text:
Nearly a year ago, veteran guard Travelle Wharton returned to Carolina, solidifying a Panthers offensive line that failed to live up to expectations in 2012.
After playing at a Pro Bowl level in his 10th season, Wharton has decided to join longtime left tackle Jordan Gross in walking away from the game on a high note.
Wharton will announce his retirement in a press conference at Panthers training camp on Tuesday.
Now 33 years old, Wharton started 111 of 115 games, seeing time at left tackle in addition to guard. Although he spent the 2012 season on the Bengals' injury list, he never suited up for any team other than the Panthers.
Wharton had been deliberating since February, which gave general manager Dave Gettlement a chance to add depth on the interior of his offensive line.
Third-round rookie Trai Turner is expected to jump into the lineup at right guard, while left guard Amini Silatolu returns after missing the majority of the 2013 season due to ACL surgery.
That guard pairing at least has early-round pedigrees, which is more than can be said for the tackles. Nate Chandler is a converted defensive end, and Byron Bell has been a liability on the right side.
Although the revamped wide receiver corps was a national talking point all offseason, the offensive line is a bigger concern leading up to the 2014 season.
The latest "Around The League Podcast" offers up team-by-team training camp previews of the NFC East and NFC West.


text:
QuickBooks Accounting Software for Small Business
Sync Clients and Vendors with your Email Marketing Lists
QuickBooks is the #1 rated accounting software for small business. With a centralized accounting system, you can easily track your income and expenses, import bank records, and be prepared for tax season. With desktop and cloud-based options, QuickBooks is available for your team in or out of the office.
QuickBook's Mad Mimi email marketing integration, built by itDuzzit, syncs details from any new or updated invoice, customer, item, or payment to your Mad Mimi audience. This is a two-way integration, so new sign-ups via Mad Mimi can also sync to your records in QuickBooks.
For more details and a demo, see the integration page on itDuzzit.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Thanks to the generous leadership gifts from Sam Heyman '60 and the estate of the late Joseph Cullman 3rd, we have realized one of the greatest dreams for our men's and women's tennis programs. The new Cullman-Heyman Tennis Center was dedicated Nov. 1, 2008. The new home of Yale Tennis is a fabulous eight-court facility for our current teams and the entire Yale/New Haven tennis community. It also is a wonderful venue to showcase the rich history of tennis at Yale.
The project includes a new building with four new courts with a spectacular viewing area and lobby. The new building attaches to the current four courts in the Cullman facility. Additionally, we renovated the current four-court facility to include team locker rooms, a team room and coaches' offices.
Our coaches, Alex Dorato and Danielle Lund McNamara, are
thrilled this project.
"We have eight courts and one of the best indoor facilities in the Ivy League," they said "We think it's what we need to take the next big step toward becoming a top national program. We will be able to host the top regional events, and we will be able to provide our players with all the practice space that they need. Ultimately, we believe our new facility will help us attract the recruits that we need to become year-in and year-out contenders for the Ivy League title. We're so thankful for the support of the Heyman and Cullman families as well as the Yale Tennis Association."
For more information on this project, please contact Tim Ford at (203) 432-1419 or visit the Yale giving catalog website.
- Nov. 1, 2008: Yale Dedicates Cullman-Heyman Tennis Center
- Photo Galleries Coming Soon


text:
From inside the book
91 pages matching performance in this book
Where's the rest of this book?
Results 1-3 of 91
What people are saying - Write a review
We haven't found any reviews in the usual places.
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
accuracy Allen-Bradley analog analyzer applications cable calibration Circle Company components configuration control system Corp Booth cost data acquisition DeviceNet devices display drive EEPROM electronic enclosure Engineering equipment Fanuc fieldbus flow flowmeter fluid functions graphics hardware Honeywell I&CS Inc Booth input installation Instruments integrated InTouch l&CS Reader Service l&CS-LIT liquid loop manufacturing measurement ment meters Microsoft Model modular modules monitor NVRAM object-oriented object-oriented programming Omron operator interface OPTO 22 output P.O. Box package panel performance personal computer Phoenix Contact Phone pressure process control processor programmable controllers provides range Reader Service Card real-time relay requirements Rosemount SCADA Series signal solutions speed standard switches temperature thermal Thermocouple tion touch screen transducers transmitter unit valve variable VMEbus voltage Windows NT wiring Wonderware


text:
Northern Michigan's Clean Sweep Collection Sites
Northern Michigan News: As an area rich in both agricultural activity and natural resources, the question of the safe disposal of pesticides, mercury and pharmaceuticals is an essential one in Northern Michigan. A solution is found in the Michigan's Clean Sweep Program, which is helping Northern Michigan do some "spring cleaning" at 17 disposal sites. Founded in 1996, the Clean Sweep Program ensures the safe and proper disposal of unwanted, outdates, or unused pesticides, mercury, and pharmaceuticals, preventing possible pollution of Michigan's vast natural resources.
"Clean Sweep is a proven example of how environmental protection can be accomplished through state, federal, local and industry partnerships," said Keith Creagh, Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) Director. "This program continues to lead the way in the proper disposal of pesticides, mercury and pharmaceuticals translating into cleaner and safer farmsteads, households, and communities."
Coordinating with local and federal partners, MDARD has established 17 permanent Clean Sweep sites throughout Michigan. These sites safely dispose of the harmful materials at no cost to agricultural producers, golf courses, agri-businesses and other individuals.
Clean Sweep has received a Great Lakes Restoration Initiative grant, and over the past 15 years has used this funding to remove nearly 1.9 million pounds of pesticides from circulation. In 2011, 120,014 pounds of pesticides, 10,000 pounds of pharmaceuticals, and 1,500 pounds of mercury were collected through the program.
MDARD, through the Michigan Agriculture Environmental Assurance Program (MAEAP) and supported by pesticide and fertilizer registration fees on specialty and agricultural products, provides funding to local communities to support the disposal of pesticides. Local units of government staff maintain the sites, schedule collections and conduct other activities.
Northern Michigan Collection Sites and Contact:
Traverse City
Kim Elliot Grand Traverse County
Grand Traverse Resource Recovery
Department of 'Recycle Smart'
2650 LaFrancier Road
Traverse City, MI, 49686
231.941.5555 [email protected]
Elisa Seltzer Emmet County
Department of Public Works
200 Division Street, Suit 6-76
Petoskey, MI, 49770
231.348.0660 [email protected]
Rick Aho Marquette County
Marquette County Solid Waste
600 County Road NP
Marquette, MI, 49855
909.249.4109 [email protected]


