text:
From: Report of the Proceedings (1994) of the
U.S.-Spain Workshop on Natural Hazards (Barcelona, Spain, 8-11 June
1993), J. Corominas and K.P. Georgakakos, Eds., pp. 44-55. [Available
from the Iowa Institute of Hydraulic Research, University of Iowa,
Iowa City, Iowa 52242]
Convective windstorms are driven by downdrafts, the physics of which are relatively simple and correspondingly well understood. Damaging downdrafts are now often referred to as downbursts, and occur over a range of scales. Downburst also span a range of intensities, and even relatively mild convective windstorms can be a danger in some societal settings (e.g., recreational activities, aircraft operations, etc.). Moreover, convective windstorms can be isolated events or they can occur in large numbers within mesoscale convective systems. Those events which produced widespread damaging wind have recently come to be known as derechos.
Extreme convective wind events can be associated with either extreme intensity, or with large numbers of downbursts, or occasionally with both. Extremely intense events can attain windspeeds comparable to strong tornadoes: 75 m s-1 gusts are possible, with 50-60 m s-1 occurring virtually every convective season in the U.S. In derecho situations, damaging winds (exceeding 25-30 m s-1) can occur over areas of up to 2000 km2, and any one location might experience such winds for 30 min or more, with peak gusts approaching 60-70 m s-1. The societal threat from such storms is comparable in terms of devastation to tropical cyclone events.
It recently has been suggested that some extreme
wind events may be the result of supercells embedded within the
mesoscale convective system. Often such storms are accompanied by
large hail (>
5 cm in diameter), which can increase the damaging effects of the
strong winds. Recent research, including numerical cloud modeling and
observations has suggested a consistent environmental structure
associated with supercell-related windstorms. Thus, it appears that
forecasting skill can be developed with such events.
Convective wind events are a hazard to societies the world over, doing considerable damage and occasionally generating many casualties.[1] Most convection produces some straight-line wind as a result of outflow generated by the convective downdraft, and so anyone living in convection-prone areas of the world has experienced this phenomenon. On rare occasions, the intensity of the wind achieves the potential for doing damage. Whether or not damage actually occurs is the dependent on having structures in the path of the wind that can sustain damage. Although engineered structures typically are quite resistant to wind damage, many homes and outbuildings are quite vulnerable to damage from even relatively modest windstorms. In the United States, it is assumed that the potential for wind damage begins at around 25 m s-1 (50 kts). Of course, considerable damage occurs in situations where there was no anemometer, and so wind damage is graded according to its character: e.g., damage to tree limbs is considered non-severe, but uprooted trees is considered to represent a severe event. Figure 1 shows the recorded distribution of wind events considered to be severe in the United States.
Various human activities place people at risk from convective winds, notably aircraft operations and recreation. Most casualties from convective windstorms in the United States arise from such situations. Given the high vulnerability of aircraft operations during takeoff and landing procedures (the aircraft are operating on the margins of their flight "envelope" during such times), it does not take a particularly intense event from a meteorological standpoint to create many casualties. Commercial aircraft are less vulnerable than private aircraft, but their high occupancy means that rare events can have a large impact on casualty figures. Recreational boating also can account for many casualties in relatively modest windstorms, whereas most commercial craft are unlikely to be affected by marginal convective wind events.
Figure 1. Contours of average annual frequency of reported severe convective wind gust events, per 10,000 mi2 (25,900 km2) for the period 1953-1980. Maxima are denoted by "X" and minima by "N" (from Doswell 1985).
In general, then, convective wind events and wind-vulnerable human situations are both common, whereas it is only infrequently that the two components of a convective wind-induced disaster are concatenated. In most such situations, the damage is confined in time and space because convective windstorms operate on time and space scales associated with single convective storms. The effected areas are only a few km2 and the intense phase of the event is only a few minutes in duration. The opportunities for such space- and time-limited events to have a significant impact are few in number. On the other hand, occasionally, convective storms become prolific wind-producers, lasting for several hours and potentially affecting areas as large as 2000 km2. These extreme events clearly have enormous damage and casualty potential. Although extreme events are, virtually by definition, rare events, their impact can approach that of tropical cyclones and certainly exceeds that of all but extreme tornadoes. Therefore, it appears that, with the growth of populations at risk from convective wind events, an effort to mitigate their casualty production is worth pursuing. Perhaps relatively little can be done to deal with the damage potential, except perhaps where building practices can be modified to make structures less vulnerable than they now are to low-end convective windstorms; it may not be cost-effective to build ordinary structures to withstand the rare extreme events.
Convective wind is the result of convective downdrafts, so to understand convective windstorms, one must understand the nature of downdrafts. This can be done with the aid of the vertical momentum equation,
where w is the vertical component of the wind (i.e., dz/dt, where z is the vertical coordinate), p is pressure, r is density, and g is the acceleration due to gravity. In this form, viscous forces have been ignored. Note that (d/dt) denotes the Lagrangian time derivative; i.e., following an air parcel. Suppose the variables are decomposed into a basic state, denoted by an overbar, and a perturbation, denoted by a prime, such that
and assume that the basic state is defined by the following,
This decomposition also can be thought of as representing a parcel with perturbed properties embedded within a hydrostatically-balanced environment having no vertical motion. It is useful to observe that when the perturbations are small compared to the basic state,
so that when (2)-(4) are used in (1), it can be shown that the parcel's vertical momentum equation becomes
If the Ideal Gas Law (p = rRTv) is used, where Tv is the virtual temperature (in deg K), then it is easy to show from (5) that
where B is used to denote buoyancy.[2] Note that the virtual correction usually is rather small and to a good approximation, it can be ignored when computing buoyancy. Finally, the effects of precipitation loading on the vertical motion are parameterized[3] by including a term in (5) that decreases buoyancy as the liquid water mixing ratio (l ) increases, leading to the final form of the parcel's momentum equation:
This result contains the basic physical processes associated with the development of downdrafts (and updrafts, as well!). The first term in (7) is the effect of perturbation pressure gradients on vertical motion. In some storms, notably supercells, this term has a large effect on updrafts (Rotunno and Klemp 1982); however, there is not much reason to believe it has much of an impact on downdrafts, at least to a first approximation. Therefore, it will be ignored.
The second term is the effect of buoyancy on vertical motion. Clearly, in the case of downdrafts, we expect to find that B is negative: the parcel should be cooler than its environment. This cooling typically takes place as a result of phase changes (evaporation, melting, and sublimation). As shown by Kamburova and Ludlum (1966), precipitation particles that are small, but in large numbers, promote a maximum contribution to cooling and, hence, to creation of negative buoyancy. The major contribution to this process is from evaporation, so when I refer to "evaporation" in subsequent discussion, it should be understood that other phase changes can be involved, but that their contribution is usually minor.
The last term in (7) is that due to water loading. Whereas evaporation is promoted by large numbers of small droplets, it only takes a few large drops to contribute substantially to the downward acceleration of air parcels. This term is associated with storms having high precipitation rates. Comparing the effects of water loading to those associated with buoyancy, if a parcel has a liquid water mixing ratio of 1.0 g kg-1, this is roughly equivalent to about 0.3 deg K of negative buoyancy; alternatively, 1.0 deg K of negative buoyancy is about the same as 3.0 g kg-1; the latter is a large (but not extreme) value. Therefore, in general terms, negative buoyancy is typically the major contributor to downdrafts.
Finally, it should be observed that the contribution to negative vertical motion associated only with buoyancy (i.e., using pure "parcel theory") results in a prediction of the maximum downdraft of
where NAPE is the Negative Available Potential Energy,
and where LFS denotes the Level of Free Sink for a descending parcel and SFC denotes the surface. This means that the maximum downward motion is associated with the integrated negative buoyancy. Even a relatively modest negative buoyancy can result in a substantial downdraft if it is maintained over a relatively large depth. A downward speed of 25 m s-1 results from the relatively modest NAPE value of 312.5 m2 s-2. To a first approximation, the maximum gust is roughly equal to the maximum downdraft speed.
