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Cookies Policy
Our website www.isglobal.org (the "Website") uses cookies to collect information on how the Website is used.
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The information collected via cookies may include the date and time you visited the website, the pages you viewed, the time you spent on our website and the websites you visited before and after visiting our site.
We use cookies to facilitate your browsing of our Website, distinguish you from other users, provide you a better use experience and identify problems with our Website. If you provide your consent, we will use cookies to obtain information on your preferences and tailor our Website to your interests.
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What Is the #ILoveGay Twitter 360° Network
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subset: commoncrawl


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Rose Tourney: Alongside Crown a Tournament Something Extra Special
The autocrats of the East Kingdom's Spring Crown Tourney this year, having a site that allows plenty of space for fighters, have added a fighting activity that should appeal to all the chivalrous fighters in the East: a Rose Tournament
What is a Rose Tournament? It's a tournament where fighters pair up as they choose, and the winner gets to tell the loser to go give a rose from the queen to the lady or lord of the winner's choice. This is not only a chivalrous way to tell someone you think they are special, but it's a great way to add an extra fighting experience for those who do not want to compete in Crown, or are eliminated in early rounds. Plus, you get to meet and speak to our gracious queen, currently our Princess Kiena.
The rapier community can also take part in this with their own Rose Tourney. So, even if you are not fighting in Crown, come to the event. You will have a wonderful extra tournament to participate in!
Questions about the Rose Tourney can be directed to Lady Lilie


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The Ides of March, 2010 may be remembered as the day the entitlements crash began. Social Security liabilities exceed inflow, and SSA has begun tapping its vault full of Treasury bonds. "Too bad" (as the AP story notes) "the federal government already spent that money…"
Technically, Social Security is now broke. Since it's politically unthinkable to admit this, the Treasury will have to go cap in hand to the bond markets and buy more short-term debt in order to keep the benefits flowing. This will heavily increase a structural federal deficit that is already unsustainable.
The government will fail to do anything meaningful to address the problem — because there is nothing it can do. Cutting payouts isn't on the table, not for an administration ideologically committed to redistributionism.
Nor will raising taxes work. According to the Tax Foundation's figures we'd have to triple the tax rates on the top 50% of earners just to cover the Federal FY 2009 budget of $3.55 trillion, let alone cover any debt or accumulate revenue for future years. And the bottom 50% only pays 2.89% of revenues; there's no money there.
The next stage of this slow-motion train wreck will arrive when the bond rating agencies admit that the U.S. is broke and not going to get un-broke, and downgrade the risk rating on Treasuries from AAA. There's already talk of this and warnings from the agencies; I can't see it being more than nine months out at this point. If Obamacare actually passes, expect the downgrade sooner rather than later; vaporous talk of "bending the cost curve" isn't fooling anyone with actual money on the table.
When Treasuries get downgraded, the Treasury will have to offer higher interest rates to sell bonds, increasing future deficits and putting solvency further out of reach. At some point not too long after that, the bond markets (and by that I mean China and Japan) will stop playing. Game over.
We have passed the fiscal event horizon. A singularity looms. Debt default, hyperinflation, or something equally traumatic is coming soon.
UPDATE: At Zero Hedge, economist Tyler Durden says: "In a word: the US collects enough money organically (via taxes) to cover less than a third of its outlays."


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Your dog isn't just a good dog -- he's your best friend who wouldn't hurt a flea.
But you might have to prove it to get your home insurance company to cover him, especially if he belongs to a breed with a reputation as aggressive.
Home insurers are increasingly cautious about providing liability coverage for dogs because pooches are taking a bigger bite out of their bottom lines.
More than one-third of the dollars home insurance companies pay out for liability claims is for injuries caused by dogs. Last year, dog liability insurance claims cost home insurers more than $483 million, according to the Insurance Information Institute (III) and State Farm, the largest U.S. home insurance provider.
The average cost of a dog liability claim nationwide, which was $27,862 in 2013, has grown more than 45 percent in the last decade, thanks to rising medical costs as well as the size of settlements, judgments and jury awards given to plaintiffs, says Loretta Worters, III vice president.
Traditionally, renters and homeowners insurance has covered dog bite liability legal expenses up to the policy's liability limits. But some insurers now require dog owners to sign liability waivers for dog bites, and some exclude certain breeds of dogs, such as pit bulls, Doberman Pinschers and German Shepherds, from liability coverage, or they charge more to cover certain breeds. Some home insurers won't cover dogs, period.
How can you prove your dog is not a risk?
In some cases, especially if your dog has already bitten someone, you might have to resort to purchasing a separate dog liability insurance policy to cover him.
But in other cases, you might be able to persuade your home insurer to cover your dog if you can document that you are a responsible owner.
Read More: Source


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1. Applicant should be less than 50 years old. 2. Applicant should gain Bachelor's degree or equivalent.
3. HSK level 5.
1. Photocopy of valid passport
With photo, passport number &expiration date and name included. 2. Passport-sized photo A passport-sized photo taken recently of the applicant. 3. Bachelor's degree diploma Graduation certificate should be in Chinese or English.If not, it should be translated into Chinese or English and be notarized. 4. Transcript of undergraduate school 5. HSK Certificate (No need for English-taught program) Level 5 or above 6. Two recommendation letters(optional) From professor,associate professor or equivalents. 7. Personal Statement Personal Statement with the applicant's signature, written in Chinese or in English. You can download a template or sample from here. 8. Letter of guardian's guarantee For applicant under 18 years of age Letter of guarantee The guardian should write out his/her name, nationality, occupation and address (if an organization acts as the guardian, reference to the organization should be made clear). 9. Registration Form You can download a template or sample from here. 10.Copy of article or papers published Please submit any published academic papers, patents, or other academic achievements. |


