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Cherry Bomb
Weight: 0.07 lb
This is a 7/16 rope with the unique feature of a second core which helps it stay round under load.
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The rope is made by All Gear Inc. and comes in this hot ultra viz. red and yellow pattern...very European looking stuff!
With the unique design of Cherry Bomb, your rope will stay round running through friction savers and pulleys. If you climb with ascending gear you will love how this rope runs.
Give it a shot! If you love Tachyon or want to get a very durable and fantastic rope you owe it to yourself to climb on this one!
Rope Specifications
- Strand Count: 24 Strands
- Color: Red & Orange
- Diameter: 11mm (7/16")
- Weight: 6.1lbs per 100ft.
- Tensile Strength: 6,300lbs (2,858kg)
- Fiber: Polyester


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Sant Julià de Lòria – Andorra
Sant Julià de Lòria is the parish of culture. The vall del Madriu Perafita-Claror, part of which lies within the parish boundaries, was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2004. The parish is also home to the central campus of the University of Andorra, the Tobacco museum, and the Centre cultural i de congressos Lauredià, which hosts a huge range of events all through the year. At warm times of year, the parish streets are the setting for live performances and music, and various venues host a year round programme of fairs and conferences on different topics, such as the outlet fair and the Medieval town. The parish is also well known for being a venue for international sporting events, and several editions of the World Trial Championships, the Volta a Catalunya and a stage in the Spanish Vuelta Ciclista have been held here.
Romanesque architecture has also left its mark on various places in the parish, with churches and magnificent buildings dating from this period in history, including the church of Sant Cerni de Nagol, and many others.
Guided tours
The Commune's Tourism Department also offers a series of guided tours visiting the most famous places in the parish, such as the old quarter and the Mare de Déu de Canòlich Sanctuary.. This is all complemented by a number of hotels, shops and a very attractive choice of restaurants.
Tour of Laurèdia:
A walk round the centre of social and cultural life in Sant Julià de Lòria, a town also known by the name of Laurèdia. Its inhabitants are known as Lauredians. See the architecture that illustrates how the town has evolved from the 12th century through to modern times.
Duration: 2h. 45min.
· Normal rate with the Tobacco Museum= 5,00€
· Reduced rate with the Tobacco Museum= 3,50€
· Normal rate without the Tobacco Museum= 2,00€
· Reduced rate without the Tobacco Museum= 1,00€
Visits can be tailored to suit requirements
a space for the soul: It is hardly surprising that the chapels most venerated by local villagers are set in the most remote and spectacular mountain locations.
Its difficult access route protected Canòlich for centuries and made pilgrims prove their devotion by tackling the hard climb from the village.
Nowadays, the good state of the old path enables it to be climbed on foot, but you can also see the chapel and its spectacular views over the valley by driving up to it on the road or by 4×4 from Fontaneda.
Duration: 45 min.
Price: Free
Visits can be tailored to suit requirements
Humans tame the elements
Humans tame the elements and matter not only to ensure their survival but also as a way of expressing themselves.
Sant Julià de Lòria, a small mountain village, has for centuries taken advantage of the valley's abundant water supply to make links between its religious, social and domestic life.
Alongside water, stone and metal also speak of their subordination to humans, always in need of useful recipients, always in need of the expression provided by sculpture.
Duration: 2h.
· Normal rate= 2,00€
· Reduced rate= 1,00€
Visits can be tailored to suit requirements.
Sant Cerni de Nagol church:
art inside, freedom around it: Where valleys meet, where the sun shines freely without the walls imposed by the mountains, you can discover one of the prettiest Romanesque churches in the Pyrenees.
Since 1055, Sant Cerni de Nagol has seemed to hover over Sant Julià de Lòria in a location that you will always remember for its beauty and peace.
Inside, the first outlines of the Romanesque in Andorra are preserved and are amazing for their religious, primitive and eloquent narrative.
Duration: 30 min.
Price: free
· With your own vehicle
· On foot
Visits can be tailored to suit requirements.
with activities for the whole family…
Wonderful landscapes… Exceptional panoramic views… Crosscountry skiingat 2,050 meters altitude… The only snow toboggan park in the Pyrenees… Tobotronc… Children's playground… Mobile park… Skating rink… Nordic dog town…
Naturland offers all this and more so that you can spend a sensational winter enjoying the most enjoyable, environmentally friendly outdoor activities with the family.
And also…
Three Restaurants / Two Cafes In Naturland there are three refreshment areas, one in the La Rabassa Snow Camp, and two in Base Camp. Choose from an outdoor terrace with panoramic views at the Tobotronc Panoramic Restaurant, or the cheese-themed Cheese's Art Restaurant, a specialist in all types of cheese and dishes made with cheese, fondue… both in the Base Camp area. Or, if you prefer, a traditional meal in the El Refugi restaurant in the Camp de Neu, surrounded by nature. Food for all tastes, with a wide range of things on offer to meet the whole family's needs.
Also, Naturlandia offers you special activity packages for adult groups, school groups, OAPs and those with reduced mobility, and other activities aimed at businesses and adapted to every need.

subset: commoncrawl


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The Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty recently published a brief meditation on "the entrepreneurial vocation" by Joseph Kosten.
""˜All that the human creature is and has is a divine gift.' Those words from Pope Benedict XVI rang out during his Palm Sunday homily [March 16]. Man's very ability to work and create wealth is a gift which he can either accept or reject. The vocation to be an entrepreneur is the acceptance of this gift and the creation of something new and beneficial to man. Whether it be the creation of new jobs, a way to maximize resources, or a simplification of life, the entrepreneur fulfills his vocation by taking this gift and being an extraordinary steward of its benefits.
""¦Prosperity and human flourishing need not be opposed, so long as corporate productivity and human dignity are brought into concord"¦.
"Carrying on the message of his predecessor [John Paul II], Pope Benedict again shines a spotlight on the importance of business while reminding the corporate world that human dignity can never be sacrificed."
Speaking of entrepreneurship, the Acton Institute has produced an excellent film, The Call of the Entrepreneur, due for DVD release on April 3. This superb production follows a merchant banker, a failing dairy farmer and a refugee from Communist China.
One risked his savings. One risked his farm. One risked his life.
This one-hour documentary features compelling interviews with these three men and tells the real story of free enterprise. It presents a great opportunity to introduce everyone to the spirit of entrepreneurship. The superb production values and fast-paced cinematography are sure to grip your attention""and that of your high school and college students.
Cascade Policy Institute and The Executive Club hosted a Portland area screening last December, to rave reviews from the audience. You can watch the trailer and order the DVD here.
Kathryn Hickok is Publications Director, Development Coordinator, and Director of the Children's Scholarship Fund-Portland at Cascade Policy Institute, Oregon's premier free market think tank.