On the scale of a convective storm, downdrafts typically develop as storm-relative winds move precipitation out of the upper portions of the updraft, where it develops, and that precipitation then falls into relatively dry air. This process produces negative buoyancy through evaporative chilling. Also, the water loading effect contributes to downdrafts, as noted above. In the presence of storm-relative wind, which is present in most cases involving convection, the precipitation cascade region is somewhat removed from the updraft. This precipitation cascade is roughly coincident with the downdraft (see Fig. 2).
Figure 2. Schematic depiction of the mature stage of a convective cell, showing the precipitation (drop hatching) and the outflow (stippling).
Downdrafts lag the updrafts that produce them by about half a convective time scale (a useful value for which is the time needed for a parcel to rise from the condensation level to the equilibrium level, or about 20 min). The duration of the maximum gusts with any individual downdraft is at most a few minutes, typically occurring shortly after the downdraft first reaches the surface. Since the spatial scales of most convective cells are on the order of 10 km, the size of the outflow during the time of maximum horizontal wind gusts is only a few km. Such small-scale events have come to be called microbursts (Fujita 1978). It has become clear recently that microbursts, even when their intensity is below the arbitrary "severe" limit of 25 m s-1, are still a considerable hazard to aviation (see Fujita and Byers 1977; Fujita and Caracena 1977, Caracena et al. 1989).
The so-called "dry" microburst event is one created by evaporation, but it is ultimately driven by the initial negative buoyancy. That is, evaporation produces the negative buoyancy, but the environments in which such events occur, namely with deep layers of nearly dry adiabatic lapse rates and low relative humidities (Fig. 3) permit unimpeded descent of the chilled parcels. The circumstances leading to dry microbursts are relatively well-understood and they are fairly easy to forecast in the sense that the conditions in which they arise are fairly restricted (see, e.g., Wakimoto 1985; Caracena and Flueck 1988). On the other hand, the "wet" microburst appears to develop with some contribution from evaporation, and the negative buoyancy is maintained by continuing evaporation. Wet microbursts occur in situations with nearly moist adiabatic environments, having deep surface-based layers of high relative humidity. The key to developing strong downdrafts is the continuing evaporation of condensed water during descent to maintain saturation. Without such evaporation, the descending parcel would warm at the dry adiabatic rate and quickly lose its negative buoyancy. Water loading also may play a larger role than in dry microbursts. Much less is known about how wet microbursts arise and they are correspondingly more difficult to forecast than dry microbursts.
Figure 3. A composite of five 0000 UTC soundings at Denver, Colorado on days that produced dry microbursts on the Front Range area of Colorado (from Brown et al. 1982).
It is important to recognize that the conditions under which downdrafts are unstable do not necessarily coincide with those producing strong updrafts (Johns and Doswell 1993). This means that a convective event with comparatively weak updrafts still can produce strong downdrafts. Some situations are capable of producing both strong updrafts and strong downdrafts, which often occurs with supercells, but not all convective wind events are caused by supercells. This means that severe and hazardous weather predictors keyed to locating conditions for strong updrafts will not detect all cases involving downbursts.
Owing to the small space and time scales of isolated convective storms, it is unlikely that they can produce extreme wind events. Occasionally, a moderately intense wind event is associated with an isolated "pulse-like" convective storm, but meteorologically speaking, such events do not pose much of a threat of a disaster, except when they occur in combination with a particularly vulnerable human activity. Hence, we turn now to events associated with systems of convection.
Conditions in which convection becomes organized into convective systems of various sizes and durations increase the chances for a convective wind-produced disaster, simply because of the increasing time and space scale. The events producing the wind may not be substantially more intense than their more isolated counterparts, but the sheer number of them makes the chances for interacting with humans during their intense phases greater than with isolated storms.
In the United States, widespread convective wind events are sometimes referred to as derechos (Johns and Hirt 1987). Derechos invariably arise in association with mesoscale convective systems (MCSs). An MCS is composed of a number of individual convective cells, often arranged as a squall line of intense convection and a trailing "stratiform" precipitation area (Houze et al. 1989; Loehrer and Johnson 1993). As the convection evolves from the initial cells, new convective cells are initiated along the leading edge of the outflow from preceding cells and the system as a whole can maintain itself as long as sufficient moisture and lapse rates are present in the inflow. Note that convective systems of this sort can have a substantial inflow at low levels by virtue of their motion.
In these situations, it appears that a significant role is played by a system-relative, rear-to--front flow that begins in the lower mid-troposphere and descends to near the surface at the leading edge of the system, where the deep convective cells are. Although the origins of the rear inflow are not entirely clear, such a flow maintains a supply of subsaturated air to drive downdrafts by the evaporation of precipitation brought out of the convective region by a front-to-rear flow that begins ahead of the convective line and extends into the system's anvil region. These features are summarized in Fig. 4. Within such a system, the
potential exists for numerous intense downdrafts, as the rear inflow interacts with the strong convection on the leading edge. As shown in Fig. 5, the damaging winds can be distributed over a large area.
Figure 4. Conceptual model of a Mesoscale Convective System (MCS) with both a leading squall line and an area of trailing "stratiform" precipitation, shown in cross section parallel to the motion of the system (from Houze et al. 1989).
Many important windstorms are associated with bow-shaped radar echoes (Fujita 1978). These structures can arise on scales from 15 to over 150 km (Johns and Doswell 1993) and appear to arise from the development of strong rear-to-front wind flow. Weisman (1993) has suggested that the so-called "bookend" vortices (Fig. 6 ) often observed at opposite ends of a bow-shaped echo arise from tilting of ambient horizontal vorticity; his interpretation of their role is that they can enhance the rear-to-front flow between the vortices by as much as 30% through the development of favorable pressure gradients. This interpretation remains to be validated by observations, although the basic morphology of observed bow echo systems does, in fact, agree with the numerical simulations (Smull and Weisman 1993).
Figure 5. Damage swath produced by the derecho of 5 July 1980; three-hourly squall line positions are indicated by the dash-double dot lines, with UTC hours indicated. Officially measured wind gusts are indicated by the wind barbs, with a full barb indicating 5 m s-1 and a flag indicating 25 m s-1. Personal injuries are indicated by dots and deaths with an "x."
Figure 6. Schematic evolution of low-level radar reflectivity structure in a bow-shaped echo convective system (from Fujita 1978).
It already has been noted that supercells sometimes arise in environments that exhibit the potential for both strong updrafts and downdrafts. This is a consequence of having high Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE), where
with LFC denoting the Level of Free Convection and EL denoting the Equilibrium Level for an ascending parcel. This is the updraft equivalent of the NAPE. High values of CAPE are invariably associated with (i) large values of low-level absolute humidity and (ii) low relative humidity in the lower mid-troposphere. The latter condition allows the development of step lapse rates in the lower mid-troposphere, which are necessary to develop high CAPE (see Doswell et al. 1985). Clearly, a layer with low relative humidity and steep lapse rates favors the development of downdrafts by the processes already described.
On occasions when supercells develop, they contain (by definition!) a mesocyclone, at least in middle levels, if not near the surface. This paper is not the forum for a discussion of the origins of the supercell mesocyclone; interested readers should consult Davies-Jones and Brooks (1993) for a review. Recently, Brooks and Doswell (1993) have suggested that some supercells, which have considerable precipitation within their mesocyclones, thus becoming what is known as High-Precipitation (or HP) supercells (see Moller et al. 1990), can develop extremely intense and persistent surface winds. The existence of precipitation in the mesocyclone may arise as a result of having a strong mesocyclone at mid-levels in the presence of weak storm-relative flow at those levels (Brooks and Doswell 1993). In such a situation, the precipitation would not be carried far from the updraft by storm-relative flow and the mesocyclonic circulation would entrain the nearby precipitation, thus wrapping large amounts of liquid water around to its rear, where it would encounter the dry, unstable mid-tropospheric air. This evolution would favor the continuous production of evaporatively-chilled air on the rear side of the mesocyclone and, as long as the mid-level mesocyclone could survive being undercut by the low-level outflow, a quasi-continuous strong outflow would develop. Given the downdraft instability and the persistence of such events, a large swath of wind damage could result; these are potentially extreme convective wind events, especially when the wind is accompanied by large hail, as has been observed on occasion. Damage swaths of up to 2000 km2 (or more!) are not inconceivable.
