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By Deborah Mersino
I remember vividly the day my daughter at age 4 said spontaneously, "You know Mom, when you want to remember something important, you just need to take a picture of it with your mind. Then, you can keep it forever and go back to it whenever you want."
At the time, I had never heard of the term visual-spatial learner (VSL), nor did I understand the essential implications for supporting students who think in images at school and at home.
In her book, Upside-Down Brilliance: The Visual-Spatial Learner, Linda Kreger Silverman, PhD, writes about this learning style in detail. Silverman, a licensed psychologist who directs the Institute for the Study of Advanced Development and its subsidiary, the Gifted Development Center in Denver, Colorado, explains that "…the way VSLs learn is upside-down: easy material is often hard for them and the hard subjects are easy."
In describing how society views these individuals, she says, "…right-hemispheric giftedness turns all of our preconceived notions of "smart" upside down. Visual spatial-learners usually don't conform to the typical notions we have about bright people. We rarely think of them as gifted children. Yet, in adult life, it is visual-spatial reasoning that leads to true genius: scientific and technological breakthroughs, innovative forms of art, inventions, new perspectives in every field, and visionary leadership. Sounds like something we should know about, right?
Silverman's colleague Betty Maxwell summarized it this way:
- There appear to be two major ways of learning: auditory-sequential (more left-hemispheric) and visual-spatial (more right-hemispheric). Auditory-sequential learners are good listeners, learn well in a step-by-step process, tend to be rapid processors of information, and are generally able to express themselves verbally. They are often able to compartmentalize their reasoning from their emotions.
- In contrast, visual-spatial learners are excellent observers, comprehend holistically – may have a sudden "Aha!" understanding that leaps over steps – appear to think in images, may need translation time to put their ideas into words, and sometimes have word retrieval problems. Their thinking and emotions are very intertwined.
So, why then should we learn more about visual-spatial learners? Neither learning style is better than the other. According to Silverman, "Some of my highly gifted, complex friends find this dichotomy too simplistic. Maybe it is. I certainly don't mean to imply that people are completely one or the other. I see each pair of the characteristics as a continuum, and I believe we are all a mixture of both.
"More teachers need to be able to spot visual-spatial learners, so that their special talents can be developed," says Silverman. "Validation studies we conducted with middle schoolers suggest that approximately one-third of the school population are probably visual-spatial learners! Their numbers are growing and we simply can't afford to ignore them any longer."
Do you think in images? Are you a visual-spatial learner?
Are you ready to discern whether your student is a VSL? Whether you're a VSL? Click here for the Visual-Spatial/Auditory-Sequential Identifier.
Then, to learn more, visit http://visualspatial.com/. This site, which will be redesigned soon, is chock full of useful information for teachers, parents, psychologists, and administrators. I also highly recommend the book, "Upside-Down Brilliance." It's now available for purchase via the Australian Gifted Support Centre. Click here for the order form (it's a bit tricky to open; you'll need to right-click and save).
It's worth it though. This book provides specifics on all things visual-spatial, including assessment, twice-exceptional students, the inner world of introverts, the challenges of parenting a visual-spatial learner, teaching techniques that work, and what it means to be a visual-spatial adult. I could not put it down.
When I saw one of the cartoons in the book, with a teacher asking a student this question, "You mean to tell me that you can do this complex math problem, but you can't tell me what day follows Tuesday?" I smiled and thought of my daughter. She makes more sense to me now. And isn't that what the best books do? Expand our knowledge and understanding?
Here's to visual-spatial learners everywhere; after all, you do make the world click!


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J. Rafe Sales, M.D.
Orthopedic spine surgeon, Providence Spine Center
Patients who have persistent or recurrent pain after lumbar spine surgery are often grouped under the nonspecific rubric of failed back surgery syndrome, or FBSS. Some authors quote an incidence of FBSS of up to 40 percent after spine surgery.
This term has become so ingrained in the spine vernacular that one might believe it implies a specific diagnosis for the cause of pain. This is not the case. In fact, presuming that FBSS is an end-stage or definitive diagnosis might preclude a thorough evaluation for the precise cause of pain.
Compounding the matter is a prevailing therapeutic nihilism about FBSS. There remains a perception among some physicians that with occasional exceptions, once surgery or multiple surgeries have failed, it is rare to find a specific cause for the pain and in most instances treatment should be nonspecific and palliative.
In fact, in most cases a structural, neurological or psychological cause for the pain can be identified. Multiple studies have demonstrated that up to 90 percent of patients have an etiology, determined by testing methods that are well established.
A patient with instability often will have spondylolithesis or hypermobile segment at the surgical level or adjacent to it. A patient with prior laminectomies or decompressions can go on to have significant instability if too much bone is removed during the decompression.
Patients often complain of "start-up" pain, meaning pain when getting out of a chair or when initiating movement. If the patient has undergone a prior fusion but still has pain, then the instability could be due to a nonunion or a failure to fuse, which can occur in up to 15 percent of cases.
Finally, instability can occur at a level next to a fusion due to increased stress across the motion segment. The key to diagnosing any of these problems is to use upright flexion and extension radiographs, as these often demonstrate the instability.
A common cause of lower back pain
A discogram is used to evaluate the integrity of the disc as well as to evaluate for concordant pain with provocative pressure. When used properly, a discogram often can confirm the diagnosis of discogenic back pain.
Other causes of lower back pain in FBSS include facet joint pain and sacroiliac joint pain. Facet pain can be detected on physical exam, is often worse with spinal extension, and is relieved with diagnostic facet injections and medial branch blocks.
Sacroiliac joint pain presents as gluteal pain, and also is relieved by injection into the joint under radiographic guidance.
On the other hand, if your patient has ongoing leg or extremity pain after spine surgery, then the most common cause is unresolved or new nerve compression secondary to foraminal or lateral recess spinal stenosis.
The first stage in diagnosing this problem is obtaining the appropriate imaging. Chronic ongoing foraminal stenosis, lateral recess stenosis and recurrent disc herniations are usually evident on an MRI or a CT myelogram. If nerve compression is suspected at a specific motion segment, then a well-directed transforaminal epidural steroid injection can diagnose and treat the patient's pain.
A recurrent disc herniation occurs in up to 10 percent of patients after a microdiscectomy and should always be suspected with a new onset of severe leg or arm pain.
The final cause of ongoing leg or arm pain after surgery is true neuropathic pain. Usually no obvious nerve compression is evident on imaging. The patient describes a burning ache with occasional numbesss, and the pain is difficult to resolve with narcotics.
Neuropathic pain rarely resolves with injections. In these cases, a spinal cord stimulator trial can be performed, and if the pain relief is excellent then the trial can be followed by percutaneous or open implantation of the stimulator. Recent studies have shown that over half of patients experience significant and long-lasting pain relief after receiving a spinal cord stimulator.
With an appropriate workup, the cause of FBSS often can be successfully diagnosed and treated. We pride ourselves on our methodological approach to the treatment of FBSS, and would be glad to help your patients overcome this problem.

subset: commoncrawl


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The following short stories are provided without charge for your reading enjoyment.
Please feel free to download them for your personal use and share them with your friends.
Helen Beaver's seven month old baby is sick, and she has no idea why. The nearest help is a Hudson's Bay trading post, but it is a two-day journey away and the January winter has turned bitterly cold.
With no other option available, Helen and her husband Frank, leave the warmth and safety of their wilderness cabin to begin the long night trek.
Open and download Night Trek as a PDF file... HERE
For more stories from the author go to www.EdZaruk.com


