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The GBT – The Good, The Bad and The Telling sandwich, where The Bad is nice and lean and the The Telling is ripe.
RAYS 6, Indians 0 (boxscore)
THE GOOD: King David. This was a huge game for David Price. At no point was I watching this game and said "wow!" And there have certainly been games where he was more dominant. But at the end of the game you look up and Price had pitched 7 shutout innings and gave up just 2 hits. And this is why he is now growing into one of the best pitchers in baseball. It is one thing to dominate a team with his best stuff. But great pitchers can still dominate with less than their best stuff…BJ Upton. He had 3 hits. But the big one was a bases-clearing double that broke the game wide open. And I know Joe Maddon hates to have back-to-back righties at the top of the order. But isn't the best Rays lineup with BJ and Desmond Jennings at the top, either 1-2 or 2-1?…Wade Davis. The game was not in doubt, but one day after four relievers were pounded, Big Dub came in and gave Joe Maddon 2 shutout innings, resting the rest of the 'pen.
THE BAD: Hideki Matsui. The end is near. Let's hope the Rays at least sold a few jerseys.
THE TELLING: Matt Joyce was not in the lineup yesterday because he was "stiff and sore"…The Rays are 48-45, 1 game behind the Detroit Tigers in the Wild Card race…Matt Mangini was inactivated by the Durham Bulls to make room for Will Rhymes.
- Be sure to click below for a funny GIF from yesterday's game.
- Today is the last day to enter our contest for a $100 gift card. All you have to do is guess when Longo will be back! [RI Facebook]
- Check out this photo of the storm that rained out the Bowling Green Hot Rods last night. [BI Sports]
- James Shields said there's "no truth" to the recent suggestion that Shields needs a change of scenery. [TampaBay.com]
- David Price had some second-thoughts about his plan to give Astro to a fan for the day. [BI Sports]
- All of a sudden, Luke Scott is red hot. [TBO.com]
- Joe Maddon just bought the house of former Bucs coach John McKay. I was young, but from what I remember, it seems like there were similarities in the personalities of the two. So this move seems fitting. [TampaBay.com]
- If you are in Kentucky tonight, you might want to check out the Bowling Green Hot Rods, who are giving away Matt Moore bobbleheads tonight. [BG Hot Rods]
- A closer look at the competition at running back for the Bucs. [JoeBucsFan]
Lehigh Valley 10, DURHAM 1. Alex Torres gave up 5 runs in just 3 innings. He struck out 2 and walked 3…CF Rich Thompson went 2-4 with 1 double…1B Henry Wrigley continues to rake in triple-A, with 2 more hits including a triple. He is now hitting .340. He is about 60 plate appearances shy of qualifying for the league lead, but if he was there, he would be leading the IL by a wide margin.
MONTGOMERY 6, Birmingham 2. Kyle Lobstein held Michael Jordan's old club to just 1 run in 6 innings. He struck out 6 and walked 5…SS Hak-Ju Lee went 3-5 with 2 stolen bases. He now has 34 steals, second in the Southern League…
CHARLOTTE 2, Clearwater 1. Enny Romero struck out 5 and walked 5, but gave up just 1 run in 5 innings. His ERA is now 3.51…3B Robby Price went 2-4 with an RBI and his 4th stolen base…RF Mikie Mahtook went 3-3 with his 19th stolen base.
Kane County @ BOWLING GREEN. Suspended
HUDSON VALLEY 5, Aberdeen 4. Sean Bierman tossed 5 shutout innings for his 2nd win and LF Marty Gantt hit his 2nd home run.
PRINCETON @ Bluefield. postponed
This cameraman was excited about free pizza…


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Oh yeah and John Scott injured Shawn Thornton in a fight three minutes into this game (B's have no update on Thornton's status but have made an emergency call up which says it's probably not looking great).Benjo wrote:Sabres up 7-4 over the Bruins with 13 seconds left and Lindy Ruff calls a timeout
Vanek with two 5 points games already
Musta felt great for the Sabres but two things I never understood about guys like John Scott who can barely take a regular shift.. on one side of the coin why does anyone engage him at all? Thornton would have been in tough just to hold his own, even he is a more usefull player than Scott so why not just let him skate around looking for a tilt and getting burned as long as nobody engages?
On the flip side, I don't get why Scott picks Thornton (beyond the fact that he's the only Bruin likely to go) - I could get behind the concept of carrying a thug like Scott in the lineup if he was apt to go all Gino Odjick on the players who actually have it coming, but is a buffoon like Milan Lucic really sitting on the bench thinking "wow he injured Thornton, guess I'll have to have a bit more respect for Miller the next time I have him in my sights"?

subset: commoncrawl


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The report does not include any proposed regulations for reducing carbon emissions, but the indication is that the Barack Obama administration would prefer a legislative solution, such as a cap and trade market, rather than regulation. It is a view shared by big and small industry, says Timothy Juliani of the Virginia-based Pew Center on Global Climate Change, but the EPA seems headed in another direction.
"The EPA is more in favour of command and control, especially when it comes to the Clean Air Act," Juliani says. "Really, nobody wants that as the solution. Companies would much rather see a cap-and-trade system put in place by Congress than letting the EPA go regulation by regulation. It would be death by a thousand stabs. That has put pressure on Congress and pressure on the business community."
The legislative process has begun, with the House Energy and Commerce Committee passing a climate bill last month called the American Clean Energy and Security Act. It proposes a system based on allowances to emit greenhouse gases designed to see emissions from electric utilities, oil firms, and large industrial sources cut by 17% below 2005 levels in 2020 and 83% below 2005 levels in 2050. It also proposes a combined renewable energy and efficiency target of 20% by 2020, with 15% coming from renewables. If a state cannot meet the requirement, its governor may cut the renewable target to 12% and boost the energy efficiency goal to 8%.


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The video content on this page requires a properly connected Disklavier to be fully enjoyed. The audio track does not contain any acoustic piano sound. Click here to set up your Disklavier.
Taking It All In Stride - Anthony Molinaro
Uploaded On: Tuesday December 1, 2015
Stride piano playing grew out of the ragtime genre and has been utilized by everyone from James P. Johnson and Fats Waller to Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson. In this presentation, Mr. Molinaro uses the jazz standard 'Back Home Again in Indiana' to teach you how to build this highly energetic and popular accompaniment style. --Premier Educational Broadcast, April 12, 2012.
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text: This figure shows how the data associations editor appears for the Set Business Indicators script task in the Sales Quote example. It contains two columns. On the left is a list of data objects representing the input arguments to the script task. On the right are the three data objects that these are mapped to.


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CineTel Films has acquired international sales rights to action/thriller The Cure, written produced and directed by visual effects veteran David Gould.
CineTel CEO Paul Hertzberg said: "We were blown away by The Cure, both in terms of the strong acting and also the production values. We are very excited to be selling the film and the response from the marketplace has been overwhelmingly positive with several sales already underway. We're very optimistic that the film will perform beyond everyone's expectations."
Antonia Prebble stars as a scientist who discovers that the pharmaceutical company she works for had developed a cure for cancer years earlier. She attempts to release it to the world, unaware that the company will stop at nothing to prevent her. Daniel Lissing also stars.
Gould handled visual effects at WETA Digital on such films as The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and Return of the King, King Kong, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and TinTin: The Secret of The Unicorn.
"We were in a very fortunate position that several sales agents wanted to represent the film, but ultimately we chose CineTel because of their depth and breadth of experience," Gould said. "They not only have a great reputation in the marketplace, but are also active film producers themselves, so they have their finger on the pulse as to what the market wants. We look forward to a fruitful relationship for not only this film, but future projects."