There are two lines of reasoning that support this hypothesis for how such storms arise. First of all, such storms have been observed to arise (Smith 1993; Cummine et al 1992, Brooks and Doswell 1993) and the conditions in which they have been observed seem to fit this model (Fig. 7). In the limited sample of events consider to this date, the CAPE values associated with such storms are quite comparable to those with classic tornadic supercells, but the storm-relative wind speed profiles are quite distinct from tornadic storms and similar from case to case. The other form of supporting evidence is that a numerical simulation using one of the environmental soundings from the cases produces the sort of "wall of wind" that is observed in these extreme events.
Given that the early results of this work continue to hold up to further scrutiny, the fact that such storms arise in a reasonably limited form of environment, it should be possible to anticipate such storms. The extreme events do not happen often, but their large impact means it would be valuable to be able to forecast the threat of such a potentially devastating convective windstorm.
Convective winds are a relatively common phenomenon, although most such events are not very intense. On the scale of the convective storm itself, peak outflow winds have short time and small space scales, reducing the threat to society, even when the peak winds become relatively strong. However, convection often is organized into mesoscale systems in which numerous convective cells develop, mature, and decay. In some situations, convective systems can produce a large number of convective wind events, leading to a much larger effected area than that associated with any individual cell. When storms influence a large area, the chances for significant hazards increase. The majority of windstorms in a convective system are of marginal severity, with only isolated events reaching high intensity. Nevertheless, the large area covered by such storms can result in major property losses.
Figure 7. Storm-relative environmental wind speed profiles from an intense wind event (as described in the text) and a tornadic supercell, showing the weak storm-relative flow associated with the intense wind event.
The most threatening situation would be for a very intense convective wind event that also affected a large area. It appears that a few times each year in North America, extreme convective wind events of this sort do occur. To date, no such storm has struck a major city during a vulnerable time (e.g., the morning or evening rush hours). However, it is only a matter of time until this sort of unfortunate concatenation actually occurs. Given that the area affected can approach that of a tropical cyclone's damage swath, and certainly far exceeds that affected during a tornado outbreak (while not being as intense, of course), it is uncomfortable to imagine the potential devastation. When such storms are accompanied by large hail (e.g., > 5 cm in diameter), the damage potential soars to even greater heights than when the wind occurs alone. The occurrence of hail has resulted in some of the costliest storms in United States history; coupling a fall of large hail with winds approaching 50 m s-1 could produce incredible damage in a populated area. Of course, economic losses to agriculture from such storms are already high, but do not attract much public attention, and such losses would be very difficult to mitigate with a 20-30 min warning.
A timely forecast may not be able to do much to mitigate the property loss, but could reduce the casualties. It appears possible to forecast these extreme events with some skill, but further research needs to be done to test the existing hypothesis about the interaction between the convective storm and its environment that produces the extensive swath of high winds.
Acknowledgments. I
would like to thank my colleagues, Dr. Harold Brooks and Mr. Ken
Howard, for their help in developing the figures.
Brooks, H.E., and C.A. Doswell III, 1993: Extreme winds in high-precipitation supercells. Preprints, 17th Conf. Severe Local Storms (St. Louis, MO), Amer. Meteor. Soc., 173-177.
Brown, J.M., K.R. Knupp, and F. Caracena, 1982: Destructive winds from shallow high-based cumulonimbi. Preprints, 12 th Conf. Severe Local Storms (San Antonio, TX), Amer. Meteor. Soc., 272-275.
Caracena, F., and J.A. Flueck, 1988: Classifying and forecasting microburst activity in the Denver area. J. Aircraft, 25, 525-530.
______, R.L. Holle, and C.A. Doswell III, 1989: Microbursts: A Handbook for Visual Identification. Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402, 35 pp.
Cummine, J., P. McCarthy, and M. Leduc, 1992: Blowdown over northwestern Ontario. Preprints, 4 th Workshop on Operational Meteorology (Whistler, British Columbia, Canada), Atmos. Environ. Service/Canadian Meteor. and Oceanogr. Soc., 311-317.
Davies-Jones, R., and H.E. Brooks, 1993: Mesocyclogenesis from a theoretical perspective. The Tornado: Its Structure, Dynamics, Prediction, and Hazards (Geophys. Monogr. 79), Amer. Geophys. Union, 105-114.
Doswell, C.A. III, 1985: The Operational Meteorology of Convective Weather. Vol. II: Storm Scale Analysis. NOAA Tech. Memo. ERL ESG-15, Available from the author at National Severe Storms Laboratory, 1313 Halley Circle, Norman, OK 73069, 240 pp.
______, F. Caracena, and M. Magnano, 1985: Temporal evolution of 700-500 mb lapse rate as a forecasting tool -- A case study. Preprints, 14 th Conf. Severe Local Storms (Indianapolis, IN), Amer. Meteor. Soc., 398-401.
Fujita, T.T., 1978: Manual of downburst identification for project NIMROD. Satellite and Mesometeorology Res. Paper No. 156, Dept. of Geophys. Sci., Univ. of Chicago, 104 pp.
______, and H.R. Byers, 1977: Spearhead echo and downburst in the crash of an airliner. Mon. Wea. Rev., 105, 129-146.
______, and F. Caracena, 1977: An analysis of three weather-related aircraft accidents. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 58, 1164-1181.
Houze, R.A., Jr., S.A. Rutledge, M.I. Biggerstaff, and B.F. Smull, 1989: Interpretation of Doppler weather radar displays of midlatitude mesoscale convective systems. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 70, 608-619.
Johns, R.H., and W.D. Hirt, 1987: Derechos: Widespread convectively induced windstorms. Wea. Forecasting, 2, 32-49.
______, and C.A. Doswell III, 1993: Severe local storms forecasting. Wea. Forecasting, 7, 588-612.
Kamburova, P.L., and F.H. Ludlam, 1966: Rainfall evaporation in thunderstorm downdraughts. Quart. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc., 92, 510-518
Loehrer, S.M., and R.H. Johnson, 1993: The surface pressure features and precipitation structure of PRE-STORM mesoscale convective systems. Preprints, 17 th Conf. Severe Local Storms (St. Louis, MO), Amer. Meteor. Soc., 481-485.
Moller, A.R., C.A. Doswell III, and R. Przybylinski, 1990: High-precipitation supercells: A conceptual model and documentation. Preprints, 16 th Conf. Severe Local Storms (Kananaskis Park, Alberta, Canada), Amer. Meteor. Soc., 52-57.
Rotunno, R., and J. B. Klemp, 1982: The influence of the shear-induced pressure gradient on thunderstorm motion. Mon. Wea. Rev., 110, 136-151.
Smith, B.E., 1993: The Concordia, Kansas downburst of 8 July 1992: A case study of an unusually long-lived windstorm. Preprints, 17 th Conf. Severe Local Storms (St. Louis, MO), Amer. Meteor. Soc., 588-592.
Smull, B.F., and M.L. Weisman, 1993: Comparison of the observed and simulated structure of a bow-shaped mesoscale convective system. Preprints, 17 th Conf. Severe Local Storms (St. Louis, MO), Amer. Meteor. Soc., 557-561.
Wakimoto, R.M., 1985: Forecasting dry microburst activity over the high plains. Mon. Wea. Rev., 113, 1131-1143.
Weisman, M.L., 1993: The genesis of severe, long-lived bow echoes. J. Atmos. Sci., 50, 645-670.


text:
The Merseyside outfit slipped to a 3-2 defeat to the League One side at Boundary Park on Sunday afternoon, ending their dreams of a return to Wembley this season, and the former Republic of Ireland international believes that the entire squad must be reminded of their responsibilities by boss Brendan Rodgers.