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Article Text
Conventional sputum cytology can be used for the detection of lung cancer, but has shown a low yield in prospective screening trials. This review focuses on the technical aspects relevant to the outcome of DNA and image analysis in sputum. Published articles are discussed in the light of the technical background. Recent developments in DNA analysis and nuclear image analysis show a clear potential to improve or refine diagnosis beyond that achieved with conventional sputum cytology examination. The challenge for future studies in DNA and nuclear analysis of sputum is to ensure high levels of quality control and to confirm these initial encouraging results.
- Sputum samples
- lung cancer
- early diagnosis
- cytology
- molecular markers
- LOH, loss of heterozygosity
- MSP, methylation specific polymerase chain reaction
- PCR, polymerase chain reaction
- RT, reverse transcription
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- LOH, loss of heterozygosity
- MSP, methylation specific polymerase chain reaction
- PCR, polymerase chain reaction
- RT, reverse transcription
The aim of this paper is to provide a state of the art critical review of sputum analysis and its role in the detection of lung cancer. This review is based on an appraisal of the peer reviewed literature published up to January 2003 on this topic. The paper is divided into two sections. The first deals with the analysis of whole cells by means of routine cytological examination, nuclear image analysis, and protein analysis. The second concerns the examination of extracted nucleic acids, namely: DNA and RNA.
The molecular events that occur during lung carcinogenesis have been reviewed recently.1–4 The presence and persistence of specific molecular changes in the bronchial epithelium are considered to be high risk markers in exposed patients and predictive for invasion.5–7 Squamous metaplasia and p53 expression in bronchial epithelium is smoking related.8–10 Severe dysplasia and carcinoma in situ are associated with mutations in p53. Recently, the natural course of carcinoma in situ was reported to involve rapid progressive to invasion.11,12 These observations have increased interest in the role of the analysis of such markers in routine clinical practice, and are leading to critical assessment of laboratory methodology to determine which markers can reliably be detected in sputum samples.
Many years ago, Saccomanno et al defined the cytological changes that occur during the development of lung cancer.13 These changes were mainly documented in squamous metaplastic cells, and represent cellular aspects of toxic damage of respiratory tract epithelium as a result of—for example, smoking or radon gas. The transition from mild, moderate, and marked atypia, to carcinoma in situ and then to invasive carcinoma has been described. The transition time varies considerably between patients, but on average the transition from mild to marked atypia takes five years, and the change from moderate atypia to carcinoma in situ and from marked atypia to invasive carcinoma takes an additional five years. Interestingly, patients developing squamous cell and small cell carcinoma show the same cytological changes. The point of development into one of the different types of carcinoma is unclear, but the transition time seems to be slightly shorter for patients developing small cell lung cancer.13
Sputum can either be induced or collected spontaneously. Three day pooled sputum increases the chance of detection.14 Saccomanno's fixative (50% ethyl alcohol and 2% carbowax) is recommended for collection, transport, and fixation.15 In a crossover study comparing induced and spontaneous sputum a learning phase was shown. The second technique used for collection yielded the best results.16 However, for peripheral cancer (not visible endoscopically) induced sputum is most informative.17
A sputum sample is considered representative if alveolar macrophages or bronchial epithelial cells are present because this shows that the samples originate from deep within the lung.18–20 The minimum number of macrophages reported varies from 150 to recently at least five.21
Usually, a minor part of the sputum sample is analysed cytologically for the presence of cancerous cells, and only a small proportion of cells (< 1%) are tumour cells. In previous reviews of sputum examination in lung cancer, an average sensitivity of 65% (range, 22–98%) was shown.19,22,23 The chance of detecting abnormal cells increased with: (1) centrally located tumours; (2) large and/or high stage tumours; (3) squamous cell carcinomas rather than adenocarcinomas (probably because squamous cell carcinomas are frequently more centrally located); and (4) increasing number of sputum samples.23–25
"A sputum sample is considered representative if alveolar macrophages or bronchial epithelial cells are present because this shows that the samples originate from deep within the lung"
Sputum cytology plays a limited role in prospective lung cancer screening studies.26,27 Malignant cells were present in the sputum of 11 of the 39 lung cancer cases detected (5226 sputum examinations, 11 squamous cell carcinomas and an additional 14 cases with marked atypia). However, compared with x ray screening, sputum cytology was associated with a higher chance of detecting tumours at early stages. Similar figures were found in a recent Japanese screening sputum study: eight of 36 cases were also detected in the sputum, and four of these were detected by sputum only (all squamous cell carcinomas).28
In an older study, probably using less up to date x ray technology than is available today, sputum cytology preceded the radiological diagnosis by 18–36 months.29 For the limited group of patients where lung cancer was detected by sputum cytology, the five year survival rate was 80%, and the resectability was 83%, suggesting that cancers detected by sputum cytology were either detected early or were slower growing.30 Nevertheless, during the last century the mortality rate in screening studies (x ray and cytology) did not improve.31–33
In a recent SPORE programme study, with a high risk cohort of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and > 40 pack years, 1.7% of the subjects had invasive carcinoma or carcinoma in situ. Moderate dysplasia was present in 25% of the subjects. Carcinoma was detected in 9% of these patients after fluorescent bronchoscopy, leading to a total 3.9% prevalence in this high risk group. This emphasises once more the usefulness of sputum cytology abnormalities as markers for lung cancer development in a population at high risk for lung cancer.34,35
Nuclear image analysis is a relatively old approach that has been used to distinguish between small cell and non-small cell lung cancer.36–38 Basically, nuclei are stained stochiometrically with a Feulgen reaction (in which there is a linear relation between the degree of staining and the amount of DNA) suitable for image acquisition and digitisation of the chromatin pattern (euchromatin and heterochromatin). Each pixel of the image has a certain value that relates to DNA density. Mathematical calculations on the distribution of the pixel values describe certain characteristics, such as "chromatin clumping", "chromatin density", and "homogeneity". When this technique is used for the determination of possible differences between normal and (pre)malignant changes, the term malignancy associated changes is used.
Recently, the group of Palcic et al performed malignancy associated change analysis on non-malignant cells obtained from buccal smears and sputum.39,40 Thus, possible changes in these cells are determined and related as surrogate markers for the presence of lung cancer or a high chance for the development of lung cancer. For adenocarcinoma, a 60% sensitivity and a 90% specificity for the prediction of malignancy was reported. For stage 0 and I lung cancer, a sensitivity of 45% and a specificity of 90% can be reached, compared with 14% for conventional cytology at a 99% specificity. In another study, Marek et al performed a multi-institutional analysis in five countries, using semi-automated sputum cytometry, and found a sensitivity of 75% and a specificity of 98%.41 The findings of these two groups were similar, so that this type of analysis might be useful for lung cancer screening in the future. However, confirmation of these studies in an independent test set, where the technical procedure is kept identical, is necessary.