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No court-martial for Watada on refusal to deploy
First Lt. Ehren Watada will not face a second court-martial for his decision to refuse deployment to Iraq, after a federal appeals court judge allowed the U.S. Army to drop its appeal in the case Wednesday.
"We are cautiously optimistic that perhaps we've had enough litigation," said Watada's attorney, James Lobsenz.
Watada was court-martialed in 2007 on five criminal counts after his high-profile refusal of deployment. The case ended in a mistrial, when the military judge declared that Watada did not fully understand a stipulation he had signed before the trial.
The case then went to the civilian U.S. District Court, where Judge Benjamin Settle ruled that a second court-martial on three of the five counts -- including refusal of deployment, the most serious charge -- would constitute double jeopardy.
Settle set aside two specifications of the same charge -- conduct unbecoming an officer -- which stemmed from public statements Watada made against the war and President Bush.
Settle left the door open for the United States to pursue those charges later. Fort Lewis spokesman Joseph Piek said he did not know if the Department of Justice intended to refile those charges. Lobsenz said no charges are currently pending.
Piek said the Army is now considering administrative forms of punishment for Watada, who is working a desk job at the base. He said the punishment options include extra duty, forfeiture of pay, or being discharged from the military.
"The one element that concerns us the most is that this case has always been and will forever be about a soldier -- in this case, a lieutenant, a commissioned officer -- who refused orders to deploy," Piek said.
"Because of a legal technicality, that charge is never going to see its day in court. For the hundreds of thousands of soldiers Army- wide, and for the many thousands of soldiers at Ft . Lewis, that is very disturbing."
Lobsenz said Watada -- who had become a hero among anti-war protesters -- is anticipating that he will be released soon from active duty. The case has extended his military service beyond what would have been his normal release date.
"He plans to return to civilian life and attend law school," Lobsenz said.


text:
Open the saved APK file and proceed. Some users may experience the situation of not starting the installation. Android restricts that by default. Follow these steps to enable installation of APK from Unknown Sources:
Is Star Legends 3D MMO available for Android?
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(CNN) — Would it help you manage your stress level to get a warning that the text message you're about to read is your boss or partner chewing you out? The creators of a new mobile app think so.
Stress @ Work is an Android app developed by a student at England's University of Portsmouth. It color-codes incoming messages on Facebook, Twitter and via text, using their choice of language to predict their tone.
Green means positive, blue is neutral and red is a warning of potential nastiness.
Masters student Lorraine Chambers said she created the app so people know whether to expect to feel better or worse after checking in.
"The ultimate objective of this application is to make the user aware of the negative contents they receive so they are able to manage their stress in the best possible way," Mohamed Gaber, a senior lecturer at the university, added in a news release.
"For example, if most of what is received from social media websites by a user on a particular day was negative, it is important that the user attempts to take an action in order to not get stressed, especially if this may affect the individual's performance at work and/or their behavior at home."
On a sample image provided by the school, a tweet from a sender saying he had a great time the night before showed up in green, as did a text wishing the recipient a happy weekend.
Two Twitter posts with links to news stories (a movie review and a political story) earned neutral blue. Another one announcing that the next day's weather will be bad ("hope you brought a jacket") and one saying that the sender is tired and had taken the wrong bus were flagged in red.
(No word on whether the app can detect irony or sarcasm.)
Chambers and Gaber plan to present the app at a September conference in Spain. It is still in the testing phase and not yet available.
They said they plan to release it for free in the Android Market. If there is enough interest, they then hope to make a version for Apple mobile devices.