"It is a huge defeat and, for a club like Liverpool, it is a bit embarrassing," he told the Irish Independent. "Two things come out of it when you play fringe players.
"Either they come out and show the manager what they're about, put down a marker to show why they should be in your team; or some of them feel at times, I take it, that it is a slight on their ability – that they are thought of as fringe players, and don't turn up and play the way they can.
|MATCH REPORT: Calamitous Brad Jones costs Reds in shock FA Cup exit
|FLOP OF THE MATCH: Nervous-looking Jones makes a meal of first goal
"I hope Brendan has told the players exactly the same. You do get upsets in football but you have got to be competitive."
The 51-year-old also expressed doubts over the merits of several members of Rodgers' first-team squad this season.
"Martin Skrtel won Player of the Year last year but I have seen a lot of deficiencies in his game; he is rash, goes into tackles that he shouldn't and he is not as comfortable as Daniel Agger on the ball," he observed. "Liverpool want to play a passing game and you need somebody who can pass the ball.
"Midfield, who are you going to play? Joe Allen? Jonjo Shelvey? Jordan Henderson? They wouldn't be players that you would normally expect Liverpool to have.
"If you are going to be a top team, then you need better than that to compete."
|Liverpool are 16/1 with Bet365 to lose 3-1 to Arsenal in their next Premier League game
"You give the manager 38 games and see what he has done on three things," he explained. "Where has he finished in the league? How has he gone in the cups? And, in particular, how have his signings done?
"Well, at the minute, it looks like some of them have really struggled. Fabio Borini has really struggled; Joe Allen – they were calling him the new Xavi and I don't see where they were coming from with that. When you see Allen, he is in front of the back four passing sideways and backwards, while Xavi is up with the frontmen, where it really matters.
"I think Daniel Sturridge coming in, from what I have seen so far, is a positive move. I didn't think he would be up to speed with Luis Suarez so quickly but he has done better than I thought. I will reserve judgment over a long time, as he has been to Chelsea and Manchester City and it hasn't worked.
"That is where Brendan will be judged, but it is tough. Manchester City spent a fortune to get up to the top. Liverpool haven't got that luxury – the people who run the club will give him some money but not as much as he might actually need."

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Tomato Season is Ending But Tomato Red is Forever
For awhile now I've been enamored with a very particular orangey-red, a vibrant poppy hue. I've bought tomato-red nail varnish, a shirt, a skirt, and a sash (got to have a sash!), but would trade them all for these amazing vintage dishes of my mom's.
When I saw them in my parents kitchen I freaked out a bit over their perfect combination of cream, black, & red, and their feminine yet restrained style. If only there was a dress to match. Of course my mom offered the dishes to me on the spot, but I think they belong where they are. And yes, that is the mixer she uses- she's on the hunt for the original bowl, but in the meantime this floral bowl is doing the job beautifully.
Some other tomato-red favorites:
- Someday, someday, this "Angel of the North" lithograph by Sanna Annukka will preside over my home!
- I fell pretty hard for this delightful screenprinted tea towel featuring classic British cakes.
- During the rainy season here in San Francisco, this indoor/outdoor bench would be the perfect spot to put on boots and generally get yourself together.
- Ah, the lovely Hungarian Doll Project, painstakingly screen printed, stitched, and embroidered by Sarajo Friedan, one of Reform School's students-of-the-month.
Images: Tess Wilson
Image: Sanna Annukka
Image: Jill of Jillty Drawings
Image: Rare Device
Image: Reform School
Image: Hello! Lucky


text:
Evaluation Gets Results!
Number 21 - December 2000
L. Debuhr & B. Adelson
In 1993, the education division at the Missouri Botanical Garden initiated the Natural Science Institute for Elementary Teachers. This teacher training programme was developed to help the education division test a training protocol which we hoped would provide biological content enhancement and upgrade teachers' pedagogical skills and leadership abilities. The purpose of this case study is to describe the process used to evaluate the Natural Science Institute for Elementary Teachers and present some of the results from the process. It is not the goal of this report to go into a detailed description of the results of the evaluation, but to feature the highlights. The consequences of the evaluation for education programmes at the Missouri Botanical Garden will also be discussed.
The Natural Science Institute for Elementary Teachers was started as a pilot project in 1992, when three teachers were hired during the summer to organise and teach a special summer programme for children. These teachers were paid for six weeks of work - two weeks for planning and preparation, three weeks for the delivery of classes to children, and one week to conclude the programme by preparing a brief report. Several months later, one of the teachers reported that the summer experience had been very helpful to him, in that he had incorporated many of the same lessons from the summer classes in his own teaching for the first time. He also mentioned that the opportunity to work with other teachers and interact with them as they planned and carried out the programme was a valuable experience.
Essentially, the pilot project started in 1992 and the results and comments from the teachers hired to conduct the programme provided the first evaluative data for this case study, and represented a type of formative evaluation that was critical to the success of the project. The formative information from the pilot study significantly influenced the nature of the project as the Natural Science Institute was designed. A proposal was submitted to a major science foundation in the United States in 1993 to develop the Natural Science Institute, and the project was funded for 4 years as a result of that proposal.
Description of the Natural Science Institute for Elementary Teachers
The target audience for the Natural Science Institute for Elementary Teachers was classroom teachers in grades K-5 who worked predominantly in schools with high percentages of students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds or ethnic minorities. National research indicates that these schools are in more critical need for improved science teaching and better classroom practices. The content focus of the Natural Science Institute was on organismal and ecological biology concepts, and conformed to the U.S. National Science Standards (National Research Council 1996).
The project had three components. The first component was a series of five workshops, initially for nine days and later ten days in length. The purpose of the workshops was to introduce organismal and ecological biology concepts to the participants. Garden staff used investigative and hands-on lessons to teach these concepts. The second component was a summer science programme for children taught by the participating teachers. The purpose of this summer programme was to allow the teachers the opportunity to work in teams to organise and teach many of these science concepts using the same lessons and activities they learned in their own training, and to receive support and guidance from each other as well as from the garden education staff. This reflective practice component was thought to be critical for helping the teachers incorporate new ideas and new lessons into their own classrooms. The final component of the programme was that the teachers were required to return to their classrooms and begin incorporating more organismal and ecological biology into their own teaching. In addition they were to serve as a resource to other teachers in their schools.
Were We Hitting the Target Audience?
The first objective of the programme was to provide training for teachers from schools with high percentages of students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds or ethnic minorities. The question we were most interested in answering was: were we hitting the target audience? The method used to evaluate this outcome was to collect demographic data on the students enrolled in the classes for which the teachers were responsible. Over the four years of the project, 59 teachers completed the Natural Science Institute. A total of 40 of these teachers taught in schools with more that 50% ethnic minority students, and 28 teachers were in schools with 80% or more of the students from ethnic minorities. Altogether, 31 teachers taught in schools with more than 50% of the students from economically disadvantaged families, with 23 of those in schools with 80% or more of the students economically disadvantaged. From these results, we were generally confident that we were hitting our target audiences without excluding participation by teachers from other less disadvantaged schools.
Did the Training Session Help Teachers Learn?
The second objective of the project was to ensure that participating teachers were more knowledgeable about science concepts and science teaching practices after undergoing training. Two questions were asked: how effective were the individual training sessions? and did teachers' levels of science knowledge increase? A series of five workshops were scheduled with the participants between January and May. These workshops focused on organismal and ecological science concepts, and used hands-on, investigative activities to teach these concepts to the participants.
The first question above was answered with short evaluation surveys given to the participants at the end of each session, and a longer summative evaluation at the end of the entire training programme. The basic questions on the survey were:
- Was the science content information adequate and organised in a useful manner?
- Were the activities well prepared and presented?
- Which activities do you expect to be most useful to you in the classroom?
- Which were of least use to you and why?
- Are we generally meeting your expectations? If not, why not?
- How can we improve the delivery of the programme?