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Continuing a multi-year relationship with George Washington University's Museum Education Program, the Deep Time exhibit development team enlisted a group of graduate students to conduct a visitor survey to test the effectiveness of two important exhibition elements. We are those students! We'd love to tell you a little about our research and some lessons we learned on the floor of NMNH.
A formative evaluation, such as this one, occurs before or during the project development and focuses on design improvements before an exhibition is built. This is particularly important for the Deep Time Fossil Hall because this exhibit will be on display for decades after it reopens.
These two areas of the exhibition explain big ideas and ask big questions, such as, "Will the past become our future?" and "How has Earth's temperature changed over the last 56 million years?" The exhibit developer, Siobhan Starrs, asked us to explore what main ideas visitors understood from the panels, and if visitors struggled with any of the concepts or visual elements. With this in mind, our team came up with the following three evaluation questions:
- Which ideas and information are the most salient for visitors?
- Do the panels communicate the desired content in a way visitors will understand?
- What are visitors' general impressions of the panels?
Lesson 1: Standing in between a kid and a Triceratops can be a dangerous business.
To answer these questions, we hit the floor, clipboards in hand. We approached visitors who were entering The Last American Dinosaurs exhibition and asked if they'd be willing to look over the new panels and answer a few questions. Standing in a must-see exhibition meant we had to do our best to keep out of the crowd's way!
Lesson 2: People can get surprisingly giddy about the idea of a cat-sized horse.
Many visitors were extremely willing (some even excited!) to take a few minutes to help us out. How cool is it for your opinion to impact a permanent exhibition at the Smithsonian? Visitors think it is very cool! We learned a lot about which ideas were not clear, and which examples were the most memorable. For example, the evolution of the size of horses over millions of years was a big hit.
Lesson 3: Visitors are the heart of museums and the insight they provided will be invaluable to the exhibit development.
Finally, as emerging museum professionals finishing up graduate school, it was refreshing to reconnect with day-to-day visitors in the museum. As one of our teammates, Laura, expressed, "It was a pleasure to talk with visitors from across the nation and the world, and to gain insights into the diversity of those who come to the Smithsonian." All of us were honored to facilitate the concerted effort the Smithsonian Institution makes to gather input from visitors in the creation of exhibits.
What's Next?
On July 22nd, we will present our findings and deliver a report to the exhibition development team. The Museum values the input of visitors and the valuable insights gleaned from the past GWU evaluation projects. The exhibition team will digest the findings and use them to improve the storytelling and design techniques to improve these areas of the exhibition. We look forward to seeing the final designs and exploring the Deep Time exhibition in 2019, this time as NMNH visitors.
Special thanks to Siobhan Starrs, Angela Roberts, and Amy Bolton for their guidance during the formative evaluation process.
By Liza Manfred and Lindsey Hale, The George Washington University


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While excess capacity and price volatility are among the key challenges faced by the steel industry, digital is shaping the future of metals in a complex business environment, said the managing director of Accenture metals.
John Lichtenstein shared his passion for steel and how the industry can address growth challenges in an interview published by Accenture, a multinational management consulting, technology services, and outsourcing company.
What are some of key challenges steel companies are facing?
There are three major challenges. The first is slow market growth in most regions—not only in mature economies, but now in China and several other emerging markets.
The second is excess capacity, particularly in China, where massive capacity has been added in anticipation of continued growth.
The third challenge is volatility. Due to the global nature of the industry, local or regional disturbances can quickly cascade through to the whole industry and impact pricing in particular.
How should steel companies respond?
Essentially, they should optimize their business models along three dimensions—commercial, operations and supply chain.
In the commercial area, it's about gaining deeper insights into and making stronger connections with customers, shaping value propositions that can increase share of customer wallet and expanding total demand for steel and services that can be provided by producers.
In operations, it's about optimizing equipment availability through leading maintenance practices and increasing throughput with advanced scheduling techniques to increase returns on assets and returns per machine hour.
And significant improvements can also be made all along the supply chain, where we see impacts of volatility not only in upstream with raw material pricing, but also downstream in material movements and in changes in logistics and carrier costs.
What role does digital play in addressing challenges?
The key is for companies to begin taking advantage of the capabilities digital technologies can bring to the industry across the three dimensions I mentioned.
In the customer area, this means using analytics and mobility to help build the right customer base and to achieve superior customer engagement.
In operations, the concepts of predictive maintenance and dynamic scheduling, among others, are not new to the steel industry as many companies have spent years working to implement them.
What is new and exciting is that technologies and analytics power now exist to more fully realize the value of these concepts. This is also happening along the supply chain, where a combination of analytics around market movements and digital tools can help enhance decision making.
Do you expect the global industry slowdown to continue?
In the final decades of this past century, there was a marked slowdown in steel consumption in mature economies, while emerging markets had not yet ignited as demand centers. Starting in 2001, China's consumption and production of steel took off, growing at double digits for most of the decade.
This growth drove China's share of global output from less than 15 percent to around 50 percent today and, in the process, helping drive global growth rates above long-term norms.
However, as the Chinese economy is now slowing and the country is shifting its growth model away from infrastructure building and manufacturing export toward more services and higher tech, steel demand growth has slowed dramatically. Consequently, as steel demand growth in most other regions remains subdued, the foreseeable outlook is for global growth to revert to the long-term norm of 2 to 3 percent per year, and not even reaching that level in some years.
So where will future growth come from?
Given macroeconomic and political challenges in Brazil and Russia, there's a lot of expectation for India to become "the next China." While similar in population to China, India only has about 10 percent of comparable steel production.
The significant change in India's government toward more business and reform could help create conditions for stronger growth. However, even at a healthy rate, India won't be able to compensate for the slowdown in China, and certainly not in the short term.
India has the advantage of having iron ore and coal and other raw materials, and now it appears governmental changes will make the landscape more agreeable for industry growth. I visited there recently, and there is a lot of cautious optimism and enthusiasm that the promise of India's steel potential will become a reality.
We're also seeing strong growth in the Middle East, but from very small base.
Why are you passionate about the metals industry?
Steel is an industry that is part of a nation's psyche. It starts as a key driver and symbol of economic growth and industrialization. It continues, even in regions where its direct economic impact is diminished, to have an outsized visibility in policy debates around international trade, environmental protection, employment and so on. One of the first things emerging economies often do is to try and create a steel industry. So from global economic and political policy standpoints, it's fascinating.
And then you weave in the amazing physical process of steel production. I never tire of spending time in a steel mill—the scale of it, the forces at work, the energy used and the heat of the furnaces and the speed of the rolling mills—it's a massively complex set of operations and extremely exciting to see take shape.
What's one thing most people might not know about you?
I live in rural New Hampshire where there's not a steel mill for miles. My wife and I enjoy being outdoors. There's an Audubon refuge and state park adjacent to our house, and we like to spend a lot of time in the quiet, away from all the noise and activity. – TradeArabia News Service
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Come here to talk about anything related to the LEGO Star Wars game!
23rd Nov 2014, 16:55
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'legostarwars.exe has stopped...
26th Mar 2017, 15:53
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Memorial services for Thomas Edward "Tonto" Garcia, 53, will be at noon Saturday, May 31, 2014, at the FFMC Club House, 249 P. St. SE, Ardmore.
Tonto was born June 30, 1960, in Ardmore. He passed from this life on May 25, 2014, in Decatur, Texas, as a result of a motorcycle accident. He worked at Deaver Lawn Care. Tonto loved his sons, his FFMC Family, riding his Harley, throwing horseshoes, his dogs and being with Cassie "Pocahontas" Turner, who passed away with him.
He was preceded in death by his mother, Gwen Rollins and his Ma.
Tonto is survived by his sons, Thomas Edward Garcia II and Billy Garcia, both of Arkansas; sister Sue Williams; grandchildren Samuel Douglas, Lucas David, McKayleigh Ann and Jaxson Douglas, all of Arkansas; his FFMC Family; other extended family; and many friends.
Honorary pallbearers are FFMC Family, Ray Shoemaker and Toby Deaver.
Online condolences may be made at craddockfuneralhome.com.


