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South African Journal of Science
versión On-line ISSN 1996-7489
versión impresa ISSN 0038-2353
S. Afr. j. sci. vol.111 no.5-6 Pretoria may./jun. 2015
Monitoring and evaluating astronomy outreach programmes: Challenges and solutions
Sarah ChapmanI; Laure CatalaII, III, IV; Jean-Christophe MauduitIV; Kevin GovenderIV; Joha Louw-PotgieterI
IInstitute for Monitoring and Evaluation, Section for Organisational Psychology, The School of Management Studies, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
IIDepartment of Astronomy, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
IIISouth African Astronomical Observatory, Cape Town, South Africa
IVInternational Astronomical Union, Office of Astronomy for Development, Cape Town, South Africa
A number of tools exist to guide the monitoring and evaluation of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and outreach programmes. Fewer tools exist for evaluating astronomy outreach programmes. In this paper we try to overcome this limitation by presenting a monitoring and evaluation framework developed for the International Astronomical Union's Office of Astronomy for Development (OAD). The mandate of the OAD is to stimulate sustainable development at an international level and to expand astronomy education and outreach globally. The broad assumptions of this programme are that astronomy has the potential to contribute to human development by means of the transferable nature of its science discoveries, as well as its potential to activate feelings of wonderment, inspiration and awareness of the universe. As a result, the programme potentially embodies a far broader mix of outcomes than conventionally considered in STEM evaluation approaches. Towards this aim, we operationalise our monitoring and evaluation approach by first outlining programme theories for three key OAD programmes: a programme for universities and research, another one for schools, and one for public outreach. We then identify outcomes, indicators and measures for each one of these programmes. We conclude with suggestions for evaluating the global impact of astronomy for development.
Keywords: astronomy for development; STEM education; science outreach; programme evaluation; monitoring and evaluation framework
What does gazing at the stars and putting a man on the moon have to do with monitoring and evaluation?
The answer lies in a spate of recent discussions around evaluation of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) interventions. At the 27th Annual Conference of the American Evaluation Association in 2013, the STEM Topical Interest Group emerged as a fully fledged area of interest and sponsored 23 different sessions. Apart from presentations dealing with evaluations of STEM education, delegates affiliated to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) presented a paper entitled 'Measuring Inspiration' to describe their agency-wide approach to advance high-quality STEM education.1 In their presentation, they highlighted the need for rigorous and thorough performance assessment of astronomy outreach programmes, which they defined as evaluation approaches that include both an assessment of how well the programmes are being implemented (process evaluation) and whether they are achieving their aims (outcome assessment). Ideally, these assessments should be based on plausible theories on how the programme is supposed to work (i.e. a programme theory), and use reliable and valid data collection instruments.1
In 2011, the International Astronomical Union's (IAU) Office of Astronomy for Development (OAD) was opened at the South African Astronomical Observatory in Cape Town with the mandate to stimulate development at an international level and expand astronomy education and outreach globally. The formative and emergent nature of the programme meant that simple, focused and very practical monitoring and evaluation approaches were needed. In this article, we describe the method we used to develop a programme monitoring and evaluation (M&E) framework for the OAD.
Astronomy for development
The IAU is an international astronomical organisation of more than 10 000 professional astronomers from more than 90 countries. Its mission is to promote and safeguard the science of astronomy in all its aspects through international cooperation. The International Year of Astronomy (2009) inspired the IAU to 'commit to even more ambitious programmes of educating the world to the beauty of the Universe and the sense of common humanity that derives from it'2(p.3). The IAU's vision, through the establishment of the OAD, was to promote human development by means of astronomy outreach. Outreach activities were focused around three core programme areas: (1) universities and research, (2) children and schools and (3) the public.
The OAD's vision that astronomy has the potential to lead to positive human development was underscored by a number of hypotheses or core assumptions. The first of these was that because astronomy has triggered curiosity and a certain form of fascination throughout cultures, continents and generations, it has the ability to reach out to as broad an audience as possible. This reach, in turn, enables astronomy to plant the seeds for a sense of common heritage and a shared, overarching (or superordinate) sense of humanity - building blocks for a generally more tolerant society.
A second hypothesis was that astronomy has the potential to contribute to human development by means of the transferable nature of its developments and discoveries. In support of this assumption, the OAD cites a number of technologies and skills developed for astronomical research that are now applied in industry, the medical field, and in devices that one uses on a daily basis.3 A few examples of these are the charge-coupled devices (better known as CCDs) that one finds in digital cameras and cellular phones; the transfer of technology developed for astronomy into medical imaging instrumentation; and the application of adaptive optics technology in the high-precision laser industry and medicine.
A final assumption was that astronomy as a science has the potential to positively build the economic, institutional and human capital of participating countries and institutions. For example, according to Schilizzi et al.4, the square kilometre array radio telescope's influence will be widely felt in astroparticle physics and cosmology, fundamental physics, galactic and extragalactic astronomy, solar system science and astrobiology. A report from Promoting Africa European Research Infrastructure Partnerships (PAERIP)5 - a European Union-Africa partnership - elaborates on the positive socio-economic impact of a large astronomical project such as the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT). Via the SALT collateral benefits programme, the building of SALT is believed to have generated employment, skills and human-capacity building, science awareness in the surrounding communities, as well as the development of teacher-training and higher-education programmes. More broadly, a recent article in Nature6highlights the importance of supporting science and ways of using it for capacity building.
Evaluating astronomy for development
A key question for the OAD was the extent to which their assumptions about impact (outlined above) were plausible, and could be substantiated by empirical evidence stemming from their outreach activities. For this reason, OAD early on identified the need for their outreach activities to be underscored by a robust impact evaluation platform.
But evaluators are not able to determine impact with certainty, only with varying degrees of confidence.7 Degrees of confidence in turn are dependent to a large extent on the research design utilised for estimating programme effects, how distal the outcomes of interest are, and how mature the programme of interest is. The OAD is not a mature programme, and the outcome of interest - human development - is both distal and difficult to define. If evaluators could, for example, compare participation in scientific research within countries where astronomy for development programmes were implemented with participation in countries where no programmes were implemented, one could theoretically estimate the effect difference with relative certainty. However, implementing such a design might call for randomised field experiments or the selection of carefully matched comparison sites to enable a quasi-experimental design. This scenario presents challenges in terms of time, cost, accurate data and cooperation.
A less robust approach is the measure of 'perceptions' of impact. This measure consists of gathering anecdotal testimonies of how a project is perceived to have affected the lives of its target audience, and thus contributed to the intended outcomes. The data can be in the form of narratives, pictures or short films. Although this approach may be satisfying to some audiences, the true measure of impact is likely to remain as an elusive end goal.
In light of these difficulties, we made a strategic decision when defining our M&E approach to not focus on measuring distal impacts; that is, testing the OAD's pre-suppositions relating to human development outcomes. Rather, the decision was made to place initial emphasis on ensuring effective implementation and short-term outcome attainment for public, educational and university outreach programmes. The rationale behind this decision was that if the OAD's outreach activities were not being implemented effectively or achieving even their short-term aims, more distal impact pathways - whether plausible or not - are unlikely to ever be realised. In our paper, we therefore restrict our M&E approach to an assessment of the design, implementation and short-term outcomes of the OAD's astronomy outreach programmes.
For our purposes, we understand programme evaluation to be defined as 'the use of social science research methods to systematically investigate the effectiveness of social intervention programs in ways that are adapted to their political and organizational environments and are designed to inform social action in ways to improve social conditions'7*-431*, and programme monitoring as 'the systematic documentation of aspects of program performance that are indicative as to whether the program is functioning as intended'7(p.171). An M&E approach is thus an approach that uses social science research methods to systematically document programme performance and functioning with a view to inferring the extent to which the programme is improving the social conditions of target beneficiaries. Typically, programme monitoring will focus on the continuous measurement of programme implementation and outcomes, whereas evaluation efforts can be more broad-based in that they might also assess, for example, the design of the programme, the need for the programme, and the cost-effectiveness or efficiency of the programme.
Challenges in evaluating astronomy outreach programmes
In developed countries, aspects of astronomy are frequently integrated into formal school curricula in an effort to inspire and interest students in science8, and numerous studies exist in which researchers have examined how learners' conceptual models of astronomical phenomena might best be moved towards more scientific notions8-10. In contrast, the benefits of integrating astronomy into informal public, educational and university outreach programmes are less clear. Although there have been calls for M&E approaches that specifically enhance the design and delivery of astronomy outreach,11 most of these programmes have been viewed in terms of the degree to which they contribute to STEM development, and have been evaluated accordingly.