text:
You don't need us to tell you that strength training is hot. In fact, the growing number of hydraulic and circuit clubs (starting with Curves, which now has the most fitness clubs nationwide) have helped push strength training to the top of America's fitness agenda.
The growth of express-type clubs is positive for all types of clubs when it comes to strength training, says Annette Lang, owner of Annette Lang Education Systems in Brooklyn, NY.
"If only in the sense that every single person who starts exercising at one of these facilities has a great chance of continuing with other types of strength-training principles," Lang says.
The industry, along with some strong scientific research, has finally started to convince the public that lifting weights is a crucial part of overall fitness, health and weight loss.
It's estimated that about 26 million people lifted weights in 2003 — that's about a three percent increase from 2002 (to put it into perspective, about 29 million work out in a club and about 49 million exercise with some form of equipment), according to sports participation research from the National Sporting Goods Association. That's a pretty good chunk of people, but with 282 million people in America, a lot of people still haven't gotten the message or been motivated to tone-up.
Fitness facilities across the country are grabbing a piece of this competitive, strength-training pie by offering circuits, new equipment, discounted rates and special training. Some of these attempts are pulling new members in the door and retaining old ones, but other efforts aren't panning out as well as they could be. Other clubs are discovering rewards in training special populations. The options are endless and the monetary rewards are limitless. The only question is, is your facility doing enough?
New Ideas for Old Tricks
Circuits have become an increasingly popular option for clubs. Besides pleasing time-starved members, this approach also stakes a club's territory against the oh-so popular express workout clubs.
Circuits are particularly popular for new members, says Lang.
"This is done [in hopes of] preventing initial dropout, enhancing retention, which would then contribute to usage and purchases of other services in the facility," she says.
Xpress Zone is 24 Hour Fitness' 30-minute circuit program. Rolled out nationally a little over a year ago, the circuit was developed to break down fitness barriers with a quick workout designed for busier members who have limited time.
"Our test market research showed both members and non-members really liked having access to the new Xpress Zone along with the additional amenities and services we offer," Mark Mastrov, chairman and CEO of 24 Hour Fitness Worldwide, says in a release about the zone. "The results indicated that our members had a real need for this program — and so we delivered with a nationwide roll-out."
Clubs are also enhancing their programs with functional strength training, but gearing it to enhance a person's ability to do everyday things, such as carrying groceries in from the car, going up stairs and picking up children. The training is also being used to enhance sports performance by incorporating multiple muscles and joints into exercises.
While this type of training doesn't require much equipment, functional training is so popular in group personal training and one-on-one training that much of the new equipment being introduced today is geared toward it (light dumbbells, resistance bands, exercise balls and medicine balls). By offering functional training in group and individual personal training sessions, this method of strength training adds to personal training revenue.
Casey Conrad, industry consultant, says functional fitness is a marketable term, although clubs shouldn't expect instant success from a newly launched program.
"Even though it's a sexy term, first of all you have to ask, who is the target member here?" she says. "A lot of clubs don't realize that it may take 12 months of a club running this for it to be successful."
Orange Shoe Gym in Madison, WI, has taken the idea of functional fitness and built an entire club on it. By removing mirrors, headphones and machines, and adding individual attention from certified personal instructors, this club caters to traditional health club phobics.
"It has been very successful," Joshua Martin, owner of Orange Shoe Gym, says. "People are looking for something new and fast. We offer an opportunity to get an excellent workout in one hour and have fun doing it."
While some clubs are focused on offering various forms of strength training, other clubs have instead focused on marketing strength training to different demographics.
Perhaps taking their cue from Curves' success, many clubs are targeting each sex separately. It's common that clubs offer women-only programs and rooms, and with the introduction of clubs such as Cuts Fitness for Men, males have also been specifically targeted.
With more research showing the benefits of lifting weights to those over the age of 55, seniors have been another area of growth in strength training.
However, one of the highest demand areas for strength training is with youth. The Elmwood Fitness Center in New Orleans knows this. Owned by the Ochsner Clinic Foundation, a nonprofit hospital and care facility, Elmwood offers the Y2Kids programs to both its members and nonmembers, many of which are medically referred from the Ochsner Clinic Foundation.
"For the most part we have a lot of obese children in," Michael Heim, Y2Kids manager, says about the weight management program, I Can Do It, a part of the Y2Kids program. "Some other kids have a small pot belly, and parents want to take care of it now."
Wayne Westcott, fitness research director at the South Shore YMCA in Quincy, MA, says that clubs, YMCAs and school systems throughout the country are putting in weight systems designed and fitted for children because research has shown that strength training can be beneficial to curbing a child's problem with obesity.
Conrad warns though that these types of programs take lots of planning and time — something a lot of clubs can't fully devote to just one program.
"Really what happens is that only those clubs with a high level of organization can do this," she says. "[Clubs] may try it once, but because it takes so much work to get the program off, very few clubs have the persistence to do it."
Market It
Persistence may be one key to getting these programs off the ground, but marketing is the other. A club could have the greatest program in the world, but if it isn't marketed properly, no one will know about it — especially with the large number of strength-training options out there.
Clubs often choose a myriad of advertising options — signage, brochures, word of mouth, and what Lang calls the "buzz" created by seeing other members working out in an upbeat environment. However, not all marketing techniques are created equally. Conrad suggests weighing the cost of a marketing plan versus the potential benefit. For example, taking an ad out in the local paper for a functional fitness program may seem like a good idea at first, but the price of the ad may cost more than the revenue generated by the small number of people who respond to it.
"How many people are going to see that advertisement in a day?" she asks. "And those that do probably aren't going to call.The amount of money spent on news advertisements is probably not going to be cost effective. You have to weigh a lot of things."
For this type of situation Conrad recommends looking at more creative options — such as handing out corporate fliers, which are cheaper to produce and may attract a more captive audience.
Karen Woodard, president of Premium Performance Training in Boulder, CO, says that marketing is instrumental in reaching members to become new clients.
"Marketing does not necessarily equate to giving a discount, and clubs should beware of making the mistake of not expanding a program," she warns of facilities that are cautious about donating more staff and resources to their strength-training programs. "I often speak with clubs whose goal it is to have trainers keep clients. Initially, this may sound good as it relates to client retention. However, if the program is to grow, it is through increased clients, programs and prices."
To do this, internal marketing is essential, and Woodard suggests that just as your membership department has a monthly referral promotion, the personal training department also needs a monthly referral promotion to bring in new strength-training clients.
She also cautions that most facilities are not running as profit-friendly as they could — and should — be when it comes to personal training, one of the most profitable and common strength-training programs of all.
"From a management perspective, clubs generally do not operate their personal training department as profitably as they could because they do not operate the department as a service and sales department," Woodard says. "The personal training department should be managed much the same way a professional membership sales department is managed with individual goals assigned to meet the group goal, sales training, sales meetings, tracking, reports and accountability."
When it comes to functional fitness, Lang has also seen some problems.
"The 'functional' strength training areas seem to still be problematic," she says. "Some professionals want to have more open space, but some managers don't want to take the risk and have empty space that is perceived as a waste of space."
These are all legitimate concerns and issues that each facility must address by balancing the pros and cons with a profile of their targeted audience in mind. One thing is for certain though: the rewards of marketing your strength-training programs go much farther than the weight room.
Marketing Methods
Debi Pillarella, 2004 American Council on Exercise fitness director of the year, says that the best thing facilities can do to increase their strength-training profits is to have the best strength-training program in their community.
"Word of mouth continues to be one of the best program promotions around," she says.
However, she suggests these other methods to help get the word out about your strength-training program.
- Advertisements in local media
- Fliers in local businesses
- Bring-in-a-friend deals
- Billboards
- Local press/media releases
- Local airtime on radio/television
- Having a "strength-training expert" at local health fairs, races, etc.
- T-shirts for existing members to wear
- Highlight members who have had success with the program
- Any other creative means to have a presence in the community and create awareness for program offerings


text:
Welcome to DrugStrategies.org, a drug and alcohol addiction treatment Website dedicated to providing the very best resources for fighting substance abuse.
Let us help you find drug treatment centers and addiction rehab programs in your town or city.
Find treatment centers, AA meetings and Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meetings.
At DrugStrategies.org, our mission is to provide the very best in drug and alcohol addiction treatment and rehabilitation information. We are here to help. If you would like to speak with a trained counselor that can offer you the best advice based on your particular situation, please call us today:
It is never too late to start a drug treatment program, alcohol addiction and substance abuse is a life-long battle for most and often requires continued treatment and counseling and recovery plan changes as time goes on. We aim to provide rehab, detox, support and a plan that will help you stay drug free.


text:
stores & more
By The Latch KeeperJune 3rd, 2018
© 2019 The Latch Keeper
Reorder photo setExposure will layout your photos using an algorithm that is based on how much space is available on the screen. To change the order of your photos, drag and drop the thumbnails below. Changes will be saved instantly.


text:
The book "After the Genome: A Language for Our Biotechnical Future," co-edited by Dr. James Herrick of the Hope College communication faculty, has been named the Edited Book of the Year by the Communication Ethics Division of the National Communication Association (NCA).
The award will be presented on Saturday, Nov. 23, during the NCA's national convention, being held in Washington, D.C., on Thursday-Sunday, Nov. 21-24.
Herrick, who is the Guy Vander Jagt Professor of Communication at Hope, edited the book with Dr. Michael Hyde of Wake Forest University. It was published in April in the "Studies in Rhetoric and Religion" series of Baylor University Press.
"After the Genome: A Language for Our Biotechnological Future" emphasizes the role of language in discussing biotechnological advances and how terminology itself shapes how such developments are perceived, and is a collection of a dozen essays by scholars from a variety of disciplines, including ethics, rhetoric, religion and science. Two-and-a-half years in the making, it was released in conjunction with a national conference on the same theme that was co-chaired by Herrick and Hyde and held at Wake Forest on Friday-Saturday, April 12-13.
The division praised the book for its interdisciplinary approach to advancing understanding about bioethics and its relationship to communication. In its notification of the award, the division noted, "Given the combination of disciplines and the excellence of the scholarship included in the volume, we believe this book may become a go-to collection for students and scholars exploring the important challenges of bioethics."
Herrick has been a member of the Hope faculty since 1984. His other books include "The History and Theory of Rhetoric," fifth edition (Prentice Hall, 2012), "Scientific Mythologies: How Science and Science Fiction Forge New Religious Beliefs" (InterVarsity Press, 2008), "The Making of the New Spirituality: The Eclipse of the Western Religious Tradition" (IVP Books, 2004) and "The Radical Rhetoric of the English Deists" (University of South Carolina Press, 1997). "The Making of the New Spirituality" was named a 2004 "Gold Medallion Book Award Finalist" by the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association and was cited as one of "Ten Books Every Preacher Should Read" in "Preaching" magazine's 2004 survey of the year's best books for preachers.
He has also had numerous articles appear in scholarly and popular publications in addition to presenting several papers at professional conventions, and wrote entries for both the "New Dictionary of National Biography" and "The International Encyclopedia of Censorship."
Herrick is an active member of the NCA. His extensive professional involvement includes having served as a founding member of the editorial boards of three professional journals: "Review of Communication," which is the electronic journal of the NCA; the Baylor University Pres Rhetoric and Religion Series; and the "American Communication Journal."
He is a past recipient of research awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. He was recognized for excellence in teaching by the Graduate School of the University of Wisconsin. He received the Ruth and John Reed Faculty Achievement Award from Hope in January 2007, and a faculty appreciation award from Hope students during the college's 2007 Homecoming celebration.
Herrick holds his bachelor's degree from California State University. He received his M.A. from the University of California, and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.


text:
Discover Author
Debra Ullrick Books & Biography
Debra is a multi-published, award-winning author. The Unexpected Bride is her first novel with the Love Inspired Historical line. Her second, The Unlikely Wife, is the sequel to The Unexpected Bride and is scheduled for release in January 2012. For years, Debra has lived on a working cattle ranch in the Colorado Rocky Mountains with her husband of thirty-seven years and her daughter, which brings authenticity to her books that are set in the country and in the historical West. Besides following Christ, her passions include: reading, writing, drawing Western art, feeding wild birds, animals, and watching Jane Austen movies, COPS, Little People, Big World, and Castle. She is also a ginormous fan of classic muscle cars, mud-bog racing and monster trucks. Debra loves to hear from her readers. You can find her online at: Facebook, Twitter and Shoutlife. Or you can contact her through her website at www.debraullrick.com. While there, check out Debra's other available titles.


text:
By Nonjatta contributor - Dramtastic:
Nikka has two new single cask releases currently available from their Asahi online store here.
They are: Nikka Single Cask Coffey Grain 2000 12YO 55% #231278 and Miyagikyo Single Cask 1996 16YO 750ml 60% #118913. Price for the Coffey Grain is Y7,350 and the Miyagikyo Y10,500.
The Asahi online store only ships domestically, but these single cask Nikka's do have a habit of finding their way eventually to Europe through stores such as The Bonding Dram and Le Maison Du Whisky. Le Maison also has a sister store in Singapore where I have seen similar. The usual dodgy google translation for Nikka's own tasting notes appear on the Asahi shop website. Enough though to give a reasonable idea of what they believe you can expect.


