the main aspects of in vitro biocompatibility testing according to the ISO 10993 series for obtaining the CE mark and for use after the introduction of the medical device onto the market. The ISO 10993 series is developing continously. The development of in vitro tests for cytotoxicity and haemocompatibility within the last years has increased their validity and adaptation to specific product applications. The substitution of animal experiments by specially developed in vitro test methods and the use of tests that minimise any pain and distress for animals is reflected in this ISO 10993 series.2 In addition to the development of the methods, the requirements for the test laboratories have increased and are reflected in the last revision of ISO 10993-1 (ISO/DIS 10993-1:2006).1 All tests must be conducted in compliance with current best laboratory/
quality practices, for example, Good Laboratory Practices, or ISO 17025,8 where applicable. The specific application of in vitro biocompatibility tests for cytotoxicity and haemocompatibility ultimately saves money, but as a first priority, leads to a significant increase in the safety of the product and the patient.
1. ISO 10993-1: 2003, Evaluation and Testing Within a Risk Management System, ISO/DIS 10993-1:2006. 2. ISO 10993-2: 2006, Animal Welfare Requirements. 3. ISO 10993-4: 2002, Selection of Tests For Interactions With Blood. 4. ISO 10993-5: 1999, Tests for In Vitro Cytotoxicity. 5. ISO 10993-12: 2002, Sample Preparation and Reference Materials. 6. Council Directive 93/42/EEC of 14 June 1993 concerning medical devices. 7. Council Directive 90/385/EEC of 20 June 1990 on The Approximation of The Law of the Member States Relating to Active Implantable Medical Devices. 8. ISO 17025: 2005, General Requirements For the Competence of Testing and Calibration Laboratories.
Dr-Ing. Ute Müller
is General Manager at BMP Labor Für Medizinische Materialprüfung GmbH, Pauwelsstrasse 19, D-52074 Aachen, Germany, tel. +49 241 963 2390, e-mail: [email protected], www.bmp-aachen.de
This article was first published in Medical Device Technology, vol. 19, no. 2, March/April 2008.
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text: After many months of waiting, Dead Island's 'Bloodbath Arena' downloadable content will finally launch on November 22. The free pre-order incentive was originally slated to launch in September, but ended up delayed due to "further polishing of the main game." Bloodbath Arena adds a wave survival mode with four arenas, playable in co-op or on your lonesome. Any experience and items you earn will be carried over into the regular campaign, and your zombie-slaying prowess will be tracked on online leaderboards. Which is all good and well, but what we really want to see is its exclusive new "brain wave bomb" weapon in action. The combination of "brain" and "bomb" rarely disappoints. Bloodbath Arena is headed to PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 on November 22. It'll be free if you pre-ordered Dead Island, but otherwise run you $10 (800 Microsoft Points). A few new Bloodbath Arena screenshots


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Moose in Game Management Unit 15A on the Kenai Peninsula are entering the winter in bad condition, said Thomas McDonough, a Homer-based research biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
"These 15A moose are supposed to be at their peak condition around this time of year," McDonough said.
He suspects the moose in 15A — which spans roughly from the Sterling Highway north to the end of the Peninsula — will do poorly over the winter.
McDonough returned last week from about three weeks recapturing cows collared with tracking devices in Management Units 15A and 15C as part of Fish and Game's on-going moose study. The study examines the moose populations' survival and reproduction rates to potentially justify future predator control measures in those management units, according to a study document.
The 34 cows Fish and Game biologist recaptured in 15A had low levels of fat and muscle content, McDonough said. That is a problem, because 15A has bad winter-time food for moose, he said.
"When animals go through a winter when food is limited, they not only burn up fat but they can metabolize protein, or muscle, as well," he said.
When a moose burns through its fat and muscle reserves, its offspring suffer. The fatter a cow is, the more likely it is to conceive, develop a healthy fetus and birth a calf that will survive the winter, McDonough said.
If fewer calves are born or survive the winter, the overall moose population will drop, Fish and Game Kenai Area Wildlife Biologist Jeff Selinger said, in an October interview.
The last census in 15A, conducted spring 2008, counted 1,825 to 2,352 moose.
The 35 moose biologists recaptured in 15C, however, were in better condition, McDonough said.
The last census in 15C — encompassing the area south of Tustumena Lake and west of the Kenai Fjords National Park — counted 2,642 to 3,196 moose. It was conducted in 2010.