Educational STEM programmes are relatively straightforward to evaluate and a number of resources are available in the literature.12-14 Short- and medium-term outcomes typically are defined in terms of so-called 'STEM activation', which usually includes curiosity towards STEM, awareness of scientific principles, self-efficacy in STEM, and belief in the importance of the scientific enterprise. Long-term outcomes usually relate to competence, knowledge and mastery of STEM-relevant skills.12 For tertiary-level STEM programmes, increased collaboration with university scientists may be an important additional outcome.15
While astronomy outreach programmes share many objectives with STEM programmes, there are a number of other, less understood areas through which we hypothesised that astronomy programmes may hold unique benefits. In astronomy we are dealing with a science that explores the universe and celestial objects within it. For this reason, it is an inspirational science that has the potential to evoke feelings of wonderment and a yearning to understand our origins. Our fascination with the universe may even result in a sense of oneness that contradicts and undermines those national and cultural boundaries that separate us. For these reasons, we felt that astronomy outreach potentially embodies a far broader mix of outcomes than those conventionally considered in most STEM evaluation approaches.12 And while some evaluation frameworks for assessing learning outcomes (such as the Generic Learning Outcomes framework16) acknowledge constructs such as enjoyment, creativity and inspiration in their conceptual frameworks, in order to operationalise our M&E framework, we were faced with the challenge of providing indicators and measures for such outcomes.
Approaches to astronomy outreach evaluation have for the most part failed to reflect this complexity. In one example from Hawaii, the Imoloa Astronomy Center in Mauna Kea claimed a role in the mitigation of cultural differences between astronomers and the Hawaiian community. This role, however, was never formally assessed by means of an empirical M&E approach.17 The well-known European Universe Awareness programme also makes it clear that project goals include the somewhat abstract outcome of changes in intergroup attitudes, but no guidelines as to how these domains might be measured are provided in their evaluation manual.18 Rather, evaluation tends to be directed solely at the level of astronomy awareness, knowledge, understanding and skills,19,20 for example, correctly identifying a galaxy (knowledge) or using a telescope (skills). A final example is provided in the evaluation approach of the Sol programme run by NASA for underrepresented communities.21 In the evaluation of the pilot of this programme, outcomes were expressed solely in terms of students' positive opinions and knowledge of STEM fields and careers (not specifically astronomy), as well as performance in science and mathematics classes. For this evaluation, generic survey tools relating to general STEM activation were adapted by the M&E team.
Although guidelines on evaluating attitude and behaviour change related to informal science programmes are available in the literature,22 they are fairly broad and will need to be adapted and developed in more depth for specific astronomy-related projects.
Empirical evidence for the effects of astronomy outreach programmes
Overall, there is a lack of empirical evidence as to the effects of astronomy outreach programmes on human development. Although studies make it clear that astronomy frequently rates higher in the public mind than other science subjects on the basis of it encapsulating abstract concepts such as 'remoteness', 'unknownness', and 'excitement of discovery'23(p..225), whether these sentiments can be useful to human development is less definite. Indeed, it is not even clear if educational astronomy programmes are even effective in inspiring lasting interest in astronomy, let alone broader areas of science and development.
One study examined the experience of 655 10- and 11-year-olds in the United Kingdom who took part in a simulated space trip.24 Although a quarter of the children were inspired by the visit to become scientists, half showed no significant changes and some even showed negative changes in their attitude. A later study25 used a pre-test, multiple post-test design to assess the lasting effects of a space centre visit on elementary school children's attitudes towards science and astronomy. Although over 90% of students who visited the centre were highly excited by astronomy after completing the visit (a quarter expressed a desire to become astronauts one day), there was no evidence of the visit having a statistically significant effect on children's enthusiasm for science. Improvements in children's views about science and being scientists in future were also marginal, and over a period of a few months declined to the point that the final post-test means were only slightly higher than the pre-visit means.
Studies of astronomy training at a tertiary level have shown similar trends. One evaluation tracked three cohorts of over 400 Mexican students enrolled in a semester-long introductory astronomy course.26 Although students typically progressed well in terms of conceptual subject mastery, there was little to no significant change over each semester in students' positive attitudes about astronomy specifically, and science generally. Teachers' attitudes may be even harder to influence than students. Ucar and Demircioglu27, for example, reported that a semester-long astronomy course did not change teacher attitudes toward astronomy, and that only marginal gains were evident after even a full 4-year programme.
Given these challenges, the value added by exposing learners, students and the public to astronomy (as opposed to STEM outreach more generally) needs to be carefully considered.25 Research has suggested that, like any extracurricular science outreach programme, informal astronomy outreach programmes - especially those targeted at children - require skilful facilitation and careful integration of content into school curricula if attitudes and learning are to be positively influenced.25,28,29 And while more formal, tertiary-level programmes may be effective in facilitating conceptual mastery of astronomy principles,30 considerable work needs to be done if students are to be inspired to pursue STEM subjects generally (and astronomy career paths specifically) as a result of completing these courses. For programmes such as the OAD's, where a lack of facilities and resources in developing countries might understandably limit programme quality, these challenges should be taken particularly seriously. There is therefore a clear need for simple yet effective formative M&E systems that are properly aligned to the programme's impact theory.
A programme theory for the astronomy outreach programmes
We used a theory-based approach to develop our M&E framework.7,31-36 The approach involves the evaluators interacting with the programme stakeholders to draw out their programme theory until the stakeholders 'find little to criticize in the description'7. M&E can then be focused on ensuring that benchmark processes and outcomes in the programme's stated theory are being met.
A programme theory can be simply defined as 'a plausible and sensible model of how a programme is supposed to work'34(p.5), or more specifically as 'the set of assumptions about the manner in which a program is related to the social benefits it is expected to produce and the strategy and tactics the program has adopted to achieve its goals and impacts'7(p.432). Rossi et al.7 go on to define two components of programme theory - the programme's process theory, which outines the assumptions and expectations about how the programme is expected to operate, and the impact theory, which describes the cause-and-effect sequences brought about by programme activities which lead to programme impact. This distinction is similar to the distinction between action and change theory made by Chen33, who describes programme theory as a set of stakeholders' prescriptive assumptions on what actions are required to solve a problem (i.e. an action theory), as well as descriptive assumptions about why the problem will respond to the actions (i.e. a change theory).
We started to build our M&E framework by developing a high-level model for the three programmes of the OAD (universities and research, children and schools, and public outreach). This model is depicted as a variable-oriented programme theory in Figure 1.
The assumption underlying this programme is: if programme activities for universities and research, children and schools, and the public are offered as intended and at the right intensity, astronomy will serve as a tool for education, and, in the long run, as a tool for human development.
Thereafter, we expanded the programme theories for each one of the three different programmes. We then added tables detailing the process and outcome indicators and measures to assess whether benchmark processes and outcomes are being achieved as planned. Based on these tables, we then developed data collection templates. This final step is specifically important for developing countries for which data collection and management may not be the norm. The templates also serve to ensure comparable data across projects, countries and continents. The OAD will require that programme managers use data from these templates when submitting regular progress reports. The templates will be available to programme managers in online or hard copy format, depending on technological standards within the relevant country. For the sake of brevity, the templates are not included here, but are available from the corresponding author and the OAD website.35 However, the three surveys included appear in the data collection templates.
Programme theory for the Universities and Research Programme
This programme can be considered a core programme of the OAD. Its goal is to create cohorts of graduates and researchers, in astronomy specifically and in science generally. The programme theory is depicted in Figure 2.
Here the assumption is, that given the relevant offering at a university, students will become motivated to follow this field of study. As a result of this motivation, students will be more likely to study astronomy-related subjects and/or pursue a degree in astronomy.
The intervention involves twinning between universities, particularly in developing countries.2 Typically, twinning involves mentorship of emerging researchers and students by senior international researchers, and the presentation of one or more workshops at a university that is not yet offering astronomy degrees or astronomy-related subjects. The programme also encourages researchers in astronomy and astronomy-related subjects to establish and access astronomy infrastructure and archives.
Data monitoring for this programme focuses on both process and outcome monitoring. Process monitoring primarily involves tracking the amount, type and quality of university twinning, as well as workshop presentations. For most of these indicators, programme records would typically serve as measures. Developing indicators and measures for the quality and strength of inter-institutional collaboration proved more challenging. We considered proxy indicators such as email correspondence (measure: correspondence frequency), but ultimately opted to use the presence of a memorandum of understanding as a measure for twinning amount and type. Participant satisfaction surveys were used to measure twinning quality. In contrast, outcome monitoring for this programme focused mainly on updating university records in order to track coverage in terms of astronomy and science graduates (Table 1).