The measurement of a heterogeneous nuclear riboprotein, A2/B1, appears to be promising for the detection of early lung cancer.42–44 The reactivity of heterogeneous nuclear riboprotein B1 was classified as strong in the sputum of patients with lung, oral, and oesophageal squamous cancer.45,46 However, the affinity of the antibody raised to this protein is not high enough for immediate large scale application and awaits further refinement.
p53 has been demonstrated in squamous cells in sputum with concomitant expression of low molecular weight cytokeratins, a pattern frequently found in lung cancer.47 p53 was demonstrated in an immunofluorescence assay with repeated incubation of the second step in nine of 16 patients with lung cancer, 11 of 25 in coal exposed individuals, and in 0 of 17 controls.21
The presence of guanidinobenzoatase on the cell surface was first associated with malignancy in the early 1980s, and in 1998 interest in this molecule was renewed.48 It has been suggested that this cell surface protease is induced on the surface of mature epithelial cells ("surrogate marker") in patients with lung cancer.49
Overall protein analysis in sputum may be a practical approach for early lung cancer detection. Heterogeneous nuclear riboprotein seems to be the best candidate, but better antibodies are needed before this approach can be put into practice.
The target cells for early detection in lung cancer are tumour cells, but they comprise only a minor fraction of the sputum sample (usually less than 1%). In addition to the vital cell component, it is assumed that dead cells are shed into the surrounding epithelial lining fluid, thus providing sufficient DNA for detection. The amount of dead cells and/or naked DNA is not known, but again it is probably only a minor component.15
The relatively low amount of tumour DNA (< 1%, see above) in a background of wild-type DNA imposes specific requirements on the detection techniques to be used. Because techniques such as sequencing or mutation specific oligonucleotide hybridisation have a technical sensitivity of around 10–20% these cannot be used on isolated crude DNA. Ideally, internal and external negative and positive controls should be incorporated. The internal positive control provides information about the maximum signal and its related target frequency, whereas the external positive control(s) provide information about the daily variation. The internal negative control(s) provide a threshold above which a test signal is positive. The external negative control(s) monitor possible contamination, as a result of the infidelity of Taq polymerase. They should be used from the start of the test onwards and also in the nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR), if used. In addition, with any PCR an error may be introduced during amplification. The chance of this error occurring is approximately 1/8000,50,51 and may lead to a false positive test result.52 This PCR bias may be circumvented by repeating the whole procedure in those cases with a positive outcome in the first test, starting with the isolated DNA. If the second test is also positive, then this sample should be called positive for mutation, otherwise it should be considered negative. In this way, the chance of a sample being falsely labelled as positive because of a PCR error is less than ∼ 64 × 10−6. To estimate the technical sensitivity, a model system with low copy numbers may be obtained in three ways, namely: (1) dilution of the PCR product,52 (2) mixing mutant DNA with increasing amounts of wild-type DNA,53 and (3) mixing vital mutant cells with wild-type cells.54 This last option is preferable because it approaches the conditions found in biological samples like sputum.
In cases where crude DNA or RNA is not used because of a low target fraction, cytological analysis may be done first to identify the specific cells of interest so that subsequently molecular analysis can be performed. This last approach is worthwhile for the detection of abnormalities, but not practical for early detection.
"The relatively low amount of tumour DNA in a background of wild-type DNA imposes specific requirements on the detection techniques to be used"
K-ras and methylation have been reported relatively frequently in sputum, whereas the demonstration of p53 and loss of heterozygosity (LOH) abnormalities, DNA adducts, and RNA is still limited. Therefore, the main emphasis will be on the first two approaches.
In general, K-ras mutations occur in adenocarcinomas. Table 1 summarises the articles describing K-ras mutation analysis in sputum along the general outlines described above. In general, it appears that (1) when sputum from K-ras mutated adenocarcinomas is examined, the sputum may be positive (showing the same mutation) or negative; (2) a surprisingly high proportion of K-ras mutation positive sputum samples has been reported in squamous cell carcinomas; and (3) K-ras mutation positive sputum samples have been found in patients without lung carcinoma. These last two points are at variance with the biological phenomena known in lung cancer: K-ras is rarely detected in squamous cell carcinoma of the lung. This may be explained by the assumption that K-ras mutations are present in non-malignant sputum cells or alternatively that there is a technical explanation for the observations. Studies on adenocarcinomas used different techniques to those on squamous cell carcinomas and non-cancerous tissues. A possible technical explanation may be that with allele specific amplification, mismatched alleles amplify 10−2 to 10−4 less than perfectly matched templates.52 This implies that when more cycles are performed with PCR the chance of false positivity increases proportionally. This phenomenon, which has been called "breakthrough", implies that with enough cycles of amplification even negative samples will give rise to a positive signal. The use of PNA clamping reduces this chance.52
Overall, of the three techniques reporting results consistent with the biology of lung cancer, the cloning approach is impractical for large scale lung cancer screening. Therefore, peptic nucleic acid-PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism and Point-EXACCT are the methods of choice.
The question of whether K-ras mutations are present in non-malignant epithelial cells is influenced in the same way as sputum samples, because a similar variety of techniques has been used. Based on techniques used to test sputum from K-ras mutated adenocarcinomas, the DNA target fraction is around 1/150 (range, 1/50–3000) in sputum. Importantly, K-ras mutations may be detected in sputum more than one year before clinical diagnosis (range, one to 46 months).59 This time period may provide an opportunity for early detection. In addition, mutations were found in cases where sputum cytology was negative.
DNA methylation at the 5′ position of the pyrimidine ring is an important epigenetic alteration in eukaryotes. 5-Methylcytosine is found mainly in CpG islands and, when found in the promotor region of genes, the binding of transcriptional factors is altered and other proteins such as methyl-DNA binding proteins are able to bind, resulting in gene silencing. The different methods used to demonstrate methylation have recently been reviewed by Fraga and Esteller.62 Methylation specific PCR (MSP) is a sensitive method.
Over 40 genes involved in methylation in lung cancer have been reviewed by Tsou et al.63 Recently, several reports on methylation analysis in sputum have been published.64–68 Between 55% and 100% of sputum samples from patients with lung cancer were methylation positive, whereas for controls the figure varied from 3% to 35%. This range seems to be gene dependent.