Snow levels will also affect the moose's survival chances through the winter, particularly the calves.
"Once you get snow that typically exceeds the chest height of a calf, then you start having a higher level of calf mortality and nutritional stress," McDonough said, "because a lot of the available browse that would normally be available is covered up by snow, and it's harder to walk through deep snow."
But the bottom line for moose in 15A: they are in trouble either way, said McDonough, because their winter range is bad.
McDonough also collected data on cow pregnancy, another method for measuring a cow's health. Those results have not yet been analyzed. He expects to have them in a couple of weeks.
Biologists will likely continue collecting data in units 15A and 15C for the next couple of years, McDonough said. Until then, further information will come in waves as data is collected and analyzed.
McDonough will present study findings at the March Board of Game meeting.
Dan Schwartz can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Santa Clara Mag Blog
Santa Clara Magazine's blog, updated whenever the writing goblin visits the editorial staff of the magazine.
Black, White, and Fed All Over
Monday, Nov. 28, 2011
Saying goodbye to a familiar friend on campus
If you have had lunch at the Adobe Lodge, then you know BW (short for Black and White)—although maybe not by that name.
You might have called her Adobe or The Jesuit Cat. The staff at the Lodge named her Bus Tub, after the containers that leftovers are swept into. Maybe you just knew of the friendly longhaired, black and white cat that staked out the entrance of the Adobe Lodge daily. But those who knew her best, called her BW.
Michelle Towers official title with Santa Clara is administrative associate in the president's office, but she's unofficially the chair of SCU's department of cat care. According to Towers, BW first appeared on campus about six years ago, large enough that most observers assumed she was pregnant. After two frowned upon forays into the restaurant, BW established her familiar post on the wooden chest near the entrance. Vet trips were surprisingly easy; some tuna or fresh chicken was all the bait required.
BW's temperament bordered on fearless, as she was something of a socialite. She was known to weave between the crowds at Vintage Santa Clara and open houses and even attended a Board of Trustees outdoor lunch one day. "One event that she joined, that is remembered by many, was Father Locatelli's memorial outside in the Mission Garden," recalls Towers. "There was an aisle that led from the statue of St. Joseph up to the stage, which was in front of St. Joseph hall. BW came into sight, walked up the aisle, turned around near the statue and sat—as if watching the event as well."
In October, Towers noticed that BW had gone missing. The cat no longer waited for her morning meal at the St. Joseph statue and at her lunchtime post at Adobe. Over the next few weeks Towers asked her cat network if they had seen her, and they in turn asked others. She kept an eye on the Humane Society's found pets page. Sure enough, a picture of BW was posted by someone who had been on the campus, thought BW was lost, and took her home for a few days.
Towers followed up with the local Humane Society. They called the person who found her and learned that BW was dropped off at another local shelter on October 20 when there had been no response to the posting. The staff reviewed her condition, and due to her age (around 12) and health problems (thyroid and kidney issues) she was put down.
"I hope there is an Adobe Lodge in cat heaven for her," Towers says. "Heaven help them if the food is not to her liking."Posted by Jeff Gire | Permalink | Comments (1)
The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!
Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2011
Thanksgiving memories of turkey, football, and revolutions that changed the world
Thanksgiving 1989 was a cold one in the Midwest: a couple feet of snow blanketed the fields and forests of Chicagoland. It was a year that we came home—all five of us kids—to the big white house where my family had moved the year I went away to college. We came with significant others in tow for the Thanksgiving inspection. It was the last Thanksgiving with my grandfather Henry, born in 1900, and it was the year the Russians came to play football.
Stanislav was 15 years old and he was staying with our family. He was one of 10 high-schoolers (five boys, five girls, one teacher) from Leningrad. (It would be two years before the city reclaimed its original name of St. Petersburg, but people who called that fabled city home were already talking about the restoration as a matter of course.) Stas was sandy-haired, slight of build, and generally a quiet kid, at least around anyone older than he was. He shared my younger brother's room and the two of them went to school together every day for six weeks. My mother packed their lunches and on Stas' sandwich of sliced turkey or ham or roast beef she always put extra lettuce. His request.
You see, in the fading days of the Soviet Union, fresh vegetables year 'round were not widely available. The problems with food distribution were emblematic of a system that was broken in so many ways. A friend of mine who was in Leningrad recounted seeing two women in a state store fighting over a single carrot.