text:
Posts Tagged 'Natural appetite'
Humans vs. Carnivores
The following is an incomplete list of the major differences between humans and carnivorous creatures. Walking: We have two hands and two feet, and we walk erect. All of the carnivores have four feet and perform their locomotion using all fours. Tails: Carnivores have tails. Tongues: Only the truly carnivorous animals have rasping (rough) tongues.…Click Here To View The Video


text:
Saturday, Reese Havens, who had missed eight days with a stiff back, returned to the lineup, playing second and hitting second. Havens was 0-for-3 with a walk and three strikeouts. The 25-year old is hitting .232/.365/.370 with 100 strikeouts against 57 walks in 85 games in his third go-round in the Eastern League. He needs to play in 12 of the B-Mets last 16 games, to match his career-high of 97 games set back in 2009 in a season. His season started late while he recovered from injury, and he's missed time during the season with back-stiffness. For the year, he's struck out at a 27% clip. Even while hitting for a little better average (.265/.385/.426) since June 1 he's fanned in 29% of his plate appearances.
Havens, one of three Mets' first round picks in 2008, might still play in the big leagues. However, the chances of him becoming an impact guy, that is league average or better over any significant stretch of time, has dropped to nearly nil.
Cory Mazzoni on Saturday: 7 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 0 BB, 7 K, 1 HR. I like that he struck out a batter an inning, but overall, he's fanned just 43 in 67 innings as a starter in AA, that's 5.8 K/9. He's thrown strikes, as his walk rate of 2.4 BB/9 is very nice, but he's given up just too many balls in play. He mostly works around 90-91, but can reach back to 94 or 96 suggesting that his stuff would play up in a significant way out of the bullpen where he does not have to pace himself.


text:
Truth lies behind every fear. To find it we must unmask the fear.
At some point along the journey we begin to understand that meditation is teaching us the most important of all lessons: how to love and be loved. We learn this lesson not intellectually but with the incarnate reality of our life…learning it establishes a bond between us and the world we live in.
Whatever benefits may accrue to us through our meditation, they are not there merely for us to possess. They become the common benefit of all, because there is less and less of an ego to possess the peace, joy and liberty that meditation brings.
We learn fairly soon after we begin to meditate that we do not meditate for our own selves or for our own private peacefulness alone. We learn that to the degree that we leave self behind is the degree to which the peace of Christ is made available to the world through us.
We know that we have to leave self behind and that we cannot leave self behind until we have found and entered our own solitude… We must understand clearly what that means.
We can meditate alone but we can never meditate in isolation. We cannot find our self or come to self-knowledge in isolation. If we try to, we will only persist in re-finding our ego.
God is the Other, the reality of Reality. He is our real-ness. The depth of our own encounter with another is the degree to which we are changed. We are changed, however, into our real self.
When we meditate we learn to leave all images of our self behind because the images are strangers to our real self. They are like inaccurate labels. Our labeling self-analysis, which we think to be so clever, isolates us from the knowledge of the real self and from the redemptive encounter with reality. We imprison our self in self-consciousness.
We have only to understand that we have been liberated and that perfect liberty is achieved in the depth of our spirit in the liberty of Christ, the liberty of his pure love. We can turn to that reality if only we can learn to be simple, to accept the freely given gift and to be faithful to the gift.
If we learn to say the mantra it teaches us how to love, and it will teach us how to expand beyond all images of our self into the reality of our self as one with the reality of Christ. It will teach us to be our self and to know the joy of being in communion.
Fr. Laurence Freeman, OSB
We invite you to reflect on the above excerpt from Light Within as it resonates with the spiritual principles of the 12 steps of recovery and in particular Step 11
It is being constantly revealed, as mankind studies the material world, that outward appearances are not inward reality at all. BB p.48, We Agnostics
We found the Great Reality deep down within us. BB p.55, We Agnostics
What he has received is a free gift, and yet usually, at least in some small part, he has made himself ready to receive it. 12&12 p.107, Step Twelve
It is the great paradox of A.A. that we know we can seldom keep the precious gift of sobriety unless we give it away. 12&12 p.151, Tradition Five
He has been granted a gift which amounts to a new state of consciousness and being. 12&12 p.107, Step Twelve
Practically every A.A. member declares that no satisfaction has been deeper and no joy greater than in a Twelfth Step job well done. 12&12 p.110, Step Twelve
Unlike the feelings of the ship's passengers, however, our joy in escape from disaster does not subside as we go our individual ways. BB p.17, There Is A
If newcomers could see no joy or fun in our existence, they wouldn't want it. BB p.132, The Family Afterward


text:
Lauraceae Cinnamomum
Lauraceae Cinnamomum
This is one of the images from my image from my Botanical series. Looking through the glass of a greenhouse built in 1913. They are a modern photographic take on classical botanical illustrations produced between the 18th century and early 20th century and evoke impressionist paintings.
Limited edition fine art print (edition of 20)
Signed and numbered on the back
Pigment print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Satin 310gsm paper
It's a 100% cotton matte paper with a subtle eggshell surface
Delivery time from the day of order is up-to-four weeks.
Worldwide shipping with tracking number is provided.
More informations about prints are available on this page.
Available sizes
12x18" (30x45cm) with a 0.4" (1cm) white margin
20x27.5" (50x70cm) with a 2" (5cm) white margin
31.5x43.7" (80x111cm) with a 3.5" (9cm) white margin