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Ecclesiastical leader reveals new channel will show Church of Scientology to the world and answer questions for the curious.
At 8 p.m. EST on March 12, 2018, the Scientology Network went live with the flip of a switch, making it instantly accessible to tens of millions of households across the United States and hundreds of millions more worldwide over the internet. From the three-story atrium of the Church's landmark Flag Building at its spiritual home in Clearwater, Florida, Mr. David Miscavige, ecclesiastical leader of the Scientology religion, welcomed the world to the network to explain its mission.
"You've probably heard of Scientology," Mr. Miscavige stated. "In fact, every six seconds someone searches the question, 'What is Scientology?' There's a lot of talk about us, and we get it. People are curious. Well, we want to answer your questions, because, frankly, whatever you have heard, if you haven't heard it from us, I can assure you, we are not what you expect."
Mr. Miscavige described to the audience watching on TV screens, computers and mobile devices worldwide the purpose of the new Scientology Network: let viewers see and experience the religion for themselves—who Scientologists are, what Scientology is and what Scientology can do—as told by Scientologists, themselves, around the world. "Scientology is a dynamic and expanding religion, and we're going to be showing you all of it."
Mr. Miscavige continued: "Let's be clear, we're not here to preach to you, to convince you or to convert you. No, we simply want to show you. Because, after all, the first principle of Scientology is that 'It's only true if it is true for you.'"
Airing 24/7 on all platforms, the Scientology Network represents a new genre of religious broadcasting that includes original programs that take viewers into the everyday lives of Scientologists, the Church as an institution and its humanitarian and social betterment organizations. These programs show Scientology in action, providing not just insights into the only major religion to emerge in the last century, but also offering a fresh take on compelling television entertainment demanded by today's digital world.
The Scientology Network is immediately available anywhere, anytime. It's on satellite TV in the United States, as well as live streaming everywhere at Scientology.tv. It's also available on such streaming services as Apple TV, Fire TV, Roku and mobile apps that can be downloaded for smartphones and tablets. And it will continue to expand through additional platforms in the future.
The Scientology Network debuts with six original series:
- Inside Scientology—takes viewers behind the scenes of the religion—its international spiritual headquarters and cutting-edge publishing houses, what happens on a typical day at a Church of Scientology and the meticulous, painstaking efforts to preserve 75 million words of Founder L. Ron Hubbard's religious writings and recordings for future generations.
- Meet a Scientologist—an in-depth look into the lives of individual Scientologists from the frontiers of modern art, science, sports, entertainment and more.
- I am a Scientologist—features dozens of Scientologists from every corner of the world and every imaginable occupation, giving personal accounts of how their lives have been enriched.
- Voices for Humanity—short documentaries introducing change-makers from all faiths, cultures and nations as they extend help to their communities through Scientology-sponsored humanitarian programs.
- Destination: Scientology—each episode brings the viewer inside a new Church of Scientology, showcasing the diversity of our Churches and the cooperation that weaves every Church of Scientology into the local community fabric.
- L. Ron Hubbard: in His Own Voice—presents the religion's Founder to the world. Scientology remains the only major religion with the voice of its Founder intact, recorded in public lectures delivered over the course of a quarter-century. This series chronicles the life of L. Ron Hubbard through autobiographical vignettes in his own words and in his own voice.
In addition, the Scientology Network will also present films on the beliefs and practices of the religion, airing the content to answer questions about faith, philosophy and technology. They include content ranging from the basic tenets of Scientology and how to apply Scientology to the workaday world to the practical tools for life that the religion provides.
Works from Founder L. Ron Hubbard's groundbreaking writings will also be featured, illuminating his philosophy, the history of the religion and his landmark moral code and common-sense guide, The Way to Happiness, that can be universally applied to anyone regardless of religion or cultural background. The Church's humanitarian movement will also take center stage on the Scientology Network, underscoring the Church's global success in drug education through The Truth About Drugs, its worldwide human rights campaigns and successes in exposing mental health abuses through the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a global advocacy group that seeks justice for victims of psychiatric wrongdoing.
New offerings will also include entertainment and talk shows, as well as an investigative series, Freedom TV. The Scientology Network will further provide a platform for broadcasting documentaries by independent filmmakers advocating social betterment and human rights to give them a voice where they might not otherwise have one across the airwaves.
The Scientology Network produces all its television content in house. Original programs air with no paid advertising. From scripting to shooting, editing, scoring and mixing, these original shows are created by Church staff and parishioners at the Church's multimedia digital production complex at Scientology Media Productions. Additionally, Scientology Media Productions is provided and broadcasts all long-form, full-length films produced at the Church's Golden Era Productions, which has been producing Scientology films for 40 years. In all, the network is fed up-to-the-minute content, 24/7, from six continents through 20 roving correspondent teams based across the United Kingdom, Europe, Africa, Latin America, Australia, Russia, Asia as well as the United States and Canada.
Housed on a five-acre complex on LA's iconic Sunset Boulevard, Scientology Media Productions dates to 1912, making it the longest continuously running studio in Hollywood. Purchased from public television station KCET in 2011, the studio lot had its origins making silent movies before evolving into film and television production. It also was the site where, prior to the advent of Dianetics and Scientology, Mr. Hubbard once had an office where he wrote Hollywood scripts.
The studio houses multiple production crews working three sound stages, 136,000 square feet of studio production space,16 high-definition broadcast cameras with three production control rooms, 20 editing suites, six voice recording studios, four music scoring rooms, two live music recording studios, seven mixing rooms with 5.1 surround sound capabilities, all wired through 27 miles of fiber optic cable.
With the establishment of Scientology Media Productions, the Church has entered a new era of multimedia production by giving birth to a new television network that fulfills the dream of its founder to make the religion fully available across the planet.


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By Jack Schneider, College of the Holy Cross
Betsy DeVos exposed the education reform movement's pitfalls in her highest-profile media appearance to date.
President Donald Trump's education secretary got the job based on her years of advocacy for expanding "school choice," especially in Michigan, her home state. Yet she stumbled when Lesley Stahl asked her in a widely watched CBS "60 Minutes" interview to assess the track record for those efforts.
"I don't know. Overall, I – I can't say overall that they have all gotten better," DeVos stammered.
It's not just Michigan or Midwestern conservatives. Policymakers and philanthropists across the ideological spectrum and the nation have teamed up to reform public education for decades, only to find that their bold projects have fallen short. Regardless of the evidence, however, top-down reform remains the standard among politicians and big donors.
As an educational policy scholar, I have identified a few reasons why school reform efforts so persistently get lackluster results, as well as why enthusiasm for reform hasn't waned. Despite its long-term failure, large-scale education reform maintains consistent bipartisan support and is backed by roughly US$4 billion a year in philanthropic funding derived from some of the nation's biggest fortunes.
Shiny objectives
DeVos may be a uniquely polarizing figure, but she is hardly the first federal leader to champion school reform.
Ever since 1983, when the Reagan administration published its "A Nation at Risk" report bemoaning the quality of American public education, politicians have rallied public support for plans to overhaul the nation's education system. Over the past quarter century, leaders from both parties have backed the creation of curricular standards and high-stakes standardized tests. And they have pushed privately operated charter schools as a replacement for traditional public schools, along with vouchers and other subsidies to defray the cost of private school tuition.
All of these large-scale school reform efforts, whether pushed by the federal government or backed by billionaire philanthropists including the families of Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, homebuilder and insurance mogul Eli Broad, late Walmart founder Sam Walton and DeVos herself have encountered setbacks.
Still, the larger ethos of reform hasn't changed. And none of the leaders of this effort, including DeVos, appear to be wavering in their efforts, even when challenged with evidence, as happened during her cringe-inducing "60 Minutes" interview.
A cycle of failure
From George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind to Barack Obama's Race to the Top and the Every Student Succeeds Act that was signed into law in 2015, the federal government has taken a highly interventionist approach to education policy.
But it has routinely failed to produce promised results. Today, educators, scholars and policymakers now almost universally regard No Child Left Behind as a washout. And many critiques of Obama-era reform efforts have been equally blistering.
Nevertheless, the core approach to federal education policy has not markedly changed.
The chief reason that all this activity has produced so little change, in my view, is that the movement's populist politics encourage reformers to make promises beyond what they can reasonably expect to deliver. The result, then, is a cycle of searing critique, sweeping proposal, disappointment and new proposal. The particulars of each recipe may differ, but the overall approach is always the same.
Cookie cutters
Beyond this dysfunctional cycle, the other big reason the school reform movement has consistently come up short has to do with an approach that is both too narrow and too generic.
Ever since 1966, when Johns Hopkins University sociologist James S. Coleman determined in his government-commissioned report that low-income children of color benefit from learning in integrated settings, most education researchers have agreed that economic inequality and social injustice are among the most powerful drivers of educational achievement gaps. What students achieve in a school, in other words, reflects their living conditions outside its walls.
Yet rather than addressing the daunting issues like persistent poverty that shape children's lives and interfere with their learning, education reformers have largely embraced a management consultant approach. That is, they seek systems-oriented solutions that can be assessed through bottom-line indicators. This has been particularly true in the case of conservatives like DeVos, who even in her stand against the public education "system," has proposed a new kind of system – school choice – as a solution.
This approach fails to address the core problems shaping student achievement at a time when researchers like Sean Reardon at Stanford University find that income levels are more correlated with academic achievement than ever and the gap between rich students and less affluent kids is growing.
At the same time, reformers of all stripes have tried to enact change at the largest possible scale. To work everywhere, however, education reforms must be suitable for all schools, regardless of their particular circumstances.
This cookie-cutter approach ignores educational research. Scholars consistently find that schools don't work that way. I believe, as others do, that successful schools are thriving ecosystems adapted to local circumstances. One-size-fits-all reform programs simply can't have a deep impact in all schools and in every community.
Entrepreneurial outsiders
Perhaps this flawed approach to education reform has survived year after year of disappointing results because policy leaders, donors and politicians tend not to challenge each other on the premise that the ideal of school reform requires a sweeping overhaul – even though they may disagree about the best route. DeVos may be criticized for her dogmatic demeanor, but her approach is fairly mainstream in most regards.
Additionally, many leading reformers generally subscribe to the ethos of educational entrepreneurism. They consider visionary leadership as essential, even when leaders have scant relevant professional experience. That was the case with DeVos before she became education secretary. As outsiders operating within a complex system, however, reformers often fail take the messy real-world experiences of U.S. schools into account.
Finally, the reformers see failure as an acceptable part of the entrepreneurial process. Rather than second-guess their approach when their plans come up short, they may just believe that they placed the wrong bet. As a result, the constant blare of pitches and promises continues. And it's possible that none of them will ever measure up, no matter the evidence.
Editor's note: This article incorporates elements of a story published on March 8, 2018, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is a strategic partner of The Conversation US and provides funding for The Conversation internationally.
See our related Educational Oppression page.
Re-published with permission under license from The Conversation.
Jack Schneider, Assistant Professor of Education, College of the Holy Cross