A different country
But it was clear things were changing: the perestroika and glasnost were reshaping the U.S.S.R., and in Central and Eastern Europe it was the year of revolutions. Gorbachev had led the Soviet Union for four years already, but the Russian kids visiting us weren't, for the most part, big fans. Less talk, more action is what they wanted. Also weighing on their minds was this fact: The Baltic Republics were still part of the Soviet Union but had declared a desire for independence.
The Russian students arrived in Chicagoland just after Halloween. On Nov. 9, the Berlin Wall was toppled. Stas watched the event on television with my family. "I think I'm going home to a different country," he told my mother.
A week later, riot police suppressed a peaceful demonstration in Prague. The ensuing protests throughout the country became the Velvet Revolution that ended communism in Czechoslovakia. On the day before Thanksgiving, the space shuttle Discovery was launched. My mother woke Stas and my brother early for the occasion, so they could watch it live. At Camp David, in a Thanksgiving eve message, President George H.W. Bush described Eastern Europeans as "new pilgrims … on a voyage of freedom."
Table set
On Thanksgiving Day in our warm kitchen there was turkey in the oven and potatoes (mashed and sweet) and stuffing in pans and casserole dishes and cranberry relish spooned into cut crystal bowls. There must have been 20 people at the house that day—too many to fit around the dining table. So in addition to the table in the dining room, the cherry dining set that had been my grandfather's was put in the living room as the kids' table—where Grandpa Hank also sat, much to his delight. He had never been to Russia. Once upon a time he was scheduled to take the next ship across the Atlantic to drive a tank in the Great War in Europe, but he liked to joke that the Kaiser heard that Henry was coming and called it quits.
So what were the Russian boys doing in the suburbs of Chicago? They came on an exchange program begun, with fits and starts, during the Reagan presidency. But this was the first year that a proper, organized exchange took place. In the fall, a small group of high school kids from the Soviet Union came to the United States. The following March, an equal number of American students who were studying Russian in school—including my brother—lived for some weeks with host families in Leningrad.
Why was this suburban high school teaching Russian? There was no native Russian population in our town to speak of. This was not Chicago proper; our town of 10,000 was never home to masses of immigrants from the lands of the Slavs. This was a WASPy suburb, far enough up the Chicago-Northwestern line that there was a rookery for great blue herons just outside of town and, a little bit further north, a lake popular with hunters. It was simply that in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as language offerings were expanded at the school, Russian language—and a young, dynamic teacher—became part of the mix. The teacher rode a motorcycle and listened to the Doobie Brothers and kids loved him. There were even those who weren't studying Russian who would hang around the Russian club.
Forward pass
While the big bird roasted in the oven, we went out on our parcel of land where the suburbs meet the farmlands under the wide-open Midwestern sky—blue and fragile like porcelain with the sun shining down on brilliant, sparkling snow—and we taught the Russians how to play football. The teams were six-on-seven. There was Stas and his friend Anton from Leningrad and the twins Anton was staying with. There was my high school buddy Joe and his brother and my brother and two of his friends and a future brother-in-law. We offered up tips as we struggled through knee-deep powder for an end run: forward pass and lateral and tackle the receiver before he scores.
Stas took that last lesson to heart. He didn't wait for Joe to catch the pass. He saw him high-stepping it into the clear so he ran after him and wrapped his arms around Joe's waist and took him down. Anton piled on. We refined the lessons about rules over the course of the game. Winning wasn't really the point, was it? The point was more to share the exuberance of being alive to run and throw and play. The point was the conversation that my younger brother and Stas had in a quieter time: about how absurd it seemed that they might ever be fighting one another in a war.
One of the reasons that this Thanksgiving is so memorable to me is that it offers a reminder. There are these things that we do right. There is good that can be done in the world. Bringing people together face to face across continents and histories. Undoing the injustices of decades of history. So act.
Does this sound too simple? No doubt. But I'll say it nonetheless because it is also easy to forget. Sometimes all we can notice is that today we roll the stone up the hill and the damn thing rolls right back down again. The forces of gravity conspire against us. Why even try? But that's hardly the spirit of Thanksgiving. No, the spirit of Thanksgiving is in counting blessings. Start with those of the past year. Start with articulating hopes and aspirations and dreams.