"5-Methylcytosine is found mainly in CpG islands and, when found in the promotor region of genes, the binding of transcriptional factors is altered and other proteins such as methyl-DNA binding proteins are able to bind, resulting in gene silencing"
The following technical considerations are useful for a better understanding of the results: a nested PCR is performed (two sets of 40 cycles), where the first PCR has primer binding sites outside the CpG islands and the second uses PCR primers that are methylation specific. Bisulfite modification is a step that requires time for the modification of cytosine to uracil.69 However, if the modification is incomplete, then unmethylated cytosine will still be present in the template DNA, which can be detected with methylated primers in MSP, leading to a (false) positive test result. A control for the bisulfite modification may be sequencing of the PCR product. If cytosines can still be detected by sequencing, modification is incomplete. This does not necessarily need to be a cytosine at a CpG island, but if this is the case, MSP may give rise to false positive signals at CpG sites. Thus, total conversion is crucial to the success of the analysis. Recently, Grunau et al described crucial experimental parameters for genomic bisulfite sequencing.69 They mention that, depending on the conditions, for each 1000 cytosines a few will not be deaminated to uracil. When performing a total of 80 PCR cycles, the chance is very high that even one unconverted cytosine in a CpG may be detected. As a control for the presence of methylation a restriction enzyme that digests after MSP has been reported,65,67 but this control does not take incomplete bisulfite modification into account. Occasional sequencing of a random selection of PCR products after the first PCR cycle may reveal insight in the conversion process. In addition, external negative controls that react with the same primers should be performed during each experiment. The level (number of cycles or intensity of product) where this control becomes positive is the threshold for detection. In addition to the problem of incomplete cytosine conversion, the possible infidelity of Taq polymerase51 can also cause false positives in methylation specific PCR.
An alternative to bisulfite modification is digestion with a restriction enzyme, as used by Chen et al.68 As a check for incomplete digestion, they repeated the digestion procedure before 31 cycles of amplification and ran digested and control DNA on an agarose gel. A ratio of > 0.5 was determined to be the threshold for aberrant methylation. Using this threshold, 13 of 21 sputum samples showed methylation, with matched specimens of lung cancer tissue showing concordance in 11 of 12 of the cases. This study awaits confirmation.
Overall, it is still unclear whether the presence of DNA methylation in sputum is a true biological phenomenon, or partly the result of the technical procedures used. The two different technical approaches for methylation detection should be compared in a crossover study.
Mutation detection for three hot spots in the p53 gene was performed on DNA from sputum with the mutation allelic specific amplification approach (table 1). Sputum samples from four of 51 patients with lung carcinomas and one of 25 smokers were positive.58 Another paper describes the use of reverse transcription (RT)-PCR on RNA from archival sputum samples in 10 patients in whom the primary tumour showed p53 mutation. One of the 10 samples showed a mutation in a sputum sample 84 days before diagnosis.70 The number of cases and procedures used are too limited for any strong conclusions. Overall, p53 mutation detection in sputum may be an option for early lung cancer detection; however, the technique is laborious to perform and is therefore not a practical possibility.
To date, microsatellite alterations have been detected in specific cells scraped from a sputum sample: LOH was detected in the cytologically abnormal cells.71 This approach shows that chromosomal abnormalities are present in sputum. However, this approach is not practical for screening, unless these abnormalities in sputum cells with metaplasia denote an essentially higher chance for lung cancer development than in metaplasia alone.
DNA adducts
It is possible to determine lipophilic DNA adducts in the sputum of smokers.72 The association of these adducts with risk for the development of lung cancer is not yet known, but the method is laborious and impractical for large scale screening.
Take home messages
Conventional sputum cytology is simple, rapid, and has specificity, but has a low diagnostic yield for lung cancer
Malignancy associated changes may be useful for the selection of patients with high risk of lung cancer
K-ras analysis in sputum is useful for the detection of pulmonary adenocarcinomas
Methylation analysis in sputum requires further examination to avoid false positivity
RNA examination
The preprogastrin releasing peptide was one of seven neuroendocrine marker genes analysed by means of RT-PCR that showed differences in expression between normals and controls.73 This is noteworthy because five of 23 sputum samples from patients with small cell lung cancer were positive, whereas most of the other nucleic acid markers are specific for non-small cell lung carcinoma. Working with RNA requires specific precautions to avoid the breakdown of RNA and this can be costly. In theory, RNA analysis may be useful in the detection of lung cancer, although these tests are still in the early days of development.
Sputum cytology examination is useful for early detection in populations at high risk for lung cancer. In addition, DNA analysis and nuclear image analysis show clear potential to improve or refine diagnosis beyond the use of conventional sputum cytology examination. When technical quality control is performed between different laboratories and the reproducibility and robustness of the techniques have been demonstrated, a major improvement in early lung cancer detection could be achieved. To this end, testing of relatively straightforward samples may reveal opportunities for technical clarification.74 The challenge for both DNA analysis and nuclear image analysis in sputum is to ensure high degrees of quality control and to confirm these initial encouraging results.


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Let us consider first the linear wave equation \[ \Box u = 0\] on (1+d)-dimensional Minkowski space. A well known property of the wave equation is the conservation of energy, which can be written as \[\frac{d}{dt}E_0(t) = 0 \] where \[ E(s) = \int_{\mathbb{R}^d} |\partial_t u(s,x)|^2 + |\nabla u(s,x)|^2 dx \] and proven by simply multiplying the wave equation by $\partial_t u$ and integrating-by-parts along a spatial slice.
Now, using the fact that partial derivatives commute, we also have that all derivatives of $u$ solve wave equations \ \Box \partial^\alpha u = 0 \ and hence has an associated energy conservation $\frac{d}{dt}E[\partial^\alpha u] = 0$. This, in particular, implies that for any $k\geq 1$, the quantity \begin{equation} F_k[u] := \int_{\mathbb{R}^d} \sum_{1\leq |\alpha|\leq k} |\partial^\alpha u|^2 dx \end{equation} evaluated at some time $t > 0$ is bounded by the same quantity evaluated at time $t = 0$.
Now let us take a slightly more geometric point of view: the fact that "partial derivatives commute against the d'Alembertian operator" is, in fact, a manifestation of the fact that translations are symmetries of Minkowski space. More precisely, consider an arbitrary pseudo-Riemannian manifold $(M,g)$, and let $\Box_g$ denote its associated Laplace-Beltrami operator, which in coordinates can be written as $\frac{1}{\sqrt{|g|}} \partial_i g^{ij}\sqrt{|g|} \partial_j$, we see that if $X$ is a Killing vector field, that is, the Lie derivative $L_X g = 0$, then $[\Box_g,X] = 0$. In other words, we have that for an arbitrary thrice differentiable function $\phi$ on $M$, \begin{equation} X(\Box_g \phi) = \Box_g(X\phi) \qquad \text{whenever } X \text{ is Killing.} \end{equation} Going back to Minkowski space, we see that if $X$ is a Killing vector field of the Minkowski metric (for example, translation, rotation, Lorentzian boosts), then for $u$ a solution to the wave equation, so will $X(u)$ be a solution to the wave equation. And in particular, the computation for energies gives that $E[X(u)]$ is conserved.