We assumed that studying astronomy or science indicated an interest in these subjects and decided not to measure interest in astronomy for this programme. Where workshops in astronomy are presented at universities that do not offer courses or degrees in astronomy, the quality of the workshop presentation and the intention of workshop delegates to pursue a degree in astronomy or science is measured by means of a short survey. Items for this survey are presented in Table 2.
From Table 2, it is clear that many of the survey statements are quite blunt in nature, and do not include mechanisms for potentially increasing validity such as negatively worded statements. This bluntness was intentional. The global nature of the OAD programme meant that simple tools were needed that are unlikely to pose significant challenges to translation and analysis. Moreover, because respondents in some target countries are likely to be less familiar with surveys than their counterparts, the surveys needed to be both brief and direct in nature. Indeed, at this stage of the process of evaluating astronomy for development we are more concerned with whether these surveys are applicable to a specific target population across a wide range of socioeconomic and educational contexts than with their content and construct validity. At a later stage, the psychometric properties of the surveys will need to be tested more rigorously.
Programme theory for the Children and Schools Programme
The main goal of this programme is to activate excitement for astronomy in primary school children and to foster interest in science in secondary school children. However, several researchers have found that teachers often lack even the most basic scientific understanding of astronomical concepts,36,37 which suggests the need for improved training at this level. In light of these considerations, the OAD programme was disaggregated to two levels of programme beneficiaries: teachers (the direct recipients of OAD support) and learners (the secondary beneficiaries). The relevant programme theory is depicted in Figure 3.
The assumptions underlying this programme theory are: if relevant teachers are qualified (trained) to present and implement the programmes for schools as intended, the children who receive these programmes will be inspired by them; and older children will become interested in science.
In order to collect comparable data for process and outcome monitoring, we created a comprehensive list of indicators and suggested measures. A simplified version of this list is presented in Table 3. From Table 3, we can see that the outcome 'inspired by astronomy' is expressed at two levels of specificity: excitement in astronomy and identification with a superordinate grouping. Here, superordinate grouping identification is defined in terms of a sense of common humanity that transcends common sub-groupings such as national identity or ethnicity. These levels of specificity were developed with consideration to the OAD's strategic plan,8 as well as the personal experience of OAD staff during the first few years of project implementation. Excitement in astronomy might be measured by items relating to interest in astronomy and motivation to learn more about astronomy. In contrast, the outcome 'interest in science' is interpreted in terms of STEM activation. For our purposes, measures for STEM activation include items relating to interest in STEM, belief in the importance of STEM, and motivation to study STEM.
Two surveys are mentioned in Table 3: the primary and the secondary student surveys. When developing the primary school survey items, we had to keep in mind that in many developing countries primary school attendance is low and science often is not taught at this level. On the other hand, in many developed countries, children are taught science in sophisticated laboratories and start developing aspirations for careers as scientists at a young age. Because the OAD's mandate aims to establish impact within a global community that includes the developing world, measureable outcomes needed to be suitable for both developed and developing countries.
One of the most significant challenges was the lack of appropriate tools to guide the collection of M&E data in developing country contexts. While some STEM researchers have called for sensitivity to diversity, equality and cultural concerns in STEM programme evaluation38,39 the majority of STEM programmes do not consider these elements to be important to programme outcomes. Indeed, most researchers who work in this field have focused on race/ethnic disparity of minorities in developed countries,40,41 and there is marked absence of debate around adaption of STEM instruments to the developing world. In one study, for example, the effects of astronomy outreach programmes on children were measured by adapting existing scales that probe children's science enthusiasm as well as beliefs as to the value of science to society. Because science is not always offered (at least in practice) at the elementary level in some developing countries, measuring outcomes in terms of, for example, science enthusiasm and outlook on science,25 seemed implausible. Other tools, such as the Survey of Attitudes towards Astronomy tool developed by Zeilik et al.26, have only been applied to university-level students.26,42 In contrast, tools more suitable for children of elementary school going age, such as the Space Interest Scale referred to by Jarvis and Pell25, seemed too narrowly targeted at specific types of astronomy outreach (in this case a visit to a high technology simulation space centre).
Similar problems were encountered when developing the secondary school survey. Although we came across well-constructed and comprehensive surveys aimed at probing changes in attitudes towards STEM,43 only a few of the items in these surveys seemed suitable for developing countries. Other tools we reviewed were problematic in that they focused too much on specific STEM areas such as science or mathematics,44,45 making them more suitable for the evaluation of structured programmes solely focused on these areas of STEM activation. For both primary and secondary school children, we struggled to identify items that captured identification with a superordinate group at the level of universal citizenship, rather than, for example, superordinate groups at the level of nationality or ethnicity.46 Given these challenges, after much discussion and research, we developed the surveys in Table 4 for primary school students into those for secondary school students.
Programme theory for the Public Outreach Programme
The main goal of this programme is to inspire, entertain and introduce adults to the accessible science of astronomy. The programme theory is shown in Figure 4.
The assumptions of the OAD underlying this programme are that the public will appreciate astronomy if this programme is delivered by competent presenters. Here data monitoring is concerned with coverage of the public, the quality of the public presentation, and the attitudes of the audience towards astronomy and science (Table 5).
The items for the participant survey for this programme are presented in Table 6.
Interpreting outcomes
The surveys and instruments presented in this paper are intended to measure the extent to which the OAD's astronomy outreach activities are bringing about desirable changes in programme beneficiaries. Because these changes are seen as stepping stones towards the OAD's long-term strategic goal of astronomy for development, monitoring indicators of progress towards these benchmark intermediate outcomes is important. But how should the OAD interpret the monitoring data? And how should data be used more generally to guide programme improvement?
In programme evaluation, failure of a programme to achieve its outcomes is usually taken to imply one of two things: implementation failure or theory failure. Corrective action taken by the programme will vary considerably depending on the type of failure that is implicated. As Rossi et al.7 explain, implementation failure usually suggests that there has been poor service delivery on the part of the programme, and/or inadequate service utilisation on the part of the participants. Shortcomings in service delivery might be because activities were not delivered at the right intensity, resources were insufficient, or the amount, type and quality of interventions were inadequate. Service utilisation failure on the other hand might mean that beneficiaries have not responded to the programme in the manner intended, or that the wrong beneficiaries were targeted in the first place. The programme may also have had insufficient reach. Whereas corrective action in the former instance would usually centre efforts to improve service delivery, corrective action for a service utilisation failure is likely to focus on effort to improve the coverage, targeting and uptake of outreach programmes.
The second potential reason for a failure to achieve outcomes might be that the programme theory itself is implausible. Thus, if an implementation failure is not suggested by the M&E data, a theory failure must be considered likely. Even a very well delivered programme with an implausible theory can never be expected to bring about outcomes -because the logic linking actions to outcomes is fundamentally flawed. For us, the implications of a theory failure are potentially far more significant than those for an implementation failure, because in the case of theory failure, the strategic goals of the programme in relation to project activities might need to be reassessed and potentially revised.
Understanding process
From the above it is apparent that understanding process is critical to interpreting outcomes, because a good understanding of service delivery and utilisation can aid in distinguishing between a theory and implementation failure. However, our review of the astronomy outreach programme evaluation literature shows that indicators of implementation are seldom reported, making failure to achieve outcomes difficult to interpret. In the M&E framework presented here, we were therefore careful to incorporate process monitoring indicators and measures in an attempt to address this oversight. The fixed indicators and measures outlined in our M&E framework are, however, quite limited in nature and may occasionally need to be supplemented by more detailed process evaluations. Process evaluations, while similar to process monitoring in their scope and application, are typically tailored to specific projects and structured around key evaluation questions.
The next challenge: Measuring impact
In this article we have outlined an approach for monitoring and evaluating changes in the status of programme implementation and outcomes over time. Using this framework, regular measures taken over time are likely to provide valuable data suitable for formative programme improvement. The first priority of the OAD is therefore to test and apply the M&E framework to its global project sites. The objective will be to acquire as much quality data as possible and receive useful feedback on the framework's usability and relevance. This process of testing and revision can be tracked on the OAD website, from where the latest M&E framework and tools can also be downloaded.35
The framework does not, however, allow for establishing a programme effect or the 'proportion of an outcome change that can be attributed uniquely to the programme as opposed to the influence of some other factor'6(p.206). In order to make this assessment, an impact evaluation with some form of control group would be needed. While the OAD has committed to reporting on the impact of their programmes for the period 2010-2020, a move towards more rigorous impact evaluation approaches for 'astronomy for development' will pose considerable challenges - many of which we have highlighted in this paper. In order to justify such a study, we would need to carefully consider their reasons for wanting to establish impact, and the way in which impact data would ultimately be used. Moreover, we would need to acknowledge that impact is unlikely to be achieved if there is implementation or theory failure.