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A Futurist's Look at Commercial Real Estate
Upload Date: 10/06/2016
Join host Michael Bull and his guest, futurist Daniel Burrus, as they discuss the impact of technological and societal changes on commercial real estate.
The best thank you? A referral to our sponsors, click here.
Part 2: Predicting Hard Trends and Disruption with Daniel Burrus
Part 3: A Futurist's View on Upcoming Office Trends
For more on Burrus Research, visit Burrus.com.
Click for Daniel's book, Flash Foresight.
Anticipatory Organization Model
Anticipatory Organization Learning System
- Michael Bull, CCIM
- Show Host
- Bull Realty, Inc.
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Michael's brokerage services: Bull Realty.com
Michael's video training: Commercial Agent Success.com
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The Commercial Real Estate Show (TM) is protected by trademark and copyright laws. The information from this site and show is not to be copied, distributed, or sold without express written permission from the Commercial Real Estate Show. Because of the limitations of web sites and talk radio shows, the information from this site and the show are not to be relied upon as professional, accounting or legal advice. The show information is for enlightenment and entertainment purposes only and is not deemed reliable for your particular property, situation or location. Consult a referred and licensed commercial broker, accountant & attorney who has entered into a representation agreement with you and knows all the details of your location, property and situation for professional advice. For a professional referral contact the Commercial Real Estate Show at email@example.com or 888-612-SHOW (7469). All rights reserved. (C) 2014


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I made a video about hexapods! yay. I'd estimate it was a full 4 or 5 days working on it, learning final cut pro along the way. It basically covers my journey through 2.007 two years ago, and is meant to be a resource for students in the class.
Note to self: shortcuts: < > ctrl-= alt-w
Meanwhile, I think an instructable a week sounds like an excellent plan for Spring semester senior year.


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Updated at 7:42 p.m. ET
President Trump said Monday that adequate coronavirus testing existed but was being underutilized by governors, following a chorus of complaints by state leaders and health care experts regarding the country's insufficient testing capacity.
The White House last week issued guidelines on a three-tiered approach for states to begin easing coronavirus restrictions. But many state officials have said that they do not yet have the capacity to aggressively test for new COVID-19 cases.
Trump has been resistant to states' demands for additional testing help. During the Monday daily coronavirus task force briefing, Trump said that public-private partnerships had significantly expanded the nation's testing capabilities, "but some states need to take action to fully utilize it."
The Monday coronavirus task force briefing comes after a series of tense disagreements between Trump and a number of Democratic governors last week.
Almost immediately after the administration's three-phase plan to ease coronavirus restrictions was released, several governors openly disputed the president's projected timeline on their ability to safely begin lifting stay-at-home orders.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has been catapulted to the national spotlight as leader of the state most badly ravaged by the coronavirus, was among the most prominent voices at odds with Trump.
On Friday, the pair engaged in a heated back-and-forth that included the president tweeting at Cuomo to "Stop talking!" during the governor's daily coronavirus briefing. Cuomo responded with the suggestion that the president watch less television and instead "get up and get to work."
Trump announced on Monday that the two "get along" and would be meeting at the White House on Tuesday at Cuomo's request.
Trump's disagreement with the New York governor was one of several stoked last week. On Friday, Trump spoke highly of far-right protesters who demonstrated in public, in open defiance of their states' stay-at-home orders.
"LIBERATE," Trump tweeted in all caps, mentioning Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia — all states with Democratic governors and state-issued stay-at-home orders.
Trump later described the protesters, many of whom wore Make America Great Again gear but not protective masks, as "very responsible people."
"They've been treated a little bit rough," he said.
The administration hopes that this week will bring some bipartisan agreement on additional coronavirus relief funding, possibly including: $300 billion for the Paycheck Protection Program, $75 billion in emergency funding for hospitals, $50 billion for small-business disaster loans and $25 billion for testing.
Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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This pair of small black Women's Stretch Thinsulate Gloves from Freehands are designed to be used when photographing outdoors in cold weather. The gloves have a waterproof and windproof backing and are lined with Thinsulate to keep you warm in the winter while being lightweight enough to wear in milder weather.
When photographing in cold weather you can open the finger tips so that you can more easily access small buttons on your camera, which might be difficult to access if you were wearing normal gloves. When you need to access buttons on your camera, simply pull back the thumb and forefinger tips of the gloves to reveal your fingers. The tips are secured in place by magnets until you are ready to cover your fingers again. The palm patch features a silicon grip to prevent your camera from slipping. The gloves are designed to fit snugly so you can hold and operate your camera easily. For a looser fit, order the next size up.


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If you don't know what this is about, Univision's Tumblr will catch you up more quickly than I can explain. Like Ace, I wonder what the breakdown is percentage-wise between people who are genuinely offended by what Messina said, people who are ginning up indignation because they want to watch a ruthless Democratic partisan hack squirm (this is the guy who promised the White House would "punch back twice as hard" during the 2009 health-care townhall uproar), and people who calculate that if we rub liberals' faces in a pile of shinola every time one of them says something that's insensitive, they'll be more circumspect in demagoging conservatives when one of us does. If you're in group three, you're kidding yourself: This line of attack is essential to the left's core argument that conservative impulses not only produce ineffective or damaging policies but are always, always malignant in origin. It's one thing to do it as payback, but don't expect anything to change. Ever.
The Hispanic Leadership Network is in group one.
"The fact that the campaign manager of President Obama's reelection campaign thinks it's appropriate to disseminate insulting jokes about the Hispanic community is a perfect example of the kind of empty rhetoric that characterizes this White House's so-called outreach to Latinos. We demand that Mr. Messina immediately apologize and we ask that President Obama disavow his campaign manager's ridiculous statement. Liberals are always trying to put Hispanics in a box. In typical fashion, when liberals cannot speak substantively to the top issues facing our community, they resort to name calling…
"The facts remain the same, and they are no laughing matter. President Obama broke his campaign promises to the Hispanic community on jobs and immigration. Our community is suffering from over 11% unemployment rate. In addition, President Obama has deported more immigrants than any other U.S. president in history. When confronted with his record, this President has no standing with Hispanic voters across our country."
I understand the objection to ethnic stereotypes that involve food — they pigeonhole complex people as provincial and narrow-minded — but Ace's point about the double standard in the reaction to Messina's tweet is better. How come this guy making a dumb joke associating Latinos with tacos is a scandal while the captain of the good ship Hopenchange circulating a dumb joke associating Latinos with chimichangas is good clean liberal fun? Is there some sort of spectrum of Latino cuisine in which tacos are offensive but chimichangas are "tolerant"? Does it have to do with the condiments involved in each dish? Both sides should hash this out now, because eventually some dopey pol's going to make a crack about burritos and none of us will know how to react.