text:
Phillip is the author of the open-source Python libraries PEAK and PyProtocols, and has contributed fixes and enhancements to the Python interpreter. He is the author of the Python Web Server Gateway Interface specification (PEP 333). He can be contacted at [email protected]
As software environments become more complex and programs get larger, it becomes more and more necessary to find ways to reduce code duplication and scattering of knowledge. While simple code duplication is easy to factor out into functions or methods, more complex code duplication is not. For example, if a method needs to be wrapped in a transaction, synchronized in a lock, or have its calls transmitted to a remote object, there often is no simple way to factor out a function or method to be called, because the part of the behavior that varies needs to be wrapped inside the common behavior.
A second and related problem is scattering of knowledge. Sometimes a framework needs to be able to locate all of a program's functions or methods that have a particular characteristic, such as "all of the remote methods accessible to users with authorization X." The typical solution is to put this information in external configuration files, but then you run the risk of configuration being out of sync with the code. For example, you might add a new method, but forget to also add it to the configuration file. And of course, you'll be doing a lot more typing, because you'll have to put the method names in the configuration file, and any renaming you do requires editing two files.
So no matter how you slice it, duplication is a bad thing for both developer productivity and software reliabilitywhich is why Python 2.4's new "decorator" feature lets you address both kinds of duplication. Decorators are Python objects that can register, annotate, and/or wrap a Python function or method.
For example, the Python atexit module contains a register function that registers a callback to be invoked when a Python program is exited. Without the new decorator feature, a program that uses this function looks something like Listing One(a).
When Listing One(a) is run, it prints "Goodbye, world!" because when it exits, the goodbye() function is invoked. Now look at the decorator version in Listing One(b), which does exactly the same thing, but uses decorator syntax insteadan @ sign and expression on the line before the function definition.
This new syntax lets the registration be placed before the function definition, which accomplishes two things. First, you are made aware that the function is an atexit function before you read the function body, giving you a better context for understanding the function. With such a short function, it hardly makes a difference, but for longer functions or methods, it can be very helpful to know in advance what you're looking at. Second, the function name is not repeated. The first program refers to goodbye twice, so there is more duplicationprecisely the thing we're trying to avoid.
Why Decorate?
The original motivation for adding decorator syntax was to allow class methods and static methods to be obvious to someone reading a program. Python 2.2 introduced the classmethod and staticmethod built-ins, which were used as in Listing Two(a). Listing Two(b) shows the same code using decorator syntax, which avoids the unnecessary repetitions of the method name, and gives you a heads-up that a classmethod is being defined.
While this could have been handled by creating a syntax specifically for class or static methods, one of Python's primary design principles is that: "Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules." That is, the language should avoid having privileged features that you can't reuse for other purposes. Since class methods and static methods in Python are just objects that wrap a function, it would not make sense to create special syntax for just two kinds of wrapping. Instead, a syntax was created to allow arbitrary wrapping, annotation, or registration of functions at the point where they're defined.
Many syntaxes for this feature were discussed, but in the end, a syntax resembling Java 1.5 annotations was chosen. Decorators, however, are considerably more flexible than Java's annotations, as they are executed at runtime and can have arbitrary behavior, while Java annotations are limited to only providing metadata about a particular class or method.
Creating Decorators
Decorators may appear before any function definition, whether that definition is part of a module, a class, or even contained in another function definition. You can even stack multiple decorators on the same function definition, one per line.
But before you can do that, you first need to have some decorators to stack. A decorator is a callable object (like a function) that accepts one argumentthe function being decorated. The return value of the decorator replaces the original function definition. See the script in Listing Three(a), which produces the output in Listing Three(b), demonstrating that the mydecorator function is called when the function is defined.
For the first example decorator, I had it return the original function object unchanged, but in practice, it's rare that you'll do that (except for registration decorators). More often, you'll either be annotating the function (by adding attributes to it), or wrapping the function with another function, then returning the wrapper. The returned wrapper then replaces the original function. For example, the script in Listing Four prints "Hello, world!" because the does_nothing function is replaced with the return value of stupid_decorator.
Objects as Decorators
As you can see, Python doesn't care what kind of object you return from a decorator, which means that for advanced uses, you can turn functions or methods into specialized objects of your own choosing. For example, if you wanted to trace certain functions' execution, you could use something like Listing Five.
When run, Listing Five prints "entering" and "exiting" messages around the "Hello, world" function. As you can see, a decorator doesn't have to be a function; it can be a class, as long as it can be called with a single argument. (Remember that in Python, calling a class returns a new instance of that class.) Thus, the traced class is a decorator that replaces a function with an instance of the traced class.
So after the hello function definition in Listing Five, hello is no longer a function, but is instead an instance of the traced class that has the old hello function saved in its func attribute.
When that wrapper instance is called (by the hello() statement at the end of the script), Python's class machinery invokes the instance's __call__() method, which then invokes the original function between printing trace messages.
Stacking Decorators
Now that we have an interesting decorator, you can stack it with another decorator to see how decorators can be combined.
The script in Listing Six prints "Called with <class '__main__.SomeClass'>", wrapped in "entering" and "exiting" messages. The ordering of the decorators determines the structure of the result. Thus, someMethod is a classmethod descriptor wrapping a traced instance wrapping the original someMethod function. So, outer decorators are listed before inner decorators.
Therefore, if you are using multiple decorators, you must know what kind of object each decorator expects to receive, and what kind of object it returns, so that you can arrange them in a compatible wrapping order, so that the output of the innermost decorator is compatible with the input of the next-outer decorator.
Usually, most decorators expect a function on input, and return either a function or an attribute descriptor as their output. The Python built-ins classmethod, staticmethod, and property all return attribute descriptors, so their output cannot be passed to a decorator that expects a function. That's why I had to put classmethod first in Listing Four. As an experiment, try reversing the order of @traced and @classmethod in Listing Four, and see if you can guess what will happen.
Functions as Decorators
Because most decorators expect an actual function as their input, some of them may not be compatible with our initial implementation of @traced, which returns an instance of the traced class. Let's rework @traced such that it returns an actual function object, so it'll be compatible with a wider range of decorators.
Listing Seven provides the same functionality as the original traced decorator, but instead of returning a traced object instance, it returns a new function object that wraps the original function. If you've never used Python closures before, you might be a little confused by this function-in-a-function syntax.
Basically, when you define a function inside of another function, any undefined local variables in the inner function will take the value of that variable in the outer function. So here, the value of func in the inner function comes from the value of func in the outer function.
Because the inner function definition is executed each time the outer function is called, Python actually creates a new wrapper function object each time. Such function objects are called "lexical closures," because they enclose a set of variables from the lexical scope where the function was defined.
A closure does not actually duplicate the code of the function, however. It simply encloses a reference to the existing code, and a reference to the free variables from the enclosing function. In this case, that means that the wrapper closure is essentially a pointer to the Python bytecode making up the wrapper function body, and a pointer to the local variables of the traced function during the invocation when the closure was created.
Because a closure is really just a normal Python function object (with some predefined variables), and because most decorators expect to receive a function object, creating a closure is perhaps the most popular way of creating a stackable decorator.
Decorators with Arguments
Many applications of decorators call for parameterization. For example, say you want to create a pair of @require and @ensure decorators so that you can record a method's precondition and postcondition. Python lets us specify arguments with our decorators; see Listing Eight. (Of course, Listing Eight is for illustration only. A full-featured implementation of preconditions and postconditions would need to be a lot more sophisticated than this to deal with things like inheritance of conditions, allowing postconditions to access before/after expressions, and allowing conditions to access function arguments by name instead of by position.)
You'll notice that the require() decorator creates two closures. The first closure creates a decorator function that knows the expr that was supplied to @require(). This means require itself is not really the decorator function here. Instead, require returns the decorator function, here called decorator. This is very different from the previous decorators, and this change is necessary to implement parameterized decorators.
The second closure is the actual wrapper function that evaluates expr whenever the original function is called. Try calling the test() function with different numbers of arguments, and see what happens. Also, try changing the @require line to use a different precondition, or stack multiple @require lines to combine preconditions. You'll also notice that @require(expr="len(__args)==1") still works. Decorator invocations follow the same syntax rules as normal Python function or method calls, so you can use positional arguments, keyword arguments, or both.
Function Attributes
All of the examples so far have been things that can't be done quite so directly with Java annotations. But what if all you really need is to tack some metadata onto a function or method for later use? For this purpose, you may wish to use function attributes in your decorator.
Function attributes, introduced in Python 2.1, let you record arbitrary values as attributes on a function object. For example, suppose you want to track the author of a function or method, using an @author() decorator? You could implement it as in Listing Nine. In this example, you simply set an author_name attribute on the function and return it, rather than creating a wrapper. Then, you can retrieve the attribute at a later time as part of some metadata-gathering operation.
Practicing "Safe Decs"
To keep the examples simple, I've been ignoring "safe decorator" practices. It's easy to create a decorator that will work by itself, but creating a decorator that will work properly when combined with other decorators is a bit more complex. To the extent possible, your decorator should return an actual function object, with the same name and attributes as the original function, so as not to confuse an outer decorator or cancel out the work of an inner decorator.
This means that decorators that simply modify and return the function they were given (like Listings Three and Nine), are already safe. But decorators that return a wrapper function need to do two more things to be safe:
- Set the new function's name to match the old function's name.
- Copy the old function's attributes to the new function.
These can be accomplished by adding just three short lines to our old decorators. (Compare the version of @require in Listing Ten with the original in Listing Eight.)
Before returning the wrapper function, the decorator function in Listing Ten changes the wrapper function's name (by setting its __name__ attribute) to match the original function's name, and sets its __dict__ attribute (the dictionary containing its attributes) to the original function's __dict__, so it will have all the same attributes that the original function did. It also changes the wrapper function's documentation (its __doc__ attribute) to match the original function's documentation. Thus, if you used this new @require() decorator stacked over the @author() decorator, the resulting function would still have an author_name attribute, even though it was a different function object than the original one being decorated.
Putting It All Together
To illustrate, I'll use a few of these techniques to implement a complete, useful decorator that can be combined with other decorators. Specifically, I'll implement an @synchronized decorator (Listing Eleven) that implements Java-like synchronized methods. A given object's synchronized methods can only be invoked by one thread at a time. That is, as long as any synchronized method is executing, any other thread must wait until all the synchronized methods have returned.
To implement this, you need to have a lock that you can acquire whenever the method is executing. Then you can create a wrapping decorator that acquires and releases the lock around the original method call. I'll store this lock in a _sync_lock attribute on the object, automatically creating a new lock if there's no _sync_lock attribute already present.
But what if one synchronized method calls another synchronized method on the same object? Using simple mutual exclusion locks would result in a deadlock in this case, so we'll use a threading.RLock instead. An RLock may be held by only one thread, but it can be recursively acquired and released. Thus, if one synchronized method calls another on the same object, the lock count of the RLock simply increases, then decreases as the methods return. When the lock count reaches zero, other threads can acquire the lock and can, therefore, invoke synchronized methods on the object again.
There are two little tricks being done in Listing Eleven's wrapper code that are worth knowing about. First, the code uses a try/except block to catch an attribute error in the case where the object does not already have a synchronization lock. Since in the common case the lock should exist, this is generally faster than using an if/then test to check whether the lock exists (because the if/then test would have to execute every time, but the AttributeError will occur only once).
Second, when the lock doesn't exist, the code uses the setdefault method of the object's attribute dictionary (its __dict__) to either retrieve an existing value of _sync_lock, or to set a new one if there was no value there before. This is important because it's possible that two threads could simultaneously notice that the object has no lock, and then each would create and successfully acquire its own lock, while ignoring the lock created by the other! This would mean that our synchronization could fail on the first call to a synchronized method of a given object.
Using the atomic setdefault operation, however, guarantees that no matter how many threads simultaneously detect the need for a new lock, they will all receive the same RLock object. That is, one setdefault() operation sets the lock, then all subsequent setdefault() operations receive that lock object. Therefore, all threads end up using the same lock object, and thus only one is able to enter the wrapped method at a time, even if the lock object was just created.
Python decorators are a simple, highly customizable way to wrap functions or methods, annotate them with metadata, or register them with a framework of some kind. But, as a relatively new feature, their full possibilities have not yet been explored, and perhaps the most exciting uses haven't even been invented yet. Just to give you some ideas, here are links to a couple of lists of use cases that were posted to the mailing list for the developers working on the next version of Python: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2004-April/043902.html and http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/ 2004-April/044132.html.
Each message uses different syntax for decorators, based on some C#-like alternatives being discussed at the time. But the actual decorator examples presented should still be usable with the current syntax. And, by the time you read this article, there will likely be many other uses of decorators out there. For example, Thomas Heller has been working on experimental decorator support for the ctypes package (http://ctypes.sourceforge.net/), and I've been working on a complete generic function package using decorators, as part of the PyProtocols system (http://peak.telecommunity.com/ PyProtocols.html).
So, have fun experimenting with decorators! (Just be sure to practice "safe decs," to ensure that your decorators will play nice with others.)
import atexit def goodbye(): print "Goodbye, world!" atexit.register(goodbye)(b)
import atexit @atexit.register def goodbye(): print "Goodbye, world!"Back to article
Listing Two
class Something(object): def someMethod(cls,foo,bar): print "I'm a class method" someMethod = classmethod(someMethod)(b)
class Something(object): @classmethod def someMethod(cls,foo,bar): print "I'm a class method"Back to article
Listing Three
def mydecorator(func): print "decorating", func return func print "before definition" @mydecorator def some_function(): print "I'm never called, so you'll never see this message" print "after definition"(b)
before definition decorating <function some_function at 0x00A933C0> after definitionBack to article
Listing Four
def stupid_decorator(func): return "Hello, world!" @stupid_decorator def does_nothing(): print "I'm never called, so you'll never see this message" print does_nothingBack to article
Listing Five
class traced: def __init__(self,func): self.func = func def __call__(__self,*__args,**__kw): print "entering", __self.func try: return __self.func(*__args,**__kw) finally: print "exiting", __self.func @traced def hello(): print "Hello, world!" hello()Back to article
Listing Six
class SomeClass(object): @classmethod @traced def someMethod(cls): print "Called with class", cls Something.someMethod()Back to article
Listing Seven
def traced(func): def wrapper(*__args,**__kw): print "entering", func try: return func(*__args,**__kw) finally: print "exiting", func return wrapperBack to article
Listing Eight
def require(expr): def decorator(func): def wrapper(*__args,**__kw): assert eval(expr),"Precondition failed" return func(*__args,**__kw) return wrapper return decorator @require("len(__args)==1") def test(*args): print args[0] test("Hello world!")Back to article
Listing Nine
def author(author_name): def decorator(func): func.author_name = author_name return func return decorator @author("Lemony Snicket") def sequenceOf(unfortunate_events): pass print sequenceOf.author_name # prints "Lemony Snicket"Back to article
Listing Ten
def require(expr): def decorator(func): def wrapper(*__args,**__kw): assert eval(expr),"Precondition failed" return func(*__args,**__kw) wrapper.__name__ = func.__name__ wrapper.__dict__ = func.__dict__ wrapper.__doc__ = func.__doc__ return wrapper return decoratorBack to article
Listing Eleven
def synchronized(func): def wrapper(self,*__args,**__kw): try: rlock = self._sync_lock except AttributeError: from threading import RLock rlock = self.__dict__.setdefault('_sync_lock',RLock()) rlock.acquire() try: return func(self,*__args,**__kw) finally: rlock.release() wrapper.__name__ = func.__name__ wrapper.__dict__ = func.__dict__ wrapper.__doc__ = func.__doc__ return wrapper class SomeClass: """Example usage""" @synchronized def doSomething(self,someParam): """This method can only be entered by one thread at a time"""Back to article