What if we are in a variable coefficient case where the spatial translations are not Killing vector fields? Going back to the general pseudo-Riemannian case, we have that, after a computation \[ X(\Box_g \psi) = \Box_g(X\psi) - Ric(X,\nabla \psi) - L_Xg \cdot \nabla^2 \psi - (\Box_gX) \cdot \nabla \psi\] which means that $Xu$, for $u$ a solution to the wave equation, now solves an inhomogeneous wave equation, and we no longer have a conservation law. In fact, the best estimate we can get in this situation is from Gronwall's inequality applied to the energy identity, that the energy $E[X(u)]$ grows possibly exponentially.
Now suppose we are dealing with the equation in divergence form \[ \partial^2_{tt} u - \partial_i (a^{ij} \partial_j u) = 0 \] with $a^{ij} = a^{ij}(x)$ independent of $t$. Since $\partial_i$ are no longer Killing with respect to the implicit metric, at first sight, it seems that we lose control over the higher order energies. (The lowest order energy can still be controlled in the same way: with the assumption that the coefficients $a^{ij}$ is time-independent, the integration by parts carry through and we have that \[ E^{(a)}[u] := \int_{\mathbb{R}^d} |\partial_t u(t,x)|^2 + a^{ij}(x)\partial_i u(t,x) \partial_ju(t,x) dx\] is conserved in time.) But in this particular case we can actually take advantage of elliptic regularity and get controls for all higher derivatives. This trick is used a few times in the work of Dafermos-Rodnianski on decay of waves on black hole backgrounds.
What we do is first, notice that the equation is invariant under $\partial_t$, so we have \[ \partial^2_{tt}( (\partial_t)^ku) = \partial_i(a^{ij}\partial_j (\partial_t)^k u) \] which implies that $E^{(a)}[(\partial_t)^k u]$ is a conserved energy. The elliptic regularity we will exploit is the assumption that $a^{ij}$ is sufficiently smooth, and uniformly elliptic, that is
Now consider the following $L^2$ integral: \[\int_{\mathbb{R}^d} |\partial_i\partial_jv|^2 dx \] for some arbitrary function $v$ (which doesn't have to be a solution to the wave equation). Using elliptic regularity, the integrand is controlled by \[ |\partial^2v|^2 \leq \lambda^{-2} a^{ik}a^{jl}\partial^2_{ij}v \partial^2_{kl}v \] which we "anti-derive by parts" \[ |\partial^2v|^2 \leq \lambda^{-2} \left[ \partial_j(a^{ik}\partial_iv) \partial_k(a^{jl}\partial_lv) - (\partial_ja^{ik})(\partial_i v( a^{jl}\partial^2_{kl}v - (\partial_ka^{jl})(\partial_lv) a^{ik}\partial^2_{ij}v \right]. \] We integrate both sides. The first term on the right hand side we perform a double integration by parts, the second and third terms on the right hand side we use the elliptic regularity on $a^{ij}$, and just cast the derivative of the coefficient matrix in sup norm. So we have \begin{equation}\label{eq:inter1} \int_{\mathbb{R}^d} |\partial_i\partial_jv|^2 dx \leq \frac{1}{\lambda^2} \int_{\mathbb{R}^d} \left[ \partial_j(a^{ij}\partial_i v)\right]^2 dx + \frac{C_1\Lambda}{\lambda^2} \int_{\mathbb{R}^d} |\partial v| |\partial^2 v| dx. \end{equation} Applying Cauchy-Schwarz (Young's weighted inequality) to the last term gives \begin{equation} \frac{C_1\Lambda}{\lambda^2} \int_{\mathbb{R}^d} |\partial v| |\partial^2 v| dx \leq \frac{C_1^2\Lambda^2}{2\lambda^4} \int_{\mathbb{R}^d} |\partial v|^2 dx + \frac12 \int_{\mathbb{R}^d} |\partial^2 v| dx \end{equation} from which we can conclude, by absorbing the last term to the left hand side of $\eqref{eq:inter1}$, that \begin{equation} \int_{\mathbb{R}^d} |\partial_i\partial_jv|^2 dx \leq \frac{2}{\lambda^2} \int_{\mathbb{R}^d} \left[ \partial_j(a^{ij}\partial_i v)\right]^2 dx + \frac{C_1^2\Lambda^2}{\lambda^4} \int_{\mathbb{R}^d} |\partial v|^2 dx. \end{equation}
Now examine the first term in the integrand on the right hand side. Suppose $v = \partial^\gamma (\partial_t)^m u$ for some solution of the wave equation. Commuting all the way in, we have \[ |\partial_j(a^{ij}\partial_i v) | \leq |\partial^\gamma (\partial_t)^m\partial_j(a^{ij}\partial_i u)| + \sum_{\alpha + \beta = \gamma, |\alpha| > 0} |\partial_j(\partial^\alpha a^{ij} \partial_i\partial^\beta (\partial_t)^mu)| .\] In the first term on the right hand side, we can apply the equation. So combining everything we have that \begin{equation} \sum_{|\gamma| = k}\int_{\mathbb{R}^d} |\partial^\gamma (\partial_t)^m u|^2 dx \leq \frac{2}{\lambda^2} \sum_{|\gamma| = k-2} \int_{\mathbb{R}^d}|\partial^\gamma (\partial_t)^{m+2}u|^2 dx + \frac{4\Lambda^2}{\lambda^4}\sum_{0<|\gamma| < k} \int_{\mathbb{R}^d}(C_{k - |\gamma|})^2 |\partial^\gamma (\partial_t)^m u|^2 dx. \end{equation} Now defining $H_{k,m}(t) = \sum_{|\gamma| = k}\int_{\mathbb{R}^d}|\partial^\gamma (\partial_t)^m u|^2 dx$, the above is a recursion relation \begin{equation} H_{k,m}(t) \leq \frac{2}{\lambda^2} H_{k-2,m+2}(t) + \frac{4\Lambda^2}{\lambda^4} \sum_{\ell = 1}^{k-1} (C_{k-\ell})^2 H_{\ell,m}(t). \end{equation} By iterating the recursion relation, we have that for some large constant $\tilde{C}$ depending on $k,m, C_\star, \Lambda, \lambda$ such that \begin{equation} H_{k,m}(t) \leq \tilde{C} \sum_{\ell = m}^{m+k-1} (H_{0,\ell+1}(t) + H_{1,\ell}(t)). \end{equation}
The significance of the above expression is that, by definition, \[ H_{0,\ell+1} + \lambda H_{1,\ell} \leq E^{(a)}[(\partial_t)^\ell u] \leq H_{0,\ell+1}(t) + \Lambda H_{1,\ell}(t) \] and so, if we know that our data has initial data $u|_{t = 0} = u_0, \partial_t u|_{t=0} = u_1$ with $u_0 \in H^k$ and $u_1 \in H^{k-1}$, the above derivation shows that the quantity \[ \sum_{1 < \ell + m < k} H_{\ell,m}(t) \] will remain bounded for all times by a constant depending on $\tilde{C}$ above and the Sobolev norms of the initial data. And in particular, the "bad scenario" in which the higher order energy grows exponentially cannot happen.