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Gustavo Polo, President
DOTmed user since August 2013
Mr. Polo established GP Medical Equipment, Sales & Service.He provides the leadership and forward thinking that have got us this far. Mr. Polo has experience in National and International Sales. His educational background in business and marketing as well as his extensive rolodex of clientel in North America & South America has made GP Medical Equipment, Sales & Service a fast growing business


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Monthly meetings of the Board of Directors and Watershed Council are usually held on the fourth Thursday of the month at the Three Rivers (Michigan) Public Library at 1:00 p.m. EDT.
Click here to see the September 2010 Meeting Agenda.
Click here to see the August 2010 Minutes.
Meetings are free and open to the public.
Friends of the St. Joe River Association, Inc. P.O. Box 1794 South Bend, Indiana 46634
Copyright 2013


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The making of the documentary 'Jimmy Murakami — Non Alien'
In this feature documentary I went on a journey with Jimmy Murakami, the famous Japanese American animator of classic films like 'Snowman' and 'When the Wind Blows' and revealed the tragedy he and his family endured in a Japanese Concentration Camp in Northern California during WW2.
Jimmy sadly passed away on the 18th February 2014.
"My name is Jimmy Murakami. Teruaki is the Japanese name I was born with. It was taken from me in America after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor'.
My feature documentary 'Jimmy Murakami — Non Alien' has been doing the rounds at film festivals across the globe for the last couple of years, so it feels timely to shed some light on the background to how I came across the story of Jimmy's tragic childhood in Tule Lake Concentration Camp.
I first came across Jimmy in the mid eighties when I began my career as a film editor in Dublin. In the early 70's Jimmy came to Ireland to work on the feature film 'Von Richthofen and Brown' where he met his future wife Ethna and set up roots here. He was an exotic character on the Dublin film scene and I was in awe of the Oscar nominated Japanese American animator whose credits included 'When the Wind Blows' and 'Snowman'. While assisting him on his films I got to know him reasonably well and viewed some of his early experimental work like his Oscar nominated 'Breath' and 'Death of a Bullet'. In the Dublin bars Jimmy told wonderful stories about his film life: directing 'Battle Beyond the Stars' for Roger Corman, working with David Bowie and Roger Waters from Pink Floyd on the soundtrack for 'When the Wind Blows'. But Jimmy also had a secret from his childhood that he never shared with any of his friends in Ireland.
Jimmy Murakami and Japanese Internment Camps WW2
The main focus of 'Jimmy Murakami — Non Alien' is on Jimmy Murakami's childhood trauma, when he and his family were interned in an American concentration camp after Japan attacked Pearl Harbour in 1942. On the signature of President Roosevelt, 140,000 people of Japanese ancestry were given the new label of 'Non Alien' and lost their homes and their civil rights. After four years in camp, Jimmy's family settled in LA. He went to Art School and then joined an animation studio and the rest is history.
I would bump into Jimmy Murakami at various film events and we would swap stories. One night he told me that he was writing his memoirs and also doing some new paintings concerning his childhood in America. I immediately asked if I could come out to his home and film with him. He showed me his memoir and when I read the section dealing with the concentration camps I knew I had to tell his story. The genesis of the completed film is built around the nine paintings Jimmy showed me that day. They became the basis for some wonderful animation sequences created by Jimmy's great friend Guido Orlandi. The paintings are mainly representations of Jimmy's imprisonment in Tule Lake Concentration Camp in Northern California. He had tried to block this tragic episode out of his mind but was now going to confront it in the only way he knew how, through his art!
The first painting in the series shows Jimmy's dad loading all his earthly possessions onto his 1954 yellow Ford, moments before his wife and 4 young children would begin their long journey to Tule Lake Camp in Northern California. They would never see their little farm again. Jimmy was only 8 years old but still has vivid memories of this time. Signs appeared everywhere informing all people of Japanese ancestry to assemble for transportation to concentration camps. Tule Lake became the biggest camp holding 40,000 inmates. Jimmy's personal stories of the time are the heart of the film. How his older sister died in the camp from Leukemia. How tanks and military surrounded the camp and violence was endemic. How frustrated prisoners allied themselves to the Emperor and vowed to return to Japan. The majority of those interned considered themselves Americans and were angry at being imprisoned for crimes they had no part in. During Ronald Reagan's stint as president he apologized on behalf of the American people for the injustice inflicted on the Japanese American community and awarded all survivors of the camp $25,000 . Jimmy wanted to buy a new Cadillac and put a sign on it saying "Is this what my life is worth?" and then driving it off a cliff. His wife Ethna pointed out that their financial circumstances were bad and persuaded Jimmy to reluctantly take the cheque.
Jimmy Murakami's final painting was called 'Freedom Train' it showed the Murakami family huddled together on a train headed to LA carrying the same suitcases they had entered Tule Lake with four years earlier, they also had the ashes of Jimmy's sister Sumiko. With lots of research done Loopline Film convinced the Irish Arts Council to award a grant and make a feature documentary on this dark episode in Jimmy's life. We filmed in Ireland, and the States, met his brother brother and sister, and most pointedly, we followed Jimmy back to Tule Lake where every year there is ceremony for survivors and their children. In the end a chance encounter with an old friend took me on a journey back to Jimmy's childhood through his painting and specially commissioned animation. The film premiered to great acclaim at the Dublin Film Festival and has gone to international screenings in America and Japan. The film won the 'Directors Choice Award' at the International Sacramento Film and Music Festival, voted second best film at the Dublin Film Festival and got a showcase screening in Hiroshima. We are currently making a one hour TV special for broadcasters. Plans are also afoot to release the film on DVD and Streaming.
Distributor: Monster Film


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TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Thomas Fergsuon, a Civil Engineering undergraduate at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville thought the phone calls and e-mails confriming he was the winner of a customized and outfitted custom work truck, worth approxomately $75,000, were part of an elaborate hoax.
When Ferguson verified his being named the winner of ProPickup magazine's 2010 Big Boss Sweepstakes was true and the reality of his good fortune sank in, Ferguson, who is the vice president of public relations for Knoxville-based Titan Mining Reclamation, still found it hard to believe.
"This Ram pickup is going to give me the push I need to keep working hard and accomplish my goals," says the east Tennessee native. "I followed every article in the magazine and every post on the web site as the 'Big Boss' was being built last year. It's a great truck and I can't wait to put it to work."
Ferguson's name was pulled from more than 9,000 entires ProPickup magazine had received during the nearly year-long sweepstakes program, the winner of which is handed the title to the "Big Boss" – a 2010 Ram 2500 4×4 Crew Cab diesel customized by the magazine's staff and Truck Supply & Outfitters in Tuscaloosa.
Titan Mining Reclamation reclaims coal mines, and contracts site development and road building projects. Those jobs require Ferguson to drive into rugged areas and tow trailers loaded with construction equipment.
"Having a pickup set up the way the magazine did with the Big Boss gives me all the tools I need to get the job done in style," says Ferguson who is an avid Ram truck fan.
"We just retired our old service truck, so the Big Boss Ram and the equipment it comes with is going to be put to use right away in the work we do. In fact, I'll be driving it to South Carolina and use the Ram to bring back some equipment to Knoxville at the end of the month. The Big Boss is also replacing my old '98 Dodge Ram diesel, which is close to being worn out," Ferguson says. "When I'm not at work or school, this is going to be a sweet truck [to use] for hunting and fishing."
"We'd like to thank all of our sponsors for helping put together such a great truck," says Stephen Abernathy, ProPickup's associate publisher. "Putting together such a project takes a lot of effort and we couldn't have asked for it to go to such a deserving young man who will put it to work growing his future in the heavy construction industry,"
ProPickup is a bi-monthly publication that reaches more than 220,000 owners and managers of construction, landscaping, aggregates, road and bridge building companies across the country.
The magazine builds one project truck a year with the help of sponsors' product support and encourages the readers to enter the annual sweepstakes to win it when the build is finished.
The Big Boss Sweepstakes sponsors are: Vanair/www.vanair.com; General Tire/www. generaltire.com; Hypertech/hypertech-inc.com; Line-X/www.linex.com; Ram Brand Trucks/ www.ramtrucks.com; Sage Oil Vac/www.sageoilvac.com; DeWalt/www.dewalt.com; Truck Supply & Outfitters/www.trucksupplyandoutfitters.com; USFleetTracking/www.usfleettracking.com; Valvoline/ www.valvoline.com; Warn Industries/www.warn.com.
Other manufacturers who donated product toward the Big Boss Sweepstakes truck build include: AFE; Bushwacker; CoverCraft; Curt Manufaturing; Daystar; Dick Cepek; Firestone Industrial Ride Rite; GearWrench; Go Light; Holiday Raceway; J W Speaker; Motorola; N-Fab; PIAA; Poly Performance; Prolong; Road Armor; Superlift; TailGate Master; Teleswivel; TransferFlow; TuscaBlue; Weather Tech and Whelen.
About Fusable
Founded in 1934, Fusable (www.randallreilly.com) is the premier U.S. media and information company focused on the construction and trucking markets. Its diversified portfolio includes print and digital publications, custom media, websites, interactive media, data products, research and events. The company's construction division covers the highway and heavy construction, road building, aggregates, landscaping and used equipment markets.
Fusable's trucking division serves the fleet, owner-operator, recruitment, truck stop, pre-owned truck and trailer, dealer and heavy-duty aftermarket segments.
Fusable's Equipment Data Associates business is an industry-leading collector and aggregator of equipment purchase and financing data, which it offers to its customers in industrial equipment end markets for sales lead generation and market intelligence. The company's Custom Media Division provides major corporations with customized brand marketing programs.
Fusable has offices in Tuscaloosa, Ala., Chicago, Charlotte, N.C., and New Berlin, Wis.