text:
Right now, if you use our CasinoEuro affiliate link, REGISTER, and start promoting CasinoEuro, you will receive 65% revenue share from your CasinoEuro new depositing customers.
For every new depositing customer you deliver to CasinoEuro this September you will get a 65% revenue share for the next six months.
Ready to get 65% commission on players for 6 months Click here to register and start promoting CasinoEuro
Terms and conditions:
– All affiliates who deliver new depositing customers (NDCs) in September 2011 will earn a 65% revenue share on those NDCs for the following 6 months (September-February). The final promotion day is 29th February 2012
– The NDCs must register and make their first deposit during September in order to fall under this promotion.
Example: you deliver 2 new registered customers in September to CasinoEuro. One customer deposits money in September but the other deposits in October. In this situation, the affiliate will get a 65% revenue share from the customer who deposited in September but only their usual revenue share from the customer who deposited in October.


text:
There's been a lot of talk lately about public relations. The death of PR, the redefining of PR, and the stress of the profession. PR is getting a lot of negative press. It's time to stop debating the past and take action to regain respect.
"PR has the biggest PR problem of all: people use it as a synonym for BS."
Says Doc Searls (@dsearls),
"It seems only fair to defend the profession, but there is no point to it. Common usage is impossible to correct. And frankly, there is a much smaller market for telling the truth than for shading it. Maybe it is time to do with PR what we do with technology: make something new — something that works as an agent for understanding rather than illusion. Something that satisfies both the emperors and their subjects. God knows we've got the material. Our most important facts don't need packaging, embellishment or artificial elevation. They only need to be made plain. This may not win prizes, but it will win respect."
7 Ways PR can regain respect
1) United We Stand; Divided We Fall
Richard Edelman, president and CEO of Edelman, says,
"Our goal will be to elevate public relations as a management discipline that sits as a full partner alongside finance, operations, legal, marketing and strategic leaders in the C-suite. We need to offer coherent strategy. We must work together or we will fall short."
Integration between all communications, marketing and business channels is key to the success of a brand. Working side by side, strategies should touch on elements of each channel to form a united front. Small start-up or a publicly held corporation, mom & pop business or international celebrity; the road to success is paved with integration. Just do it!
2) Too Little, Too Late
fashionably late doesn't exist in PR! Time is of the essence. Long lead? Forget it. This is a digital world where information moves at the speed of light. This means having the right people in the right place at the right time with the right knowledge and authority to respond. Without it you will be late to the party and doing yourself and your client a disservice. Timing is no longer negotiable. TCB.
3) More Than Words
Content goes far beyond press releases, speeches, and pitches. Today content is audio, video, podcasts, webcasts, email, eBooks, blogs, and social media posts (and that's just the tip of the iceberg). Think about your story in a digital way. Multidimensional content marketing is the way to transform your words into content capable of reaching a larger audience. But, don't expect them to come to you – communicate to them where they are in a language they understand by diversifying your content.
4) A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words
It's time to update traditional writing skills with digital mindsets. Words are more important than ever. SEO and SEM are as important as the story you're telling. All content (pitches, releases, video, photos – everything) should be optimized for search engines. SEO shouldn't take away from the facts, story, or pitch, but it will help get your story in front of the right people.
Make the story visible; make it easy to find. Learn about keywords and SEO. Use this knowledge to enhance your writing and to bring your images to life.
5) Get Real
Richard Edelman calls this "Practicing Radical Transparency." Being authentic starts with strategy, extends to clients, and doesn't stop until it reaches employees, shareholders, media and anyone else listening.
In a speech delivered the Institute for Public Relations (IPR) Edelman said,
"We are the last line of defense for the truth, because our material is increasingly used as primary source data. We also must be scrupulous about policing our own behavior and even what we pass along in social media."
Transparency builds trust. Trust builds relationships. Relationships build respect. Be real, be truthful, be scrupulous – no exceptions.
6) Free Your Mind
Expand imagination. Expand creativity. Expand your strategy. PR is guilty of living in the past; of being chained to traditional rules.
In "The 2015 Digital Marketing Rule Book – Change or Perish" Avinash Kaushik (@avinash) says,
"How good can it possibly feel to do unimaginative things that barely even worked on TV/radio/magazines/catalogs? Whether you are the Marketer/CMO or the Web Analyst/Ninja, it is imperative that we unleash imagination. Why doesn't everyone do that already? I know that this sounds utterly simple but we, people and companies, don't always realize that the "rules" have changed."
The rules have changed. PR has spent the past 100 years arguing with itself about what the rules and definitions are anyway. Public relations professionals are doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Why not free your mind and venture into a world of truly creative and innovative PR?
7) Deadly Sins
Gone are the days when journalists waited by fax machines and office phones for leads on the latest news. They are searching the internet, connecting on social networks, using smartphone apps and getting the latest headlines in realtime. All of this actually makes it a great time to be in PR. According to Amanda Marsh (@AmandaNMarsh) there are "Seven Common PR Sins to Avoid." Her post is a must read and stresses respect.
Marsh writes,
"Respect my inbox, and make both of our jobs easier."
To regain respect, respect others. Brush up on your R-E-S-P-E-C-T and see if some of it doesn't come back your way.


text:
Hackery in a nutshell:
1) Make a false and exaggerated claim as to the amount the Obama campaign expects to raise this election season.
2) When a very healthy quarterly fundraising figure is announced, use the exaggerated claim to try to cast what is actually very good news for President Obama as very bad news for President Obama.
Noah Ashman of Ology.com, hang your head in shame.
Here's his post claiming Obama's campaign raising $68 million last quarter sucks because it means they're way off target to reach their supposed target of $1 billion.
On Wednesday night, the president attended several fundraising events in Chicago, but it will be an uphill battle to get to the much ballyhooed "billion dollar" campaign that the Obama White House had claimed they would mount in 2012. In 2008, then-Sen. Obama raised $745 billion for his election effort.
At this rate, Obama's reelection team would need to raise nearly $200 million per quarter to get to $1 billion by November. When asked about the lackluster total, Obama's campaign manager Jim Messina said that "the billion-dollar number is completely untrue."
Wonder what I was reading that led me to believe that was the Obama teams goal? Once again, the White House reaches for the "who should you believe; me or your lyin' eyes" argument. It must sting when you're underperforming George W. Bush's fundraising pace at this point in his presidency – in the fourth quarter of 2003, Bush had raised $47.5 million for his reelection effort.
If, unlike Rothman, you actually read any of the links he's provided in his post, it would be immediately apparent that nowhere does Obama or a member of the Obama team claim that they're aiming for a target of $1 billion dollars. The only mentions of this mythical figures are: a completely sourceless claim that 'advisers are hoping' to raise it, and this:
"[On Obama raising $1 billion] It's definitely within reach, as he raised three quarters of a billion last time,' said Michael Malbin, executive director of the non-partisan Campaign Finance Institute.
Non-partisan institutions apparently speak for Obama's campaign. Now we know why Gingrich and co want to do away with the CBO.
The truth is, as this ABC report states, the Obama campaign never came up with this $1 billion figure, it's purely an invention of the media and has absolutely no basis in fact. So, yes, Mr Rothman, it appears your eyes are deceiving you. Or you're too lazy to read beyond a headline. Or you're a deliberately dishonest hack.
Also: George Bush raising more in the 4th quarter of 2003 can't have had anything to do with the fact the economy hadn't crashed at that point, leaving people with greatly reduced disposable income, if any income at all. Nah.


text:
Buy this item and earn 100 reward points.
Due to the weight of decks, they do not not qualify for free shipping. There will be a .25 surcharge added to the shipping cost for each deck purchased. International orders with more than 4 decks may require additional shipping cost above this surcharge. You will be emailed if this is the case.