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LIMIT SWITCH LEVER - ARM - AW + C + OPTIONSShow more characteristics >
* Price is "List Price" and may be subject to a trade discount – check with your local distributor or retailer for actual price.
Product availabilityNon-Stock - Not normally stocked in distribution facility
- Price*63.00 USD
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Main product or component typeLimit switch lever type of operatorAluminium spring return roller lever length: 1.5 in - offset: - - type of roller1 steel outside roller diameter: 0.75 in - width: 0.25 in type of approachLateral approach positive openingWithout Complementary switch actuationBy 30° cam product weight0.1 lb(US) Environment ambient air temperature for operation-10...185 °F ambient air temperature for storage-10...185 °F environmental characteristicStandard environment Ordering and shipping details Category21519 - 9007 MISCELLANEOUS Discount ScheduleDS1 GTIN00785901342199 Nbr. of units in pkg.1 Package weight(Lbs)0.10000000000000001 ReturnabilityN Country of originMX Offer Sustainability RoHS (date code: YYWW) REACh California proposition 65WARNING: This product can expose you to chemicals including: - - - - - - - Substance 1Diisononyl phthalate (DINP), which is known to the State of California to cause cancer, and - - - - - - - Substance 2Di-isodecyl phthalate (DIDP), which is known to the State of California to cause birth defects or other reproductive harm. - - - - - - - More informationFor more information go to www.p65warnings.ca.gov Contractual warranty Warranty period18 months
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Unwanted seeds could save badly burned forest
The unlikely heroes in healing the great pine forest of Central Texas are seeds that no one wanted.
The Texas A&M Forest Service was making plans to dump more than a half-ton of loblolly pine seeds into a landfill when the most destructive wildfire in state history began its deadly march through the Lost Pines in Bastrop County last year.
Now the seeds will be used in a massive, multiyear effort to restore the fabled forest, the westernmost stand of loblolly pines in the United States. The fire burned so hot that it claimed not only 50 square miles of pines but also their seeds, making it impossible for the trees to return without help.
To restore the Lost Pines, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and state forest service intend to plant more than 4 million trees on public and private land during the next five years. The Arbor Day Foundation is trying to raise $4 million, or $1 per tree, for the recovery effort.
The first seedlings, which come from the same genetic stock as the tall pines that carpeted the area before the fire, will arrive Tuesday at Bastrop State Park, about 35 miles east of Austin. Planting is scheduled to begin Saturday.
"If you are going to be successful in restoring the forest, you need the right seed source," said Tom Byram, a geneticist with the Texas A&M Forest Service.
Oddly, the right seeds were sitting in the freezer of a grocer's warehouse in Lufkin last year when the wind-whipped fire began. Byram had stored 1,100 pounds of the seeds there for five years as the forest service tried to sell them.
The forest service began collecting the seeds two decades ago as part of a program to preserve and increase populations of pine trees across five Southern states.
Crooked trees
Interest, however, faded for the loblolly seeds because they grow slowly into crooked trees intended for the drier climates of Central and West Texas. There is more demand in wetter, densely forested East Texas for pine varieties that can be harvested quickly for timber, Byram said.
While the Brookshire Bros. warehouse had room for the seeds, "I was starting to feel guilty about taking up the space," said Byram, who was about to organize a crew to move them to a landfill when high winds knocked drought-weary trees into power lines, starting the blaze.
The fire raged with uncommon fury for five weeks, killing two people, destroying 1,673 houses and charring roughly 33,000 acres.
Since then, experts in Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas have grown the seeds into about 500,000 seedlings, each about 10 inches tall. Byram said there are enough seeds remaining to produce 14 million trees.
Even with the push to bring back the forest, it will take decades for each pine to reach a modest height of at least 50 feet, he said.
"People will need to be patient," Byram said. "It's going to take 25 to 30 years for these trees to look like what they remember seeing."
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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - When a patient with private health insurance seeks outpatient care at the emergency room, the sicker he or she is, the more money the hospital stands to make, a new study shows.
But the opposite is true for patients with Medicaid or Medicare insurance: the sicker the patient, the less profitable he or she is to the hospital, Dr. Philip Henneman of the Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston and his colleagues report in the Annals of Emergency Medicine.
The results suggest hospitals that seek to move outpatient services off-site (for example, to stand-alone "doc-in-a-box" clinics) may wind up losing money, according to Henneman.
To investigate the profitability of patients cared for at the emergency department, but not admitted to the hospital, based on how sick they are and what type of insurance they have, Henneman and his team looked at data from 2003 to 2009, including 523,882 outpatient emergency department visits, at an urban teaching hospital.
The per-hour profit for treating privately insured patients ranged from $70 for those requiring the least care to $177 for those requiring the most care. But for patients with Medicare, the per-hour profit ranged from $44 per hour for the least-ill patients to $29 for the sickest patients.
"They found what we've always kind of known and accepted to be true, which is that patients with commercial insurance … are of course more profitable to hospitals than other patients, particularly Medicaid patients," Dr. Megan Colleen McHugh, a research assistant professor at the Center for Health Care Studies at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, told Reuters Health.
"Some patients are profitable to emergency departments, even if they're not admitted to the hospital, and because of that we do see hospitals engaging in this recent behavior of trying to capture these individuals in areas where there are a lot of private payers," added McHugh, who studies the financing of emergency care, but was not involved in the new study.
"These are in the forms of these stand-alone emergency departments and these stand-alone care clinics, which is kind of changing the landscape of the health care system," she said.
The fact that hospitals are making less money caring for sicker patients on Medicare "could be an indicator that policy makers or payers need to revisit how payment is structured ... but it could also be a fluke of this one institution," McHugh said. "I wouldn't want to put too much stake in findings from just one presumably large academic teaching hospital. I don't know that we have enough evidence yet to recommend changes in the reimbursement system."
Now that the Affordable Care Act has become law, McHugh noted, hospital emergency rooms will be seeing more patients with commercial insurance and more publicly insured patients.
"There's this push, especially after the Affordable Care Act, for physician practices to develop new models of care like patient-centered medical homes, with the specific goal of reducing emergency department utilization," she said.
Given the profitability of treating commercially insured patients who don't require hospital admission in the emergency room, she added, hospitals "might not view the reduction in those services to be a good thing financially."
SOURCE: bit.ly/1bK0Qtq Annals of Emergency Medicine, September 19, 2013.


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A great opening sequence tells you more than just a TV show's backstory: it drags you, kicking and screaming, into the show's world. A truly great opening sequence is a masterpiece of raw style. But which science fiction or fantasy TV show has the absolute best opening credits?
Please include a clip or still image of the credits you love the most. And if it's not immediately obvious, please share the name of the show in question. Thanks!
Top image: The Prisoner.