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The Beowulf mailing list provides detailed discussions about issues concerning Linux HPC clusters. In this article I review some postings to the Beowulf list on Clos networks, The summer can be a bit slow, so I had to work to find some useful topics to discuss. :) But I found some threads that I thought were very useful to highlight. I think they present some very useful information that can be used by everyone.
Clos networks
There are many, many types of networks - almost as many as there are opinions abotu clusters! One that has been used for a while and perhaps people did not know about it, is the Clos network. A Clos network was originally designed for telephone switching and are used in computing networks for growing switch infrastructures to large port counts. On June 7, 2005, Joe Mack, a long time cluster expert, asked a question about Clos networks. In particular, he wanted to know if smaller Clos networks (3 layers and below) are blocking and if they have 5 or more layers, if they are non-blocking.
Greg Lindahl was the first to reply and explain that blocking and non-blocking Clos networks are all a myth. He explained that there is always interference on the network because of traffic from other nodes (the blocking and non-blocking comments were for the telecom industry).
There was some discussion about what is meant by "blocking" and "non-blocking" but then Patrick Geoffray from Myricom responded with a nice, clear, but long response. Patrick explained that blocking for Clos networks, particularly for Myrcom's implementation, you can get a "classical" wormhole blocking where the FIFO (First In, First Out) on the input port is full and the requested output port is used by another packet at that precise time. But he pointed out that this is independent of the dimension of the Clos. Patrick also explained how blocking can happen and how networks are designed to perhaps alleviate some of the possibility of blocking. Very interestingly, he also pointed ways to reduce the overall contention in a Clos network:
- Load balance the routes over redundant paths
- Fragment messages (i.e. pass smaller packets if possible)
- Use route dispersion (Use multiple routes per destination)
Clos diameter: 1 3 5 7 Max nodes count: 16 128 1024 8192
Then Patrick said, "We now use a 32-port crossbar in the 256 ports box, so the crossover points have shifted a bit:"
Dimension (Clos): 3 5 Max nodes count: 512 (a lot, ouch my head hurts)Then Patrick finished up with some theoretical discussion about Clos networks. It's a good email to read if you are interested in networking.
This was a nice, albeit short, discussion about networking. The interesting part is that there is more than one way to skin a cat, so to speak, for cluster network design. If you are at all interested in networking for clusters, be sure to read this thread
Numactl and Multi-Core chips
The entire world is multi-core now. I fully expect the next Christmas toy craze, whatever it is, will have toys with a couple of cell chips in there performing image recognition, speech synthesis, and robotic movement. (Could I make a cluster out of Teddy Ruxpin 2? Never mind).
A discussion started on the beowulf list about performance on a dual-core Opteron 275 node (the discussion even dared to talk about Gaussian performance, but that is verboten). But the discussion started talking about processor afinity, locking a process to a specific core, and the tools that surround this. While not the beginning of the discussion, a post by Igor Kozin, a very knowledgable poster to the beowulf list, talked about using 1 core per socket for some performance testing. He mentioned using 'taskset' for that purpose. Then Mikhail Kuzminsky mentioned the command, numactl. Both tools can be used to produce the desired outcome - pinning a process to a specific core and/or to make sure computationally intense tasks don't end up sharing the same socket (or core) if another socket (or core) is free.
This can be an issue with NUMA (Non-Uniform Memory Access) architectures such as the Opteron. With the Opteron you have a bank of memory tied to each socket. Plus the CPU has the memory controller on-board. But each socket (core) can access the memory on the other socket. You may have a numerically intensive process on one socket, but you may be accessing memory on another socket (not good for latency).
Mark Hahn, posted that the sched_setaffinity function actually does most of the work But he also pointed out that using affinity for all tasks on a node might not be a good idea. For example, he wondered if having one of the cores do the interrupt handling would be worthwhile (but he did point that many Opteron boards at the time tied the IO bridge to a single socket).
Then the discussion branched off to talk more about numactl and what it does for you. Vincent Diepeveen posted an email about some testing he did with numactl and measuring latency in his own program. He saw some differences in latency when using the various cores on the node (there were 4 cores on the board). Stuart Midgley then pointed out that numactl and indeed all affinity tools are not designed to help latency. He said that the 2.6 kernel does a pretty good job of putting the pages on the memory controller attached to the core that the process is using. But things are not perfect, so occasionally the memory pages can get spread around. He also pointed out that, "... the system buffer cache will get spread around effecting everyone." Then he went on to say, "With numactl tools you will force the pages to be allocated on the right memory/cpu. The processes buffer cache will also be locked down (which is another VERY important issue)... ." Stuart mentioned that he has used numactl tools to double the performance of his codes.
I have also seen the Linux kernel scheduler move processes around the cores. In particular, when a daemon wakes up and needs some CPU time, the kernel can move a numerically intensive task from one core and put it on another so the daemon can use the first core. This can be very costly in terms of performance since you now have two numerically intensive tasks sharing the same core. But, once the deamon does what it needs to and goes back to sleep, the kernel is pretty good about moving one of the numerically intensive tasks back to the free core. If you have a number of daemons on the node, then this is more likelyto happen. For MPI jobs this can impact overall performance. It can also affect the repeatability of performance. For example, if you run the same code a number of times, the spread in the performance is much larger when you don't use numactl than if you use it. So using numactl can help your performance and help get more repeatable timings. You can also help yourself by turing off as many daemons as possible on the compute nodes.
Vincent thanked Stuart but also wanted to know why the memory latency for dual-core CPUs was worse than for single-core CPUs. Stuart responded that, "The first thing to note is that as you add cpu's the cost of the cache snooping goes up dramatically. The latency of a 4 cpu (single core) opteron system is (if my memory serves me correctly) around 120ns. Which is significantly higher than the latency of a dual processor system (I think it scales roughly as O(n^2) where n is the number of cpu's)." People generally don't know about "cache snooping" that Stuart mentions. This is a term to describe the cores all telling each other what they have in cache (accessing data in cache is faster than accessing in main memory even if the data is on another chip so they share data in their cache). Cache snooping is one reason you don't see large socket Opteron systems much anymore (I've been told that SGI uses hardware to help their cache snooping).
Stuart went to say, "Now, with a dual core system, you are effectively halving the bandwidth/cpu over the hyper transport AND increasing the cpu count, thus increasing the amount of cache snooping required. The end result is drastically blown-out latencies." A very good explanation of what is going on in the system. Mikhail Kuzminsky went on to discuss some details about the cache snooping (or cache coherency) on the Opteron. In his estimation,the 30% increase in memory latency that Vincent was seeing on the dal-core compared to a single-core is due to the cache coherency effects.
Unfortunately Vincent has an "abrupt" email style and disagreed with Stuart's explanation and acused him of mixing latency and bandwidth concepts. But Stuart went on to give some explanation of cache snooping. In particular he also discussed how latency and bandwidth can be linked together. A number of other people chimed in to say that Stuart was correct.
This was a very good discussion, albeit brief, about the importance of thinking of placement of numerically intensive tasks on multi-core systems, particular NUMA architectures. And guess what, this problem is only going to get more important as the number of cores per socket increases. In the case of MPI codes, some libraries have the ability to schedule jobs on realtively low loaded CPUs (Scali MPI Conenct is one that comes to mind, but I know there are more). Also, Doug Eadline has talked about this problem in a number of his columns in Linux Magazine.
Parallel Storage
On Aug 11, 2005, Brian R. Smith, asked about using a parallel file system as a centralized file system for their clusters. He went on to mention that they wanted a common /home for all of their clusters to limit the copying of data. Brian also mentioned that they had been using PVFS2 with great success. In particular, he mentioned that it has been very stable (no unscheduled outages in 8 months as of the posting of the email).
Joe Mack responded tha he thought AoE (ATA over Ethernet) was cheap (although he had no experience with it.
Then one of the PVFS2 developers, Roc Latham, jumped on the thread. He pointed out the typical access pattern of /home is much different and probably not appropriate for PVFS2. But, then again, PVFS2 wasn't designed for that. He suggested an NFS mounted /home on the clusters and then a /scratch using PVFS2.
Marh Hahn, also responded that he forced users on his clusters to put their "real" data in appropriate places. They gave each user a small quotes for /home but lots of space in other file systems: lots of space in /work which is shared across clusters, /scratch which is local to the nodes, etc. Mark also pointed out that you should pay attention to RAID schemes based upon the usage pattern intended for the file system.
Then David S. and Guy Coates started talking about creating a "storage cluster" that is a set of disparate hardware with some sort of cluster file system on top. David initially thought about using NBD, iSCSI, or something else to tie everything into a file system and then using GFS. Guy responded that you could indeed do this and they have done it using GPFS instead of GFS. He said that they have good reliability with this system.
This thread is very short, but it does point out some interesting things. First, it points out that people, even 2 years ago, were starting to think about a centralized file system for their clusters. This makes a lot of sense because as data files grow, it doesn't make sense to move large amounts of data to and from various clusters, file systems, and even to the desktop of the users. It makes much more sense to have a centralized pool of storage and use that for the clusters. Since you have one pool of storage it also makes sense for it to be a high performing file system that can scale in terms of capacity and performance.
I think one of the more interesting ideas in this thread was how to organize your data. Mark Hahn pointed out that there is more than one way to skin a cat and his way seems to work well for his users. There have been other discussions n the bewoulf list about organizing your data. There is really something to be said for sitting down and determing what most of the data looks like (size, type, etc.) and then match the file system layour to this data pattern.
Dr. Jeff Layton hopes to someday have a 20 TB file system in his home computer (donations gladly accepted) so he can store all of the positings to all of the mailing lists he monitors. He can sometimes be found lounging at a nearby Fry's, dreaming of hardware and drinking coffee (but never during working hours).