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The 2020 election is still more than 20 months away, but the first Democratic challenger for a U.S. Congressional seat has come forward.
Marqus Cole announced on Monday his intention to run for the District 7 House seat currently held by Rep. Rob Woodall. This is his first time running for office.
"The reason I'm running is we're here in the community, we've been talking to people at church, we've talked to people at the carpool line at daycare, we talk to people at the grocery store and it's clear here in our community there's no one that feels represented," Cole said on Monday.
A Snellville resident and owner of The Cole Law Office, Cole is a graduate of Georgia State University and DePaul University College of Law.
"My background is not as a politician. I'm not like some of those people who have done the politics thing all of their lives," Cole said. "What I am is a person that listens to people and their problems, then goes to try and solve those problems."
Cole's early announcement of his candidacy makes him one of the first in Georgia to already begin jockeying for the 2020 election. On Saturday, State Sen. Brandon Beach said he intends to challenge Democrat Lucy McBath, who defeated Republican incumbent Karen Handel this past November to represent Georgia's 6th Congressional district.
Cole said he decided on the early announcement for a couple of reasons.
One reason, Cole said, is he didn't want to be playing catchup to any other candidates and "wanted to be out front."
Another reason, said Cole, an African-American, was Monday's celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
"More importantly, today being Dr. Martin Luther King Day of all days is because people are familiar with his dream, people are familiar with 'the fierce urgency of now,'" Cole said, "but what a lot of people don't know is what the very next line says is there is such as things as too late, there is no time for apathy or complacency. This is the time for positive action."
Cole said his goal if chosen by voters will be to represent the will of the community.
"Real people are hurting. Real people are missing checks. Real people need health insurance," he said. "Senior citizens who have worked all their life need to know there is stability and they need to know there is someone there fighting for them and serving them."
Cole married his wife, Amanda, in 2014 and has two daughters: Ava, 3, and Isabella, 9 months. A self-described "Army brat," Cole said he has lived all over the country but he and his wife consider Georgia home.
He will likely face off against other Democrats in next year's primary, with the winner facing the Republican primary winner that December.
Woodall's seat is considered particularly vulnerable by political observers after the Republican incumbent defeated Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux by just 419 votes out of 280,411 cast. The thin margin allowed Bourdeaux to request a recount, but she later conceded.
Cole said he and his team are excited to launch the campaign and were "really excited" about the support he had already received from the community.
"We just want to let people know that we're here to listen, we're here to serve and we're here to fight for our community, and we need your help," Cole said. "This isn't our campaign trying to come and rescue people. It's our campaign coming to the grassroots and going to D.C. and telling them, 'This is what the 7th Congressional District says, this is what we look like, this is what we're doing, this is what we're struggling with.'
"Now it's time to get solutions to those problems, and that's what we're excited about."


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Fred Milstein has come onboard as president of Chinese entrepreneur Bruno Wu's Harvest Seven Stars Entertainment and become CEO of Seven Stars Film Studios.
Milstein will be based in Los Angeles with oversight of Seven Stars' investment strategy and joint ventures outside China. He will report to Wu, Harvest's Lindsay Wright and the Seven Stars board of directors.
Seven Stars announced on April 30 that it was linking with the Tianjin city government to build Chinawood, a $1.27 billion film and media hub that will sprawl over 8.6 million square feet. The project is aimed at luring U.S. and other foreign productions and will provide a hub for co-productions, which are exempt from Chinese import quotas.
Wu has teamed with Jake Eberts and Justin Lin on projects this year after launching the $800 million private equity-fueled Harvest Seven Stars Media Fund in February.
Milstein founded completion guarantee company CineFinance in 1997 and oversaw guarantees on "The Hurt Locker" and "The Blind Side" along with underwriting John Woo's "Red Cliff" as part of CineFinance's introduction of new bonds and insurance products to the Asian market. He was working most recently as managing director of worldwide business development at Aon/Albert G. Ruben.


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Past Talks
Functional Relational Programming in Modern UI Development
May 24 - 26, 2016
This talk explores the origins of Functional Relational Programming (FRP), its advantages (and disadvantages), and which parts of it are prominent in today's UI development.
Parser-Combinators in Javascript
April 20, 2016
We follow Tyson (my dog), on his journey to write a DSL with a parser written on Javascript, and learn about Parser-Combinators along the way.
Application Configuration Strategies in Kubernetes
March 31, 2016
A brief introduction of different ways to configure applications in Kubernetes.
Clojurescript for Javascript Developers
January 26, 2016
Introduction survey of clojurescript, from developing with it the first time to react-based asynchronous applications.
Functional Programming Basics
January 27, 2015
RefactorU Guest Lecture
RefactorU Guest Lecture
The What, Why, and How of functional programming for new programmers.
Building a Custom Infrastructure
November 17, 2014
Detailed description on how and why I built Rafflecopter's custom infrastructure, including platform services, cluster management, and request routing.
Javascript Concurrency Patterns
September 23, 2014
RefactorU Guest Lecture
RefactorU Guest Lecture
Patterns for harnessing asynchrony, targeted at new Javascripters.
Book Club Moderator: SICP
March 2014
Ad Hoc Book Club
Ad Hoc Book Club
Led discussion, picked material, worked examples to help others explore this amazing book.
MongoDB Indexing
July 25, 2013
Examples, explanations, gotchyas and practical advice on MongoDB Indexing.


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Sunland Park taking battle with Santa Teresa group to Supreme Court
SUNLAND PARK - Residents' efforts to make Santa Teresa a city have once again been thwarted, at least temporarily, by the community's neighbor and nemesis, Sunland Park.
The Sunland Park City Council on Tuesday voted to appeal to the New Mexico Supreme Court a state appeals court decision that favored the Santa Teresa citizens group seeking to incorporate the community as a municipality.
Residents of Santa Teresa have been trying off and on for more than three decades to incorporate, but have been consistently blocked by Sunland Park. A similar legal battle that began in 1986 also ended up in the Supreme Court, which rejected Santa Teresa's efforts on different grounds than are being considered currently.
Sunland Park has also repeatedly expressed an interest in annexing Santa Teresa, which is more influent and has more industry, though it has never gone through with those efforts.