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In response to Keeva's post today on her colony, I wanted to share a few pics of the rats I once had.
I will also copy her on the "Note: please, no comments about snakes, I will delete them. It's not original and it's not funny."
My first two: Ceres and Kaly. All of my girls were dumbo, meaning they had larger ears set lower on their heads. When these two curled up in my hands at the pet shop and Ceres (the masked) reached up and licked my thumb, they stole my heart.
Kaly outlived Ceres by a good 6 months, and was noticeably lonely after her sister died. She wasn't exactly pleased, however, when I brought home three new little girls: Adara, Blaze, and C'Nedra. I named my draenei priest after Adara (who is peeking out of the mason jar below).
Kaly spent most of her time hanging out with me rather than with the bouncy ratlets, and I didn't mind that. She was happy to snooze in my lap or in the oversized front pocket of a sweathshirt. Eventually, though, as rats are prone to tumors and myco and secondary infections in their short two-year expected lifespan, they one by one passed away, living on only in photos and memories.
I had set up a table with their cage on it right next to my computer desk, giving them free roam of the table (and the play boxes and toys I set on it) with easy access to my chair. Just watch any wires they may have access to, because they WILL chew on them, as well as any clothes you're wearing, and probably your chair, too. I hacked their cage together by hand and mixed together their food myself (both cheaper and healthier); I loved my rats dearly. Even my grandfather was charmed by them: he spent a good 20 minutes walking around my apartment with Kaly perched on his shoulder, pleased as can be. They're very social and intelligent creatures: their only downside is that they have such short lives.
Once the last of my rats, Blaze, passed away, I agreed with my husband that our next pet would be a dog. Unfortunately, our current landlord forbids us to get a dog... but we are looking at getting a house of our own this year.
~~If you are interested in getting your own pet rats, I highly recommend checking out the RMCA for more information.~~
An update from me and closing my guides
1 year ago


text: I really don't think there's any universe where a baseball player would actually swing and strike an umpire upside the head with a baseball bat. (Delmon Young, by far, has come the closest.) However, when you're reacting in anger to a called third strike and you're still holding a bat in your hands, the wrongest move you can make, short of knocking the ump's noodle off, is to hold the bat high above your head with both hands, even if for a split-second. It was a decidedly jarring bookend to the spontaneously cool moment just an inning before when Dustin Pedroia learned he was about to be a father again. Baseball! Emotions!


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Baseline Survey: The Mobile MotiveBy Baselinemag | Posted 2006-05-06 Print
A Baseline survey shows that spending on mobile computing is on the rise. The top goal: getting data out to—and back from—remote workers faster.
What's driving mobile computing purchases by enterprises? Hint: It's not the junior executive pining to pocket the shiniest device he can get his mitts on.
The clear-cut No. 1 business benefit of mobile computing applications is keeping workers connected. In a Baseline survey of 143 information-technology executives, 81% of respondents cited better communication and collaboration among employees as the key advantage of providing such hardware and software, followed by 69% who said increased responsiveness to customers was a benefit.
Click here to view additional results from the mobile survey exclusively online.
Those and other reasons are driving enterprises to budget more for mobile computing projects, which encompass everything from wireless e-mail devices to special-purpose software for salespeople using laptops. The average business expects to increase mobile computing spending 1% to 4% in 2006, according to Baseline's survey, which was conducted in March. And for larger companies—those with more than 1,000 employees—the median expected increase was 5% to 14%, up from an average range of $250,000 to $500,000 in 2005 spending.
For Dave Croteau, manager of customer support for Toshiba America Medical Systems, getting data from his mobile field-service staff in a timely manner was a nagging problem. And the delay was losing the company money.
Croteau oversees customer-service operations for the Tustin, Calif.-based company, which provides service and support for medical imaging equipment, including ultrasound and X-ray machines, to hospitals and labs across the country. His team dispatches one of 400 field service engineers whenever a customer needs help.
Here was Croteau's beef: The engineers were equipped with laptops running Amdocs' Clarify customer relationship management software to enter information about the work they performed. But if they were at a customer's facility, they usually couldn't get a network connection to log in to the Clarify system, and they'd put off the data-entry task. "The average close for a case was running over 13 days," Croteau says, "which coincided with the technical engineers doing their expense cards every two weeks."
That delayed how quickly Toshiba America Medical Systems could get paid, because the billing department can't process invoices until an engineer files a report detailing the work. Plus, Croteau says, the billable hours engineers entered were often only hazy guesses, and it turned out that on average, customers were being undercharged.
Last fall, Croteau led a team that rolled out Research in Motion's wireless BlackBerry devices running software developed by Antenna Software, which specializes in mobile applications. The system lets technical engineers enter data, such as the parts they used during a visit, into Clarify from their BlackBerrys no matter where they are.
About 80% of the field service techs now have BlackBerrys. The results? According to Croteau, time to close cases has dropped 70%, to about four days; he's shooting to get it down to 24 hours. In addition, technicians have reported an average of 22% more billable hours; Croteau says that because they're entering the data sooner, it's much closer to reality.
In the first year, the project will cost $700,000, including hardware and software. Croteau says the project's expenses will be recovered in seven months if the company can tally just 15 extra minutes of previously unreported billable time per month per technician. "In terms of our total cost structure," he says, "one of the biggest things is that our field engineers are reporting time more accurately now with the wireless devices."
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A little while ago, I received the following question by email:
What is the optimum level of partitioning in Oracle 10g, as in what is an efficient number of partitions that you can have in a single table? What are the advantages and disadvantages of having more than 3,000 partitions in a table?
These are actually questions I addressed seven years ago in my first book. The answers you might come up with for any specific occasion may vary, but the analysis does not change.
Start by asking why you need partitioning. What are you expecting to do with the partitioned tables? What benefits do you expect to see?
Are you thinking of range, list, hash, or composite partitioning? Are you thinking of local and global indexes, or just local, or just global? Are you expecting to see partition elimination in queries, what about partition-wise joins? Do you expect your queries to access low volumes of data or high volumes of data? Are you loading data using real-time (OLTP) methods or batch (DSS) methods? Are you expecting to eliminate old data by dropping partitions? Who (or what) is writing the SQL that hits the partitioned tables? What will the impact be in "scenario X" if it doesn't work properly?
Moving from 8i to 10g, there are only three significant changes in partitioning technology:
- The optimizer is better at identifying options for partition elimination and partition-wise joins. But that doesn't stop it from being baffled by the bizarre SQL that comes from generic "point and click" tools.
- There is an option for maintaining global indexes reasonably efficiently when you do partition maintenance such as dropping a partition.
- Oracle no longer renumbers every single (higher) partition individually when you drop a partition of a partitioned table.
The last feature is the one that makes it reasonable to use larger numbers of partitions for a single table in 10g than you would in 8i. So (assuming I had done all the other analysis properly) I probably wouldn't worry too much about having 3,000 partitions in a table with a dozen indexes in 10g, when I used to start worrying in 8i after I reached about 1,000 and only three or four indexes.