In this paper, we have hoped to illustrate how the careful M&E of a programme's implementation and intermediate outcomes can greatly assist in determining the plausibility of the programme theory. Without a plausible programme theory, attempting to gauge by empirical means as to whether a programme has brought about desirable long-term impacts is unlikely to prove a useful exercise. And if implementation is flawed, even short-term outcomes are unlikely to be realised. For these reasons, focusing on operationalising a simple M&E framework such as the one presented in this paper has numerous advantages. Should the framework indicate that the OAD's outreach initiatives are both theoretically and operationally sound, the next challenge would be to progress towards a more rigorous assessment of impact.
The OAD is a joint venture between the IAU and the South African National Research Foundation (NRF) with support of the Department of Science and Technology. We thank the South African Astronomical Observatory, a facility of the NRF, for hosting and facilitating the OAD.
Authors' contributions
S.C. wrote the manuscript and was responsible for the evaluation design. L.C. is a PhD student working with the OAD; she provided comments on the manuscript, wrote key sections on the role of astronomy in science, technology and development, and gave input on the evaluation design. J-C.M. is the programme manager for IAU OAD; he gave comments on the manuscript, gave input on the evaluation design and supervised L.C. K.G. is the OAD director; he gave comments on the manuscript, wrote key sections on the mandate and organisational structure of the OAD, contributed to the evaluation design, provided overall project oversight, and supervised L.C. J.L-P. is the corresponding author and project leader; she wrote the first outline of the manuscript, gave input on the subsequent drafts, was responsible for the evaluation design, and supervised S.C.
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25. Zeilik M, Schau C, Mattern N. Conceptual astronomy. II. Replicating conceptual gains, probing attitude changes across three semesters. Am J Phys. 1999;67(10):923-927. http://dx.doi.org/10.1119/1.19151 [ Links ]
26. Ucar S, Demircioglu T. Changes in preservice teacher attitudes toward astronomy within a semester-long astronomy instruction and four-year-long teacher training programme. J Sci Educ Teach. 2011;20(1):65-73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10956-010-9234-7 [ Links ]
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Joha Louw-Potgieter
Institute for Monitoring and Evaluation, Section for Organisational Psychology, The School of Management Studies
University of Cape Town, Office 4.40 Leslie Commerce, Upper Campus
Rondebosch 7708, South Africa
Received: 02 Apr. 2014
Revised: 15 Aug. 2014
Accepted: 04 Sep. 2014


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Welcome to Okehampton Hockey Club
Thanks for visiting our website which provides you with all you need to know about our club.
Members - check out fixtures, results, latest news and much more. If you have any great photos for our gallery or news for our newspage then make sure you share them with us!
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Poganami są wszyscy, którzy potakują życiu, dla których Bóg jest wyrazem na wielkie Tak, potwierdzające wszystkie rzeczy. [Nietzsche]
About Pantheion
Karty podstawowe
The site which you have reached is a multi-denominational project, the goal of which is to popularize polytheism and develop the theoretical foundations of polytheistic religions as well as philosophical and ethical implications of accepting a pluralistic world-view.
Some have called as pagans, and we are not petty enough to renounce ourselves from this popular term. Among us there are followers of Hellenic, Slavic and Germanic Gods, but we do not close our site to the worshipers of the Gods of the East or South.
We collect source materials such as ancient theological texts, hymns, prayers and descriptions of rituals and festivals. Through the study of ancient traditions we broaden our understanding of what paganism is. We are far from the position of religious archeologists who place their blind faith in what was, but what has already been dead for centuries, trying to resurrect it by unearthing it. We do not deal with historical reconstruction in the sense of recreating ancient costumes and requisites. We are also far from all kinds of religious Dr. Frankensteins, who create dreadful monsters from elements of different traditions. Our site does not represent a New Age movement or eclectic neo-paganism.
Although we respect everything that has survived, we are also aware, that it is impossible to be pagans of the kind our ancestors used to be. We are attempting to be pagans here and now, in the 21st century, aware of all the good and evil that has occurred so far. This requires from us creative development of the ancient tradition and confronting it with the achievements of natural sciences and humanities as well as with modern ethical and social problems. We are convinced that polytheism may be the best answer for the spiritual needs of a modern pluralistic society. We are struggling to achieve this aim.
The page is composed of articles which you will find on the menu to the left, blogs – to the right side of the page, and our discussion forum "Portyk" [Portico] to which we invite everyone who agrees, or disagrees with us.
This site is a sister-project of the Antiquity vs. Christendom web site which has a more polemical character and which we recommend to people who cannot understand why we reject Christianity. There we put under critical scrutiny the dominant religion by means of historical, biblical and sociological methods. If you are Christian that site can be a threat to your faith!
Transl. by Pacal II


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A German man, who says he was mistakenly shipped to a secret prison in Afghanistan as part of the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program, took the stand at the European Union's human rights court today.
After unsuccessfully seeking redress in the U.S. and Germany, Khaled El-Masri is suing Macedonia, where he was allegedly kidnapped. El-Masri argued that the country was callous and calculating when it turned him over to the U.S. This hearing could also mark the end of the legal road for a case that spans eight years.
"El-Masri, who is of Lebanese descent, says he was brutally interrogated at a secret CIA-run prison in Afghanistan for more than four months after being kidnapped from Macedonia in 2003, apparently mistaken for a terror suspect. He says he went on a hunger strike for 27 days and was eventually flown back to Europe and abandoned in a mountainous area in Albania. ..."'Mr. El-Masri has spent the last eight years seeking legal redress for the crimes that were committed against him,' James Goldston told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. 'There is abundant evidence including data on CIA flights to and from (Macedonia's capital) Skopje.'"
The Guardian reports that this is the first full hearing this case has received. In the United States, for example, a court threw out his case against former CIA head George Tenet, citing "state secrets," which the Guardian explains "allowed the U.S. government to have the case dismissed without ever getting to the merits."
The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a lawsuit on behalf of El-Masri in the United States, calls El-Masri a "victim of torture."
In a press release, the ACLU argues that the United States has yet to answer some basic questions. It writes:
"To add insult to El-Masri's long-lasting injury, according to State Department diplomatic cables, the Bush administration pressured Germany not to prosecute CIA officers responsible for his kidnapping and abuse. Despite the fact that the former President Bush and other senior government officials acknowledged the existence of the U.S. rendition program, and the details of El-Masri's rendition and torture are widely known, the U.S. continues to deny responsibility and has invoked the "state secrets privilege" to protect government officials, CIA operatives and corporations from civil accountability. A 2005 ACLU lawsuit on behalf of El-Masri against former CIA director George Tenet was dismissed by lower courts on state secrecy grounds, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case. Because of the U.S. government's failure to provide redress for El-Masri, in 2008 the ACLU filed a petition on his behalf against the United States with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Over four years later, the U.S. government is yet to respond. Thus while his torturers enjoy impunity for their crimes, El-Masri has yet to receive an apology — or any other form of legal redress."Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.


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Check out our clients' lovely home! We have listed a new property at 20257 42 AVE in Langley.
BROOKSWOOD! Incredible 3418 sq. ft. Basement Home on 10,753 sq. ft. Lot with Triple Garage! Finished Top to Bottom! Stunning "Open Plan" Great Room Plan with Gas Fireplace! Open to the Kitchen and Dining - making it PERFECT for Entertaining! Kitchen boasts Stone Accents, Granite, breakfast bar & pantry! Family Sized Dining with walk out to Covered Deck! Master Bedroom with W-I closet & 5 pce Ensuite! 3 Bedrooms UP plus "Flex" Room (could be 4th Bdrm)! Basement professionally finished offers: 2 more Bedrooms! Media Room and 2 more Recreation Areas! Super bright with Big Windows! Separate entrance and walk-out to patio! Lots of potential for "extended family"! 2 Baths Down! Walking distance to schools, park, shopping! First time offered! Perfect for Family and Hobbyist (Triple Garage)! BE FAST! You'll LOVE IT!