The number of individual comments made by teachers over the four years of the project are too numerous to mention. The importance of the survey to us was that the feedback from the participants allowed us to identify weaknesses and strengths in the training and to make changes in future sessions and future years. As the project progressed each year, we were able to identify science concepts that teachers had difficulty understanding (such as adaptation), and we could schedule more instructional time with these concepts. We were also able to make some changes in the format of the training as a result of the evaluation. For example, the number of days of the workshops was increased from nine to ten each year and the organisation of the concepts, and the sequence in which they were introduced during the sessions, was changed in response to teachers' comments.
The second question (whether the teachers' levels of science knowledge increased) was answered with content pre-tests given to participants on the very first day of the training sessions, and a post-test given on the last day of the training programme. The results of the pre-test and post-test were analysed using paired t-test protocols. We were disappointed in the first year of the project when the mean difference between the pre-test scores and the post-test scores was only 7 percentage points. Although this was a statistically significant difference (p < 0.05) our sense was that the participants learned a great deal more than reflected in the post-test scores. Therefore, we re-examined the pre-test and post-tests and discovered that the exam questions did not represent the content of the course very well. The pre- and post tests were rewritten for subsequent years to be more closely aligned with the curriculum of the training sessions. During the second, third, and fourth years of the project, the mean difference between pre-test and post-test scores were 15.5, 17.0, and 18.4 percentage points, respectively. We felt more confident that the participants' science knowledge increased as a result of the project.
One final evaluation method used to assess this outcome was a summative survey at the very end of the training session. The purpose of the summative evaluation was to collect additional data about the training programme as a whole, rather than about each individual session. The questions asked of the participants were:
- Do you feel your content knowledge in ecology and organismal biology increased as a result of this programme? - The answer was an overwhelming yes, confirmed by pre-test and post-test scores.
- Which content areas were of greatest benefit? - There was no clear area that seemed to be more beneficial than others.
- How can we improve the delivery of this aspect of the programme? - The one important comment that came from this question was the desire for us to build in more time for the participants to process information and to think about the content in groups. The number of days for the training sessions was increased.
- What activities were of greatest use? - Many different activities were mentioned by the participants, and no specific activity was mentioned in a significant way. It was clear that those activities which were most active and hands-on were preferred over activities that were more passive.
Does Reflective Practice Work?
The third objective of the project was to test the effectiveness of the reflective practice model used in the teacher training. The basic questions we asked were: did the reflective practice help? and were participants teaching different concepts and using new lessons and activities?
To answer the first question, a summative evaluation was administered at the end of the summer reflective practice component of the programme. Teachers were asked to assess how valuable the summer science programme was to them as a way to try out new science activities. The overwhelming response to this question was that the opportunity to teach in the summer science class was the most important part of the programme. We also asked them how we could improve their preparation for the summer programme? As a result of this question, we increased the planning time given to the teachers prior to the summer programme from one week to two weeks. Essentially, the results of the evaluation were responsible for fundamental changes in the structure of the programme.
The method used to answer the second question was to use written surveys and personal interviews with participants. The teachers were asked to list concepts and specific lessons and activities from the programme that they now include in their own classroom that they had not taught before. Although the specific concepts and lessons used by the participants varied from one teacher to the next, each participant reported that they taught an average of 5-6 new science concepts in their classrooms, and use an average of five new activities and lessons from the programme.
Were Teachers Helping Other Teachers?
The final outcome of the programme was to create a cadre of teachers who could serve as resources for other teachers. The fundamental question we asked was: were teachers being used as informal and formal resources for the classroom? The method we used to answer this question was to ask the participants to maintain activity logs. For one year after the teachers participated in the training sessions, they were asked to keep a log of the formal and informal activities that they had conducted to help other teachers. They were then asked to give these logs to the project staff at regular intervals so that the project staff could calculate the number of times that the participants had served as a resource and determine the nature of the assistance that they gave. Examinations of these logs indicated that the participants were conducting a minimum of 2-3 formal workshops each year for other teachers in their schools and were used an average of ten times a year as an informal resource. In the latter capacity, the teachers were being asked to serve on curriculum committees, to recommend lessons and activities that other teachers could use, to provide assistance in obtaining materials, to organise building science classrooms, and to help select future participants in the programme.
Some Generalisations from the Evaluation
Because of the success of the reflective practice approach, the Missouri Botanical Garden will continue to use the basic training model in future efforts. This represents a significant change in the way we view long-term teacher development. Our optimism about the structure of the training as a model for reflective practice has been reinforced. Feedback from participants during the entire project indicates that the combination of training and supervised practice was very helpful for teachers prior to their incorporating some of the concepts and lessons into their own classrooms.
Teachers participating in the programme have gained new knowledge and skills in organismal and ecological biology and are incorporating more science lessons into their own classrooms. They are also more knowledgeable about ways to teach these topics in an interactive and investigative manner. By extension, the children in the classes taught by the participating teachers will benefit from the teachers' new knowledge and skills. The reflective practice approach does appear to be working in changing what teachers do in the classroom.
The confidence level of the teachers in science changed. At the beginning of the teacher training sessions, the participants expressed a high level of anxiety and concern about the job they would be asked to do. By the end of the year, those same teachers were able to successfully conduct in-service programmes for other teachers and to teach science to children without hesitation. All participating teachers showed a high level of commitment to the programme and involvement in the project.
Consequences of the Evaluation
In addition to the impact the evaluation of the Natural Science Institute had on how the education division operates teacher training programmes, the evaluation has also resulted in a number of consequences for the Missouri Botanical Garden. First, the success of the project as documented in the evaluation, led to continued funding of the programme after the initial four years. When the initial four year grant was completed, the garden was asked to continue the training programme for the St. Louis Public School District. The school district agreed to pay for the programme from their own operating budget. It is rare that a project funded from an external grant is later built into a school district funding, and the success in this case is a result of changes made in the programme based upon evaluative data and the documentation revealing that the programme was effective in achieving its goals.
A second major consequence of the project evaluation, is that it led to a second grant from the same agency that funded the Natural Science Institute initially. This second programme funded by this foundation had many of those characteristics of the first programme that were shown to be effective. It is clear that a successful project, as determined by an evaluation component, will lead more easily to additional support.
Finally, confirmation that the reflective practice component of the programme is effective in helping to achieve changes in the classroom, has resulted in a change in philosophy about teacher training at the Missouri Botanical Garden. We have reduced the number of one and two day short-term workshops in favor of longer-term training programmes that include some kind of reflective practice component.
National Research Council. (1996) National Science Education Standards. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C. USA.
L'Evaluation Donne Ses Résultats
Dans cet article sont décrits les conséquences et résultats d'une large évaluation menée par l'Institut des Sciences pour les enseignants du primaire du Jardin Botanique de Missouri. Ce projet de formation des enseignants a utilisé un mélange d'évaluations formatives et récapitulatives, de pré et post tests de connaissances, d'enquêtes, d'entretiens personnels, et de compte-rendus d'activités a permis d'arriver à quatre conclusions pour ce projet et de répondre à une série de questions spécifiques. L'évaluation démontré que le projet était attractif pour le public visé, que les connaissances scientifiques des participants étaient en augmentation, que le protocole choisi permettait une meilleure incorporation en classe des compétences et connaissances acquises et que les participants au programme deviennent eux-même des personnes ressources pour les autres enseignants. L'évaluation a aussi permis de recevoir des fonds supplémentaires pour des programmes de formation des enseignants et à un changement fondamental de la nature des programmes pédagogiques destinés aux enseignants au Jardin Botanique de Missouri.