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EVERYBODY STAY CALM. It is just one basketball game, contrary to Jay-Z's asinine tweet of "The city is under new management." Troll so hard Mr. Z, troll so hard. Anyways, the Knicks and Nets played a hard fought game Monday night. Reggie Evans willed Brooklyn to a two point halftime deficit. New York's offense really fell apart in the second half and overtime. The Knicks scored just 20 third quarter points, 17 fourth quarter points and mustered a mighty 5 point performance in the overtime period. New York held an 84-81 lead with 1:38 to play in regulation, but a series of Knick miscues allowed Brooklyn to push the game to overtime. In extra time, the Knicks offense was unable to do anything and they were outscored 12-5. Deron Williams, despite his shooting struggles, played a masterful game. His 16 points and 14 assists led Brooklyn to victory. Tyson Chandler broke out of his early season doldrums with a 28 point 10 rebound performance. Carmelo Anthony also had a great game, scoring 35 points on 25 shots and grabbing 13 rebounds, but ran out of gas along with the Knick offense.
Here are my notes from the game:
- This might have been Mike Woodson's worst game as head coach. I was really bothered by two things in particular, Carmelo Anthony's minutes and the Knicks 4th quarter offense. Lets start with Anthony. Of the 53 minutes played in this game, 4 quarters plus the overtime period, Carmelo Anthony was in the game for 50 of them. Why? I have no idea. The Knicks offense relied heavily on Anthony tonight, as they have all season, but I don't see a reason why Woodson couldn't find a few more minutes of rest for his superstar. Despite playing a great offensive game, Anthony really tired down the stretch and it was obvious. He didn't record a field goal in the final 8:36 of the game. He missed the potential game winning shot and left six points on the board in missed free throws. Woodson also mismanaged the late game offense in that 4th quarter. Despite shooting just 3/19 on the game, Woodson continued to run the offense through his point guard. The Knicks ran pick and roll after pick and roll after pick and roll. Felton was bailed out on one shot by a Chandler put-back, but then air-balled a floater out of bounds on the next possession. I would've liked to see Anthony with the ball in his hands in a post up situation. On the Knicks final offensive play of regulation, Woodson called for the same play the Knicks ran in Dallas last week. A cross screen that gets Anthony the ball in isolation on the left elbow. This play doesn't really make any sense to me though. First off, it puts Anthony in sort of an awkward time situation. He got the ball coming across the floor with about 9 seconds on the clock. If he holds onto to the ball in isolation, his defender has had time to catch up to him. If he attacks immediately, he'll shoot the ball too quickly and give the other team a shot to tie or win the game. What ended up happening was Anthony pulling up for a poor shot too early in the clock and just as in the Dallas game, he missed the shot. I would've liked to see either straight hero ball, or putting Anthony in a better position to succeed. Either give it to him down low in the post, in the high post or out at the arc like in the Chicago game last year and let him go to work in isolation. Don't get him the ball in an awkward situation coming off a cross screen with 9 seconds left on the clock. Not to mention he's a far better player on the right elbow. Bad coaching by Woodson in this one.
- TYSON CHANDLER IS ALIVE! Or so we think! Chandler's early season struggles have been a secret to nobody, but tonight he turned in easily his best performance of the season. He scored 25 points on 12/13 shooting and grabbed 10 rebounds. His 7 offensive rebounds were absolutely crucial to the Knicks being in the game at all. He also kept Brook Lopez, a quality offensive center, in check for most of the game. The times Lopez really killed the Knicks were in transition, but in the half court Chandler did a pretty good job on him. Chandler has to build on this and continue to regain his 2011 form if the Knicks are going to turn this defense around.
- Raymond Felton was absolutely horrible. 3/19 shooting. 5 assists. Air-balled floaters. Bad jump shots early in the shot clock. The list goes on. This was by far Felton's worst game as a Knick dating back to the D'Antoni days of 2010. I don't recall Felton ever being so bad. I wasn't sure why he continued to be allowed to shoot the ball aimlessly in the fourth quarter. Once again, that falls on Woodson. One of the more popular things about coach Woodson has been his whole 'accountability' schtick. However, where was he to keep Felton accountable? One of the criticisms of Mike D'Antoni when he was here was that he just let guys shoot without accountability. Woodson sat back and allowed Felton to shoot the Knicks out of the game. I would've supported him pulling Felton for Prigioni late in the game. Felton was really that bad. I think this obviously falls on Felton for coming up short in a big game and to continue shooting, but Woodson also deserves blame for not holding his point guard accountable for his poor performance.
- Speaking of accountability, who is keeping Rasheed Wallace accountable for going 2/11. First off, why on earth is he shooting the ball 11 times. Why on earth is he shooting threes like John Starks on speed out there? I love Rasheed and I think he has been a positive player for the team, but he was an absolute detriment tonight on offense. Despite all his poor shooting, I thought Wallace did well on the boards, grabbing 8 rebounds.
- Marcus Camby played just 5 minutes tonight. I don't understand what is going on with him. There is something behind this Woodson-Camby situation that we don't know about. Why Wallace, despite playing well this season, is getting 16 minutes a game and Camby hardly sees the floor is beyond me. I don't believe it is a "conditioning issue" because Wallace didn't play in the pre-season, yet Woodson had no problem just throwing him into the fire. I really think Camby can help this team, especially given their recent troubles protecting the rim. It is disappointing to see him continue to ride the bench while the team loses games.
- Quick Nets note: Brook Lopez is horrible on defense. He defends the pick and roll like a chicken with his head cut off. Lopez is painfully slow and I laughed at his defense multiple times. That is all.
- Maybe the two largest hallmarks of the Knicks hot start, three point shooting and ball movement, were non-existent tonight. The Knicks shot just 29% from downtown and had only 14 assists. They really missed Jason Kidd tonight. Kidd's savvy passing and focus on swinging the ball was missed tonight. Obviously his three point shooting, which has been surprisingly great this season, was missed as well. Get well soon, Mr Kidd.
- Gerald Wallace and Reggie Evans (F$&$ YOU REGGIE EVANS) did all sorts of flopping tonight and it worked. They were getting calls, including a ludicrous Evans flop that wiped out a key Prigioni layup. The flopping did make an impact in the game and it is a shame the officials rewarded them for that style of play.
- Nets fans chanting "BROOK-LYN" throughout the game is silly. Admittedly that is a cool chant, but it is cool if the Nets are winning late in the game or if a big play occurs in a big moment of the game. But to chant that in the third quarter after consecutive Knicks baskets is just silly.
- The Knicks let Jerry Stackhouse sink four of his five three point attempts. My reaction went something like this 'WHAT IN THE F$%#!!!!! ARE YOU F&*$!@# KIDDING ME!?!?! JERRY F$%^#$%@ STACKHOUSE!?! HE'S LIKE 105 YEARS OLD! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THESE GUYS?!?" and then I threw some things.
- If I haven't already mentioned it, I hate Reggie Evans.
- New York and Brooklyn both had 50 rebounds on the game. Given some of the Knicks deficiencies rebounding this year, this is probably better than I expected the rebounding battle to go. However, Brooklyn grabbed 18 offensive boards which really did hurt the Knicks. They've got to get better at securing defensive rebounds.
The Knicks have to come back against Milwaukee on Wednesday and start to get this thing back on track. They're 3-4 since their 6-0 start and now they could be without Jason Kidd and Ronnie Brewer on a day-to-day basis. Felton has to get this game out of his head, Melo has to continue his onslaught of offensive efficiency and Tyson Chandler must re-gain his 2011 form. The last two weeks has been rough, but if you told me the Knicks would start 9-4 after playing Miami, Philly twice, Indiana, San Antonio, Memphis, Brooklyn and Dallas twice, I would absolutely take it. This loss stings, but let's keep things in perspective. This game means little in the grand scheme of an 82 game season and the Knicks will have three more shots at Brooklyn before it is all said and done. They lost tonight's grudge match in overtime despite a horrible game from Ray Felton, bad shooting and bad late game offense. The world isn't ending, the sky isn't falling, the Knicks just have one more loss on their still very impressive record. Give Brooklyn credit, they deserve it, but this loss isn't the end of the world for the Knicks. Even if Jay-Z thinks it is.
Follow Taylor on Twitter @tarmosino
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Only chumps recharge their cell phones at home
A popular and long-running theme on variety shows is zero-en seikatsu (no-yen living), an idea that goes beyond mere frugality to embrace a sort of charismatic philosophy. Since the March 11 earthquake and the attendant electrical power crisis, adherents of the zero-en lifestyle have been promoting the fact that sales outlets for the major mobile phone carriers all offer free battery-charging services to customers. Recently TV Tokyo's "Sunday Big Variety" profiled a female office worker who makes a fairly good side living clipping coupons and taking part in product promotional lotteries, but the aspect of her no-spending lifestyle she was most proud of was the fact that for the last five years she hadn't spent a single yen to recharge her phone.
Some people have to recharge their phones every day. How much does that normally cost if you do it at home? A number of Japanese bloggers have wondered the same thing. Apparently, it requires up to 10 watts of electricity per hour to recharge a cell phone, and the fee for household electricity is about ¥20 for 1 kilowatt per hour. Therefore, if it takes, say, four hours a day to recharge your phone, you will end up spending between ¥2 and ¥3 a month to do so. So that means the zero-en woman on the TV Tokyo show has, over five years, saved about ¥180.
To most people that won't mean much, and for sure the providers don't offer the recharging service for that reason. It's mainly for busy people who need an emergency recharge when they're not at home, and in that regard it's a real life saver since the alternative is buying one of those clunky, expensive supplemental batteries in a convenience store. Nevertheless, the employees of the service providers don't seem to know exactly how long it takes to recharge a cell phone. We went to several service centers that offer recharging and asked the employees how long it takes to recharge from zero, and only the DoCoMo staff was able to come up with a consistent, credible number: 2 hours. An au representative told us she didn't know how long it took but most customers spent 30 minutes; while Softbank said only 20 minutes.
DoCoMo's recharging service is slightly more elaborate in that it even offers juice for Mova models, which have been discontinued. They also have little "lockers": If you can't hang around while your phone is recharging, you can place it in a locker with a combination lock while it's doing so and come back later. And if you want to copy data from one phone to another, or from your phone to another storage medium, like a CD, they have devices that will do that for free, too. Some service centers of DoCoMo and Softbank even have free beverage services while you wait. I'm sure that's a big lure for zero-en tribe; even if the coffee tastes like mud, it doesn't cost a thing.