text:
Jail time: Doctor used homeless to clear asbestos
A former doctor who hired homeless men to remove asbestos from two downtown Staunton buildings was fined $225,000 and sentenced to one year in federal prison.
In the Monday, June 16 hearing, David S. Klein, 49, of Coleman, Florida, also was placed on 36 months of supervised release.
"It's a case of greed and exploitation,'' said Nancy Healey, assistant U.S. district attorney.
Klein pleaded guilty last year to unlawful disposal of asbestos and improper removal of asbestos. In a plea agreement, Healey agreed to seek a prison term within the low end of federal sentencing guidelines, which called for Klein to spend anywhere from 12 to 18 months in jail.
Klein was fined $25,000 and a real estate partnership, owned by Klein and his wife, Peggy, was fined an additional $200,000.
From 1996 to 1998, a crew of roughly 10 homeless men headed by Josef Weiss, 50, of Harrisonburg, illegally stripped asbestos from a building and a Masonic Temple.
Bernice Hammer, who used to own a restaurant inside the Masonic Temple, said she once showed up for work at 4:30am and found one of Klein's workers coming from the basement covered in white dust.
Testimony revealed workers did not saturate the asbestos with water, as required, and illegally stored the cancer-causing insulation inside trash bags that were later left on various Staunton streets, in an unauthorized landfill, in restaurant garbage bins and other places– all in violation of federal asbestos-disposal regulations.
Klein once operated the Shenandoah Valley Pain Clinic.
Weiss, already serving five years in prison for sex charges involving a 17-year-old girl, had his sentencing in the asbestos case postponed Monday and rescheduled for 2pm Tuesday– just past the Hook's press deadline. A third man, Danny Lee Spitler, pleaded guilty in August 2001 to conspiracy to operate a renovation project involving the removal of asbestos materials. He was sentenced nine months probation, Healey said.


text:
Hope College junior Angelina Matthews of Amityville, N.Y., has won a scholarship from the Kalamazoo-Muskegon chapter of the National Black Nurses Association (NBNA).
Applicants for the $1,000 awards competed on the basis of essays on why they chose to pursue a career in nursing. Matthews and recipients from other colleges and universities were recognized during the chapter's award banquet on Saturday, May 14, at the Amway Grand Plaza in Grand Rapids.
Matthews is a nursing major at Hope. Her activities at the college have included the Phelps Scholars Program, a residence-hall-based program for students interested in exploring topics related to diversity together. After graduation, she intends to work in nursing for a year and then pursue a master's degree in nursing.
She is the daughter of Melissa Ross of Amityville and Sean Vann of Columbus, Ohio. She is a 2009 graduate of Northland High School in Columbus.
Founded in 1971, the NBNA is a non-profit organization designed to provide a forum for collective action by African American nurses to investigate, define and determine the health care needs of African Americans and to implement change to make available to African Americans and other minorities health care commensurate with that of the larger society. NBNA represents 150,000 African American registered nurses, licensed vocational/practical nurses, nursing students and retired nurses from the United States, Caribbean and Africa, with 80 chartered chapters in 34 states.


text:
I have had a terrible June and then my lovely, very old grandpa died. The funeral is on 11 July and I haven't been able to keep up to date with the blog. As you know, I curate and maintain this blog in my own time, independently, so it has to fit and shift around life's happenings. I also have to keep working as I am freelance and it has taken its toll on my output last month. I think I'm nearly back on track but there are some outstanding things to add to the blog. I didn't get to the Arles photo festival in France this year either, due to June's events but also because I have to conserve, time, energy and money.
So, even though the month of the Guernsey Photo Festival is over, here is the penultimate post, one more to follow later in the week. These photos cover some of the local photographers and events engaging with the community such as The Caravan Gallery run by the lovely Jan Williams and Chris Teasdale, who were calling for locals to let them know about anything "Interesting, Bizarre, Special or Unique to photograph" in Guernsey, as well as the work of Guernsey photographers David Evans, Rob King and Peter Neville and who were also asked to explore the topic Identity.
Filed under: Photographers, Photography Festivals Tagged: Chris Teasdale, David Evans, Guernsey Photography Festival 2011, Jan Williams, Peter Neville, Rob King, The Caravan Gallery, Tony Ray-Jones


text:
Searching for any information regarding Frank Rupert Newton and his wife Alice Emily Newton. Their address in 1924 was listed as Mardens Hill. Thanks.
Posted Apr 2008
Withyham, Sussex
To send a message to a member with a red entry, you need to join as a paid member.
If this is one of our older entries we recommend performing an email check before upgrading to paid membership so you can contact the person who added the entry. If the member recently logged on or confirmed their email address is active, you will be told no check is necessary. More
about email checks


text:
This is not an offer for credit and should be used for estimation purposes only based on the information you provided. You should not base your decision on this estimate alone. Title, registration, tax and other fees, and personal circumstances such as employment status and personal credit history, were not considered in the calculations.
If you are looking for a no-nonsense, high quality, mid-size, 2WD, two-passenger side X side at a great price, look no further than the Mule™ 4000 side x side.
Front - Four-wheel hydraulic drums, sealed
Rear - Four-wheel hydraulic drums, sealed
Front - 3.9 in
Rear - 2.8 in
Front - 23 x 11-10 tubeless
Rear - 23 x 11-10 tubeless
Front - Independent, MacPherson strut; 3.9 in. travel
Rear - Semi-independent, De Dion axle with leaf springs and shocks; 2.8 in. travel


text:
This program will take an indepth look at the Medicaid program for long-term care. We will discuss the types of services that Medicaid covers, including the eligibility requirements and the application for each. The documents required by the Medicaid caseworkers will be outlined. The 5-year look back rule will be presented, along with how Medicaid determines the period of time for improper transfers made during the look back period. We will explore planning techniques which allow a person to qualify for Medicaid, yet maximize the assets that are available to them. Finally, even if you are not interested in adding Elder Law to your practice, we will identify standard estate planning techniques that may become pitfalls for Medicaid planning.
Call for Credit Cards* 440-323-8416
Cancellation Policy: Individuals canceling up to 48 hours prior to the date of the seminar will be issued a credit for attending a future seminar. Those not attending or those leaving early will receive the course materials in full consideration of the seminar fee paid. Pre-registration is required for lunch. You may register at the door for the seminar only.


text:
Sole Fall Competition
NEW HAVEN, Conn.—The Yale women's fencing team will kick off its 2013-14 season this weekend at the Dec. 8 Brandeis Invitational in Waltham, Mass.
The Bulldogs will look to capitalize on their fall training when they compete at Brandeis, seeking to improve on past performances at the tournament. This year's competition features a strong field including teams from Air Force Academy, Columbia, Cornell, Sacred Heart and St. John's.
This weekend's round-robin competition will mark the collegiate debut for three freshmen: Olivia Briffault in epee and foil, Lillie Lainoff in saber and Joanna Lew in saber. Junior captain Lauren Miller will lead the Bulldogs.
Last year, Yale recorded a tight-fought 14-13 win against MIT to finish the competition with a 1-5 record. The previous year, the Bulldogs posted a 2-3 record with victories against Brandeis and MIT.
The Brandeis Invitational will be the Bulldogs' first and only competition of the fall, after the Penn State Garret Open was cancelled earlier in the season. After the Brandeis Invitational, the team will continue training over the winter break and recommence competition with a Jan. 18 bout at home in Payne Whitney Gymnasium against Sacred Heart.
Report filed by James Lu '14, Yale Sports Publicity.


text:
No propaganda can hide the stark contrast between South Korea and North Korea as seen from orbit. A buzzing megalopolis and a bright constellation of cities versus a sea of nothingness and a capital that looks miserable despite the fact that it houses 3.26 million people.
According to NASA, "the light emission from Pyongyang is equivalent to the smaller towns in South Korea." It's not a surprise. Each South Korean citizen consumes 10,162 kilowatt hours. In Kim Jong-un's country, that figure is only 739 kilowatt hours. Even baboons and meerkats consume more electricity in Africa.
You can watch the complete video here:
The image was acquired on January 30, 2014, by the Expedition 38 crew on board the International Space Station.
SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook