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Unit Price: | USD 31.5500 / Set/Sets |
Payment Type: | L/C,T/T,D/P,Paypal,Money Gram,Western Union |
Incoterm: | FOB,CFR,CIF,EXW,FCA,CPT,CIP |
Min. Order: | 100 Set/Sets |
Delivery Time: | 6 Days |
Basic Info
Model No.: KR-001
Product Name: Beautiful Decorative Metal Home And Garden Fence
Material: Low Carbon Steel Wire
Surface Treatment: Hot Dipped Galvanized
Wire Diameter: 4mm
Mesh Size: 50*200mm
Height: 1800mm
Width: 3000mm
Post: Peach
Thickness: 2mm
Certification: Iso9001
Additional Info
Packaging: pallet
Productivity: 50000 sets per month
Brand: Kairong
Transportation: Ocean
Place of Origin: Hebei
Supply Ability: 50000 sets per month
Certificate: ISO9001
Port: Tianjin Port
Product Description
3D fence panels an economical version of the panel system, constructed from a Welded Wire Fence with longitudinal profiles that forms a rigid fence.Due to its simple structure ,easy installation and nice appearance,more and more customers regard this product as the preferred common protective fence.
Sample name (general name alias) | Triangle bending fence |
Size |
panel size:1.5*2.5m,2*2.5m,2*2.4m post size:1.03m,1.23m,1.53m,1.73m,2.03m |
Attribute (more critical attribute) |
Wire diameter:3.0-5.0mm Material:low carbon steel wire Surface treatment: Hot Dipped Galvanized+PVC Coated/ galvanized+powder painted/hot dipped galvanized only/hot dipped galvanized+ powder painted |
production methods | Material-straighten-welding-galvanized-bending-spray-finiashed |
General purpose | decorate and protect industrial, Perimeter, residence, effect highways, roads, railways, airports, factories, residential area, port, municipal green spaces, garden flower beds, green areas, garden. |
Detailed introduction | Using high quality of the steel as raw material. The welded wire fence panel, after galvanization, PVC/ powder coating; it can resist the corrosive and ultraviolet radiation very strongly. The thickness of powder coating is 100 - 120 microns usually. The choose wire diameters are 2.0 - 8.0mm. It obtains high strong powders to resist the construction. |
1>Electric Galvanized Then PVC Coated
2>Electric Galvanized Then Powder Coated
3>Hot Dipped Galvanized Then PVC Coated
4>Hot Dipped Galvanized Then Powder Coated
5>Hot Dipped
We can produce and provide various mesh fences. Our mesh fence products enjoy such properties as corrosion resistance, aging resistance, sunshine resistance and weather resistance.
Forms of corrosion resistance include electric galvanizing, hot-dip galvanizing, PVC spraying and PVC coating.
This kind of fence netting is beautiful,suitable for any hypsography, and convenient in installation.
1.The fence has comparatively high overall strength and very apparent decorative effect;
2.High grade plastic dipping with 20 yearsguarantee rust resistance;
3.To install and disassemble easily.Can be reused. Can be adjusted according to the fencing needs;
4.Environmentally friendly products. Can be ultimately recyclable.
--Triangle Fence Post Specifications
Welded wire mesh Packaging:
The panels of wire mesh fence: wrapped by wooden pallet with plastic film, to keep the panels clean;
The Clamps of wire mesh fence: in small carton box , to avoid damage;
Anping County Kairong Wire Mesh Products Co., Ltd.
Address: 500 Meters South of Donglitun Village, Xiliangwa Township, Anping County,Hengshui,Hebei
Contact Person: Alice


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Indonesian hand carved Buddha head to shoulder statue
Have a question, comment, or just want to say hello? We'd love to hear from you! Feel free to reach out through any of the following channels:
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Phone: 561-671-9977
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West Palm Beach, FL 33405
Our team is ready to assist you and provide the information you need. Whether you're looking for product details, have a business inquiry, or simply want to connect, we're here for you.
Thank you for choosing Asian Accents - where your feedback is valued!


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"Yoga is not about self-improvement, it's about self-acceptance."~ G K Khalsa
I came across this article and read and re-read it several times. Feeling compelled to share it with all of you, I've copied it in it's entirety below… I've been practicing yoga for over a decade now and have learned over time that yoga is something that can both heal and harm, depending on how you approach it. The rewards of yoga are immense if you practice correctly. It will build a tremendous amount of strength in your body, it will increase your flexibility and work to prevent injury over the course of your lifetime. But, in order to practice safely we must learn to drop our ego, clear our mind, breathe, and feel though the asana. Being fully engaged in the present moment, the asana will happen naturally and safely, but if we let our ego take over, we will injure ourself.
There are twenty million people practicing yoga in the US today. With no real regulation in teacher training, studios and schools are cranking out instructors in droves. You will undoubtedly find teachers out there that will push you too hard too fast. If you practice regularly, make sure you seek out a teacher that guides you, always keeping you on the edge without pushing you too far.
Ultimately, it doesn't matter if your hands are touching the floor, if you get to full splits in hanumanasana, or if you ever hold and balance in utthita pada sirsasana. When you focus on what you look like, you start fanning your ego, risking injury and losing connection with your breath. And while it's great to be "inspired" by what your neighbor is doing on their mat, you have to remember that yoga is ultimately about removing your ego, finding balance, cultivating calmness and bringing awareness to your mind and body.
How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body, Published by The New York Times Magazine
"On a cold Saturday in early 2009, Glenn Black, a yoga teacher of nearly four decades, whose devoted clientele includes a number of celebrities and prominent gurus, was giving a master class at Sankalpah Yoga in Manhattan. Black is, in many ways, a classic yogi: he studied in Pune, India, at the institute founded by the legendary B. K. S. Iyengar, and spent years in solitude and meditation. He now lives in Rhinebeck, N.Y., and often teaches at the nearby Omega Institute, a New Age emporium spread over nearly 200 acres of woods and gardens. He is known for his rigor and his down-to-earth style. But this was not why I sought him out: Black, I'd been told, was the person to speak with if you wanted to know not about the virtues of yoga but rather about the damage it could do. Many of his regular clients came to him for bodywork or rehabilitation following yoga injuries. This was the situation I found myself in. In my 30s, I had somehow managed to rupture a disk in my lower back and found I could prevent bouts of pain with a selection of yoga postures and abdominal exercises. Then, in 2007, while doing the extended-side-angle pose, a posture hailed as a cure for many diseases, my back gave way. With it went my belief, naïve in retrospect, that yoga was a source only of healing and never harm.
At Sankalpah Yoga, the room was packed; roughly half the students were said to be teachers themselves. Black walked around the room, joking and talking. "Is this yoga?" he asked as we sweated through a pose that seemed to demand superhuman endurance. "It is if you're paying attention." His approach was almost free-form: he made us hold poses for a long time but taught no inversions and few classical postures. Throughout the class, he urged us to pay attention to the thresholds of pain. "I make it as hard as possible," he told the group. "It's up to you to make it easy on yourself." He drove his point home with a cautionary tale. In India, he recalled, a yogi came to study at Iyengar's school and threw himself into a spinal twist. Black said he watched in disbelief as three of the man's ribs gave way — pop, pop, pop.
After class, I asked Black about his approach to teaching yoga — the emphasis on holding only a few simple poses, the absence of common inversions like headstands and shoulder stands. He gave me the kind of answer you'd expect from any yoga teacher: that awareness is more important than rushing through a series of postures just to say you'd done them. But then he said something more radical. Black has come to believe that "the vast majority of people" should give up yoga altogether. It's simply too likely to cause harm.
Not just students but celebrated teachers too, Black said, injure themselves in droves because most have underlying physical weaknesses or problems that make serious injury all but inevitable. Instead of doing yoga, "they need to be doing a specific range of motions for articulation, for organ condition," he said, to strengthen weak parts of the body. "Yoga is for people in good physical condition. Or it can be used therapeutically. It's controversial to say, but it really shouldn't be used for a general class."
Black seemingly reconciles the dangers of yoga with his own teaching of it by working hard at knowing when a student "shouldn't do something — the shoulder stand, the headstand or putting any weight on the cervical vertebrae." Though he studied with Shmuel Tatz, a legendary Manhattan-based physical therapist who devised a method of massage and alignment for actors and dancers, he acknowledges that he has no formal training for determining which poses are good for a student and which may be problematic. What he does have, he says, is "a ton of experience."
"To come to New York and do a class with people who have many problems and say, 'O.K., we're going to do this sequence of poses today' — it just doesn't work."