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Thu93 2020
Last update18:06 PM GMT
|Home - Contact us - Site Map - Staff - About Us
|:: Issues > Human Rights
Human rights coverage spreads, despite government pushback
The media in the Middle East loved the Intifada. Every detail of Israel's violations of human rights in the late 1980s in the West Bank and Gaza appeared in the Arabic and Farsi press.
|Tuesday, February 16,2010 20:52
The media in the Middle East loved the Intifada. Every detail of Israel's violations of human rights in the late 1980s in the West Bank and Gaza appeared in the Arabic and Farsi press. The governments that owned or controlled these media outlets loved it, too. When pan-Arab satellite television stations emerged in the 1990s, they looped hours of footage of Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers repressing Palestinians.
But it did not take long for Arab journalists to use their newly honed reporting skills on their own political leaders. "Prior to the creation of the Palestinian Authority in 1993, Palestinian journalists reported on violations by the Israelis, but after 1993 they also started reporting on violations perpetrated by the PA," said Musa Rimawi, director of the
News-starved audiences across the region flocked to the new channels, foremost among them Al-Jazeera, owned by the tiny emirate of
Outside of the Palestinian issue, however, human rights reporting remained a tiny component of broadcast and print output. Then came the Internet. The digital revolution that started in the late 1990s is still transforming the gathering and dissemination of news in the Arab world, where dictatorships far outnumber democracies. Online journalism and blogging are flourishing. Once-taboo subjects such as human rights abuses are now covered in unprecedented detail by an army of professional and "citizen" journalists in a region with the fastest growth of Internet penetration in the world.
The speed of the transformation caught many governments unaware. But leaders who depend on controlling information for their political survival have awakened, and they are turning to technology to censor and filter the Internet. If that fails, they resort to harassment, attacks, or imprisonments. In the past year or so governments have pushed back against independent reporters and bloggers, but journalists believe that in the long run technology will make it impossible for all but the most authoritarian regimes to stem the tide of information.
For decades, the mainstream media in
Journalist Noha Atef, who runs TortureInEgypt, a Web site that reports on abuses in
And the old mainstream is itself changing. "Today I get many stories from the newspaper, whereas a couple of years ago I had to rely almost exclusively on reports by human rights organizations," Atef said.
The Moroccan media's appetite for human rights issues was further whetted when a truth commission began examining abuses committed during the 1961-1999 reign of King Hassan II. Although the hearings of the Equity and Reconciliation Commission ended in 2005, the independent press has continued to report on abuses—and not just under Hassan, but under his successor, Mohammed VI, as well.
A change of regime in
A number of Bahraini newspapers, particularly the daily Al-Wasat, covered what came to be known as the Bandargate scandal, an alleged political conspiracy by government officials in
"In the past decade, there has been a marked increase in the quantity as well as quality of reporting on human rights violations and also the work of domestic human rights activists," Gamal Eid, director of the Cairo-based Arab Network for Human Rights Information, told CPJ. "Much of it began online, but we now also see this type of reporting taking place in print." In
"This type of journalism has raised awareness among the public—it has had a positive role," Abdelaziz Nouaydi, human rights lawyer and president of the Moroccan human rights group Adala, told CPJ. In some cases it has also had a positive outcome. In
Throughout the region, a new generation of journalists refuses to serve as ciphers at some gray government daily or as on-air mouthpieces for official propaganda. A 2008 survey of 600 journalists in 13 Arab countries by the
"Seventy-five percent of journalists say that their top priority is political and social change," Lawrence Pintak, lead author of the survey, told CPJ. "And you see this playing out in this more aggressive coverage around human rights issues, whether it's in Palestine by a Bahraini journalist or whether it's in Egypt by Egyptian journalists," said Pintak, who is now founding dean of the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University.
This increased focus on human rights has prompted a backlash from regimes that use government-friendly media to attack individual journalists and outlets. Rights defender Eid notes that the Egyptian daily Rose al-Yusef "devotes page 5 to attacking publications, journalists, and civil society organizations that are vested in human rights investigations and reporting." In
While bloggers and activists are bearing the brunt of the government counterattack, all journalists are feeling the heat.
"There was actually more reporting of human rights kinds of issues and democracy kinds of issues a few years ago," said Marc Lynch, director of the Institute for Middle East Studies at
Al-Jazeera anchor Mohamed Krichen disagrees. "No, our editorial policy has not changed. We report on human rights cases when they arise. They are an important part of the news, but do not constitute the entirety of our coverage. We are a news organization, and not a human rights group, and our coverage reflects that," Krichen told CPJ.
"What we have," said Pintak, a former CBS correspondent in the
The consensus among those journalists and academics interviewed by CPJ is that any dip in the upward curve of human rights reporting is only temporary. Countries in the region cannot seal off information from the outside world. Many of these nations embrace trade, so they need to embrace the Internet as well. They also have an overwhelmingly young population that is increasingly wired and aware of freedoms enjoyed by their contemporaries in other parts of the world.
"This is a very different world from in the '90s and it's a world in which governments can no longer completely control the message," Pintak said. "They can crack down on individual news organizations, they can jail individual reporters, they can harass individual editors, but they can't stop the flow of information."
tags: Torture / Human Rights / Military tribunal / Jewish Settlers / Intifada / Violations Of Human Rights / Gaza / West Bank / Palestinians / Israeli Soldiers / Political Leaders / Palestinian Authority / Media Freedoms
Posted in Human Rights , Torture
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New in Version 24
Descriptive Statistics
IBM SPSS Statistics Base contains procedures for the projects you are working on now and any new ones to come. You can be confident that you'll always have the analytic tools you need to get the job done quickly and effectively.
Expand the capabilities of IBM® SPSS® Statistics Base for the data analysis stage in the analytical process. Using IBM SPSS Regression with IBM SPSS Statistics Base gives you an even wider range of statistics so you can get the most accurate response for specific data types.
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IBM SPSS Custom Tables
IBM® SPSS® Custom Tables helps you easily understand your data and quickly summarize your results in different styles for different audiences.
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Use inferential statistics—also known as significance testing—in your tables to perform common analyses: Compare means or proportions for demographic groups, customer segments, time periods, or other categorical variables; and identify trends, changes, or major differences in your data. IBM SPSS Custom Tables includes the following significance tests:
You can also choose from a variety of summary statistics, which include everything from simple counts for categorical variables to measures of dispersion. Summary statistics are included for:
When your analysis is complete, you can use IBM SPSS Custom Tables to create customized tabular reports suitable for a variety of audiences—including those without a technical background.
IBM SPSS Data Preparation Overview, Features, and Benefits
IBM® SPSS® Data Preparation gives analysts advanced techniques to streamline the data preparation stage of the analytical process. All researchers have to prepare their data before analysis. While basic data preparation tools are included in IBM SPSS Statistics Base, IBM SPSS Data Preparation provides specialized techniques to prepare your data for more accurate analyses and results.
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Use the specialized data preparation techniques in IBM SPSS Data Preparation to facilitate data preparation in the analytical process. IBM SPSS Data Preparation easily plugs into IBM SPSS Statistics Base so you can seamlessly work in the IBM SPSS environment.
Data validation has typically been a manual process. You might run a frequency on your data, print the frequencies, circle what needs to be fixed and check for case IDs. This approach is time consuming and prone to errors. And since every analyst in your organization could use a slightly different method, maintaining consistency from project to project may be a challenge.
To eliminate manual checks, use the IBM SPSS Data Preparation Validate Data procedure. This enables you to apply rules to perform data checks based on each variable's measure level (whether categorical or continuous).
For example, if you're analyzing data that has variables on a five-point Likert scale, use the Validate Data procedure to apply a rule for five-point scales and flag all cases that have values outside of the 1-5 range. You can receive reports of invalid cases as well as summaries of rule violations and the number of cases affected. You can specify validation rules for individual variables (such as range checks) and cross-variable checks (for example, "retired 30 year-olds").
With this knowledge you can determine data validity and remove or correct suspicious cases at your discretion before analysis.
Prevent outliers from skewing analyses when you use the IBM SPSS Data Preparation Anomaly Detection procedure. This searches for unusual cases based upon deviations from similar cases, and gives reasons for such deviations. You can flag outliers by creating a new variable. Once you have identified unusual cases, you can further examine them and determine if they should be included in your analyses.
In order to use algorithms that are designed for nominal attributes (such as Naïve Bayes and logit models), you must bin your scale variables before model building. If scale variables aren't binned, algorithms such as multinomial logistic regression will take an extremely long time to process or they might not converge. This is especially true if you have a large dataset. In addition, the results you receive may be difficult to read or interpret.
IBM SPSS Data Preparation Optimal Binning, however, enables you to determine cutpoints to help you reach the best possible outcome for algorithms designed for nominal attributes.
With this procedure, you can select from three types of binning for pre processing data:
IBM SPSS Missing Values
IBM® SPSS® Missing Values is used by survey researchers, social scientists, data miners, market researchers and others to validate data.
Missing data can seriously affect your models – and your results. Ignoring missing data, or assuming that excluding missing data is sufficient, risks reaching invalid and insignificant results. To ensure that you take missing values into account, make IBM SPSS Missing Values part of your data management and preparation.
With IBM SPSS Missing Values, you can easily examine data from several different angles using one of six diagnostic reports to uncover missing data patterns. You can then estimate summary statistics and impute missing values through regression or expectation maximization algorithms (EM algorithms).
IBM SPSS Missing Values helps you to:
Quickly diagnose a serious missing data problem using the data patterns report, which provides a case-by-case overview of your data. This report helps you determine the extent of missing data; it displays a snapshot of each type of missing value and any extreme values for each case.
Replace missing values with estimates and increase the chance of receiving statistically significant results. Remove hidden bias from your data by replacing missing values with estimates to include all groups in your analysis – even those with poor responsiveness.
IBM SPSS Missing Values' multiple imputation procedure will help you understand patterns of "missingness" in your dataset and enable you to replace missing values with plausible estimates. It offers a fully automatic imputation mode that chooses the most suitable imputation method based on characteristics of your data, while also allowing you to customize your imputation model.
Several complete datasets are generated (typically, three to five), each with a different set of replacement values. Next, you can model the individual datasets, using techniques such as linear regression, to produce parameter estimates for each dataset. Then you can obtain final parameter estimates. This involves pooling the individual sets of parameter estimates obtained in step two and computing inferential statistics that take into account variation within and between imputations.
Analysis of the individual datasets and pooling of the results are supported via existing IBM SPSS Statistics procedures such as REGRESSION. When operating on datasets with imputed values, existing procedures will automatically produce pooled parameter estimates.
IBM SPSS Missing Values has the statistics you need to fill in missing data:
IBM SPSS Missing Values also has features that enable you to analyze patterns and manage data, including the ability to:
IBM SPSS Forecasting
IBM® SPSS® Forecasting enables analysts to predict trends and develop forecasts quickly and easily -- without being an expert statistician.
Reliable forecasts can have a major impact on your organization's ability to develop and implement successful strategies. Unlike spreadsheet programs, IBM SPSS Forecasting has the advanced statistical techniques needed to work with time-series data regardless of your level of expertise.
IBM SPSS Decision Trees
IBM SPSS Forecasting offers a number of capabilities that enable both novice and experienced users to quickly develop reliable forecasts using time-series data. It is a fully integrated module of IBM SPSS Statistics, giving you all of IBM SPSS Statistics' capabilities plus features specifically designed to support forecasting.
IBM SPSS Forecasting helps you by:
IBM SPSS Forecasting allows you to:
Using IBM SPSS Forecasting with IBM SPSS Statistics Base gives you a selection of statistical techniques for analyzing time-series data and developing reliable forecasts.
IBM SPSS Statistics has the procedures you need to realize the most benefit from your time-series analysis. It generates statistics and normal probability plots so that you can easily judge model fit. You can even limit output to see only the worst-fitting models -- those that require further examination. Automatically generated high-resolution charts enhance your output.
Procedures available in IBM SPSS Forecasting include:
The IBM® SPSS® Decision Trees module helps you better identify groups, discover relationships between them and predict future events.
This module features highly visual classification and decision trees. These trees enable you to present categorical results in an intuitive manner, so you can more clearly explain categorical analysis to non-technical audiences.
IBM SPSS Decision Trees enables you to explore results and visually determine how your model flows. This helps you find specific subgroups and relationships that you might not uncover using more traditional statistics. The module includes four established tree-growing algorithms.
Use IBM SPSS Decision Trees if you need to identify groups and sub-groups. Applications include:
IBM SPSS Direct Marketing
IBM® SPSS® Direct Marketing helps you understand your customers in greater depth, improve your marketing campaigns and maximize the ROI of your marketing budget.
Conduct sophisticated analyses of your customers or contacts easily – and with a high level of confidence in your results. Choose from recency, frequency and monetary value (RFM) analysis, cluster analysis, prospect profiling, postal code analysis, propensity scoring and control package testing. The software's intuitive interface enables you to:
IBM SPSS Direct Marketing includes a combination of specifically chosen procedures that enable database and direct marketers to conduct data preparation and analysis activities. You can do this using only IBM SPSS Direct Marketing, or you can use it in conjunction with other applications in the IBM SPSS Statistics product family.
IBM SPSS Complex Samples
IBM® SPSS® Complex Samples helps make more statistically valid inferences by incorporating the sample design into survey analysis.
IBM SPSS Complex Samples provides the specialized planning tools and statistics you need when working with complex sample designs, such as stratified, clustered or multistage sampling.
This module of IBM SPSS Statistics is an indispensable for survey and market researchers, public opinion researchers or social scientists seeking to reach more accurate conclusions when working with sample survey methodology. You can more accurately work with numerical and categorical outcomes in complex sample designs using two algorithms for analysis and prediction. In addition, you can use this module's techniques to predict time to an event
Only IBM® SPSS® Complex Samples makes understanding and working with your complex sample survey results easy. Through the intuitive interface, you can analyze data and interpret results. Choose from one of several wizards to make it easier to create plans, analyze data and interpret results.
When you're finished, you can publish public-use datasets and include your sampling and analysis plans. These plans act as a template and allow you to save all the decisions made when creating the plan – define it once and you're done. This saves time and improves accuracy for yourself and others who may want to plug your plans into the data to replicate results or pick up where you left off.
Use the following types of sample design information with IBM SPSS Complex Samples:
To help you through the planning stage in the analytical process, IBM SPSS Complex Samples provides you with specialized tools and procedures for working with sample survey data:
IBM SPSS Complex Samples provides what you need for the data management stage when working with sample survey data. And it easily plugs into other IBM SPSS Statistics modules so you can seamlessly work in the IBM SPSS Statistics environment.
IBM SPSS Complex Samples Selection (CSSELECT) procedure -- Enables you to select complex, probability-based samples from a population while mitigating the risk in doing so (e.g. over- or under-representing a subgroup). CSSELECT chooses units according to a sample design created through the CSPLAN procedure.
With this procedure, you can:
Performing data analysis in IBM SPSS Complex Samples helps you to achieve more statistically valid inferences for populations measured in your complex sample data. IBM SPSS Complex Samples provides you with better results because, unlike most conventional statistical software, it incorporates the sample design into survey analysis.
IBM SPSS Complex Samples features five procedures to analyze data from sample survey data:
IBM SPSS Conjoint
IBM® SPSS® Conjoint gives you a realistic way to measure how individual product attributes affect people's preferences.
When you use both conjoint analysis and competitive product market research for your new products, you are less likely to overlook product dimensions that are important to your customers or constituents, and more likely to successfully meet their needs.
With IBM SPSS Conjoint, you can easily measure the tradeoff effect of each product attribute in the context of a set of product attributes – as consumers do when making purchasing decisions.
For example, you can answer critical product market research questions:
You can answer all of your questions before you spend valuable resources trying to bring products or services to market. Use IBM SPSS Conjoint to focus your efforts on the service or product development that has the best chance of succeeding.
IBM SPSS Conjoint gives you all the tools you need for developing product and service attribute ratings. You can use its three procedures to:
Expand the capabilities of IBM SPSS Statistics Base with IBM SPSS Conjoint. Make better decisions about your data and gain knowledge in the planning stage that you can carry throughout the analytical process.
Save time and money by generating a set of conjoint experimental trials that are a fraction of all possible combinations and attribute levels. You'll quickly learn how your respondents rank their preferences when you create and print cards they can sort. And, with the results from the Conjoint procedure, you'll learn how your respondents rank product attributes. Here are more details on each procedure:
IBM SPSS Neural Networks (a $1200 value)
IBM® SPSS® Neural Networks offers non-linear data modeling procedures that enable you to discover more complex relationships in your data.
Using the procedures in IBM SPSS Neural Networks, you can develop more accurate and effective predictive models. The result? Deeper insight and better decision making.
A computational neural network is a set of non-linear data modeling tools consisting of input and output layers plus one or two hidden layers. The connections between neurons in each layer have associated weights, which are iteratively adjusted by the training algorithm to minimize error and provide accurate predictions.
The procedures in IBM SPSS Neural Networks complement the more traditional statistics in IBM SPSS Statistics Base and its modules. Find new associations in your data with Neural Networks and then confirm their significance with traditional statistical techniques
You can combine Neural Networks with other statistical procedures to gain clearer insight in a number of areas:
IBM SPSS Neural Networks provides a complementary approach to the data analysis techniques available in IBM SPSS Statistics Base and its modules. From the familiar IBM SPSS Statistics interface, you can "mine" your data for hidden relationships, using either the Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) or Radial Basis Function (RBF) procedure.
Both of these are supervised learning techniques – that is, they map relationships implied by the data. Both use feed-forward architectures, meaning that data moves in only one direction, from the input nodes through the hidden layer or layers of nodes to the output nodes.
Your choice of procedure will be influenced by the type of data you have and the level of complexity you seek to uncover. While the MLP procedure can find more complex relationships, the RBF procedure is generally faster.
With either of these approaches, the procedure operates on a training set of data and then applies that knowledge to the entire dataset, and to any new data.
After selecting a procedure, you specify the dependent variables, which may be scale, categorical or a combination of the two. You adjust the procedure by choosing how to partition the dataset, what sort of architecture you want and what computation resources will be applied to the analysis.
Finally, you choose whether you want to display results in tables or graphs, save optional temporary variables to the active dataset and/or export models in XML-based file format to score future data.
IBM SPSS Bootstrapping (a $1200 value)
IBM® SPSS® Bootstrapping makes it simple to test the stability and reliability of your models so that they produce accurate, reliable results.
Whether you conduct academic or scientific research, study issues in the public sector or provide the analyses that support business decisions, it's important that your models are stable. Test model stability quickly and easily with IBM SPSS Bootstrapping.
IBM SPSS Bootstrapping provides an efficient way to ensure that your models are stable and reliable, so your analysis generates more accurate results. With IBM SPSS Bootstrapping, you can:
IBM SPSS Bootstrapping helps reduce the impact of outliers and anomalies that can degrade the accuracy or applicability of your analysis. As a result, you have a clearer view of your data for creating the model you are working with.
IBM SPSS Bootstrapping works with a number of analytical procedures in the IBM SPSS Statistics product family, including:
IBM SPSS Categories (a $1200 value)
IBM® SPSS® Categories provides you with all the tools you need to obtain clear insight into complex categorical and numeric data, as well as high-dimensional data.
Use IBM SPSS Categories to understand which characteristics consumers relate most closely to your brand, or to determine customer perception of your products compared to other products you or your competitors offer.
Unleash the full potential of your data through predictive analysis, statistical learning, perceptual mapping, preference scaling and dimension reduction techniques –including optimal scaling of your variables.
IBM SPSS Categories' dimension reduction techniques enable you to clarify relationships in your data by using perceptual maps and biplots:
By using the preference scaling feature, you can further visualize relationships among objects. The breakthrough algorithm on which this procedure is based enables you to perform non-metric analyses for ordinal data and obtain meaningful results. The proximities scaling procedure allows you to analyze similarities between objects, and incorporate characteristics for objects in the same analysis.
The data are a 2x5x6 table containing information on two genders, five age groups and six products. This plot shows the results of a two-dimensional multiple correspondence analysis of the table. Notice that products such as "A" and "B" are chosen at younger ages and by males, while products such as "G" and "C" are preferred at older ages.
Perform additional statistical operations on categorical data with the advanced procedures available in IBM SPSS Categories:
Using IBM SPSS Categories with IBM SPSS Statistics Base gives you a selection of statistical techniques for analyzing high-dimensional or categorical data, including:
IBM SPSS Exact Tests (a $1200 value)
IBM® SPSS® Exact Tests (formerly PASW® Exact Tests) gives you what's needed to more accurately work with small samples and analyze rare occurrences in large datasets.
IBM SPSS Exact Tests enables you to use small samples and still feel confident about the results. With the money saved using smaller sample sizes, you can conduct surveys or test direct marketing programs more often. Stay ahead of the competition by using these resources to find new opportunities.
IBM SPSS Exact Tests is easy to use. You can perform a test any time, with just a click of a button – during your original analysis or when you rerun it. With IBM SPSS Exact Tests, there is no steep learning curve, because you don't need to learn any new statistical theories or procedures. You simply interpret the exact tests results the same way you already interpret the results in IBM SPSS Statistics Base.
You'll always have the right statistical test for your data situation. IBM SPSS Exact Tests provides more than 30 exact tests, which cover the entire spectrum of nonparametric and categorical data problems for small or large datasets. These tests include one-sample, two-sample and K-sample tests on independent or related samples, goodness-of-fit tests, tests of independence in RxC contingency tables and on measures of association.
And, with the release of IBM SPSS Statistics 19, both the client and server versions of IBM SPSS Exact Tests are available on Mac® and Linux®, as well as on Windows® operating systems
Expand the capabilities of IBM SPSS Statistics Base for the data analysis stage in the analytical process. Using IBM SPSS Exact Tests with IBM SPSS Statistics Base gives you an even wider range of statistics, so you can get the most accurate response when:
IBM SPSS Exact Tests easily plugs into other IBM SPSS Statistics modules so you can seamlessly work in the IBM SPSS Statistics environment.
Get greater value from your data: with IBM SPSS Exact Tests, you can slice and dice your data into breakdowns, which can be as fine as you want, so you learn more by extending your analysis to subgroups. You aren't limited by required expected counts of five or more per cell for correct results. And you can even rely on IBM SPSS Exact Tests when you're searching for rare occurrences within large datasets.
Keep your original categories: don't lose valuable information by collapsing categories to meet the assumptions of traditional tests. With IBM SPSS Exact Tests, you can keep your original design or natural categories—for example, regions, income, or age groups—and analyze what you intended to analyze.
IBM SPSS Exact Tests has the tests and statistics you need get the more insight from your small samples and rare occurrences within large databases. These procedures include:
IBM SPSS Visualization Designer (a $1200 value)
Easily develop and build new visualizations - from basic, simple charts to advanced, highly customized graphs - that enable new ways to portray and communicate analytic results to others. With IBM® SPSS® Visualization Designer, you don't need graphical programming skills to conceive, create and share compelling visualizations.
IBM SPSS Visualization Designer can create graph templates that are usable in several IBM SPSS software products. This saves time for template consumers while enabling them to present results in clear and compelling ways. With this product, you'll enjoy:
IBM SPSS Visualization Designer features powerful "drag-and-drop" graph creation that requires no graphical programming skills.
Get started right away with dozens of built-in visualization templates. Then use IBM SPSS Visualization Designer to extend the capabilities of these templates, or come up with your own.
Use style sheets and graph templates to conform to, or modify, standards across your enterprise. Then deploy graphs in operational systems using IBM SPSS Collaboration and Deployment Services, IBM SPSS Statistics and IBM SPSS Modeler.
IBM SPSS SamplePower
If your sample size is too small, you could miss important research findings. If it's too large, you could waste valuable time and resources. Find the right sample size for your research in minutes and test the possible results before you begin your study, with IBM SPSS SamplePower.
Strike the right balance among confidence level, statistical power, effect size, and sample size using IBM SPSS SamplePower. Compare the effects of different study parameters with its flexible analytical tools. And with an interactive guide and built-in help features, you won't lose time getting up to speed.
SamplePower is designed to cover:
SamplePower was developed by a team of experts that includes Michael Borenstein, Hannah Rothstein, David Schoenfeld, Larry Hedges and Jacob Cohen, author of Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences
IBM SPSS SamplePower is packed with features designed to make finding accurate sample sizes easy. It has two interfaces – the "classic" interface for those familiar with power analysis and an "easy" interface that walks you through the more common procedures. Either interface explains terms and takes you through the steps necessary to determine an effective sample size – giving you clear, precise answers to move forward with your research.
Please Note:
System Requirements:
License Term: 12 months
Operating system: Microsoft Windows 7 (service pack 2 or higher) or Windows 8, and windows 10
Intel® or AMD x86 processor running at 1GHz or higher
Memory: 1GB RAM or more recommended
Minimum free drive space: 800MB***
Super VGA (800x600) or higher-resolution monitor
Web browser: Internet Explorer 7 or 8
Operating system: * Apple® Mac 10.10, 10.11, or 10.12(sierra)