La Evaluacion Consigue Resultados
En este trabajo se presentan los resultados y las consecuencias de una evaluacion comprensiva del Natural Science Institute for Elementary Teachers (el Instituto Cientifico Nacional para Profersores Elementales) en el Jardin Botanico de Missouri. Este proyecto de formacion de profesores utilizo una combinacion de evaluaciones formativas y anadidas, examenes de conocimiento cientifico antes y despues, encuestas, entrevistas personales, y notas de actividades para llegar a cuatro evaluaciones del proyecto y contestar algunas preguntas especificas. Las conclusiones generales de la evaluacion fueron que el proyectop atrahia la audiencia deseada, el conocimiento de conceptos cientificos de los participantes aumentaba, que un protocolo de 'practica reflectiva' resultaba en una mejor incorporacion de nuevas abilidades y lecciones en las aulas, y que los participantes en el programa se convierten en recursos formales e informales para otros profesores. La evaluacion tambien resulto en mas fondos para los programas de fomacion de profesores, y en cambios fundamentales en los programas de formacoion profesorial en el Jardin Botanico de Missouri.


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Kayem Foods is recalling nearly 30 tons of fully cooked chicken sausage products that were sold at Trader Joe's and other retailers because they may be contaminated with pieces of plastic, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service announced Monday.
The chicken sausage products were produced on various dates in March 2015. The following products are subject to recall:
— 12-oz. packages of Trader Joe's brand "Sweet Apple Chicken Sausage" with the case code 9605 and use by/freeze by dates of "4 22 15," "4 25 15," and "4 29 15."
— 8-oz. packages of Al Fresco brand "Apple Maple Fully Cooked Breakfast Chicken Sausage" with the case code...


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Religion and Politics in Post-Socialist Central and Southeastern Europe
Date published:February 2014
Since the crash of communism in Central and Southeastern Europe in 1989, almost everything in the region has changed – from politics to economics to popular culture to religion. There have been new challenges to confront and new dilemmas. This volume examines the political engagement of religious associations in the post-socialist countries of Central and Southeastern Europe, with a focus on disputes about property restitution, revelations about the collaboration of clergy with the communist-era secret police, intolerance, and controversies about the inclusion of religious instruction in the schools.


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It could be a case of too much of a good thing.
It could be a case of too much of a good thing.
Pocono ski resorts are having good seasons, but despite all the snow, the weather may have put some business on ice.
Camelback, Shawnee and Blue Mountain are enjoying good attendance but not as good as you'd think with a winter that historically ranks among the 10 snowiest in the Poconos.
The extremely low January temperatures — think polar vortex — made it too cold for some skiers to come out.
What might have been a normally busy few weeks, considering all the snow on the ground, made the resorts look like a Siberian plain at times.
"Several of the bitter cold events in January and early February resulted in weather just too cold for families with children to come outside and ski, ride or tube," Shawnee's Jim Tust said, and families are Shawnee's core business.
Severe cold snaps before and after each snowfall didn't help attendance, with daytime temperatures in the teens, and sometimes single digits, Camelback Mountain Resort's Brian Czarnecki said.
"That's not the type of conducive weather for people to get outside and recreate."
Another problem was the snow came in a compressed time frame instead of being spaced out.
"That matters in the minds of skiers," Czarnecki said. "I think the excitement for the people in the marketplace builds when there's snow on the ground. If there's no snow in their backyard, they don't really believe there's snow in your backyard."
Group sales from recreation departments and ski clubs have been declining at Shawnee, much of it because of shrinking budgets and increasing transportation costs.
Weather conditions also forced many group day trip cancellations, Tust said.
But the early snowfall this year, combined with the amount of snow, may make this a record-breaking season for some resorts for another reason.
"We opened the day after Thanksgiving, only the second time in our 37-year history that that's happened," Blue Mountain's Barbara Green said.
"So it could be a long year. Our average is about 100 days. I think we are going to approach 130 days."
Camelback will have enough snow to last well into March.
"This winter weather will stay for the next few weeks, according to our weather forecasts. That will extend the season. Last year people were playing golf in March," Czarnecki said.
Snowfalls in the metro areas of New York and Philadelphia, where many Pocono skiers travel from, has helped.
So did the Olympics. Tust said the success of U.S. skiers and snow boarders energized fans to hit the slopes.
"Colder than normal temperatures in December and particularly January allowed for excellent snowmaking at Shawnee Ski Resort, and along with all the natural snowstorms, skiing conditions have been consistently outstanding," Tust said.
The mountain's snow base is its deepest in years.
This year's snowfalls affect more than just this season, according to Czarnecki.
The weather from one season carries over to the business of the next.
"Winter happens once a year, and you need a positive winter to instill a belief in winter again," he said.
"When you have a bad winter, that memory lasts into the following winter. If someone purchases a season pass and there's a bad year, they kind of lose faith in the following year."


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Ole Miss is bowl eligible for the second straight year under head coach Hugh Freeze after a 34-24 win over Arkansas this past Saturday. The Rebels are also 6-3 for the first time since 2009, when the started 8-3 before finishing with a 9-4 record. As excited as they are about being bowl eligible and the 6-3 start, the coaches and players are not satisfied.
"I like that the expectation level has risen," offensive line coach Matt Luke said. "They're not just satisfied with getting six wins but trying to build this program to where we all want it to be.
"It's a sense of accomplishment," sophomore offensive lineman Justin Bell said. "It shows that we're better than we were last year. We're not where we want to be but we're far from where we used to be."
Ole Miss continues with its fifth of six straight home games, as the Rebels (6-3, 3-3 SEC) step out of Southeastern Conference play on Saturday for its first ever meeting with the Troy Trojans (5-5, 3-3 Sun Belt).
"I don't think it a challenge of focus," Luke said. "We have to focus on us and getting better. That's the main thing. We want to finish going up, and to do that, each game has to be improvement. And there are certainly a lot of areas of improvement from the Arkansas game, and that's a good thing. Our goal is to focus on us, get better and finish these three games playing our best football."
"Our mindset is so much on nine wins that we know we have to be prepared to play and reach that goal," junior quarterback Bo Wallace said.
Wallace, Passing Game In Focus
After a stat correction from Saturday's game against Arkansas, Wallace is now credited with a career-best 416 passing yards and 428 total yards, which both rank No. 2 in school history, to go along with three touchdowns. He also ranks top 25 nationally in total offense (283.2 ypg) and passing (264.8 ypg).
He moved into fifth place in school history in career total offense yards (5,942), passing Jevan Snead and Archie Manning this past Saturday, and sixth place in career passing yards (5,386), fourth in passing touchdowns (36) and second in 300-yard passing games (7).
"It was a goal of mine to do that," said Wallace, of his place in the record books. "It's surprised some people that it's happened so early, but I'm a confident. I think I'm the best when I walk out there, whether I am or not.
"I just got to keep improving. There are so many things I can still get better at. Last offseason, I didn't really get a chance to get better physically. This year, I'm really excited about the offseason to do that."
Led by Wallace, the Rebels finished with a season-high 428 passing yards and eclipsed 500 yards for the third straight game and the fourth time this year. They had two receivers with over 100 receiving yards for the first time since 2003.
Ole Miss has four receivers with over 200 receiving yards for the year, not including freshman tight end Evan Engram who is out for the year with an ankle injury.
"We're really fortunate to have all of those guys," Luke said. "Coach Heard does a great job. Those guys play hard and are very unselfish. There are times e have asked them to block on the perimeter, and they have done that. It's good to see those guys step up and make plays."
Freshman wide receiver Laquon Treadwell has a team-high 49 catches for 424 yards and three touchdown, followed by junior wide receiver Donte Moncrief with 41 catches for a team-high 647 yards and team-high five touchdowns.
Senior Ja-Mes Logan has 35 catches for 496 yards and three touchdown, and junior wide receiver Vince Sanders has 10 catches for 204 yards and a touchdown, to go along with a team-leading 20.4 yards per catch.
"I'm not looking at who I'm throwing to," Wallace said. "We have great receivers everywhere. When I make a read, I don't care who it is."
"As receivers, we feel like we're the group of this team that gets everybody going," Sanders said. "When we make a play, the offense flows. When don't make plays, the offense struggles. As a group, we feel like the group goes through us."
Treadwell Among Nation's Best, Tunsil Honored
Treadwell, who caught a game-high passes for 39 yards and a touchdown against Arkansas, now has a team-high 49 catches for 424 yards. His 5.4 catches per game leads SEC freshmen and ranks third among freshmen nationally. It also ranks fifth in the SEC and 56th nationally.