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Vacuum Insulated, Stainless Steel Tumbler and Cup
Klean Kanteen's quest to find and replace single-use items knows no bounds. Our tumblers lead the charge; replacing years of single-use cups while handily out performing plastic and paper.
We firmly believe that the best way to replace a single use item is not just to make a durable replacement, but one that actually does more. Anything a single-use paper or plastic cup can do, our stainless steel vacuum tumbler can do much better. Iced tea, IPA or Caramel Latte; Vacuum insulation and electropolished stainless steel combine to protect the taste and temperature of whatever you put inside. A quick rinse or wash is all it takes to go from your morning pick-me-up to staying hydrated at work to a smoothie at the gym to whatever you drink in your daily life.
* Insulates hot and cold beverages
* Durable, double-walled construction
* High-performance vacuum insulation
* 18/8, food-grade stainless steel
* Durable and won't break like glass
* Electropolished interior
* Laser-etched exterior
* Doesn't retain or impart flavors
* Lifetime warranty
* Capacity: 16 fluid oz (473 ml)
* Weight: 8.9 ounces (253.2g)
* 6.2" H x 3.5" W (158.6 mm H x 89.5 mm W)
* Mouth Opening: 3.08" (78 mm)
Kool Depot is Kean Kanteen's international dealer & *featured online partner in Singapore.


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WOW: A 16 Year Old Female Rape Victim Needs Your Help!
This girl reports this: "http://www.myorangeclerk.com/myclerk/ Criminal Case # 07-CF-0017645-O 16 year old rape victim needs help Iam a rape victim who needs help. The state att. office wont file charges because I was ALMOST 16...... Rape is 15 in the state of fl not ALMOST 16 is ok. PLEASE HELP ME,AND OTHERS LIKE ME"
Please click the "Report" button below if the video on this page is not working properly.
Comments will only be displayed by verified emails. No Spamming or Racism.


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Happy Week-Till-Macworld, from Apple! The company can't spoil next week's keynote by announcing silly things like pro-level updates, so why not announce them a week beforehand? This morning, the world was given the much-anticipated Mac Pro update that contains "a new system architecture that delivers up to twice the performance of its predecessor." Apple says that the updated machines combine two of Intel's 45nm Quad-Core Xeon 5400s at up to 3.2GHz, up to 4TB of storage (four bays of 1TB each), up to 32GB of RAM, and new graphics.
The new processors have a 1600MHz frontside bus and 800MHz memory, so that means speedy renderings for you. Oh, and it comes standard with the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT along with PCI Express 2.0 slots. If you're not into those, the Mac Pro still supports some other NVIDIA cards, such as the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT and the NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600. "With support for up to four graphics cards, the new Mac Pro can drive up to eight 30-inch displays at once for advanced visualization and large display walls," writes Apple. Eight displays, huh? I think some of us at the Orbiting HQ need to uh... take a break in the restroom for a minute.
Of course, the new Mac Pros come with Leopard installed and—stop holding your breath—the new aluminum keyboard. The updated machine can actually include one 2.8GHz processor, two 2.8s, two 3.0s, or two 3.2s. The two 2.8GHz "standard" model runs $2,799, and comes with 2GB of RAM, ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT, 320GB hard drive at 7200rpm, a 16x SuperDrive, PCI Express 2.0, and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR. (Read all about it on the Tech Specs page.) Noticeably missing are those long-rumored Blu-ray options. We'll um... look the other way on that. For now.


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(along with something a bit special if you're a Whitefriars collector!!):
Hi Andy, Not sure you are allowed to do that.................. the mods might have 'Hobbed' you
being an avid collector of Baxter experimental................ Do you still own it ?
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Main Page
From oaibp
[edit] Best Practices for OAI Data Provider Implementations and Shareable Metadata
A joint initiative between the Digital Library Federation and the National Science Digital Library.
[edit] Table of Contents
Introduction to Best Practices Work
Introduces the Digital Library and National Science Digital Library sponsored Best Practices for OAI Data Provider Implementations and Shareable Metadata . Includes the scope, structure, and target audience for this document.
General Competencies for OAI Data Providers
These are general areas of competency that are necessary before the OAI protocol can be implemented and used successfully. Both data and service providers should be conversant with the issues presented here. In many ways they represent the minimum of proficiency that is necessary to be a 'good' OAI data provider.
Best Practices for OAI Data Provider Implementations
Best practices for OAI data providers, particularly how the OAI protocol is implemented. Also included are guidelines for some of the optional pieces of the OAI protocol including sets, branding, rights, and use of the about containers. Please note that metadata guidelines (both technical and content based) are included in their own section below.
Best Practices for Shareable Metadata
This section presents best practices for shareable metadata, both in terms of technical issues (such as XML encoding) and metadata format, semantics, and content.
Tools and Strategies for Using and Enhancing / Extending the OAI Protocol
This section presents a comprehensive list of OAI tools for data providers and service providers, including repository software and validation tools. It also lists useful registries and reference tools, as well as information on enhancing and extending the OAI protocol.


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Benjamin Moore has created a new chapter in paint color technology with its most recent color collection, Color Stories. This collection includes eight color palettes that are comprised of a total of 240 colors, making for a truly unique, un-matched color offering.
Unlike conventional paint formulas, the Color Stories palette includes more than the traditional combination of three pigments and does not use any tints of gray or black. Instead, five to seven pigments are incorporated per color. These colors have a greater clarity, purity and are richer than conventional colors because they are formulated with more pigments in very precise, exacting amounts.


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Sick puppies are imported into the USA almost every day from foreign puppy mills. Many come from countries with no laws protecting dogs. These puppies are sold in US pet stores and online–and many are diseased and dying.
In 2008, as part of the Farm Bill, The HSUS urged Congress to pass a law to protect puppies under six months of age from being imported into the US for resale. It's been six years, and the USDA still has yet to enforce the law.
This week is Puppy Mill Action Week, and we need your help to protect dogs and puppies.
Go to this HSUS page and use the form to personalize and submit a letter to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack and urge him to finalize the Puppy Import Rule.