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August 20, 2013
Temporary workers are typically the first to be laid off during recessions and first to be hired when customer demand picks up. Oregon's temporary help industry accounted for 1.8 percent of covered employment in 2011, but about 7 percent of the increase in total covered employment during that year.
As the economy slowly improves, a rising trend among employers is to hire temporary workers, particularly in the construction industry.
Unfortunately, many temporary workers are not aware that they have the same right to a safe workplace as other workers. Many of these workers are untrained in identifying workplace hazards or are afraid to speak up for their rights because of the nature of the work: it's temporary. Training temporary workers to identify and protect themselves from workplace hazards can be challenging for employers; however, that does not change the fact that they are entitled to a safe workplace.
In April, federal OSHA announced an initiative to assess whether employers who use temporary workers are complying with their responsibilities under the Occupational Safety and Health Act and to determine whether temporary workers received training in a language they could understand.
Because Oregon OSHA compliance officers are also using a new code in their information system to denote when temporary workers are exposed to safety and health violations, this might be a good time to summarize host employers' responsibilities to their temporary workers. (A host employer is a client of a worker leasing company or a temporary service provider who uses leased or temporary employees.)
A host employer's responsibilities include:
For more information about safety and health requirements affecting Oregon's temporary workers, see the Temporary/leasing page (under A-Z Topics) on Oregon OSHA's website.
Reprinting, excerpting, or plagiarizing any part of this publication is fine with us!
But remember: the information in this newsletter is intended to highlight safe work practices, but it does not replace Oregon OSHA workplace safety and health rules.
For information about Oregon OSHA services and answers to technical questions, call (503) 378-3272 or toll-free within Oregon, (800) 922-2689.