According to Black, a number of factors have converged to heighten the risk of practicing yoga. The biggest is the demographic shift in those who study it. Indian practitioners of yoga typically squatted and sat cross-legged in daily life, and yoga poses, or asanas, were an outgrowth of these postures. Now urbanites who sit in chairs all day walk into a studio a couple of times a week and strain to twist themselves into ever-more-difficult postures despite their lack of flexibility and other physical problems. Many come to yoga as a gentle alternative to vigorous sports or for rehabilitation for injuries. But yoga's exploding popularity — the number of Americans doing yoga has risen from about 4 million in 2001 to what some estimate to be as many as 20 million in 2011 — means that there is now an abundance of studios where many teachers lack the deeper training necessary to recognize when students are headed toward injury. "Today many schools of yoga are just about pushing people," Black said. "You can't believe what's going on — teachers jumping on people, pushing and pulling and saying, 'You should be able to do this by now.' It has to do with their egos."
When yoga teachers come to him for bodywork after suffering major traumas, Black tells them, "Don't do yoga."
"They look at me like I'm crazy," he goes on to say. "And I know if they continue, they won't be able to take it." I asked him about the worst injuries he'd seen. He spoke of well-known yoga teachers doing such basic poses as downward-facing dog, in which the body forms an inverted V, so strenuously that they tore Achilles tendons. "It's ego," he said. "The whole point of yoga is to get rid of ego." He said he had seen some "pretty gruesome hips." "One of the biggest teachers in America had zero movement in her hip joints," Black told me. "The sockets had become so degenerated that she had to have hip replacements." I asked if she still taught. "Oh, yeah," Black replied. "There are other yoga teachers that have such bad backs they have to lie down to teach. I'd be so embarrassed."
Among devotees, from gurus to acolytes forever carrying their rolled-up mats, yoga is described as a nearly miraculous agent of renewal and healing. They celebrate its abilities to calm, cure, energize and strengthen. And much of this appears to be true: yoga can lower your blood pressure, make chemicals that act as antidepressants, even improve your sex life. But the yoga community long remained silent about its potential to inflict blinding pain. Jagannath G. Gune, who helped revive yoga for the modern era, made no allusion to injuries in his journal Yoga Mimansa or his 1931 book "Asanas." Indra Devi avoided the issue in her 1953 best seller "Forever Young, Forever Healthy," as did B. K. S. Iyengar in his seminal "Light on Yoga," published in 1965. Reassurances about yoga's safety also make regular appearances in the how-to books of such yogis as Swami Sivananda, K. Pattabhi Jois and Bikram Choudhury. "Real yoga is as safe as mother's milk," declared Swami Gitananda, a guru who made 10 world tours and founded ashrams on several continents.
But a growing body of medical evidence supports Black's contention that, for many people, a number of commonly taught yoga poses are inherently risky. The first reports of yoga injuries appeared decades ago, published in some of the world's most respected journals — among them, Neurology, The British Medical Journal and The Journal of the American Medical Association. The problems ranged from relatively mild injuries to permanent disabilities. In one case, a male college student, after more than a year of doing yoga, decided to intensify his practice. He would sit upright on his heels in a kneeling position known as vajrasana for hours a day, chanting for world peace. Soon he was experiencing difficulty walking, running and climbing stairs.
Doctors traced the problem to an unresponsive nerve, a peripheral branch of the sciatic, which runs from the lower spine through the buttocks and down the legs. Sitting in vajrasana deprived the branch that runs below the knee of oxygen, deadening the nerve. Once the student gave up the pose, he improved rapidly. Clinicians recorded a number of similar cases and the condition even got its own name: "yoga foot drop."
More troubling reports followed. In 1972 a prominent Oxford neurophysiologist, W. Ritchie Russell, published an article in The British Medical Journal arguing that, while rare, some yoga postures threatened to cause strokes even in relatively young, healthy people. Russell found that brain injuries arose not only from direct trauma to the head but also from quick movements or excessive extensions of the neck, such as occur in whiplash — or certain yoga poses. Normally, the neck can stretch backward 75 degrees, forward 40 degrees and sideways 45 degrees, and it can rotate on its axis about 50 degrees. Yoga practitioners typically move the vertebrae much farther. An intermediate student can easily turn his or her neck 90 degrees — nearly twice the normal rotation.
Hyperflexion of the neck was encouraged by experienced practitioners. Iyengar emphasized that in cobra pose, the head should arch "as far back as possible" and insisted that in the shoulder stand, in which the chin is tucked deep in the chest, the trunk and head forming a right angle, "the body should be in one straight line, perpendicular to the floor." He called the pose, said to stimulate the thyroid, "one of the greatest boons conferred on humanity by our ancient sages."
Extreme motions of the head and neck, Russell warned, could wound the vertebral arteries, producing clots, swelling and constriction, and eventually wreak havoc in the brain. The basilar artery, which arises from the union of the two vertebral arteries and forms a wide conduit at the base of the brain, was of particular concern. It feeds such structures as the pons (which plays a role in respiration), the cerebellum (which coordinates the muscles), the occipital lobe of the outer brain (which turns eye impulses into images) and the thalamus (which relays sensory messages to the outer brain). Reductions in blood flow to the basilar artery are known to produce a variety of strokes. These rarely affect language and conscious thinking (often said to be located in the frontal cortex) but can severely damage the body's core machinery and sometimes be fatal. The majority of patients suffering such a stroke do recover most functions. But in some cases headaches, imbalance, dizziness and difficulty in making fine movements persist for years.
Russell also worried that when strokes hit yoga practitioners, doctors might fail to trace their cause. The cerebral damage, he wrote, "may be delayed, perhaps to appear during the night following, and this delay of some hours distracts attention from the earlier precipitating factor."
In 1973, a year after Russell's paper was published, Willibald Nagler, a renowned authority on spinal rehabilitation at Cornell University Medical College, published a paper on a strange case. A healthy woman of 28 suffered a stroke while doing a yoga position known as the wheel or upward bow, in which the practitioner lies on her back, then lifts her body into a semicircular arc, balancing on hands and feet. An intermediate stage often involves raising the trunk and resting the crown of the head on the floor. While balanced on her head, her neck bent far backward, the woman "suddenly felt a severe throbbing headache." She had difficulty getting up, and when helped into a standing position, was unable to walk without assistance. The woman was rushed to the hospital. She had no sensation on the right side of her body; her left arm and leg responded poorly to her commands. Her eyes kept glancing involuntarily to the left. And the left side of her face showed a contracted pupil, a drooping upper eyelid and a rising lower lid — a cluster of symptoms known as Horner's syndrome. Nagler reported that the woman also had a tendency to fall to the left.
Her doctors found that the woman's left vertebral artery, which runs between the first two cervical vertebrae, had narrowed considerably and that the arteries feeding her cerebellum had undergone severe displacement. Given the lack of advanced imaging technologies at the time, an exploratory operation was conducted to get a clearer sense of her injuries. The surgeons who opened her skull found that the left hemisphere of her cerebellum suffered a major failure of blood supply that resulted in much dead tissue and that the site was seeped in secondary hemorrhages.
The patient began an intensive program of rehabilitation. Two years later, she was able to walk, Nagler reported, "with [a] broad-based gait." But her left arm continued to wander and her left eye continued to show Horner's syndrome. Nagler concluded that such injuries appeared to be rare but served as a warning about the hazards of "forceful hyperextension of the neck." He urged caution in recommending such postures, particularly to individuals of middle age.
The experience of Nagler's patient was not an isolated incident. A few years later, a 25-year-old man was rushed to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, in Chicago, complaining of blurred vision, difficulty swallowing and controlling the left side of his body. Steven H. Hanus, a medical student at the time, became interested in the case and worked with the chairman of the neurology department to determine the cause (he later published the results with several colleagues). The patient had been in excellent health, practicing yoga every morning for a year and a half. His routine included spinal twists in which he rotated his head far to the left and far to the right. Then he would do a shoulder stand with his neck "maximally flexed against the bare floor," just as Iyengar had instructed, remaining in the inversion for about five minutes. A series of bruises ran down the man's lower neck, which, the team wrote in The Archives of Neurology, "resulted from repeated contact with the hard floor surface on which he did yoga exercises." These were a sign of neck trauma. Diagnostic tests revealed blockages of the left vertebral artery between the c2 and c3 vertebrae; the blood vessel there had suffered "total or nearly complete occlusion" — in other words, no blood could get through to the brain.
Two months after his attack, and after much physical therapy, the man was able to walk with a cane. But, the team reported, he "continued to have pronounced difficulty performing fine movements with his left hand." Hanus and his colleagues concluded that the young man's condition represented a new kind of danger. Healthy individuals could seriously damage their vertebral arteries, they warned, "by neck movements that exceed physiological tolerance." Yoga, they stressed, "should be considered as a possible precipitating event." In its report, the Northwestern team cited not only Nagler's account of his female patient but also Russell's early warning. Concern about yoga's safety began to ripple through the medical establishment.