text:
I am thrilled to share my blog with a guest writer this week. His name is Michael and he is a 5th Grader in our school who has actively participated in a Book Club with me, his principal, for the last five years. We recently completed a group reading of the book The Thing About Georgie by Lisa Graff, which provided us with many opportunities for rich dialogue and conversations. This book pushed us to think about things in a different way and allowed us the opportunity to delve into the idea of THEME as it relates to a text. After finishing the book, Michael generated the following review and reflection on one of the THEMES in the book. Please take a few minutes to read Michael's reflections - they are truly impressive! Please leave a comment because I am hoping that we can encourage Michael to start his own blog after this experience... its not easy to publicly share your thoughts!
The Thing About Georgie by Lisa Graff
Review and Reflection by Michael
I applaud Graff for writing such a humorous and relatable story and including such a heartfelt message. Bravo!
This book is about Georgie (a dwarf) who when we first meet him is having some problems with life. Actually one problem: Jeanie the meanie. She won't stop nagging Georgie and reminding him of his condition. Then to make matters worse, his parents who are normal-sized are having a normal-sized baby. That is like knowing that your younger sibling is going to pass you in height except your younger sibling is nine years younger than you are (because Georgie is in fourth grade.) That is embarrassing, humiliating and it really emphasized Georgie's condition. Then the worst happens, note that at this point in the story Georgie is on Christmas break, just as Georgie's family is going to midnight mass on Christmas Eve his mother gets zapped because she put her finger in an electric socket. She is fine, but because of the baby and Georgie's condition the family decided it was best to go to the hospital. Georgie is left to spend Christmas Eve at his best friend Andy's house. Even though he was kept busy by Andy's family he still wanted to spend Christmas Eve as he usually does, at his house with his parents. Poor Georgie, his parents call, they have to stay overnight at the hospital. Now, Andy has made a new friend in school named Russ Wilkins but Georgie is jealous of this new friend. Unfortunately Georgie poorly addresses this issue at Andy's house, that night and it results in an argument that is devastating to their relationship.
When they come back from Christmas Break everyone is assigned to work on a president assignment with a partner of their choice. Since Georgie and Andy had that big fight they are not partners. Georgie couldn't find a partner so the teacher assigned him the only other person that couldn't find a partner, Jeanie the meanie. During the majority of the report instead of doing her report Jeanie chose to doodle and asked Georgie questions. One of which being about Georgie's ability to act on stage. She asked whether Georgie had stage fright. Since Georgie was intent on doing his work he did not respond immediately to Jeanie's question. She interpreted that as hesitation and assumed Georgie had stage fright. Even though he didn't and was just afraid that people would laugh at his condition and since he never thought of himself as a public speaker.
When his teacher was passing around sign-up slips for the presidential play, Georgie did not write himself down even though his hero is George Washington. Georgie's full name is Georgie Washington Bishop so he feels a special connection to George Washington. He doesn't sign up but when his teacher is writing the cast on the board next to Abraham Lincoln, by the way that is who Georgie did his report on: Abraham Lincoln, but back to the story his teacher writes Georgie Bishop. Why did the teacher write his name on the board? Who signed him up? Turns out Jeanie signed him up. She wanted him to get over his "Stage fright." To her credit she helped Georgie memorize his lines and she helped him with his costume. If she hadn't done that Georgie would sound terrible on stage and then people would be laughing at him. She wasn't a meanie after all.
I believe that no one is mean for the sake of being mean. They are mean for a reason. Whether it's a cultural thing or it's because they are sad. (In Jeanie's case she was mean because of family issues. The absence of a mother and her brothers teasing her all contribute to her hard outer shell.)
Back to the story, Georgie was nervous but he got out on stage and he was funny and entertaining and he delivered his lines well. The audience did laugh but they were not laughing at Georgie they were laughing for Georgie. He was star of the show and he felt tall not just because he was standing on empty cans because for the first time in the book he felt proud of himself.
Now, self-pride is a funny thing, there has to be a certain balance because if you're too proud of yourself you come off as pompous and self-infatuated and those are not good characteristics to be described as. But if you have to little you doubt yourself and you don't trust yourself and that's not good either. You see, balance.
On with the story, on the ride home from the school that night a question was on Georgie's mind. A question he had been pondering for quite a long time. He asked his parents whether they liked him less because of his condition and whether they were disappointed. His parents stopped the car and said very seriously that they were disappointed that they were going to have a child with dwarfism but that they looked past his dwarfism and couldn't love him more for who he really is.
The reoccurring theme of this story is dwarfism and all the problems that surround it. Dwarfism or growth hormone deficiency is when the pituitary gland isn't making enough growth hormone. It refers to anybody who is a lot lower than average height. As you heard it is no cup of tea being a dwarf. Although Georgie was faced with tough challenges he got through them and did not let them define who he is. No matter what problems you have emotional, physical the most important thing to remember is you will get through it. And as long as you don't let it define who you are you will be fine. Although it does drain your pride and self- confidence you will get through it. I hear stories on the news about suicide and I wonder why they would like to leave this beautiful wonderful world. Now I know, they have lost all hope and happiness it was drained from them. They let their problems define who they are and maybe if they're reading what you're reading right now they would have lived. Trust me, if you don't let your problems define who you are you will get through even the darkest of nights. There isn't just one word that describes you. We are all different and unique and we should be judged for what's on the inside of us. I'm not talking about nerves and organs and all that I'm talking about what makes us special. By not even looking at any of my friends I will be able to guess who they are based on just a few describing words about them. That is why the morale of this book: there's more to explore about everyone than meets the eye is such a beautiful and important morale. All these things that I am saying are true. And all these words were evoked by The Thing About Georgie. So next time you see this book at the library check it out. You'll be glad you did.


text:
Work has begun on rebuilding the UK's first fully operational general-purpose computer.
The Edsac - the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator, seen above - was completed in 1949 and used at Cambridge University to help research into areas including genetics, meteorology and X-ray crystallography.
UK computer conservation specialists this week produced the first replica components to rebuild the EDSAC. The rebuild will take place in public view at the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park in Milton Keynes, England, and is scheduled for completion in 2015.
The computer was built from 12 racks spread over 20 square metres. The racks held the more than 3,000 vacuum tubes it used to carry out instructions and the mercury-filled tubes that acted as its memory.
Edsac could carry out 650 instructions per second and had just 2KB of memory. While obviously orders of magnitude less powerful than a modern PC it effectively computed some 1,500 times faster than the mechanical calculators it replaced.
The machine's principal designer and creator sir Maurice Wilkes, seen here on the left, led the team that built the original Edsac for the Mathematical Laboratory at Cambridge University. Wilkes died in November 2010 at the age of 97.
Photo credit: Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge
Full Bio
Nick Heath is chief reporter for TechRepublic. He writes about the technology that IT decision makers need to know about, and the latest happenings in the European tech scene.


text:
The other reform deserves nudge from concerned public
While Congress is up to its neck wrangling with health care reform, the financial wizards of Wall Street are greasing the skids for a return to the high profits seen before last year's financial meltdown, highlighted by the failure of Lehman Brothers a year ago this week. President Obama went into the den of Wall Street on Monday with the warning that the public would not stand for more reckless behavior."It's neither right not responsible after you've recovered with the help of your government," the president lectured to the financial community, "to shirk your obligation to the goal of wider recovery, a more stable system, and a more broadly shared prosperity." To make certain the Wall Street community heard his words, he emphasized the nation's lack of tolerance for irresponsible practices and warned them not to hinder his and Congress' effort to pass needed reforms."We will not go back to the days of reckless behavior and unchecked excess that was at the heart of this crisis ... Those on Wall Street cannot resume taking risks without regard for consequences."But the president has a problem. His reform initiatives have stalled, primarily because Democratic leaders are tied up with health care reform, but also because the financial services industry and their lobbyists are fighting the reforms with the help of big business — and many Republicans sympathetic to big business are spouting false worries in an attempt to stymie reform."We must be wary of the reality that — in an attempt to address yesterday's failures — Congress will put in place regulatory schemes which will fundamentally undermine risk taking," said Republican Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, as if taking unnecesarry risks with the public's investments and savings were something most Americans were eager to accept.Sen. Gregg and his Republicans opposing financial reform are off in far right field on this issue, and the GOP needs to tread carefully if it thinks the public is ready for the financial community to have a free reign in establishing a system which he can, once again, regulate itself — exactly the type of hands-off regulation, initiated largely under former President George W. Bush, that lead to the current crisis. Anticipating criticism against more government regulation the president had an apt response. "Do you really think that the absence of sound regulation one year ago was good for the financial system?" he asked. "Do you believe the resulting decline in markets and wealth and unemployment, the wrenching hardship that families are going through all across the country, was somehow good for our economy?" Exactly. Free market practices aren't always the best thing for the economy. Government regulation has its place in monitoring certain sectors of the economy, especially the financial sector, to main a stable and prosperous system.Isn't it odd that the Republican Party's rejection of almost any government regulation and its blind praise of the free market makes party leaders unable to see — even though the crisis has yet to fade from our daily lives — the damage done by the very policies they embrace? As the St. Albans Messenger wrote recently, "it doesn't take much insight to understand that a migrant farmer making $14,000 a year should not be able to walk out of a bank with a loan for a $720,000 home (true story). It doesn't make sense that piling a whole bunch of these loans together makes it more appealing. It doesn't make sense for the financial sector to all of a sudden constitute 41 percent of domestic corporate profits — up from 16 percent in 1985. It doesn't make sense for a CEO to take away tens of millions in bonuses when the company is bankrupt."The American people have the right to expect its government to take the corrective action necessary to avoid the sort of calamity that almost took us over the brink of disaster. We have the right to expect balance and moderation. And we have the right to expect our leaders to tone down the rhetoric of destruction and work to establish the rules necessary to give us the sort of confidence we lack."Hopefully, Republicans throughout the country will rein in those party leaders who would give the financial industry enough rope to hang us all again, and will instead choose to work with Democrats to embrace reforms that safeguard Americans' savings and investments. Contrary to Sen. Gregg's premise that high risk is necessary, the financial industry can do its business just fine by acting responsibly with the public's personal investments.