Although Sunland Park officials have said in the past that they oppose the incorporation of Santa Teresa because they feel the two cities should join to better compete with larger cities such as El Paso and prevent fragmentation of governance, City Manager Julia Brown said on Tuesday that Sunland Park also opposes incorporation because it would constrain the city's ability to grow.
"The city is really moving into a growth and development mode," she said. "If we allow this decision to stand … it pretty much landlocks the city and prevents us from moving ahead, and growing and developing."
Sunland Park borders Santa Teresa on the east along McNutt Road, and for a short distance on the north and south as well. Sunland Park is bordered on the east by El Paso and on the south by Mexico. However, even if Santa Teresa is able to incorporate, Sunland Park would still be able to expand westward along much of its border and to the north.
The City Council on Monday voted unanimously to appeal the latest court decision. Council approved the resolution to appeal without discussion after meeting in closed session to consider the issue. There was no public comment on the resolution. The issue took less than two minutes to resolve in the Council's regular meeting.
"I anticipated it," said Mary Gonzales, president of the Provisional Government of Santa Teresa, the citizens group seeking incorporation, who did not attend the meeting. "We were ready for it. We're not shying away."
The group formed after Sunland Park's City Council in October 2014 approved a resolution saying the city "would like to extend a hand to residents" of Santa Teresa and "open a discussion regarding … possible annexation."
The following July, PGST petitioned the Doña Ana Board of County Commissioners to incorporate 3,984 acres, extending from McNutt Road west almost to the Santa Teresa airport and including the Santa Teresa Airport Park, the largest of the industrial parks in the area.
In November 2015, the Board of County Commissioners voted 4-0 to deny the petition, saying that it did not meet state requirements for incorporation. PGST then appealed the decision in district court, which initially ruled in favor of PGST. But Sunland Park made a motion for the court to reconsider, and the court reversed its decision. PGST then took the case to the state court of appeals.
The current dispute centers on different interpretations of state requirements for incorporating a municipality in an urbanized area. They are ambiguous.
State statutes says that no territory within five miles of a municipality with a population of at least 5,000 can incorporate unless: (1) the existing municipality approves; (2) residents of the territory proposing incorporation file a petition to be annexed by the municipality and the municipality fails to annex it within 120 days; (3) residents of the area to be annexed prove that the municipality cannot provide services within the same period of time as the proposed municipality.
The parties disagree on whether all three conditions must be met, or they represent three independent paths to incorporation. They also disagree about what is necessary to prove Sunland Park's intention to annex Santa Teresa. State statues describe three methods for annexing a territory. One states that a municipality can begin that process by passing a resolution stating its desire to annex a territory.
PGST contended that the three parts of state statutes represent alternative paths to incorporating, so that only one is required. It also argued that Sunland Park's approval of a resolution on annexation demonstrated the city's intention to seek annexation, so satisfied the second condition.
Sunland Park and the Board of County Commissioners disagreed, contending that PGST must file a formal petition with Sunland Park seeking annexation, and prove that it can provide municipal services sooner than Sunland Park, before it can petition to incorporate as a municipality.
On Aug. 22, the state appeals court ruled in PGST's favor. It agreed that state statutes on incorporation "provide three stand-alone approaches to incorporation." It also said that Sunland Park's resolution constituted an informal proposal to annex Santa Teresa, so met annexation requirements.
Most importantly, the appeals court said that it would be "absurd" to interpret the statutes as meaning that residents who oppose annexation, and instead seek to incorporate as a municipality, would first have to petition to be annexed.
Such an interpretation, the court said, "would nullify any meaningful opportunity for residents of unincorporated territory …. to avoid unwanted annexation."
Gonzales and other members of PGST believe that incorporation is preferable to annexation by Sunland Park. They don't want to be part of Sunland Park, which they say is ill-equipped to provide it services and is only interested in annexing Santa Teresa to increase its property and gross receipts tax revenue.
"They've never taken care of their residents," Gonzales said. "I don't want to be part of a city that's not going to take care of me."
Santa Teresa residents are also seeking to incorporate because the community has declined since its founder, who also provided services to the community, went bankrupt and the country club it was built around closed.
More:Santa Teresa faces old foe in fight to incorporate
Since then, roads have deteriorated, streetlights are no longer turned on at night, streets signs have faded, and sidewalks have bucked. Common areas, once green and meticulously landscaped, have turned brown and palm trees have died.
PGST has spent about $70,000 so far in legal expenses. They raised that money through donations, chiefly from Santa Teresa residents, ranging in size from $35 to $1,000. The group only has about $5,000 left, though, so will need to raise more money to defend their case before the Supreme Court. It plans to mount a Go Fund Me campaign shortly.
"Our lawyers feel very confident," Gonzales said. "They're willing to go all the way."
Santa Teresa and Sunland Park battled once before over annexation and incorporation in a case that was also ultimately decided by the New Mexico Supreme Court.
The first battle began in 1986 when Sunland Park, only three years after it became a city, expressed an interest in annexing Santa Teresa. Santa Teresa residents then, as now, formed a citizens group to fight the annexation attempt. It also petitioned the county to incorporate the community.
The Doña Ana County Board of Commissioners approved the petition, but Sunland Park appealed and a district court judge reversed that decision. The Santa Teresa group appealed the district court ruling and it was overturned. Sunland Park took the case to the Supreme Court, which ruled in its favor.
The issue in that case was different. The parties and courts disagreed about whether the Santa Teresa group could prove that it could provide services as quickly as Sunland Park.
The Supreme Court said in its ruling, "It is the state's policy to discourage splinter communities or a proliferation of neighboring, independent municipal bodies, whose competing needs would divide tax revenues, multiply services, create confusion and factionalism among our citizens."
Sunland Park won that battle, but never completed the annexation process.
Blake Gumprecht may be reached at 575-541-5453, firstname.lastname@example.com or @blakegumprecht on Twitter.


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Ask yourself…
Are you willing to cede control of your diabetes?
Does a machine that does some things automatically, on your command, empower you, or take power away? How does a machine that makes changes based on its own algorithms and without explicit direction, affect your feelings about burden? trust? confidence?
Would having a parent/spouse/loved-one by your side to help with diabetes management make you feel safer? Or inadequate?
Is the chirp of a CGM alert a welcome aid to diabetes self-care? Or another nagging voice telling you that you've screwed up?
If you could have the assistance of a trained alert-animal (such as a dog), would it make you feel special? privileged? different? isolated? disabled? incapable?
If you were offered the assistance of any of the above, free-of-charge and with no obligation, which might you decline – and why?
Does vanity play a role? Might you be a little more lax on safety so that others may think more highly of you? Or so you may think more highly of yourself?