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[Updated June 8, 2011]
With few exceptions, Americans spend more on public education than anyone else in the world, but we get some of the worst results. The reason is that most of our public education systems do not properly teach students what they need to know.
That's it. There is no magic. And the federal takeovers, the jazzy new technology, Bill Gates' money, the data-gathering, reform, transformation, national initiatives, removal of teacher seniority, blaming of parents, hand-wringing in the media, and budget shifting won't change that simple fact.
In all of the local, state and federal plans for reforming and transforming public education, I see the bureaucracy growing, the taxpayer bill exploding, the people's voice being eliminated, good teachers being threatened with firing or public humiliation, and students not being taught what they need to know.
A May 25 Wall Street Journal article says some schools now charge parents fees for basic academics, as well as for extracurricular activities, graded electives and advanced classes. Those are private-school fees for a public-school education, and that's just wrong.
At some point, one comes to think it's hopeless, that the current system is too far gone – too corrupt, too self-serving, and too shamelessly ignorant to live, that it must collapse. Excuse me while I duck – but that's actually a reasonable thought. In systems theory, it's expected that systems will work for a time, then become corrupt, fail to be productive, and be allowed to collapse. New ones are then built in their place. It's how systems evolve or progress.
That doesn't happen in government, or in sprawling bureaucracies. And especially not in sprawling government bureaucracies like public education, which are hideously corrupt but which are not allowed to die. Instead, they're hoisted around the dance floor like some macabre corpse, propped up with self-interest, ego, loopy ideology, and some 700 billion taxpayer and corporate dollars.
How does this help children academically? That question should drive everything, but it doesn't. So many policy makers and administrators are completely self-interested. They cherry-pick data, withhold information, and misrepresent results and intent. They argue using innuendo and personal attacks. Everything begins with their money, their pet programs, and their certainty that they're right.
We talk about academics; they talk about money. We talk about outcomes; they talk about process. We talk about freedom of choice and the free market; they want everyone to be the same. We talk about tutoring; they talk about rules. We say, "Stand against this." They say, as a Spokane board director did in February, "It wouldn't be good for me."
At the May 23 Spokane Public Schools forum, administrators talked about cutting several million dollars from the budget. This definition of "cut" is used with impunity by number-crunchers everywhere. Here's how it works. The district says it has cut $54 million from the district budget since 2002. But the district budget has GROWN by $60 million since 2002. What they did was "cut" from programs we want and add to things that are mandated or desired by others. It's a money shift. On May 23, the district presentation didn't mention budget totals, which would have clearly shown the public this phenomenon.
How will their proposed cuts or proposed programs help the children academically? Most won't.
On May 23, a board director talked about the local levy, which grew from $36 million in 2002 to $59 million in 2010. He asked the public whether the levy should be spent on enrichment (which is how it's generally sold to taxpayers) or on regular programs that allegedly are "underfunded."
The assumption there -- not proved -- is that the regular programs are necessary as constructed. Much of the levy already is diverted to pay for them. The director didn't mention that some of last year's levy paid for administrative enrichment via raises -- an expense that the board approved unanimously.
At its May 11 regular board meeting, a new math resolution also was approved unanimously. On May 23, the district presentation mentioned this resolution, but not in detail. So, here's some detail.
The new math resolution delays replacing the district's core K-8 math curriculum, currently two of the worst math programs in the country, while locking the district to the national Common Core State Standards/tests/curriculum initiatives. These CCSS initiatives represent a de facto federalization of public education. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan claims these initiatives are "state-led," but the truth is all there in the federal funding for these initiatives, the federal punishments for states that don't kowtow, and in the federal pushing of these initiatives as the answer. Sec. Duncan says there should be a national curriculum in all subjects, "including literacy, arts, foreign languages, and the STEM disciplines."
Sec. Duncan also is funding common testing (to be done online, thus requiring hardware and software), and a national database on our children that will span "cradle through career," that will connect various government agencies, and that will share information without parental consent. Don't believe me? I don't blame you. It isn't pleasant reading, but you can see all of this on the Department of Education Web site and in Sec. Duncan's speeches.
This de facto federal takeover will probably cost each school district $100 million before it's all said and done, in materials, hardware, software, training, travel, and "professional development." Multiply that by the number of school districts in this country (more than 14,000). In its May 11 resolution, the Spokane board estimated up to $3 million just for the adoption of the unwritten, untested, unpiloted, unfunded, and completely unsupported national K-8 math curriculum. It's a mere drop in Duncan's federal-mandate-bucket.
Spokane's board also neglected to mention that its new emphasis on "data-driven decision-making" apparently doesn't apply to the CCSS. The board has agreed to adopt a national curriculum for math that isn't even finished, much less tested. There is no data behind it. As administrators and board directors complain that federal mandates steal budget dollars, they all agreed on May 11 to spend millions of dollars on Duncan's unfunded federal mandate. How will this new and massive mandate help our children academically, driven as it is by Bill Gates, Pearson Education, and other institutional and corporate interests?
Moving directly from the problem (students aren't being taught what they need to know) to the solution (students need to be taught what they need to know), you immediately see that fixing the problem doesn't require - and is unlikely to benefit from - massive infusions of money, nationwide transformations, expensive data systems, software, new buildings, Bill Gates or – good lord, a federal takeover of public education. It requires only that schools teach students the academic skills they need for postsecondary life. And that requires four things – which I call the "Square of Effective Learning." This holds true for students living in million-dollar homes as well as for students living in the dirt. These are the four corners of the square:
- An effective and motivated teacher.
- An efficient, effective, and sufficient curriculum.
- A prepared and motivated student.
- An efficient and effective learning environment.
Alas, public education is a massive and unresponsive bureaucracy. With the coming (and arguably illegal) federal takeover of public education – it's about to become more so. Bureaucracies don't exist to run programs or teach children – they exist to:
- Grow the bureaucracy
- Defend all gained territory and gain more territory
- Obtain more funding, and develop and implement programs that require more funding
- Satisfy people who are higher on the food chain
- Report good results regardless of what the data actually say
- Show perpetual motion (because rolling stones can't be held accountable)
- Gain community allies who can smooth over bureaucratic problems and help with bureaucratic goals
- Smash down all dissent before it threatens the bureaucracy
Please note: The information in this post is copyrighted. The proper citation is
Rogers, L. (May 2011). "Help students by rejecting the self-interested." Retrieved (date) from the Betrayed Web site: http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com/


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BELVIDERE - Lutheran unveiled a new star Thursday, but you'll have to wait a year to see Ashley Kerestes again.
The 5-foot-11 freshman scored 17 first-half points, but the Crusaders' usual stars were ice cold in a 55-41 Class 3A sectional finals loss to defending sectional champion Burlington Central.
"She had the half of her life," Burlington Central coach Mark Smith said.
"We were really impressed with her," said Burlington Central's Shelby Holt (18 points). "We didn't come in thinking she was a threat, but at halftime we talked about stopping her a lot."
Kerestes, who finished with 20 points, shot 7-for-8 the first half, including 3-for-3 on 3-pointers, but the rest of the Crusaders were 2-for-18.
"We couldn't hit shots," Lutheran coach Joni Carlson said. "In-and-out, in-and-out all night."
Kerestes scored all eight points in an 8-2 Lutheran run to pull the Crusaders to within 26-21 with eight seconds left in the half, but Holt hit a 3 at the buzzer and Lutheran (19-11) never came within six points again.
"We all wanted to prove that even though we are young we could show other teams what we have," a teary Kerestes said. "We all played our hearts out. We could have hit more shots, but there's nothing else we could do. I wouldn't change a thing."
Lutheran won't have to. The top six Crusaders are two freshmen, three sophomores and a junior, including 6-2 sophomore Abby Woollacott (10 points, nine rebounds). That could mean another rematch as the Rockets (26-4) also return every player.
"It still hurts," Kerestes said. "Even though we are basically all coming back next year, it's not going to be the same. We wanted to show we could do it now. Coming as far as we did is really good and we're all proud of ourselves, but we thought we could have gone further."
Matt Trowbridge: 815-987-1383; firstname.lastname@example.com; @matttrowbridge