As a postscript, I should note that soon after the breakup of the Soviet Union, some folks tried to kill the Russian language program at our high school. The families that had participated in the exchange with Leningrad rallied to save the program, but only for a few years. They stopped teaching Russian a while back. French, German, Spanish, and Latin are still on the schedule. As is Chinese I, II, and III. That's not surprising; it seems in keeping with the turning of political and economic wheels. And across the street from the school is the Gator Aid Sports Science Institute, the testing lab for the most researched sports drink on the planet, they say. But that's another story.
Keep the faith,
Steven Boyd SaumPosted by Steven Saum | Permalink | Comments (0)
The Class of '45: The boys who went away
Friday, Nov. 11, 2011
The new and old: A photograph of Santa Clara today and how it looked with the arrival of soldiers in 1943. Photo by Robert Boscacci '14 and from the Archives of SCU.
On this Veterans Day, we're providing an excerpt from a letter that will appear in the Winter 2012 issue of Santa Clara Magazine. Thomas E. Gebhardt '45 was among the freshmen entering the university in 1941.
"We were freshmen in 1941, eager to begin our college life ... [but] the attack on Pearl Harbor would change the life of each student of Santa Clara University. The years that followed became the war years, with students leaving to enter the service. It was a slow process, as students would wait for their orders. By the end of 1943, all eligible candidates had entered the service. A handful of the Class of 1945 would remain. The Tom Dowlings [a fellow football player] and the Chris Christiansons [also a football player] were lost in some far-away place, fighting for our country. It was ironic that our class started in 1941, the year World War II began and ended in 1945, the same year the war ended.
As the war ended, many of our class would return to Santa Clara—a new class, a new graduating year. The Class of 1945 was lost in the pages of time. It was a new beginning."Posted by Clay Hamilton | Permalink | Comments (0)
Memorial service planned for Prof. William Yabroff
Thursday, Nov. 10, 2011
Professor William Yabrof, who co-founded the graduate counseling psychology department at SCU, died on Oct. 6, 2011. He was a beloved professor for over 25 years, teaching numerous courses, and specializing in the therapeutic use of imagery and symbol. He is survived by his daughter, Clare (Wendy) Yabroff '85. A memorial service is being held on November 19th at 4 p.m. at the Ananda Church, 2171 El Camino Real, Palo Alto, CA 94306. For more information, please call 503-616-6628.Posted by Clay Hamilton | Permalink | Comments (1)


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NFL Films' Greg Cosell has heard that Syracuse QB Ryan Nassib is working on limiting the amount of wasted motion he incorporates when throwing.
The Seattle Times' Adam June reports that Washington junior WR Aaron Fuller "looks capable of being Jake Browning's next No. 1 target" in 2018.
Alabama sophomore QB Tua Tagovailoa (hand) was seen throwing the ball at The QB Retreat in California.
Ohio HC Frank Solich will be awarded the Tom Osborne Legacy Award at the Outland Trophy banquet in Omaha, Nebraska, on Jan. 9.
Texas received a verbal commitment from five-star 2019 T Tyler Johnson.
South Carolina received a verbal commitment from five-star 2019 DL Zacch Pickens.
CBS Sports draft writer Chris Trapasso compares Houston junior DT Ed Oliver to St. Louis Rams DT Aaron Donald.
Oregon dismissed senior LB Fotu Leiato following his late April arrest on charges of second-degree criminal mischief and second-degree theft.
Tennessee redshirt junior LB Darrin Kirkland will transfer as a graduate.
Transferring Clemson freshman DT Josh Belk said that his unofficial visit to South Carolina on Wednesday "went great."
Owen Brennan, the father of LSU sophomore QB Myles Brennan, said that his son remains "in a very, very good position to compete for the starting job" even after the team's addition of Ohio State QB Joe Burrow.
Kentucky redshirt junior S Marcus Walker was arrested on Thursday on suspicion of trafficking marijuana and cocaine.


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I was similar. And you wanna know what worked for me? When i stopped listening to everyone's advice on how to organize and did what worked for me. What worked for me was just putting everything in one folder/binder. It it is all in once place, it does not get lost or misplaced. Counter intuitive perhaps, but that is what worked for me to stop loosing things. Sometimes simpler is just easier. When i got to college i would use one three ring binder with dividers for all my classes. Yes all my syllabuses when in there as well. I had a zipper pouch with pens, etc. and that was it, and i was happy. If she does not want to lug too much back and forth, don't push her, it likely will not work out.