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Put behind lj-cut for length and possible triggers:
A man comes home from work early to surprise his wife with flowers and candy and finds that she's already got something planned. The computer is on and there is note written on it. He sits down in front of the computer and notices his handgun on one side of the computer and on the other side, an empty container of pain pills.
He reads the message:
By the time you read this I will already be dead, so don't get too excited. Don't bother looking around the house for me either. Of course I didn't want my body where my children may see, for they have already seen enough. They have already had to endure far too many years of seeing their mother being tortured by the man they are supposed to look up to. But even though I know I am going to hurt them dearly, I cannot live like this anymore.
So, I am taking these pain pills, prescribed for the kind of pain you inflict and I am going somewhere to take a nap. Don't bother looking for me, just sit there and do something that you haven't been able to do for the last ten years, listen to me. Now that I had to go and kill myself to get your attention, the least you can do is finish reading this letter.
I have been writing it over and over in my head for years. Every time that you beat me I had to rewrite it to add to the horror. Besides I didn't want you to find me after I died because the thought of you touching me even after death turns my stomach. I refuse to let you touch me again, in life or death.
I chose to die because I promised God when I married you that I would love you for life. And since I am more afraid of him than you, I chose death. I cannot love you anymore so I have to leave this place. As I look around to this house, you know its funny but I can remember the good times that we shared together. Before the babies, before the drinking, do you remember?
I do, and it was good back then. It was almost good enough to give me a little hope that we could get back to those times. And they were good times. I guess I have to settle with the fact that no matter what's going on right now, you once loved me, and even you can't deny that.
I think what hurts more than my ribs that are stinging me right now is the fact that I still love you. That realization is stronger than any fist you could ball up and hurl at me. Knowing that my love for you causes a stronger and more lasting pain is much worse than a swift kick in the groin from your steel toed shoes.
But this is a pain that I can take care of, something that I can remedy. I am not into pain, even personally inflicted kinds, so I had to relieve myself.
Even as I stood in the mirror this morning admiring the black eye that you gave me last night I knew you would never touch me again. And as I sucked blood from my split, swollen lips I knew I couldn't stand another blow from you. Not because of the fact that you promised with tears to your eyes that you would never do that to me again. Nor the fact that you put your hand on the bible and swore to me that you were going to get help.
Not even the fact that you got down on your knees and swore to God that you would never lift a hand to me again. Well, your prayers were answered and no, you will not be touching me again. I guess I just had to play God and make sure of that myself.
Last night when I picked myself off of the floor and fell into your arms it wasn't because I wanted to, I just couldn't stand. It wasn't because I wanted you to hold me, as you may have thought. You picked me up carried me to our bed and lay on top of me and kissed my swollen face so soft and gentle. Even though you brushed my hair from eyes and kissed my eyelids, I didn't feel anything. And even though I may have moaned when you licked me between my thighs, I really didn't feel any kind of pleasure.
And when you put yourself inside of me and I grabbed your butt and said your name a few times, I was just helping you get it over with. I moaned because your weight was on my stinging ribs. So what that you asked me what the fuck I was doing when I scratched your back, I felt the urge. And when you went to sleep, I laid there under you because I couldn't move. When you finally rolled off of me you were limp and you left your condom inside of me.
The condom you searched all over for because you didn't want me to bleed on you like I did last time you kicked me.
I woke up before you this morning and cooked your breakfast like I always do. I hoped you enjoyed the piss in your oatmeal and the blood I sucked from my lip mixed in your jelly. I watched you spread it on bread that I wiped my ass with before I put it in the toaster. I don't even want to tell you what I did with those sausages. I spit in your coffee and watched you eat, noticing the look on your face because you knew something wasn't right.
And when you got through with your breakfast, I put your dishes in the sink but I wrapped the knife you used this morning in a napkin and put it in my pocket.
After you left I laughed. I laughed all the way to the bank and took out every penny and took advances on all our credit cards. I donated half of the money to a woman's shelter, all one hundred and twenty-thousand of it. Now, you can pay back all the other women like me, those who had the strength to leave their man. Let those women get a pool table or something, hell, they deserve it. I took the rest and put it away for my children.
I left some money for Greg so that he can pay for the counseling he's going to need to reverse the damage of seeing his father slamming his mother into the refrigerator. I sent the rest to Dana in college so that she would never need to come back home when she graduates. You are never going to touch my children again, I made sure of it. No, I am positive that you will not touch them again.
So, I figured that with me gone you would run over to your little woman's house and tell her the good news. So I went over there this afternoon and I killed the bitch. I stabbed her little backstabbing ass dead in her heart with the knife you used this morning. And since there was a lot of screaming and shit I knew that the police would be there soon so I took that nasty ass condom you left inside of me and stuck it up in her ass.
I know you didn't actually kill her but you might as well have. It's your fault that she's dead, so why should anyone else take the blame but you.
And since you killed her after you just got through fucking her it won't seem premeditated so you will probably just get manslaughter and spend the rest of your life in jail. They probably won't sentence you to death. But you will be OK. You got your high priced lawyers to defend you.
The same lawyers that bribed a judge when they had you on charges of embezzlement from your firm. Remember you gave me those documents to shred?
Well, I shredded most of them. I got up this morning and mailed the others I had saved out in the garage to the State's Attorney. And since you've already killed someone you probably are going to jail for a long time anyway, so those papers are probably not going to do much damage. But I had already mailed them before I thought about it.
Damn, you haven't been this quiet in a long time. In fact, I can't even remember when you've been so quiet before. I guess if all that I had to do was die to shut you up I should have killed myself along time ago.
So, since I got your undivided attention, for a change, let me tell you what I want you to do. On one side of the computer screen there is a gun with one bullet in it. One the other side is the telephone. You could A: call the police, turn yourself in and go to jail for the rest of your life. Or, B, you can take that gun and join me. It's up to you.
Don't worry about Greg, he is with your mother, you won't be seeing him again. You already killed your girlfriend so she'll do you no good either.
You are about to lose your business and you are going to jail. Your wife will be mysteriously found dead in your office tomorrow morning. My body is still bruised and battered from when you beat me and your skin is under my fingernails from where I scratched your back last night. So shit doesn't look too good for you now.
But as you said last night before you threw me into the wall I am a bitch.
Well, ain't this a bitch. Oh, I know that you didn't think that I was going to die all by myself now did you?
I already killed you motherfucker. You can either got to jail and get fucked up your ass for the rest of your life and have your man beat you around your jail cell like you did me.
Until you die like me, after becoming the bitch you claimed me to be. Or you could take this gun and put one in your dome and kill yourself, it doesn't matter to me. Remember we said until death do us part right.
Moments pass.............. There is a click. One gunshot breaks the silence and his body hits the floor. The roses he brought begin to rise in a pool of blood that spreads across the floor like a fan. His wife steps out of the closet she was hiding in and calls the police.
She steps over her husband, sits down at the computer and deletes the message on the screen. She brings up the suicide note that she wrote for him earlier. She gets rid of the empty pillbox and calls her mother-in-law to check on her children.
She hangs up the phone and calls his other woman and hangs up. The women calls back several times but she didn't answer. The police will assume that husband must have called her before he shot himself. She practiced all the lines out loud. When she heard the police pull up she kneeled beside the man that had once promised God that he was going to love and cherish her and felt nothing. That man was gone long ago and this body belonged to someone whom she didn't even know.
She didn't feel any pain besides the tingling of her ribs. She had no regrets either. She put him out of his misery and ended her own misery with just one bullet. Yet, she knelt there and screamed like her life was over.