These cases may seem exceedingly rare, but surveys by the Consumer Product Safety Commission showed that the number of emergency-room admissions related to yoga, after years of slow increases, was rising quickly. They went from 13 in 2000 to 20 in 2001. Then they more than doubled to 46 in 2002. These surveys rely on sampling rather than exhaustive reporting — they reveal trends rather than totals — but the spike was nonetheless statistically significant. Only a fraction of the injured visit hospital emergency rooms. Many of those suffering from less serious yoga injuries go to family doctors, chiropractors and various kinds of therapists.
Around this time, stories of yoga-induced injuries began to appear in the media. The Times reported that health professionals found that the penetrating heat of Bikram yoga, for example, could raise the risk of overstretching, muscle damage and torn cartilage. One specialist noted that ligaments — the tough bands of fiber that connect bones or cartilage at a joint — failed to regain their shape once stretched out, raising the risk of strains, sprains and dislocations.
In 2009, a New York City team based at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons published an ambitious worldwide survey of yoga teachers, therapists and doctors. The answers to the survey's central question — What were the most serious yoga-related injuries (disabling and/or of long duration) they had seen? — revealed that the largest number of injuries (231) centered on the lower back. The other main sites were, in declining order of prevalence: the shoulder (219), the knee (174) and the neck (110). Then came stroke. The respondents noted four cases in which yoga's extreme bending and contortions resulted in some degree of brain damage. The numbers weren't alarming but the acknowledgment of risk — nearly four decades after Russell first issued his warning — pointed to a decided shift in the perception of the dangers yoga posed.
In recent years, reformers in the yoga community have begun to address the issue of yoga-induced damage. In a 2003 article in Yoga Journal, Carol Krucoff — a yoga instructor and therapist who works at the Integrative Medicine center at Duke University in North Carolina — revealed her own struggles. She told of being filmed one day for national television and after being urged to do more, lifting one foot, grabbing her big toe and stretching her leg into the extended-hand-to-big-toe pose. As her leg straightened, she felt a sickening pop in her hamstring. The next day, she could barely walk. Krucoff needed physical therapy and a year of recovery before she could fully extend her leg again. The editor of Yoga Journal, Kaitlin Quistgaard, described reinjuring a torn rotator cuff in a yoga class. "I've experienced how yoga can heal," she wrote. "But I've also experienced how yoga can hurt — and I've heard the same from plenty of other yogis."
One of the most vocal reformers is Roger Cole, an Iyengar teacher with degrees in psychology from Stanford and the University of California, San Francisco. Cole has written extensively for Yoga Journal and speaks on yoga safety to the American College of Sports Medicine. In one column, Cole discussed the practice of reducing neck bending in a shoulder stand by lifting the shoulders on a stack of folded blankets and letting the head fall below it. The modification eases the angle between the head and the torso, from 90 degrees to perhaps 110 degrees. Cole ticked off the dangers of doing an unmodified shoulder stand: muscle strains, overstretched ligaments and cervical-disk injuries.
But modifications are not always the solution. Timothy McCall, a physician who is the medical editor of Yoga Journal, called the headstand too dangerous for general yoga classes. His warning was based partly on his own experience. He found that doing the headstand led to thoracic outlet syndrome, a condition that arises from the compression of nerves passing from the neck into the arms, causing tingling in his right hand as well as sporadic numbness. McCall stopped doing the pose, and his symptoms went away. Later, he noted that the inversion could produce other injuries, including degenerative arthritis of the cervical spine and retinal tears (a result of the increased eye pressure caused by the pose). "Unfortunately," McCall concluded, "the negative effects of headstand can be insidious."
Almost a year after I first met Glenn Black at his master class in Manhattan, I received an e-mail from him telling me that he had undergone spinal surgery. "It was a success," he wrote. "Recovery is slow and painful. Call if you like."
The injury, Black said, had its origins in four decades of extreme backbends and twists. He had developed spinal stenosis — a serious condition in which the openings between vertebrae begin to narrow, compressing spinal nerves and causing excruciating pain. Black said that he felt the tenderness start 20 years ago when he was coming out of such poses as the plow and the shoulder stand. Two years ago, the pain became extreme. One surgeon said that without treatment, he would eventually be unable to walk. The surgery took five hours, fusing together several lumbar vertebrae. He would eventually be fine but was under surgeon's orders to reduce strain on his lower back. His range of motion would never be the same.
Black is one of the most careful yoga practitioners I know. When I first spoke to him, he said he had never injured himself doing yoga or, as far as he knew, been responsible for harming any of his students. I asked him if his recent injury could have been congenital or related to aging. No, he said. It was yoga. "You have to get a different perspective to see if what you're doing is going to eventually be bad for you."
Black recently took that message to a conference at the Omega Institute, his feelings on the subject deepened by his recent operation. But his warnings seemed to fall on deaf ears. "I was a little more emphatic than usual," he recalled. "My message was that 'Asana is not a panacea or a cure-all. In fact, if you do it with ego or obsession, you'll end up causing problems.' A lot of people don't like to hear that.""


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Frog Photography and Frog Art from Around the World
The 14 judges are currently reviewing the entries submitted for the 2014 contests. There are so many incredible entries from across Jersey City, New Jersey, the United States and 32 countries around the world. The winners will be announced in January, 2015.
Here is the collected data for the 2014 Frogs Are Green Kids Art Contest: 973 Entries
32 Countries entered the 2014 Frogs Are Green Kids Art Contest
Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Croatia, England, Greece, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Japan, Latvia, Malaysia, Morocco, Philippines, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirate, and USA.
17 States from across the USA entered the 2014 Frogs Are Green Kids Art Contest
Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin.
5 Cities in New Jersey entered the 2014 Frogs Are Green Kids Art Contest
Hoboken, Jersey City, Montclair, Piscataway, and South Brunswick.
16 Schools in Jersey City and Hoboken entered the 2014 Frogs Are Green Kids Art Contest
McNair Academic High School, PS #5, PS #23, MS #4, PS #3, PS #33, PS #28, MS #38, Golden Door Charter School, PS #25, PS #21, MS #7, Liberty High School, PS #31, Hoboken Catholic Academy, and the Hoboken Charter School.
Here is the collected data for the 2014 Frogs Are Green Photography Contests:
16 Countries entered the two 2014 Photography contests "Backyard Frogs" (34 entries) and "Frogs in the Wild" (56 entries)
Australia (NSW), Belize, Brazil, Costa Rica, Croatia, Denmark, England, Germany, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, Sri Lanka, and USA.
9 States in the USA entered the 2014 Frogs Are Green photography contests: "Backyard Frogs" and "Frogs in the Wild"
Arizona, Florida, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
Below are the links to the 3 Flickr galleries, if you would like to see the imagery.
2014 Frogs Are Green Kids Art Contest
2014 Backyard Frogs Photo Contest
2014 Frogs in the Wild Contest
Thank you so much for your participation and good luck to all who entered! We would love to hear from the teachers and students! Tell us what you learned about frogs and amphibians! Tell us about the art mediums and techniques you used. If you'd like to post a video to the Frogs Are Green Facebook wall, we'd love to hear from you!
– Susan Newman, founder, Frogs Are Green, Inc. – A New Jersey nonprofit organization


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A new malware targeting Mac computers has been detected. This new malware for Mac is known as Backdoor.MAC.Eleanor, and affects OS X (recently renamed as macOs) users, and allows the attacker to anonymously access the infected computer.
This malware is transmitted through a malicious third party application called EasyDoc converter, a drag-and-drop file converter. EasyDoc Converter converts FreeOffice documents (with .fof extensions) and SimpleStats (.sst) to Microsoft Office format (.docx), using a drag-and-drop interface.
Backdoor.MAC.Eleanor infects Mac computers with EasyDoc Converter installed, by installing a malicious script in the host. This script registers itself to the system startup, and lets the attacker access the infected Mac. By creating a Tor hidden service – which allows anonymous communication – the attackers are able remotely access the infected Mac through a PHP-based Web Service.
When the attackers gain the remote access to the computer, they can execute commands, modify files or access to the webcam. These are the abilities the attacker will be able to access through a control panel:
• File manager (view, edit, rename, delete, upload, download, archiver, etc)
• Command execution
• Script execution (php, perl, python, ruby, java, c)
• Shell via bind/reverse shell connect
• Simple packet crafter
• Connect to DBMS (mysql, sqlite, pdo)
• Process list/Task manager
• Send mail with attachment
• String conversion
Backdoor.MAC.Eleanor has also the ability to capture images and videos from users' webcams through a different tool.