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|Bujumbura is the capital of Burundi and sits on the banks of giant Lake Tanganyika in central Africa. (see map; photo courtesy SteveRwanda)
Alumnus Matthew Langford is returning to Burundi this summer to bring hope and comfort to the citizens of this African country that has been torn by violence since declaring its independence more than 50 years ago.
Langford visited Burundi, known for its Royal Drummers, in 2011 with Tirzah International, a non-profit organization based in The Woodlands, Texas. During this trip, Langford met Apollinaire Habonimana, a self-taught Burundian musician who hoped to start a school.
"It hit me hard when I realized that there was no formal music education available in Burundi," Langford said.
Langford, who graduated in May, and Roberto Carrera '10, both of whom earned their Bachelors of Music degrees in Trumpet Performance, leave July 17 along with PBA junior Colin Aliapoulios and his friend Michael Tavani. They plan to teach and assist in classes at the Shemeza Music School in Burundi's capital city, Bujumbura. They also will help lead worship at Life Center Church and work at the church's Sound of Hope Outreach.
"The more we have worked together on this, the more I have been able to see that it was God who put us together," Langford said. "Each one of us has specific gifts and abilities that will complement each other very well."
Planning for the trip took off a year after Langford learned that his friend, Habonimana, had funding to start the music school. The Shemeza Music School has 50 students – children and adults who learn piano, guitar, saxophone, music theory, and sound and light engineering.
This is the first trip to Burundi for the other men and they are excited about the trip.
"I do look forward to going for the first time and learning first-hand what God may have in store for me and the rest of us," Carrera said.
"Music has so much healing power," Aliapoulios said. "Music will be able to wrap itself around these people and bring joy and hope and love to them."
Langford suggested his companions read "This Voice in My Heart" by Gilbert Tuhabonye to prepare for the trip. The book tells the story of a Christian and long-distance runner who survived the genocide that took place between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes in Burundi and Rwanda in the early 1990s.
"The joy of making music together with someone isn't something that is easily explained," Langford said. "There is a reason why, in one of the poorest countries in the world, over 50 people are taking time out of their weeks to learn and enjoy making music together."
Upon his return from Burundi, Langford will begin studies for a Master of Music degree in Music Education at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY. Carrera recently completed his second year of studies at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.


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New Delhi, Nov 19 : Many private educational institutes from India are planning to invest in Nigeria, said the West African country's Education Minister Ruqayyatu Ahmed Rufa'I, adding that the move will also help the nation boost its education system.
"We are looking towards getting more Indian investors to invest in education in Nigeria," Rufa'I told IANS on the sidelines of the E9 (Education 9) Summit held in the national capital earlier this month.
"We have already held discussions with some (investors)," she said.
The minister said among those who had agreed to invest in Nigeria were Amity University, Mahatma Gandhi University in Meghalaya, Educomp and Edusoft (education software solution providers), the West African wing of NIIT (computer education giant), and IL&FS Cluster Development Initiative (the group runs skill development programmes).
"We are looking towards getting more Indian investors to invest in education in Nigeria," she said.
The minister said investment from India might also help them in achieving the Millennium Development Goal of education for all, which they feared they might not meet.
"We wish to work closely with India in the area of education, to learn from the experience you have gathered, especially since the launch of the right to education," she said.
According to Unicef figures, 40 percent of Nigerian children aged between six and 11 do not attend any primary school.
Despite a significant increase in enrolment rates in recent years, it is estimated that about 4.7 million children of primary school age are still not in school in Nigeria.
Rufa'I said efforts were on to universalise education in her country and significant achievements had been made.
However, the country's huge population was the biggest hindrance towards achieving education for all by 2015, she said.
According to Nigeria's National Population Commission, the population of the country is 167 million.
"The biggest problem is perhaps the number (for us). Because of the huge number, despite all our efforts, we have not been able to achieve the target. We may miss the 2015 target," she said.
"We have made some progress, but more is needed," she said.
The E9 represents nine of the world's most populous countries -- Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan. The forum is aimed at meeting challenges of education in these countries.
Nigeria held the chair of E9 from 2010-12 and then handed it over to India.
"E9 has the world's most populous countries. And if we miss the goal, it will be a setback for all of us. Population poses a problem for all of us and we have to be ready to meet the challenges," Rufa'I said.
(Anjali Ojha can be contacted at email@example.com)