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Per ESPN.com.
Reports: Red Sox near deal for Indians OF Coco Crisp
ESPN.com news services
The Boston Red Sox are nearing completion on deals that would bring them Cleveland Indians outfielder Coco Crisp and free agent shortstop Alex Gonzalez, according to published reports.
The Boston Herald, citing unnamed baseball sources, reported that the Red Sox and Indians had agreed in principle on a deal that would send Crisp to Boston along with a swap of prospects.
The Boston Globe, also citing multiple major league sources, reported the team was still working on a deal for Crisp as well as a free-agent deal with Gonzalez, formerly of the Florida Marlins. Both newspapers said the Red Sox would include third-base prospect Andy Marte, who was acquired from the Atlanta Braves in the Edgar Renteria trade, as well as reliever Guillermo Mota.
The Herald reported the deal hinged on the Indians' ability to acquire another outfielder, possibly in a trade for the Phillies' Jason Michaels or through signing free agent Jeff DaVanon, formerly of the Angels.


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Distance Learning | News
Cost savings promised by the expansion of online education are tough to pinpoint, including those programs that promise to be free for students. That's the latest pronouncement from the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education, a coalition of faculty groups. Last week, the Campaign issued a report questioning the speed with which online education is being promoted in higher ed. This week the organization issued a new report — the second of three — that examines the idea that innovations in online education can somehow fill the gap left as public funding for colleges and universities dries up.
The report examined several areas: the cost of tuition at for-profit colleges that offer their courses and degree programs online, the financial structures of massive open online courses (MOOCs), and the online degree programs developed for public institutions by "bundled service" and MOOC providers.
According to the Campaign, there are no guarantees that online courses save students money. Quoting from a report issued by United States Senator Tom Harkin in 2012, the report noted that the average tuition and fees at for-profit institutions are higher than public colleges. The discrepancy is most apparent in certificate programs and associate degrees, where the expense is more than four times higher in the former than in the latter. A bachelor's degree from a for-profit school averaged about 20 percent more than the cost of analogous programs at public universities.
But even as public institutions introduce their own online programs, they frequently charge students more for those courses, the report said. For example, a business administration program from the California State University System costs $21,888 in 2013-2014 in face-to-face classes; the same degree is $47,700 through the system's CalState Online.
The Campaign declared the idea that MOOCs could lower the cost of college degrees a "pipe dream."
"While the 'business model' or the 'how' of profit-making from MOOCs is still a work in progress, the general trajectory is clear," the report's authors wrote. "...If you want a degree or a certificate or anything from the MOOC that carries real value in the 'marketplace,' you will have to pay."
Charges referenced in the report include the current practice of charging students for "certificates of completion." In the future that could expand to include fees for obtaining transcripts or the right to report to prospective employers how well a given course was completed compared to the other students who attempted it.
The report went so far as to suggest that MOOCs could increase social inequality: "The educational prestige and competitive employment edge will stay with the traditional universities and the more privileged students who attend them."
Then there's the expense inherent in developing online courses. The report cited an e-learning expert who has advised universities on setting up online programs: "Quality online education costs real money — registration systems, instructional design, course instructors, academic oversight and quality assurance, LMS and collaboration systems, student services, marketing and enrollment support. Someone has to pay."
The Campaign refuted the arguments that online courses could be recorded and reused ("all quality courses have limited shelf life"), that more students could take the same course because the class wouldn't be limited by physical constraints (MOOCs have a "dismal" completion rate), or that fewer faculty would be needed (the reduction in instructors is more than offset by the addition of people for designing, developing, delivering, support, and sustaining the instructional technologies supporting the course).
In those agreements in which a public institution contracts with a private company — a bundled service provider — to develop, market, and produce online degree programs, the report noted, "the companies usually take about 50 percent of all tuition revenue generated by the online courses using their services." In one situation, the provider receives 70 percent.
What these companies — including MOOC platform operators — gain in return, the report added, is exclusive access to the intellectual content developed by faculty at publicly funded institutions.
Much of the momentum for expanding online programs is driven by a "bandwagon mentality," the report's authors wrote, "It is just much easier to join the crowd. Faculty, staff, and administrators who do so with enthusiasm and without question are regaled as 'innovators.' Online supporters in state legislatures get credit for 'doing something' about the higher education crisis and offering 'solutions' that don't require significant state investment."
The best that can be hoped for, the Campaign suggested, is more complete accounting by universities of the costs to produce online courses, more comparative data on tuition prices for face-to-face and online credit-bearing courses, and greater openness and transparency about the terms of contracts between public colleges and online providers."
About the Author
Dian Schaffhauser is a senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning. She can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @schaffhauser.
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The second issue of the McSweeney's Grantland Quarterly is out now. For those of you unfamiliar with the title, the quarterly is a $25 anthology of Grantland.com stories you could read online for free. Why take a collection of internet posts and re-publish them on heavy paper stock set between two lavishly designed covers? What's the use of a book like that? We gave some copies of the first quarterly to our interns and had them investigate.
Video by Conor Hastings.