"You look at him and he looks like an NFL receiver right now," Wallace said. "He's done a great job. He can get so much better. He probably has the best hands on the team, him and Donte, probably. He'll work on his route-running and mature. His body will get better. You guys are going to have a lot of fun watching him."
Another freshman, Laremy Tunsil, was honored as SEC offensive lineman of the week, as he helped Ole Miss to the second-most passing yards in school history and the third straight game of 500-plus total offense yards.
Tunsil has played in every game and started six at left tackle, and he is one of two true freshmen in the nation to be his team's full-time starting left tackle.
"Not when he's a five-star who comes in, looks the way does and works the way he does," said Wallace, of a lack of trust with a freshman left tackle. "I trust him as much as everyone else up there."
"The proof is in the pudding," Bell said. "You see his footwork. He's a natural-born athlete. I was amazing especially comparing my freshman year to how he is now. It's great and it only gets better from here. He does everything pretty well. There's always room for improvement. He does everything pretty well. He hits his landmark, shoots his hands, and most importantly, he keeps his feet moving."
Bowl Projections For Now Bowl-Eligible Rebels
After Saturday's game against Troy (11 a.m., ESPNU), Ole Miss plays its sixth of six straight games at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium and finishes the seven-game home slate with with a primetime showdown against No. 9 Missouri on Nov. 23 (6:45 p.m., ESPN). The Rebels wrap up the regular season on Thanksgiving night against intrastate rival Mississippi State (6:30 p.m., ESPN).
In this week's bowl projections, ESPN.com's Mark Schlabach and Brad Edwards and CBSSports.com's Jerry Palm all have the Rebels in the Music City Bowl, while SI.com's Stewart Mandel has them in the Gator Bowl.


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Most Popular Gift Registry Site: CheckedTwice
If you're building a registry for a wedding, a shower, a graduation, or just holiday shopping, you have tons of choices. Last week we asked you for your favorites, then rounded up the five best gift registry sites and put them to a vote. Now it's time to crown our winner.


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Notre aide en situation de crise
Nous venons en aide aux personnes touchées par des catastrophes et conflits. A tout moment, nos équipes interviennent sur près de 30 opérations d'urgences à travers le monde.
Jump to navigation
Syrian and Jordanian runners were today (Friday) due to run 10 kilometers as part of the Samsung Amman International Marathon and to highlight their solidarity with the hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria.
Around 300 people joined ARDD–Legal Aid's and Oxfam's call to run as part of the campaign for human dignity of the 500,000 Syrian refugees living in Jordan. The runners, including ARDD and Oxfam staff, carried the slogan: "Refugees are our guests, their dignity is our dignity."
"I am running side by side with Syrian refugees today because I want them to feel welcome in our home," said Mahmoud Shabeeb, one of the runners and ARDD staff member. "I want everyone to think of them as dignified human beings. Syrians are going through a humanitarian tragedy right now and solidarity with them is what makes us truly human."
A quarter of Syrian refugees in Jordan live in Zaatari Camp in Mafraq while the rest are scattered in host communities.
"I'm happy to be running today next to Jordanians and I'm here to stand with our hosts and express my appreciation for their generosity," said Aisha, a 34-year-old Syrian who fled from Hama with her husband and four children more than a year ago. "The moment I learnt about this initiative I made dozens of calls to other Syrians and Jordanians I know here to do this together."
Aisha is one of several Syrian women who were trained through ARDD's Oxfam-funded Voice Project as citizen journalists, raising other refugees' concerns and giving them a voice on social media.
"I'm running today to support the dignity of Syrian refugees who should not continue to pay for the unfortunate events in their country," said Rana Habahbeh, a young Jordanian woman running in the 10k race.
ARDD-Legal Aid is the organizer of this campaign. In cooperation with international agency, Oxfam, the organization implements "Voice": a two-year project that highlights the right of Syrians to live a life with human dignity free from fear and want. It also advocates for the international community's intervention to help host countries like Jordan.
Besides the solidarity message with Syrians, runners also joined ARDD's "Women's Access to Justice" advocacy campaign, which is also funded by Oxfam.
"We are running for two important causes, relevant to people living in Jordan. Women's access to justice is the most fundamental right for all women in the region and specifically in Jordan," said the Director of ARDD- Legal Aid Samar Muhareb. "But we can't stay silent in the face of the Syrians' humanitarian tragedy."
Oxfam's Program Manager, in Jordan, Syma Jamil said: "Our local and international staff members are taking part in this marathon to show support and raise awareness on the needs of refugees and Jordanians. Oxfam has reached out to more than 100,000 people in Jordan, including poor Jordanians in vulnerable communities, through water and sanitation projects and cash to meet basic needs. Raising awareness, giving a voice to these people is also an essential part of our work to ensure they lead dignified lives."
ARDD-Legal Aid is a Jordanian human rights organization dedicated to helping Jordanian and non-Jordanian vulnerable communities, while Oxfam is an international humanitarian organization currently working in Jordan to extend humanitarian relief to Syrian refugees as well as vulnerable Jordanians.
Oxfam and ARDD's media officers can provide more quotes, interviews, photos and video clips from today's events.
People can support the runners at http://www.justgiving.com/AmmanMarathonforSyria.
For more information call:
Hana' Riyad | 077 8400 547 | firstname.lastname@example.com
Karl Schembri | 079 0625 217 | email@example.com
Or visit: http://voicemiddleeast.wordpress.com/about/ or http://ardd-jo.org/Projects?ID=1


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Canine pyometra: Early recognition and diagnosis
In this article, we review the pathophysiology, signalment, clinical signs, and diagnosis of canine pyometra. And in the next article, we summarize the surgical and medical management options available for treating this condition.
PATHOGENESISThe physiologic changes responsible for predisposing a uterus to pyometra are not completely understood. The vagina is not a sterile environment. Many bacteria types have been cultured from the normal vaginal vault, including Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus, Streptococcus, Klebsiella, Pasteurella, Pseudomonas, and Proteus species.1-3 These same bacteria are commonly cultured from the uteri of patients with pyometra,4-10 which suggests that bacteria ascending from the dog's vaginal vault are the likely source of uterine infection in most patients developing pyometra.11 In a study of 10 dogs with pyometra, the bacteria isolated from the uterus were genetically similar to those found in the patients' gastrointestinal tracts, demonstrating that bacteria within a patient's own body—and not exogenous bacteria—are responsible for infection. Primary urinary tract infections and the hematogenous spread of bacteria from nongenitourinary sites have been suggested to be less frequent sources of infection than ascending infections from the vagina.11,12
However, bacterial contamination of the uterus does not appear to be solely responsible for the development of pyometra. Vaginal bacteria will normally cross the cervix into the uterus when the cervix is open (proestrus and estrus), yet pyometra does not routinely develop.2 Other uterine factors are thought to predispose the uterus to progressive infection.
Studies performed in the 1950s suggested that cystic endometrial hyperplasia is a prerequisite for the development of pyometra in a bitch.6,13 Cystic endometrial hyperplasia develops in most intact female dogs as they age. It is caused by chronic recurrent exposure of the endometrial lining to progesterone produced by the corpus luteum during diestrus. Binding to uterine receptors, progesterone induces endometrial gland proliferation, stimulates endometrial gland secretions, decreases myometrial contractility, and induces closure of the cervix.7 Progesterone has also been shown to interfere with immune function within the uterus, possibly increasing its susceptibility to bacterial infection.14,15 Progesterone's effect on the endometrium is cumulative from reproductive cycle to reproductive cycle.16
The studies suggested that accumulating uterine secretions, prominent endometrial gland crypts, and immunosuppression caused by progesterone stimulation during diestrus make the uterus an ideal environment for bacterial proliferation leading to pyometra.6 This condition has been subsequently termed cystic endometrial hyperplasia-pyometra complex.6,17
Not all dogs with pyometra have cystic endometrial hyperplasia. Other factors can play a role in the development of pyometra. Studies have demonstrated that irritants within the uterus, such as foreign material that has passed through the cervix or even a subclinical bacterial infection, may induce endometrial inflammation and hyperplasia.10,18 These endometrial changes contribute to a favorable environment for bacterial colonization or proliferation, leading to pyometra. The propensity of some pathogenic bacteria, such as E. coli, to attach to the endometrium may explain why some bitches without cystic endometrial hyperplasia develop pyometra.17 Exogenous hormones can also prime the uterus for infection. Pyometra has been noted to occur after the exogenous administration of estrogen used to inhibit pregnancy after a mismating.19-22 Exogenous estrogen enhances the uterus's sensitivity to endogenous progesterone.22
The sequence of pathophysiologic events leading to pyometra varies among bitches and continues to be studied. A consistent factor in the development of pyometra is the presence of a progesterone-primed uterus.