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Ever since Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller unveiled charges against George Papadopoulos, a former foreign policy adviser to the Trump 2016 presidential campaign, the White House has insisted Papadopoulos played an unimportant role in the campaign.
According to court papers, Papadopoulos was told in April 2016 that Russia had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of "thousands of emails." As the world found out later, that information was true. The meeting took place shortly after John Podesta's Gmail account was breached, in addition to the earlier hack of the Democratic National Committee.
It remains unclear what, if anything, Papadopoulos told the campaign about that conversation. A key question in the Mueller investigation is what Papadopoulos told the campaign, and what, if anything, the campaign did with that information.
But after the charges became public, the White House immediately distanced itself from Papadopoulos.
"He was somebody that played a minimal role, if one at all," press secretary Sarah Sanders said last fall.
"I never heard of Papadopoulos," former Trump adviser Michael Caputo told CNN. "He was the coffee boy."
More recently, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., the chairman of the House intelligence committee and an ally of the Trump White House, told Fox News that Papadopoulos "never even had met with the president."
This is false. Then-candidate Trump tweeted a photo of a foreign policy meeting with several advisers, including Papadopoulos. Nunes' recently released memo also makes clear that the FBI began its investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential race and possible connections between Russia and the Trump campaign because of Papadopoulos.
Papadopoulos himself has not spoken publicly since he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, leaving the administration's narrative more or less unchallenged.
But his fiancee, Simona Mangiante, has decided to defend Papadopoulos whenever journalists will listen, and is telling a much different story than the one coming from the White House.
"I felt this frustration for him," Mangiante tells NPR's Embedded. "And that's why I accepted to speak."
A meeting over LinkedIn
Mangiante is from Italy, and she first met Papadopoulos after the presidential campaign, when Papadopoulos sent her a message on LinkedIn. Mangiante and Papadopoulos had both briefly worked at the same office in London — the London Centre for International Law Practice — though at different times. That office was run by the "professor" described in court papers filed by the special counsel's office, a man later identified as the Maltese academic Joseph Mifsud.
Mifsud has previously worked in Malta's foreign ministry and ran a university in Slovenia.
He has denied any connections to the Russian government and denied ever telling Papadopoulos about "dirt" on Hillary Clinton, but since the fall, he has largely disappeared. He did not respond to NPR's requests for comment.
Mangiante's story is now providing new detail about Mifsud, but she acknowledges that he remains mysterious even to her.
Mangiante first got to know Mifsud when she worked as a legal adviser to the European Parliament, and he recruited her.
"He was interested to hire young people with political connections," she says, "to have access to their networks."
She says she worked in Mifsud's London office for about three months, but to this day, she does not understand what she was supposed to do at the office. There was "no work agenda," she says, and the office consisted of a single table and a rotating group of people working on their own laptops.
At one point, she says, she was asked to attend a "secret symposium" on Iraq, but the organizers would not tell her key details, like who else would be attending. She received a plane ticket, but decided not to go, given the secrecy.
She also says she was never paid for her work, and after three months, she decided to leave. (Mangiante shared her resignation letter with NPR, where she mentions the lack of pay.)
For nearly a year, Mangiante says her experience with Mifsud remained a bit of a mystery. But now that the U.S. government alleges that Mifsud had connections to the Russian government, she says "it makes sense."
Since the allegations came out, the London Centre for International Law Practice appears to have shut down. When NPR's Frank Langfitt recently tried to visit the office, he was turned away.
The investigation
Mangiante says her relationship with Papadopoulos began around April 2017, and it was "love at first sight." A few months later, after a European vacation the young couple took, Papadopoulos was arrested after arriving at Dulles International Airport in the Washington, D.C., area. He later entered a guilty plea for lying to the FBI and is cooperating with authorities.
Mangiante says she has also been questioned by federal agents.
She says she cannot speak on behalf of Papadopoulos, on the advice of his lawyers. But she wants to correct the record about her fiance and his role on the campaign, which she says was much larger than the White House claims.
For one, Mangiante confirmed to NPR that Papadopoulos organized a meeting between Donald Trump and the president of Egypt during the campaign, a story first reported by The New York Times.
"I never heard of anybody bringing coffee and organizing meetings with presidents," she says.
She also confirmed that Papadopoulos helped edit Donald Trump's April 2016 foreign policy speech, where Trump said, "I believe an easing of tensions and improved relations with Russia — from a position of strength only — is possible. Absolutely possible."
When NPR asked if everything Papadopoulos did during the campaign was authorized by the top levels of the campaign, she responded unequivocally:
"Yes. That's my understanding."
She also says it will be "easy to prove" how significant Papadopoulos' role was, because "all of his communication, professional communication with other people with the campaign, [was] via email."
Once Papadopoulos is sentenced for lying to the FBI, Mangiante says, he will finally be able to tell his side of the story. "After sentencing, he will definitely talk," she says. "And he will say everything I can't say."
In the meantime, she is spending time with Papadopoulos in his hometown of Chicago.
And she recently made a new purchase.
"I bought for George a coffee machine," she says, "and he was laughing at me. I said, 'Look, I cannot just go and say you're not a 'coffee boy,' you have to do something for me now!"
NPR's Ryan Lucas contributed to this story
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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Disease Control Priorities
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Building on its predecessors DCP1 (1993) and DCP2 (2006), the third edition, published by The World Bank Group, provides the most up-to-date evidence on intervention efficacy and program effectiveness for the leading causes of global disease burden. It goes beyond previous efforts by providing systematic economic evaluation of policy choices affecting the access, uptake and quality of interventions and delivery platforms for low-and middle-income countries. Complete volumes of DCP3 will be published electronically and in hard copy in 2015 and 2016. Disease Control Priorities Network (DCPN) at University of Washington's Department of Global Health, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, promotes and supports the use of economic evaluation for priority setting at both global and national levels through policy advocacy, country engagement, and the production of Disease Control Priorities, Third Edition (DCP3).