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Discover for free which first names would suit you or your baby !
Meaning of name Esther
Etymology : Possibly means "star" in Persian
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Origin : English
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Who is she?
Esther is a seductive and glamorous woman who is understanding, communicative, pleasant and friendly in her interactions with others. Nonetheless shy and unassuming, she is torn between her concern for others´ needs (she is always prepared to lend a sympathetic ear), and her desire to be recognised for her true worth and be the best... Cheerful and enthusiastic, she is generally also rather impatient, nervous and whimsical, and could even be known to lose her cool completely. She is bright, adaptable and savvy, with a sharp and critical mind. Her memory is excellent, and Esther doesn´t have any problems on an intellectual level. She has great talent for foreign languages and self-expression and knows exactly how to use her charm and her powers of persuasion to achieve the results she desires. She is highly inquisitive and particularly relishes change, which could make her a little scattered at times. As a child, she is very emotional and heavily influenced by her family. She has a wild imagination and this could be responsible for all sorts of fear and worry. She can often be introverted and withdrawn in the earliest years of her life, especially if she doesn´t receive enough affection and reassurance. She is a popular young lady and loves to talk for hours on the phone with her friends...
What does she like?
Esther has a few big dreams she would like to make reality: to be admired, be the best and to be in charge... which could be expressed through a professional ambition for which she is capable of tremendous focus and determination. However, she will make do with simply being the centre of attention during an evening with friends, where she will prove herself to be a remarkable hostess: subtle, intelligent and mischievous. Romantic life and motherhood are important to Esther but not essential, and she could find herself torn between her family and her career.
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What does she do?
The professions that predominantly match her profile are those that require strong interpersonal and communication skills: commerce, sales, public relations, press officer, advertising, involving the spoken word and the voice (teacher, lawyer...), or writing (secretary, writer...), requiring manual dexterity (craft), or in conjunction with the concept of advice.
Discover others girls first names : Eseld Esen Eser
*To note: :
It sometimes happens that two different first names have the same meaning. This has nothing surprising: both first names have the same figures of numerology. It is as in astrology: two persons belonging to the same sign present the same characteristic...
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Your Name Horoscope !
Thanks to the numerology, we propose you daily a horoscope personalized for your first name. Love, money , Shape: discover what waits for you for today. In Bonus every day find your daily lucky figure .. Horoscope of the first names
Love :Couples: Tension is running high. Why not take a break? Singles: Expand your fields of knowledge Esther , it could lead to an unexpected encounter.
Money :It could be time to get a new calculator, you seem to be losing money.
Health:Take the time to look after yourself Esther .
Your Lucky number : 31


text: TECHNOLOGY: Digital + Social Media First Look: How ECPS Are Using The New Google+ Pages By Nathan Bonilla-Warford, OD, FAAO Tuesday, November 29, 2011 3:30 PM RELATED CONTENT Google+ Launches Pages: What You Need to Know By Nathan Bonilla-Warford, OD, FAAO TAMPA, Fla.—Google has been very prolific and has made news almost every week with a new product or update. Although Google Music has gotten a lot of attention this week, the addition of Brand Pages to the Google+ social network is much more relevant to eye care practitioners. Launched two weeks ago, Google+ Pages are extremely simple to set up and maintain, and there are already thousands of Google+ Pages from companies in every industry. Some excellent examples of Google+ Brand Pages are: Pepsi, Toyota, Allstate, Fox News, and even Yahoo! There are two primary reasons for an ECP to have a Google+ Brand Page: interactivity and findability. On the surface, the new Pages give businesses and brands a presence on Google+. Previously, only people were allowed on the network and they were required to use their real name. Now the doors have been thrown open and you can have one or more identities on Google+. This provides a new way for your business to connect with patients. Google+ has over 40 million users and they tend to be a little more high-tech than the average social media user. If this is a target demographic for your practice, then now is the time to start building the relationship. For my practice, Bright Eyes Family Vision Care, the Google+ Page has given us an opportunity to connect with a new group of people. Although we are active on Facebook, Twitter, and foursquare, I have connected with many engaged people on Google+ for the first time. Many of these are small business owners. I will Circle their new Google+ Page and then they in turn will circle mine. It has become an active local community of people with Google+ in common. The search value of Google+ may actually be a more important factor in the decision to use Google+ Pages. In the increasingly competitive search engine landscape, small businesses must work harder to be listed in the top spot in a Google search. Additionally, you don't want to just have one single prominent listing, but if someone Googles your practice, ideally you want to have the entire first page provide links to only sources that you have control of or influence over. Because Google owns Google+, the relative value of Google+ Pages is higher than that of other properties. I have seen the search value for Bright Eyes Family Vision Care's Google+ Page increase quickly on Google. Others ECPs are also excited about Google+ Pages. Craig Miller, OD said, "I think Google+ and its users are a perfect fit for Gahanna Vision Center and the culture we're creating here. Early adapters of Google+ are alt-thinkers that are looking for something new, fresh, and tired of the current forms of social media which are flooded with posers and spammers. They want something better. At Google+, these users get that chance to re-connect and make true social interactions." For Keely Rowe of Vision Source Midwest City, Google+ Pages are about both the community and the functionality. "Having our business join the Google+ Pages is more than wanting to be a part of the new and exciting social media platforms - although we do want to be a part of that. Google+ Pages offers us outstanding opportunities to engage our community and to measure what messages are being received and passed on." She plans to do this with targeted Circles and Practice Hangouts. Brad Bodkin, OD of The Vision Center at Seaside Farms also likes the ability to assign contacts in Google+ Circles. He says he is using Google+ Pages "...similar to how we are using other social media outlets, but there will be more targeted posts to only certain people using the circles feature." Even in these early stages Google+ Pages can be beneficial, but they are still very much a work in progress. Currently Pages cannot have multiple administrators, which may be a problem for large practices. Other tools, such, as analytics will be added in early 2012. Want to see what other ECPs are doing with their new Google+ Pages? Check out these great examples: Uptown Vision Clinic Vision Source Midwest City Bright Eyes Family Vision Care Looking Good Optics Gahanna Vision Center The Vision Center at Seaside Farms Vision Optique Centro de Integración Visual Need to learn more about Google+ Pages? Read what Vision Monday posted a week ago, "Google+ Pages: What You Need to Know." Nathan Bonilla-Warford, OD, FAAO, Bright Eyes Family Vision Care, Tampa, Fla., is an optometrist specializing in the vision of infants and children. A social media evangelist, he helped create "Peripheral Vision" which educates eyecare professionals about social media. Dr. Warford was a featured speaker at this year's CLICK Conference where he addressed the expanding influence of digital media. He is the chair of the social media committee of the College of Optometrists in Vision Development and is chair of the Florida Optometric Association's Children's Vision Committee. He founded Foursquare Day in March 2010.


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Bathtub Refinishing and Tub Reglazing Services in Toronto
Before you spend thousands of dollars, consider a much more affordable approach, consider Dr. Tubs Bathtub Reglazing Located in Toronto, Ontario. Dr. Tubs has been refinishing bathrooms and bringing tubs, sinks and tiles back to life all over the GTA!
Our professionally trained technicians will transform the look of your bathroom in hours. Refinishing saves you money as it costs just a fraction of replacing and everything is done in hours, not days or weeks. There is no need to rip out a good tub and waste time tiling when you can get it resurfaced. Dr. Tubs' reglazers can bring back the shine your tub and tiles used to have. Remember, don't replace it – reglaze it!
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Bathtub refinishing, reglazing professional in Toronto ON. Dr. Tubs provides tub & tile refinishing, bathroom resurfacing, replacing services in the GTA.
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Sameer Borate has posted a guide to his site today showing you how to get started with PHP applications on the Google App Engine now that it natively supports it (well, mostly).
A couple of years back if you needed to run PHP on Google App Engine you were required to use a open source tool like Quercus, a 100% Java implementation of PHP, to run your PHP applications on the App Engine. However, as you would have guessed, it was not easy to work as with using a native PHP implementation. Now that App Engine natively supports PHP and MySQL, you can easily write PHP applications.
He walks you through the setup and configuration of the App Engine SDK to interact with the service and shows how to create a simple "Hello World" PHP application and deploy it. He talks some about the overall advantages of using the Google App Engine for your application including the scalability it offers and the secured infrastructure it runs on. He finishes the post looking at the different options for data storage and how sessions should be handled (hint: memcache).


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Investors yank $4.5 billion from stocksAugust 30, 2012: 12:28 PM ET
Mutual fund investors continue to pull money out of stocks and put it into bonds, according to the latest data from the Investment Companies Institute.
In the week ended Aug. 22, mutual funds that focus on U.S. stocks had an outflow of $4.48 billion. Investors also pulled $1.4 billion out of funds that invest in global stocks.
Related: Fear & Greed Index stuck in greed
Through the end of July, investors have pulled just over $60 billion from U.S. stock mutual funds. By comparison, those same funds lost roughly $40 billion during the first seven months of 2010 and 2011. The last time investors were willing to put money into stocks was during the last week of May.
While August is usually a quiet month, trading volume hasn't been this low in August in 5 years.
As has been the case for awhile, the outflows from equity mutual funds coincided with inflows into mutual funds that buy bonds.
Related: Fidelity Investment's heir apparent
Bond funds had an inflow of $6.83 billion last week as investors remain enamored with the safety of fixed-income assets.
In another well-established trend, money continued to flow into hybrid funds, which invest in a combination of stocks and bonds. These funds had inflows of $2.41 billion for the week, up from $953 million in the previous week.