This malware for Mac can affect all MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models, MacBook after mid 2007, Mac mini and iMac models after mid 2007, and also all Mac Pro models, since EasyDoc Converter runs on OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) or newer versions on Macs with at least 5 GB of free space and 1 GB of RAM. Check your Mac model to know if your computer is on the list.
To stay protected against Backdoor.MAC.Eleanor, avoid downloading unknown applications, specially do not download EasyDoc Converter from any source.
Learn more about 360 Total Security


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This is another in a series highlighting the Granite Mountain Record Vault (GMRV) and the NGS Family History Conference coming to Salt Lake City, 28 April—1 May 2010.
Vault Rooms
Open house visitors were treated to views of the vault rooms. Each vault room was 27 feet wide and 15 feet tall. The tunnels were lined with heavy corrugated steel and concrete was pumped in to fill the space between the steel and the granite tunnel walls(photo top right).
Drop ceilings hid most of the curvature of the roof. Florescent lighting illuminated work areas. There are indications that vault rooms were empty at the time of the open house (photograph, middle right and subsequent newspaper stories).
In addition to the facilities, tours showed open house visitors a film explaining the purpose of the vault and scenes during vault construction (bottom right).
An apocryphal story states that early, impish employees snuck a firecracker into the vault and set it off. In these contained rooms, the sound of the blast must have been intense, reverberating and echoing in the confined space. Today such a prank would likely result in termination. Vault access is tightly controlled. Public tours are a thing of the past. Workers and private tour visitors are prohibited from taking photographs. Upon seeing these vault articles, FamilySearch officials warned off publication of some vault details that were present in the publications of FamilySearch, International back when it was known as the Genealogical Society of Utah.
NGS Conference: FamilySearch Tour
NGS conference attendees this year, in addition to the virtual vault tour and Church History Library tour, are invited to tour the FamilySearch Center in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building (JSMB). The center contains computers and ample personnel to help beginners begin the search for their roots and includes an activity center that will keep children of visitors busy while parents have an opportunity to explore their roots.
For non-beginners, the center has several draws. A recent facelift included installation of an immigration pier photo op, giving visitors an opportunity to generate a keepsake, putting themselves in the context of their immigrant ancestors. And the center offers discount coupons for dining in JSMB restaurants.
Groups can reserve instructional rooms equipped with individual computers and presentation equipment. My family has used these rooms several times for our bi-annual family history reunions.
The JSMB serves as the world headquarters for FamilySearch, International.
The Ancestry Insider arrives at Ellis Island with his trusty dog (or is that a rat?). While in Salt Lake City for NGS, stop by the FamilySearch Center and get a picture of yourself arriving! |
Early bird registration must be postmarked by 8 March 2010. There are just 27 days left.
Pre-registration must be postmarked by 12 April 2010. There are just 62 days left.
The conference begins 28 April 2010. There are just 78 days left.
Dexter Ellis, "Inspection Tours Set for Records Vaults in Canyon," Deseret News (Salt Lake City, Utah), 30 November 1963, Church News section, p. 3, cols. 2-5; digital images (http://news.google
.com/newspapers : accessed 25 December 2009).
"Church Invites Public To Visit Cottonwood Genealogy Vaults," Deseret News (Salt Lake City, Utah), 2 December 1963, p. B 5, cols. 6-8; digital images (http://news.google.com/newspapers : accessed 25 December 2009). Also see "Deep Vaults to Protect Church Files," Los Angeles Times, 2 December 1963, p. b15; and "Plan to Show Record Vault of Mormons," Chicago Tribune, 2 December 1963, p. C16.
"Vault Toured By Church, Civic Leaders," Deseret News (Salt Lake City, Utah), 3 December 1963, p. 12 B, col. 1; digital images (http://news.google.com/newspapers : accessed 25 December 2009).
The Genealogical Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Records Protection in an Uncertain World, 16 p. brochure ([Salt Lake City, Utah: self-published, 1973).
Lynn Arave, "FamilySearch Unveils New Face and Products," Deseret News (Salt Lake City, Utah), 1 October 2009; online archive (http://www.deseretnews.com : accessed 7 February 2010).


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In 2019, the U.S. saw its highest number of mass killings on record — 41.
That's according to a database compiled by The Associated Press in coordination with USA Today and Northeastern University. It has data dating back to the 1970s. Until 2019, 2006 had the highest number of mass killings at 38.
Mass killings are defined as a murder where a perpetrator kills four people in a single event, not including themselves.
Most of the mass killings in 2019 were shootings. The deadliest attack was the shooting at an El Paso Walmart that killed 22 people in August.
Attacks like El Paso sparked a national debate about gun control.
As Newsy previously reported
, while bills addressing gun violence stalled in Congress, state legislatures moved forward with passing their own gun laws.
Although 2019 saw the most mass killing events, 2017 had more deaths from mass killings. And despite the rise in mass killings, the overall homicide rate dropped in 2019.
This story was originally published on Newsy.


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Civil International Space Station Agreement Implementation Act (S.C. 1999, c. 35)
Full Document:
Act current to 2024-06-19 and last amended on 2003-07-02. Previous Versions
Notes :
- See coming into force provision and notes, where applicable.
- Shaded provisions are not in force. Help
Table of Contents
- Date modified:


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Color: white (Sold Out)
A high-top counterpart to New Balance's wildly popular 550, the 650 combines 1980s on-court design with supportive features. The shoe delivers a streamlined, ready-to-wear look, featuring a classic leather upper with a perforated leather overlay and a puff and stitch collar that serves as a subtle reinterpretation of molded foam construction. The brand's iconic N logo then tags the pair on the sides, as additional NB iconography emerges throughout including at the midsole, tongue, and heel.
Order your regular size.
Premium leather upper. Perforated leather overlay. Rubber outsole. Puff and stitch collar. Raw-edged leather eyerow. Leather N logo
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For many years, the monk sat beside the Ajiike pond as he did today in the early morning, breathing in the peaceful settings of the Pure Land gardens........He was angry at the awful atrocities so recently
bestowed upon his people....
Caitlin was ambitious to the point of ruthlessness.........
JJ was counting on getting a job at Johns Hopkins......he had to get out of Ashland KY and his fathers house before he blew his stack......
Little Tommy....He glanced again at the coin beside his hospital bed and felt suddenly peaceful.....Like maybe everything would be ok.......
Paul Somerville....Tommys father, former Hollywood actor, wannabe political star.......
Four people....four ten yen coins....
and a miracle.........?
Christina and Amanda will be awarding an 8 x 8 inch framed tile of Japanese Gardens in Seattle Washington to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour. US ONLY
Raising a hand to stroke his bald head, a tear slipped down Tommy's soft white cheek, and he turned his face into the pillow to muffle the sobs he knew were coming.
He felt something cool on the pillow against his cheek, and he raised his head, reaching his hand--the one without a needle in a vein--to feel for the object that had caused it. A shiny round coin seemed to glow in the darkness of the room and he took it in his palm, gazing at it in wonder. Was he still dreaming?
At that moment, his mummy re-entered the room and smiled to see him awake. "Hi Sweetie." He smiled back, knowing she'd put on her brightest smile for him; she always did. Her gaze dropped to the coin in his hand. "What have you got there?" she asked.
"Money," Tommy whispered, noticing the coin was no longer glowing but looked as dull and brown as an ordinary copper penny.
"Show me." His mummy held out her hand. Tommy obediently handed her the coin.
"Well, I've never seen a coin like this before,"she said. "Where on earth did you get it from?"
Tommy shrugged sleepily. "It was on my pillow."
His mummy gazed at him questioningly, and patted his hand. "You go back to sleep, darling." She put the coin on his bedsidetable. "This must be a good luck coin," she finally said as she sat on his bed, "and Lord knows we need all the luck we can get right now."
Award winning author, former shop-girl, chemist, and pastor, is currently a spiritual director, Reiki Master (don't read too much
into the title master!), wife, animal lover, and
She says, "Boring life? Let's not do duty. Let's
do awe! Take a look at your own complexity? You might be amazed. Life leads us into so many interesting and sometimes difficult crossroads where we get to choose what now, what next? As a student of mysticism and spirituality in all its incarnations both religious, secular, and new age, I want to understand what life is about, what is truth? I am still seeking, but I am offering to those who are interested my insights weaved throughout my essays and stories. I hope my writings might add to your already surprising lives."
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As author of Rose, this is my second published
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A former banker turned wife and mother, I've been given the privilege to do just that and I am having so much fun.
Check out my author page on Amazon, read my blogs
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