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|Oracle Call Interface Programmer's Guide
Release 9.0.1
Part Number A89857-01
More OCI Relational Functions, 10 of 97
Create a temporary LOB
sword OCILobCreateTemporary(OCISvcCtx *svchp, OCIError *errhp, OCILobLocator *locp, ub2 csid, ub1 csfrm, ub1 lobtype, boolean cache, OCIDuration duration);
The OCI service context handle.
An error handle you can pass to
OCIErrorGet() for diagnostic information in the event of an error.
A locator which points to the temporary LOB. You must allocate the locator using
OCIDescriptorAlloc() before passing it to this function. It does not matter whether or not this locator already points to a LOB, it will get overwritten either way.
The LOB character set ID. For Oracle8i or later, pass as OCI_DEFAULT.
The LOB character set form of the buffer data. For Oracle8i or later, pass as OCI_DEFAULT.
The type of LOB to create. Valid values include:
TRUE if the temporary LOB should be read into the cache;
FALSE, if it should not. The default is
FALSE for NOCACHE functionality.
The duration of the temporary LOB. The following are valid values:
This function creates a temporary LOB and its corresponding index in the user's temporary tablespace.
When this function is complete, the
locp parameter points to an empty temporary LOB whose length is zero.
The lifetime of the temporary LOB is determined by the
duration parameter. At the end of its duration the temporary LOB is freed. An application can free a temporary LOB sooner with the
OCILobFreeTemporary() call.
If the LOB is a
BLOB, the
csid and
csfrm parameters are ignored.
See Also:
For more information about temporary LOBs and their durations, refer to "Temporary LOB Support".
, OCILobIsTemporary()
, OCIDescriptorAlloc()
, OCIErrorGet()
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All Rights Reserved.


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It is a done deal. Whether you love it or hate it, JR Smith is a New York Knick. Renaldo Balkman, who was probably hated by most Knick fans, will be released according to Berman of the Post:
According to multiple sources, Smith, who played in China during the lockout and became eligible to sign an NBA deal on Wednesday, will be at the Garden tonight, but won't make his debut until Sunday against the Mavericks.
The Knicks have to cut a player to make room for Smith and Renaldo Balkman, who has been out of the rotation since early January, is the expected candidate, according to a source. Coach Mike D'Antoni was never a big fan of Balkman, a throw-in to the trade with the Nuggets for Carmelo Anthony. Balkman has one remaining year at $1.8 million and could have been an amnesty casualty if the Knicks were still going for 2012 cap space.
I noted earlier in my JR Smith pros/cons post that indeed the Knicks new addition is a big risk. He's been known to be a defensive liability and he has had a vast history of off-court problems. However, I am of this belief. I believe that defense is effort and that Smith is athletic enough to play well defensively when he puts in the effort. I also believe that the Knicks have a solid support system in place. Tyson Chandler, Baron Davis and Amar'e Stoudemire have been great leaders for this Knick team and I expect them to keep JR Smith on a tight leash.
This signing does provide me with a small moral victory as well. As anyone who follows me on Twitter (@tarmosino) or follows the site knows, I am not a fan of Bill Walker. Nothing personal against the man, I just don't think he can play. In theory, this signing should cut his minutes way down. Walker logged solid rotation minutes playing both small forward and shooting guard but Smith can play both those positions and is a far better talent than Walker.
For more analysis on Smith's impact with the Knicks, check out my aforementioned JR Smith Pros/Cons article. Thanks.Follow @tarmosino


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In the event of inclement weather, hayrides will be cancelled due and there will only be a charge for the basic birthday party package.Reservations are required. Dates fill quickly, please call at least 2-4 months in advance of your desired date. Payment must be received within 10 days of scheduling your date or your reservation will be cancelled. For reservations made less than one month in advance, payment is due within 2 days of scheduling your date. Please call 301-218-6770 to schedule. Refunds and cancellations are not permitted due to rain.
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MultiCare Emergency Care Hiring Event
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Save The Date
MultiCare Hiring Event
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Certified Nursing Assistant (must have an active CNA license), Patient Access Tech, Medical Receptionist
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Housekeepers (entry level), Food Service Workers (entry level), Nutrition Assistants (6 months experience), Cooks (1 year experience), Security Officers (1 year experience)
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MultiCare is currently filling Speech Pathology positions to provide quality care for our patients.
If you're considering a Speech Pathology role at MultiCare and are motivated by career advancement, you'll appreciate our world-class employee education programs. If you love to work with technology, you'll find plenty of it at our facilities. And, of course, you can expect competitive pay and benefits.
Joining our team means you'll get to work with a diverse, talented team of employees who share your commitment to quality patient care.
As one of America's "10 Best Integrated Healthcare Systems," MultiCare includes a fast-paced trauma center, four community hospitals, a pediatric hospital, home health, hospice and many neighborhood clinics. Employees also appreciate that we are a locally based not-for-profit system.
Apply for Speech Pathology job openings at MultiCare today. You'll find the challenges you seek at MultiCare, in the settings you prefer, with schedules to fit your life.
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For personal information systems, whether manual or computer systems that contain confidential personal information, the agency shall do the following:
(A) Criteria for accessing confidential personal information. Personal information systems of the agency are managed on a "need-to-know" basis whereby the information owner determines the level of access required for an employee of the agency to fulfill his/her job duties. The determination of access to confidential personal information shall be approved by the employee's supervisor and the information owner prior to providing the employee with access to confidential personal information within a personal information system. The agency shall establish procedures for determining a revision to an employee's access to confidential personal information upon a change to that employee's job duties including, but not limited to, transfer or termination. Whenever an employee's job duties no longer require access to confidential personal information in a personal information system, the employee's access to confidential personal information shall be removed.
(B) Individual's request for a list of confidential personal information. Upon the signed written request of any individual for a list of confidential personal information about the individual maintained by the agency, the agency shall do all of the following:
(1) Verify the identity of the individual by a method that provides safeguards commensurate with the risk associated with the confidential personal information;
(2) Provide to the individual the list of confidential personal information that does not relate to an investigation about the individual or is otherwise not excluded from the scope of Chapter 1347. of the Revised Code; and
(3) If all information relates to an investigation about that individual, inform the individual that the agency has no confidential personal information about the individual that is responsive to the individual's request.
(C) Notice of invalid access.
(1) Upon discovery or notification that confidential personal information of a person has been accessed by an employee for an invalid reason, the agency shall notify the person whose information was invalidly accessed as soon as practical and to the extent known at the time. However, the agency shall delay notification for a period of time necessary to ensure that the notification would not delay or impede an investigation or jeopardize homeland or national security. Additionally, the agency may delay the notification consistent with any measures necessary to determine the scope of the invalid access, including which individuals' confidential personal information invalidly was accessed, and to restore the reasonable integrity of the system.
"Investigation" as used in this paragraph means the investigation of the circumstances and involvement of an employee surrounding the invalid access of the confidential personal information. Once the agency determines that notification would not delay or impede an investigation, the agency shall disclose the access to confidential personal information made for an invalid reason to the person.
(2) Notification provided by the agency shall inform the person of the type of confidential personal information accessed and the date(s) of the invalid access.
(3) Notification may be made by any method reasonably designed to accurately inform the person of the invalid access, including written, electronic, or telephone notice.
(D) Appointment of a data privacy point of contact. The agency shall designate an employee of the agency to serve as the data privacy point of contact. The data privacy point of contact shall work with the chief privacy officer within the office of information technology to assist the agency with both the implementation of privacy protections for the confidential personal information that the agency maintains and compliance with section 1347.15 of the Revised Code and the rules adopted pursuant to the authority provided by that chapter.
(E) Completion of a privacy impact assessment. The agency's data privacy point of contact shall timely complete the privacy impact assessment form developed by the office of information technology.
Five Year Review (FYR) Dates:
12/08/2016 and
Promulgated Under: 119.03
Statutory Authority: 1347.15
Rule Amplifies: 1347.15
Prior Effective Dates: 03/21/2011
Prior History: (Effective:
R.C. 119.032 review dates: 03/21/2016
Promulgated Under: 119.03
Statutory Authority: 1347.15
Rule Amplifies: 1347.15 )