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The NFL announced fines against Denver Broncos coach John Fox and the team's defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio after they challenged replacement officials in an aggressive manner last Monday.
Fox was fined $30,000 and Del Rio was fined $25,000. As Bill reported for us, that game on Monday was a kind of culmination of frustration with the job of replacement officials. The league locked out the regular officials in the course of contract negotiations and the NFL says it may use replacement officials for the first five weeks of the season.
As Bill explained, some of the calls the referees have made have come into question. That Monday game "descended into a near-brawl between players" and "cameras also spotted several instances of coaches angrily yelling into referees' faces."
The NFL said it issued the fines as a part of "a longstanding NFL rule prohibiting verbal or physical abuse of game officials."
NFL.com reports:
"The timing adds some intrigue here. The NFL's decision to hold off until Monday to announce the fines plays into the theory that the league was waiting to see how Week 3 played out before following through on its discipline. When Sunday brought another day of replacement ref drama, the home office sent its message. ..."Expect more coaching discipline shortly. The league confirmed to Around the League on Monday morning that it's investigating an incident with officials involving Washington Redskins offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan."
ESPN reports that NFL officials called Fox and Del Rio mid-game to ask them to tone down their criticism.
Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.


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needs, it is very easy to use the program without being
forced to configure complex fields. But for power users who
need more - GANTT charts, detailed reports - they are
available. We are extremely happy with our switch to Immigo
as are our clients.
Our company's immigration service division recently
implemented Immigo as operating system for the case
management of our operations. We are fascinated by the
program's logic which has already helped us to better
streamline, control and keep track of our operations.
Immigo's reporting system allows us to tailor make reports
as per our clients' needs which adds tangible value to our
service and improves customer relations.
Just wanted to say I LOVE IMMIGURU! I have not slept great
tonight thinking of the 7 countries of information sought
by the client yesterday and now a few minutes later I have
shot off great reports and my day really turned to
euphoria! Thanks guys – you did an amazing
Our experience with Immigo has been phenomenal. This is the
kind of intelligent case management combined tracking
system that immigration professionals have been crying out
for. Immigo is the perfect tool, easy to use and clear to
read. Added to the possibility of the interaction with the
Immiguru platform, offering over 500 procedures for 84
countries really allowed Expat Partners to become a global
immigration service provider, with a stream-lined system
for managing and tracking our case files. Immigo has
allowed us to give our clients secured access to their
cases whenever and wherever they want, Gantt charts and
reports are all available at ones finger tips. Thank you
Sophy and the Peregrine team we look forward to the next
exciting steps!
"My firm is absolutely in love with Immiguru since we've been using
it. It's a fabulous tool."
"Immiguru makes my job easier. It saves time when you need to
have a clear idea about the problems and the timing of a legal
"Immiguru has provided us with a cost effective and time
efficient methodology for understanding and facilitating
immigration services. We have been able to implement effective
internal processes that maximise the use of our resources while
giving our team the tools for greater knowledge of the
immigration process as a whole."
"The access to the fantastic up to the minute fact files, handy
hints and contact points for overseas providers afforded to us
by Immiguru has been invaluable and enabled us to launch a global
service and compete for larger accounts."
I use Immiguru on an almost daily basis when providing
immigration pricing and information to our clients. The
fact that I can choose a variety of home locations,
nationalities and destinations has been beyond helpful in
providing the right information to our clients. It is a
great tool to have full use of within my role.
I have dealt with Sophy King for a number of years and hold her in
extremely high regard. Sophy has undertaken several consulting
projects for us and has provided invaluable business support
throughout our time working together. I can strongly recommend
Sophy's project skills and her ability to undertake complex
projects at short notice.
"Peregrine has been doing project work for our company during the last
year. The project work included Immigration research for our business
in several countries especially for non-EU nationals going to work at
other locations very often without our company having an entity in
these locations. This helped our business and leadership to decide
whether opening an entity would make sense or employees could work at a
client site. Sophy and her team have always been extremely reliable,
approachable and delivered the requested information quickly which
helped us to make further decisions for new locations and start
planning accordingly. Especially the timelines we need to take into
account for visa1) applications, required documents, red flags per
region have been extremely useful for our business. I can highly
recommend Peregrine as an advisor for all immigration related matters."
Through our collaboration with Peregrine, we have been able to
provide guidance on a multitude of complex immigration scenarios,
helping clients successfully resolve key concerns in a timely and
efficient manner. Peregrine is an excellent partner for
immigration consultations of any size and complexity."
"The training and webinars provided by Peregrine Immigration have
been very informative and helpful. Peregrine's network of
partners, as well as the team at Peregrine are always willing to
provide the most up-to-date and relevant information. They are
knowledgeable and easy to understand. Thanks to Peregrine, we have
been able to gain the knowledge and insight on global immigration
and have been able to provide our clients with the utmost service
"I have been working with Sophy King at Peregrine Immigration on a
large scale global immigration project for the past 18 months. The
resources and policies we have put together allow us to maximize
compliance across the globe, and the project has been a great success.
I have found Peregrine to be deeply knowledgeable, organized, and
efficient in every step. Working with Sophy and her team has allowed me
to focus my efforts less on requirements and data gathering, and more
on the actual implementation of improved processes. Had I tried to
manage this project on my own, it would not have been possible. The
Peregrine team has been essential in the success of this project. I
would highly recommend their services, and would use them again without
"Our work with Sophy King and Peregrine Immigration Management in a
Consulting capacity has been a very positive experience. We have
received insightful guidance on complex issues, obtained specific
expertise on many countries and benefitted from her wide range of
immigration experience. This particularly was useful in identifying
potential high quality service providers in many of our key
locations. With respect to our RFP (Request for Proposal), in which
we took a very complex and difficult approach, Sophy's ability to
distill down complex situations into manageable pieces was a key to
successful execution of the project. During the analytical phase of
the RFP, she was able to provide a great balance between applying
detailed knowledge to specific responses and identifying areas where
a broader approach was more relevant. After awarding the contract
Sophy was also able to help us in the development of immigration
process flows for new countries. Over-all, Sophy and Peregrine have
been timely in their assistance, outstanding in experience, and
impartial in assessment - a great, collaborative partner for our


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text: Good morning. I'm Linda Wertheimer. It was not a team of paleontologists but a group of stags who made a rare discovery recently in New Mexico - make that a stag party. T hey were cruising by the lakeshore at Elephant Butte State Park when they discovered the skull of a mastodon with teeth and tusks intact. The prehistoric elephant lived about 3 million years ago, predating both the woolly mammoth and the earliest-known bachelor party. You're listening to MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