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Cougar Evolution Chassis Review
The COUGAR brand was originally founded in 2007 by a group of computer enthusiasts and professionals in Germany. Feeling that too many computers had the same square boxes over the years, they wanted a way to provide enthusiasts and gamers with more stylish product concepts and higher quality manufacturing. Today, COUGAR has become a global brand manufacturer, delivering high-performance and high-quality components to the PC market.
Personally, I can't say I've heard much about COUGAR before, hence why I thought I'd share a quick little bio about them with you. They seem to have quite few different components to offer up, ranging from a variety of PSUs, to fans, and some different looking cases. One thing to note, though, orange definitely seems to be their color. From their website to their fans, COUGAR decks out everything in orange and black; they might as well be called Tiger for their color scheme. Anyhow, that's enough of an intro to COUGAR; today, we'll be taking a look at one of their most recent creations, the Evolution – an enthusiastic full tower chassis. Let's dive right into this one and take a closer look – less talk, more pictures!
Closer Look:
Okay, so I'm not starting out with the most exciting pictures, and I know many of you will skip right on to the next page without even having read this line, but the box often says a lot about the product. Sometimes, companies clearly spend too much on the box and not on the product; other times, there is a simple box and an excellent product. Sometimes, there's no correlation at all. Nonetheless, you're getting the box pictures whether you want them or not.
This box is one of my favorite types; simple, plain, and just brown cardboard with black print. It has nice hand holes to pick up and carry into the house – something a lot of case boxes still don't have for whatever reason. The front of the box has an inverse drawing of the case itself, along with a large COUGAR logo and "Evolution" written out twice. A nice UPS packing slip covers up the box a little, but having to destroy the box when removing it, you'll need to use your imagination to "see" the black color beneath.
The back of the box presents a little information about the features of the chassis. There are nice HDD trays compatible with 3.5" and 2.5" drives, support for long (12") video cards, and an integrated fan speed controller. We also see here – for the first time – the reference to the case as a "midi" tower, which makes it sound smaller than it ought to be. Regardless of this name, it is still officially classified as a full tower chassis. The left and right sides of the box are about identical; you'll find here another large shipping label on one side and a color denotation panel on the other. The case only comes in black, so I'm not so sure it's 100% necessary to have the color panel, but perhaps they will plan to market an orange version in the future. Either way, that's the box; don't feel so overwhelmed.
Cutting open the top of the box, you will find your usual foam caps and cloth chassis-protecting bag inside; not really too much to say about that. I do find this to be the most exciting part of getting any new hardware though; opening it up. Pulling it out of the box and setting the case down, I find the case enclosed in a great packing job and in one piece; just as it should.


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6:00 pm
Outdoor Idaho "Adventure Racing" The Funtastics Adventure Racing Team of Coeur d'Alene joins fellow adrenaline-seekers who take part in Adventure Sports Week at Farragut State Park. The two-day competition offers 63 miles of biking, 22 miles of running, 19 miles of kayaking, and a swim across a bay on Lake Pend Oreille.G
6:30 pm
Dialogue "Philip Gourevitch: Conversations from the Sun Valley Writers' Conference" The New Yorker staff writer and editor of The Paris Review talks with host Marcia Franklin. Gourevitch is the author of I Regret to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, an investigation of the 1994 Rwandan massacre. He also wrote The Ballad of Abu Ghraib about some of the military police who worked in that prison during its scandal over inmate torture.G
7:00 pm
PBS NewsHour NULL
8:00 pm
Nightly Business Report Tonight on Nightly Business Report, housing prices have risen the most since the bubble burst. What lies ahead? NBR will ask Robert Shiller, co-founder of the Case-Shiller index, which tracks home prices nationwide. And, a look at why, now more than ever, there's a big push to teach kids in school about money and finance. D
8:30 pm
Journal NULL
9:00 pm
Charlie Rose NULL
10:00 pm
Global Voices "Land Rush" How do you feed the world? 75% of Mali's population are farmers, but rich, land-hungry nations like China and Saudi Arabia are leasing Mali's land in order to turn large areas into agribusiness farms. Many Malian peasants do not welcome these efforts, seeing them as yet another manifestation of imperialism. As Mali experiences a military coup, the developers are scared off ? but can Mali's farmers combat food shortages and escape poverty on their own terms?. D
11:00 pm
Nature "The Loneliest Animals" Scientists work feverishly to breed some of the world's most endangered species in high-security high-tech labs and investigate what forces have led to the demise of entire species. Featured animals include Yangtze turtles, a baby Sumatran rhino, a special collection of lemurs, the Spix's macaw, and a giant tortoise from the Galapagos, the last known specimen of his kind.G


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Hooray, huzzah and atta boy to Danny Boyle for the Olympics Opening Ceremony last week.
It's been funny to read the online comments afterward. I wondered if some of the critics saw the same broadcast I did.
Sure, there were some confounding moments--as there always are with Olympics ceremonies. While I didn't think Kenneth Branagh was portraying Abraham Lincoln, I must confess that 19th century British engineer extraordinaire Isambard Kingdom Brunel did not spring to mind. And he still doesn't.
And though I have loved Paul McCartney for lo these many years, I thought the pace of "Hey Jude" was simply too slow and the calls for "just the boys" and "just the girls" to sing concert clichés, especially in light of the stunning originality of everything that came before.
But these are small quibbles in light of the amazing spectacle that Mr. Boyle and crew presented: an astonishing mix of high and pop culture, old-fashioned theater and new-fangled special effects, and, notably, a point of view. A prime example: The dreamy scenes of nursemaids putting children to sleep were a salute both to British children's literature and to the national health-care system. You may approve of these institutions and you may not, but you know where Boyle stands.
This year's opening ceremony hit the perfect balance. It reached out to enchant a worldwide audience while showing a keen appreciation for the culture and even the quirks of the host land. Well done.


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Regency Kobe Flip Top with Modesty Panel 60" x 30" Metal and Wood Training Table, Grey (MKFTM6030GY)
Item #: 901-2275929REG
Model #: 61941
Brand: Regency
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$419.99 Each
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Set up a meeting room in a flash with Kobe Flip Top Tables. Unlock the quick-release lever and flip down the entire tabletop to nest together when not in use. Perfect for rooms with variable class size, the Flip Top tables save set up time and storage space. A stylish perforated black modesty panel provides kneespace privacy in open learning environments. Locking casters make these tables mobile and are ideal for computer labs, training rooms, classrooms and more.
- Thermal fused melamine Grey laminate tabletop is scratch, stain and burn resistant
- Seats two people
- 29"H x 60"W x 30"D
- Unlock the quick-release lever and flip down the entire tabletop to nest together when not in use, saving set up time and storage space
- A perforated black modesty panel provides knee space privacy in open learning environments
- Rounded corners make the table safer for everyone
- The base is constructed of black tubular steel with locking casters that make the table mobile
|Furnishing Color : Gray
|Table Shape : Rectangular
|Furnishing Material : Melamine
|True Color : Gray
|Brand : Regency
|Customizable : No
|Weight : 58.00 lbs. per Each