text:
Subscribe to Justinian
For the sharpest news and views on lawyers and
the law subscribe to Justinian's premium content.
Subscribers to our premium content are also notified regularly by email
newsletter about breaking news and disturbing developments.
Annual subscriptions are either $395 pre-paid or monthly recurring direct debit of $35.
Justinian will notify you as soon as your subscription becomes active.
Choose your preferred payment method
Pay online by credit card or PayPal
By Cheque: payable to Law Press of Australia
GPO Box 2669 Sydney, NSW 2001
EFT: Please contact us at firstname.lastname@example.com
to request our bank account details via email.
A tax invoice/receipt is issued with each subscription.
Need help subscribing? Call us on +61 2 9231 1933 or email firstname.lastname@example.com


text:
Memory analysis
Memory Analysis is the science of using a memory image to determine information about running programs, the operating system, and the overall state of a computer. Because the analysis is highly dependent on the operating system, it has been divded into the following pages:
OS-Independent Analysis
At the IEEE Security and Privacy conference in May 2011, Brendan Dolan-Gavitt presented a novel system, Virtuoso, that was able to perform operating-system independent memory analysis. Using virtual machine introspection accompanied by a number of formal program analysis techniques, his system was able to monitor the machine-level instructions and behavior of application actions (listing processes, network connections, etc) and then automatically generate Volatility plugins that replicated this analysis.
Encryption Keys
Various types of encryption keys can be extracted during memory analysis.
- AESKeyFinder extracts 128-bit and 256-bit AES keys and RSAKeyFinder and private and public RSA keys from a memory dump [1].
- cryptoscan.py, which is a plugin for the Volatility framework, scans a memory image for TrueCrypt passphrases
See Also
External Links
Volatility Labs
- MoVP 1.1 Logon Sessions, Processes, and Images
- MoVP 1.2 Window Stations and Clipboard Malware
- MoVP 1.3 Desktops, Heaps, and Ransomware
- MoVP 1.4 Average Coder Rootkit, Bash History, and Elevated Processes
- MoVP 1.5 KBeast Rootkit, Detecting Hidden Modules, and sysfs
- MoVP 2.1 Atoms (The New Mutex), Classes and DLL Injection
- MoVP 2.2 Malware In Your Windows
- MoVP 2.3 Event Logs and Service SIDs
- MoVP 2.4 Analyzing the Jynx rootkit and LD_PRELOAD


text:
Dyl wrote:2010 was basically unwatchable. The football was dire and the ****ing moronic locals and their vuvuzelas removed any potential enjoyment.
This tournament has been disappointing, but not on the scale of South Africa.
Yeah 2010 was rubbish and African football has gone backwards since it, only Algeria are any good now.
I've enjoyed this Euros, it's a real shame that we were robbed of Ronaldo in the final.


text:
HIV and Inflammation: A New Threat
- Introduction
- What Is Inflammation?
- Inflammatory Markers and Mortality
- Aging Before Your Time?
- Conclusion
Traditionally, it was thought that the natural course of HIV included a period of latency -- a time when the virus was inactive, often for years. This seemed to be a respite from the harsh effects that HIV can have on the body. But according to recent studies, this "latency period" may not be what it was originally thought to be -- in fact, HIV may have a greater impact on the body and immune system than we ever imagined.
Previously, it was assumed that the higher the CD4 count, the greater the level of protection. When CD4 counts were high, the risk for AIDS-defining opportunistic infections and other diseases was thought to be quite low, perhaps even nonexistent. But now we're seeing serious conditions like heart, liver, and kidney disease in people with higher CD4 counts. And we're also seeing more deaths in people whose CD4 counts are above 200. It appears that during this period of "latency" HIV is not silent, that CD4 levels may not indicate what is happening inside the body, and that inflammation may be affecting many organ systems. So the question is, how is this happening?
To answer this, we can look at the SMART study, one of the first to reveal this effect. In this study, people who stopped their HIV meds when their CD4 count rose above 350 had higher rates of AIDS-defining opportunistic infections and non-AIDS conditions, as compared with those who stayed on HIV therapy. They had higher amounts of virus in their blood, and those higher levels were associated with inflammation.
What Is Inflammation?
When the body fights invaders like viruses or bacteria, or repairs injured tissues, fluid and cells get transported to the site of injury. As the body heals, the cells can swell, get warm, and become sore. One theory is that as HIV chronically infects the body, cells and tissues are destroyed and then heal, activating the immune system. That leads to an overstimulated immune system that can become burned out or weakened. So, even though a lab result may show a high CD4 count, the amount of inflammation in the body may be causing damage on a cellular level. And that can lead to heart, liver, kidney disease, and greater levels of bone loss.
Evidence shows that while HIV medications may play a role, they are not the only culprit. During the SMART trial, when people who stopped their HIV meds restarted them, levels of inflammation decreased but never became normal. There remained a residual level of inflammation (shown by increased levels of IL-6 and D-dimer) and a greater number of cardiovascular events occurred, especially in people who started the study with undetectable viral loads. Why was this of concern? Because high levels of inflammation are thought to increase atherosclerosis (narrowing of the arteries) and heart disease even in people who don't have HIV. In the SMART trial, there were higher rates of heart, liver, and kidney disease among people with HIV at younger ages, even after controlling for differences in age and gender.
Research presented at the most recent Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in San Francisco provided further support of inflammation as a source of cardiovascular disease. In a study presented by Priscilla Hsue, the thickness of the carotid artery in the neck was measured by ultrasound among 285 people with HIV and compared with those of HIV-negative people. Among those with HIV, the carotid artery was significantly thicker, and lined with greater levels of plaque, placing them at greater risk for cardiovascular problems. In addition, they found the thicker arteries to be associated with high levels of a known inflammatory marker linked to heart disease called C-reactive protein. Another study found similar effects but found the artery thickness to be lower in people on HIV meds or with CD4 counts above 400. But it was never as low as in those who are HIV negative.
The first study also looked at how well the brachial artery could dilate, or widen, and whether it was becoming stiff due to inflammation. When they compared 98 people who were taking HIV meds with people who were HIV-negative, they found that even when HIV was well controlled with meds, the arteries were stiffer and not able to dilate in response to stress.
Increases in blood levels of several markers of inflammation have been linked with HIV disease. In addition to C-reactive protein, other markers such as interleukin-6, D-dimer, and TNF-alpha were also found to be elevated in people with HIV with thickened arteries. Higher levels of MCP-1 and RANTES are also seen in people with HIV, and can mean higher levels of protein in the urine, and kidney disease. The higher levels of inflammatory proteins seen in people with HIV (whether or not they are taking HIV meds) may suggest that HIV may be responsible for the heart, liver, and kidney disease that is seen at higher CD4 counts.
Inflammatory Markers and Mortality
The big question is whether increased inflammation affects the lifespan of people with HIV. Early studies suggest it could be linked to all causes of death among people with HIV. A study by Kalayjian explored the link between inflammatory markers and AIDS deaths. In the study, people who had never taken HIV medications started medications during the trial. Those who later developed AIDS or died during the study had their inflammatory markers measured (specifically TNF, IL-6, CD27, and CD40). The researchers found that there were higher levels of all these markers in people who developed a new AIDS-defining illness or who died before they started HIV meds. Levels of TNF, CD27, and CD40 were higher before HIV treatment was started in people who later developed an AIDS-defining cancer or who died. This occurred about a year after they started HIV meds, even though most of them had undetectable viral loads and CD4 counts above 200. So it would appear that inflammation may be causing damage early in the course of HIV disease, despite lower viral loads and higher CD4 counts, and that it may play a role in both HIV-related cancers and death.
Aging Before Your Time?
HIV may also lead to premature aging. In one study, vasodilation, or the blood flow, of people with HIV seemed to look like that of HIV-negative people who were 10 to 15 years older. Another study found the blood vessels of people with HIV appear to be similar to those of HIV-negative people who are 25 years older. The T cells of people with HIV look like those of people without HIV who are 32 years older -- while the median age of HIV patients in one study was 56, their T cells looked like those of patients who were 88. (The people with HIV had fewer CD8 cells, specifically those with CD28 and CD56 markers.) Further, people living with HIV for 8 to 12 years were 15 times more likely to be frail as compared with their HIV-negative peers. And the thymus gland, which helps T cells to mature, appears smaller in people with HIV.
All of these findings indicate that HIV seems to be linked with diseases normally seen at older ages, and that chronic HIV infection may create a state of premature aging and inflammation. If this is the case, what can be done to protect people with HIV from these serious non-AIDS conditions?
The short answer is that we're not sure. One idea was to try Valcyte, a drug that reduces levels of cytomegalovirus (CMV), which was thought to lead to inflammation in people who had both CMV and HIV. But in one small trial, it didn't reduce the levels of residual inflammation. ACTG 5256 studied Selzentry, a new HIV receptor blocker, to see if adding it to people's standard HIV meds could lower inflammation. Inflammatory markers did go down, but the study couldn't tell whether this led to fewer cardiovascular events or higher CD4 counts. The "Jupiter" study (done in HIV-negative individuals) found that when people who had low LDL cholesterol but high C-reactive protein took the anti-cholesterol drug Crestor, they had 44% fewer cardiovascular events. But some studies have shown the opposite. We need further studies combining Selzentry with statins like Crestor to see if that could lower the markers of chronic inflammation and actually improve the health of people with HIV.
Several groups are looking at whether intensifying treatment by using more than the current standard of three HIV medications may reduce chronic inflammation. Some researchers have started to look at whether immune suppressants like prednisone, hydroxyurea, cyclosporine, and mycolic acid could help. Others are looking at medications like Renagel or colustrum supplements to keep microorganisms from leaving the gut and spreading inflammation throughout the body. Still others are looking at using chloroquine, a medication used for malaria. Common over-the-counter medications like Motrin and Aleve are also being tested for their ability to reduce chronic HIV inflammation.
In addition, some researchers are studying whether the thymus can be stimulated to produce more T cells. Clinical trials are planned of Serostim, a human growth hormone, and Sirolimus, an antirejection drug used in transplant patients, to see if they can reduce inflammation by bringing more CD4 cells onto the scene. Researchers at the French-based biotech Cytheris have studied IL-7 to see if it can increase CD4 counts in order to lower inflammation. IL-6 has also been further explored in clinical studies. And yet another group is looking at an immune-based therapy called Esbriet.
Some studies in rats and dogs have found that reducing the number of calories eaten may slow the aging process. A drug called resveratrol, which may have the same effect as calorie restriction, is being studied. Also, as we age a part of our chromosomes known as telomeres have been found to shorten, so researchers are looking into whether telomerase activators might slow the aging process in people with HIV. Finally, other groups are looking at vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acids as a way to slow the premature aging process seen in HIV.
It will take more studies before we know how to prevent heart, liver, and kidney disease in people with HIV. But one thing seems clear: HIV isn't sitting silently during its "latency period." Indeed, it is quite active, leaving a significant imprint on the body's immune and inflammatory systems.
Donna M. Kaminski is a fourth-year medical student at UMDNJ-SOM, and ACRIA's former Associate Director of Treatment Education.