text:
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More everyday relevance. Less ambiguity.
In 1992, the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC for short) was introduced. Since then, this procedure has been used to determine the fuel consumption and emission values of vehicles. However, the conditions of this laboratory test are disadvantageous in determining realistic consumption and emission values.
From September 2018, therefore a new driving cycle called WLTP (Worldwide Harmonized Light Vehicles Test Procedure) is to replace the NEDC.
This laboratory test will also be supplemented by an emissions test that measures pollutants directly on the road: RDE (Real Driving Emissions).
The new test procedures will enable consumers to better estimate their vehicle's fuel consumption and emissions in the future.
From NEDC to WLTP.
The new procedure of WLTP is based on an approximation of the test conditions to real-world circumstances, which means that the values determined will also have a greater relevance to reality. Among the changes this involves are redefined, significantly stricter test conditions and higher speeds together with a substantially longer test duration (30 instead of 20 minutes).
To obtain a more precise determination of CO2 emissions, the new test procedure includes not only standard equipment – as was previously the case – but also all special equipment options of a vehicle. This produces two values for each type of vehicle: the lowest and highest possible standard consumption value according to aerodynamics, weight and rolling resistance. Thanks to WLTP, you will be able to better assess a vehicle's consumption and CO2 emissions in the future. In the case of a specific vehicle configuration the individual standard value will be indicated directly. In spite of the great accuracy, deviations are of course also possible with this test procedure. Everyday consumption and CO2 emissions continue to be subject to the different conditions of topography, climate and personal driving technique. The traffic situation, the current load carried and the use of devices such as the air conditioning system are further influences on the consumption of a vehicle. One thing is clear: the test conditions are more than realistic than before, which means that higher fuel consumption and CO2 values as well as lower ranges for electric vehicles can be expected on paper. However, this will not have any adverse effect on the real fuel consumption or range. Furthermore, the BMW Group is always working on new technologies in order to improve consumption and range.
MINI is already working on the transition to the new test procedure and is preparing its product portfolio step by step with new vehicles, new engine versions or technical revisions. This will ensure that all vehicles within the entire fleet of the BMW Group comply with the applicable legislative framework at all times.
From September 2017, the WLTP will be compulsory for new type approvals. However, the legislator specifies that the values measured with WLTP will initially be communicated with a calculation translating it back to NEDC values. The EU Commission has developed a correlation technique for this purpose, which will be binding to an equal extent on all vehicle manufacturers. This phase is intended to simplify the transition. Its duration will depend on the respective national legislation and will thus vary from market to market.
From September 2018, all manufacturers will be obliged to test in accordance with WLTP for vehicles sold in the EU as well as in Switzerland, Turkey, Norway, Liechtenstein, Israel.
Finally, by December 2020, all countries that adopt the EU legislation for vehicle will have to indicate and communicate WLTP values for all vehicles.
" The new test will ensure that lab measurements better reflect the on-road performance of a car."*
– European Automobile Manufacturers Association
Find out about the relevant facts on the transition to the new WLTP.
These are the specific differences between the old and new test procedure.
Test procedure |
Test duration |
20 min. |
30 min. |
Test distance |
11 km |
23.5 km |
Time spent stationary |
25% |
13% |
Test phases |
Urban/Extra-urban, (combined) |
Low, Medium, High, Extra high, (Combined); (plus "City" for electric vehicles and vehicles with plug-in hybrid drivetrain) |
Speed |
Average: 34 km/h Maximum: 120 km/h | Average: 46.6 km/h Maximum: 131 km/h |
Start Temperature |
20–30° C Cold engine start | 14° C (tested at 23° C corrected for 14° C) Cold engine start |
Special equipment options |
Not taken into consideration |
All equipment options are considered in terms of their influence on aerodynamics, weight and rolling resistance. |
In addition to WLTP, RDE (Real Driving Emissions) will also be compulsory for all vehicle manufacturers in the EU as well as in Switzerland, Turkey, Norway, Liechtenstein, Israel from September 2018. In these RDE tests, the pollutant emissions such as particulate matter and nitrogen oxides (NOx) are measured directly on the road. This method determines average emission values that can be expected during everyday driving.
In order to further reduce these pollutant values, MINI employs various technologies for reducing exhaust emission in its models.
The BMW BluePerformance measures, for example, reduce the emission of nitrogen oxides in diesel engines. MINI is using devices known as nitrogen oxide (NOx) storage catalytic convertors in order to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions. In addition, and depending on the model, Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) with AdBlue® – a urea solution – converts up to 90% of the nitrogen oxides into water vapour and similarly harmless nitrogen.
The BMW Group was the first manufacturer to introduce the combination of NOx storage catalytic converter and SCR system into series production. Since 2006, diesel vehicles have additionally been equipped with particulate filters as standard in order to reduce particulate matter. In petrol-engine models, too, special particulate filters are gradually being introduced.
In this way, MINI is able to comply with the low threshold limit values of the EU6c exhaust emissions standard, which is compulsory for all new vehicles as from September 2018. The EU6c exhaust emissions standard prescribes lower particulate limits for petrol-engine vehicles compared to EU6b. The same limits apply for diesel-engine vehicles within the cycle for both EU6b and EU6c.
The EU exhaust emissions standard defines the valid limits for exhaust emissions such as nitrogen oxides and particulate matter within the EU. The limits vary according to engine and type of vehicle. For the benefit of climate protection and air quality, the limits undergo increasing intensification. This confronts automobile manufacturers with new challenges.
Your Questions. Our Answers.
What is WLTP?
The abbreviation WLTP stands for "Worldwide Harmonized Light Vehicles Test Procedure".
This involves a new test procedure for a more realistic determination of fuel consumption and CO2 emission values of vehicles that will be legally binding for all vehicles as of September 2018. WLTP will replace the previously applicable NEDC procedure.
> Further information is available here
What is the WLTP driving cycle?
A vehicle's consumption and emissions depend on driving style among other factors. This is why driving data have been compiled for WLTP around the world. These data were used to define 4 representative phases with different average speeds: low, medium, high and extra-high. Within each of these phases, there are different intensities of acceleration, braking and stopping in order to depict situations with a relevance to everyday driving style. The combination of these phases then results in the driving cycle, which is communicated as a combined value in the manufacturer's details. As electric and hybrid vehicles are used particularly within urban areas, their driving cycle contains a 5th phase: the City phase. This results from the average speeds of low and medium.
How is MINI dealing with the new methods involved in WLTP?
MINI is already working on the transition to the new test procedure and is preparing its product portfolio step-by-step with new vehicles, new engine versions or technical revisions. This will then ensure that all vehicles within the entire BMW fleet comply with the conditions of their respective legal framework at all times.
As a matter of principle: vehicles of the BMW Group comply with the respective legal requirements. The relevant results from national and international official investigations confirm this.
What does WLTP mean for me?
Introduction of WLTP will mean that the fuel consumption and CO2 values indicated will approximate those in real-world operation. Irrespective of this, taking into account individual special equipment in WLTP will additionally lead to more realistic values as they are based on your personal vehicle configuration. At the same time, however, more realistic values will also mean higher consumption and CO2 values for vehicles with combustion engines and a lower electric range for electric vehicles (including plug-in hybrids). Depending on national legislation, higher CO2 taxes may result.
> Further information is available here
What is RDE?
The abbreviation RDE stands for "Real Driving Emissions". This is a new procedure for determining pollutants such as nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulate matter. The crucial feature is that measurement takes place on the road under realistic driving conditions and not in the laboratory. A device known as a Portable Emissions Measurement System (PEMS for short) is attached to the exhaust of the test vehicle for this purpose.
> Further information is available here
What is EU6?
Euro 6 is the name of the current exhaust emission standard for pollutants. It defines lower maximum values for particulate matter and nitrogen oxide emissions than EU5. From September 2018*, the EU6c emission standard will become compulsory, and in comparison to EU6b it specifies even lower limits for the content of particulate matternumber in petrol-engine vehicles. The same threshold limit values apply for diesel-engine vehicles within the cycle for both EU6b and EU6c. EU6d-TEMP from September 2019* and EU6d from January 2021* will again slightly lower the threshold limit values for the number of particles and nitrogen oxides in line with RDE.
*Applies to new vehicles. New vehicle types will each be subject to the new exhaust emission standards 1 year earlier.
What does selective catalytic reduction (SCR) mean?
So that the exhaust emission values of a vehicle can be further reduced, liquid ammonia, called AdBlue®, is fed into diesel engines' exhaust system. Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) with AdBlue® reduces up to 90% of the nitrogen oxides. What remains is water vapour, nitrogen and CO2. What remains is water vapour, nitrogen and CO2.
What is BluePerformance?
MINI uses BluePerformance technology to reduce the nitrogen oxide emissions of its vehicles even further. This technology allows the emissions performance of the diesel engine to be further optimised. In addition to the diesel particulate filter and NOx storage catalytic converter, in some models the SCR catalytic converter (SCR = Selective Catalytic Reduction) with AdBlue® injection guarantees a significant reduction in nitrogen oxides contained in the exhaust gases.
What is a particle filter?
The particle filter is a measure for reducing particulate matter present in diesel engines and petrol engines.