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C-San (Feat. Casey V. & Sleezy) - LA Life [Unsigned Hype]
La Life By C-san showcases a side to LA that isnt seen in the mainstream or underground scene of Los Angeles Hip hop. It Is a Brand new refreshing sound to the hip hop world and LA music scene. This inglewood MC plans to show the world a different side Of Los Angeles and starts with this video which got him recognition as one of the top up and coming artist In Los Angeles..Check out the myspace at myspace.com/csanmusic.
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Molina and Kelly Team Up to Lead Cardinals Over Cubs
CHICAGO (AP) - Yadier Molina hit a two-run homer, Joe Kelly threw six scoreless innings and the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Chicago Cubs 4-0 on Saturday.
Cubs shortstop Starlin Castro was pulled shortly after making a mental mistake that let the Cardinals score in the fifth.
The Cardinals led 1-0 and had the bases loaded with one out when Castro caught a popup by Matt Carpenter in short left field. Castro put his head down and hesitated to throw home, looking as if he thought the inning was over. Jon Jay scored from third base and the other runners advanced.
Cubs manager Dale Sveum said something to Castro when he reached the dugout. Donnie Murphy switched from third base to shortstop to replace Castro in the sixth, and Cody Ransom came off the bench to play third.


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Hillsboro, VA Real Estate
Hillsboro is a small town with a rich history. During the 18th and 17th centuries the community was the site of a number of mills that processed lumber, flour and wool. It is located right before the Hillsboro Gap. As it's name may suggest, the community's terrain is hilly in nature, reflective of its proximity to the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Quality of Life:
Hillsboro has maintained charmed. There are several small shops in the town. B&Bs, farms, and wineries are also located nearby.
Hillsboro hosts the Wine Country Half Marathon every year. Not only is it a half marathon it is complimented with wine, food and entertainment so more than just runners can come out an enjoy.
A main attraction of Hillsboro is the Old Stone School, which was built in 1917. It was used to teach grades one through seven and is know the community bandstand where local orchestras come out to entertain.
Getting Around:
Route 9/Charles Town Pike runs directly through Hillsboro.
Ronald Reagan National Airport: < 55 miles.
Washington Dulles International Airport: < 30 miles.
Baltimore Washington International Airport: < 80 miles.
There are no newly listed properties in the last 21 days.VIEW ALL HILLSBORO LISTINGS
There are no recently reduced properties in the last 7 days.VIEW ALL HILLSBORO LISTINGS
There are no open houses.VIEW ALL HILLSBORO LISTINGS


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OK, I'm writing a little app that will edit a configuration file for the end user. I've written the GUI, as well as most of the other outlying code.
The problem is the core of my application -- the ability to either copy text to a buffer, edit certain parts of it, and write it to a new file -- or copy each line of text to a separate variable, then edit each variable separately (if at all), and then write all the variables, in order, back to a new file.
Memory is not an issue here -- if your running the application which uses the config file, you have enough memory (application in question is a game which uses a lot of RAM).
anyway -- I can copy the text file to a string, thats no problem. But once it gets there, I need to edit specific parts of it.
for example:
on line 12 it says: option1 = 0;
I need it to be changed to: option1 = 1;
and I need to change it without changing lines 1-11 or 12+
I've thought about using Python or LUA to do this for me, but the problem is that someone who is primarily a gamer using the Windows XP OS (my target user) probably won't have an interpreter on hand.
If this is a more viable route, and there is an easy way to include an interpreter or DLL to run the script within my installation package, I can also go this route (although, even though I have the development tools for python and LUA, I dont kow any code for those languages -- Id have to learn)
if any more info is needed, please ask.
thanks in advance.


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While Rupert Sanders' Snow White and the Huntsman continues to battle for more box office earnings, Universal is already moving forward with the sequel. With the "origin" story in the Snow White franchise thus set up, it only goes to follow that the next chapter will be fast-tracked. Universal has set David Koepp (Spider-Man) to write the script. Hopefully, the sequel will have a more cohesive storyline, better dialogue and provide a payoff to its promises, something we discussed at length on last week's podcast. Sanders may or may not be back, but stars Kristen Stewart and Chris Hemsworth are optioned for two more films. Hit the jump for more on the sequel to Snow White and the Huntsman.
Deadline reports that Universal is anxious to move forward with the Snow White and the Huntsman follow up. The current iteration was a film we were all looking forward to seeing, but ended up being disappointed to varying degrees. Partly to blame was Relativity Media's push of their own take on Snow White, Mirror Mirror. Then, having a debut director who cut his teeth in commercials didn't help, although I was impressed by the array of visual displays at work in the film. What killed this picture were the three disparate storylines: an epic rebellion, a fantasy romance and a coming of age tale; none of the three came together in a unifying way that paid off in the end. That's unfortunate because I think we all agreed that there was a decent story in there somewhere; it could have been afforded more time to develop. There is an opportunity to do that with a sequel…but is a sequel necessary? In my opinion, no; there's not much story left to tell and not much reason to find one. And for all of Koepp's hits (Mission: Impossible, Jurassic Park, Spider-Man), his more recent misses (War of the Worlds, Zathura: A Space Adventure, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) give me reason to pass. Let us know what you think in the comments.


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Call of Duty: Black Ops is another superb shooter.Those expecting the Call of Duty juggernaut to run out of steam will have to wait another year.
Available now on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC and Wii U, Black Ops II is a superb shooter that is prepared to innovate and features a multiplayer mode that's certain to be popular for the next 12 months.
The exciting solo campaign mode has been bolstered to offer more long-term appeal.
There are branching paths and multiple endings to encourage replay, much more freedom to explore and try different tactics within levels, and you get to experiment with different weapons for each mission just like choosing your loadout before a multiplayer bout.
You are also coaxed back via online leaderboards and various level-specific challenges that also differ according to your chosen arsenal.
An unusual new addition is Strike Force missions that see players commanding multiple units, vehicles and turrets using an overhead view.
They make for a refreshing change of pace, although there's little room for genuine strategy and the limited intelligence of your troops can cause genuine frustration.
It's also doubtful you will be absorbed by the campaign's silly story, which features an over-the-top Bond-style villain.
The biggest change for multiplayer is the "Pick 10" system which provides much more freedom to choose your loadout of guns, attachments, grenades and perks.
The scoring system now rewards team-focused players who are good at completing tasks in the objective-based modes such as Capture the Flag and Demolition, rather than just deadly snipers.
Earning new items as you progress is as satisfying and addictive as ever, but a new League mode provides a level playing field by giving everyone equal access to all the toys.
The maze-like multiplayer stages are cleverly designed and will play host to countless entertaining matches.
There's also more zombie-killing antics, with battles against the undead now given a dedicated campaign with multiple stages to add further value to the package.
What have you been playing lately?
– Jason Hill Jason Hill is on Twitter: @thatjason
The original release of this article first appeared on the website of Hangzhou Night Net.


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Deja Vu
It certainly feels like a case of deja vu - after all, didn't we see a smaller 13-inch Apple MacBook just two months back? But wait, this is actually a bigger 17-inch model with better specs and the MacBook Pro branding. While its appearance shares the same unibody form factor and design, Apple has made some changes that differentiate the 17-inch MacBook Pro from the 15-inch MacBook Pro.
Of note is of course the widely talked about non-removable built-in battery, similar to the MacBook Air and totally different from the 15-inch MacBook Pro and the 13-inch MacBook. Apple states that their non-removable battery is custom designed to fit into the thin confines of the 17-inch MacBook Pro and has additional benefits like a longer recharge cycle and longer battery life; we'll talk more about these features later in the article.
Other less obvious changes of course lie in the ability to choose a non-reflective anti-glare screen, which should really have been de rigueur for their entire range. We're sure you've heard of us harping enough of reflective screens on our recent articles, so we'll leave it at that. Our review unit is unfortunately of the reflective kind (but we'll survive somehow). For now though, do sit back, relax, and indulge in the pure sexiness of the unibody Apple Macbook Pro:-
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Simpson College names new president
The president of Iowa Wesleyan College has been named the 23rd president of Simpson College in Indianola.
Simpson announced Monday that Jay Simmons will replace President John W. Byrd, who is retiring next spring after an 8-year tenure.
Simpson leaders said Simmons was chosen after a nationwide search because he impressed college officials with his leadership, academic experience, fundraising success and management style.
Simpson had led Iowa Wesleyan in Mount Pleasant for the last four years. The Alabama native came to Iowa for that job after working a decade as vice president for academic affairs and dean at LaGrange College in Georgia.
Simmons says Simpson is positioned to increase its prominence in higher education, and that he couldn't be more enthusiastic about starting the job.