Is being able to do it on your own a good thing or bad? Is a wealth of self-confidence a blessing or a curse?
Go back and look at your answers. Are they really your answers? Do you truly believe them? Or have they been tainted and influenced by what peers, educators, family, and others may have led you to believe are "correct"?
There are no "correct" answers, but we need to answer them — to ourselves — honestly. Nobody should be told how to think.
(Please comment with your overall thoughts on reliance on other things/people/animals, but there's no need to answer each question individually).
Just some food for thought…
Posted on January 7, 2014, in Diabetes, DOC and tagged emotions. Bookmark the permalink. 13 Comments.
I see these things as tools that help me control diabetes and make me feel safer, not something that takes over my control or has a negative impact.
On a side note, I would like to have a diabetes service dog simply so I could bring my dog to work with me 😀
I would love a service dog for the same reason! I also feel that a dog could actually nudge me into action when a CGM can't really do that.
It depends on the day how I would answer a lot of these questions. There are some days I see the CGM as an annoying reminder of ways I screwed up, at other time it's a reminder that no matter that I've done everything perfectly it's still not right, and then there are the days that I couldn't be more thankful for it. I would absolutely sign up for a machine that did things on it's own to manage the care of my diabetes. Maybe it's far too trusting of me, but it would be nice to not have to think about calculations and reactions for awhile.
I think the only service I would decline is the service dog, simply because I'm too great of an animal lover to have it by my side and for it not to actually be a pet 🙂
I would have no issue strapping on an artificial pancreas and letting it do the "thinking" for me, but that confidence is largely due to my knowing what to do if/when it fails.
Overall I feel that I'm alone in my self-care so having the tools (as many others have called them) make me feel more comfortable in my ability to keep moving. I haven't been doing this very long and I accept the all of the help that I can get and have already figured out that my doctors haven't always been forthcoming with what is available to me. I didn't hear a peep about CGMs until I read about them from the Twitter DOC folks!
I've never had another person have control over my diabetes (with the exception of my hospitalization at diagnosis). I'm not confident that there are people close to me who could help me if I needed it. Even my husband doesn't know all of the ins and outs of my care but I trust him with it the most. He and my best friend are the only people in my life who I feel could take over for me if I were ever incapacitated. That's a scary thought that has me considering giving up some of my "I've got this thing" attitude and teaching people like my mom how the basics work.


text: The Bahrain Olympic Committee (BOC) has stepped up its preparations to host a couple of significant GCC meetings in Bahrain from November 9 to 11.Bahrain will first host the 78th GCC National Olympic Committee Presidents' meeting, to be followed by the 12th GCC Sport Organising Committee Presidents' meeting.The working committees for this event have already been formed. They are media, housing and transport, secretarial, public relations, information technology and financial committees. The Media Committee is headed by Mohammed Lori and includes Nedal Bahrain, Hassan Mansoor, Hassan Ali, Rami Ayoob, Ali Al Halwachi, Fawazz Shamsan, Abduljalil Al Kooheji and Yousef Khairi.The housing and transport committee consists of head Hamad Al Baker, Abdulrazzaq Zainuddin, Hood Al Mannai, Isa Ahmed, Khalid Fuad, Isa Al Thawadi and Siddiqe Mattar, while the Secretarial Committee features Mohammed Al Zayed, Mohammed Qamber, Isa Ahmed, Mohammed Al Balooshi, Aisha Rashdan and Maryam Madi.Fajer Jassim was named head fo the public relations and ceremonies committee, which also includes Yaqoub Buhaza, Khalid Haji, Hassan Abdulla and Hassan Abdulrahim.The information technology committee is headed by Nawaf Abdulrahman, and consists of Mohammed Bashayra and Mohammed Rafiq, while Hassan Al Khaja and Ahmed Al Omari are representing the financial committee.The programme for both meeting was also approved. The Executive Office members and coordination and Follow Up Office members are scheduled to arrive in Bahrain on November 8, as the latter meeting is due to take place on the same day at 9.30am.The consultative meeting of the Executive Office will be held the following day at 10.30am, while a gala dinner in honor of the general secretaries of the National Olympic Committees is set for 8.30pm start.The 78th Executive Office meeting is scheduled for November 10 at 10.30am, with the joint meeting of the Executive Office and the GCC Organizing Committees heads due to take place the following day at 10.30am.Later in the day, a joint gala launch for all guests will be held at 1.20pm, while all delegations are scheduled to depart on November 12.


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- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Coat six 6- or 8-ounce ramekins or custard cups with nonstick cooking spray. In a medium bowl, beat eggs, milk and black pepper. Set aside.
- Lay one slice ham in each of the ramekins, and then lay another slice crosswise so that the ham covers the bottoms and the sides of the custard cups. Place ramekins on baking sheet.
- Squeeze the spinach well to remove excess moisture divide equally and place in the center of each ramekin. Pour eggs and milk mixture into each ramekin, dividing equally. Sprinkle equal amounts of Swiss cheese on top of each.
- Bake for 10 minutes. Lightly lay piece of foil over the ramekins to prevent the ham from overbrowning. Continue baking for 8-10 minutes more or until instant-read thermometer inserted in egg custard mixture reads 160 degrees F. Remove from oven and allow to rest in ramekins for 5 minutes before eating. If desire, remove from ramekins and transfer to plates for serving.


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Inspired by John 12:12-16
"His disciples did not understand these things at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written of him and had been done to him." John 12:16 (NRSV)
Throughout most of the gospels, Jesus is doing or saying amazing things, and those who are with him don't really understand what's going on. Even his disciples, those who saw and heard the most and who were also Jesus' closest friends, privy to private teachings and explanations that Jesus didn't share with the masses, didn't get it. At least, not until after his death and resurrection. Then it all made sense: not only Jesus' words and actions, but how he fit in with the whole story of God's activity in the world as recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Although we don't have Jesus Christ, the Son of God, living among us as a human being today, God is still active in the world, working through, with, and in ordinary people and events. And as was true in Jesus' day with his followers, we often don't understand the significance of what we're witnessing while it's going on. But we can have faith that the one who defeated death in order to make everlasting life available to all is working for the good of creation, and while things may not make much sense to us right now, we will eventually see the world in the light of God's glory.
Let us pray. Mysterious God, you are working in ways that we cannot fully recognize or understand. Grant us the wisdom to seek you in all things, that we might discern your presence and your activity in our ordinary lives. Through Christ our Lord, Amen.


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History is unfolding all around us. Tragedies are occurring every day. So I was very taken with a recent article addressing the most urgent issue of our time: what can be done to help Prince Andrew's reputation? As even the staunchest royalist papers have accepted, being forced to deny sexually assaulting a minor – Virginia Giuffre, then 17 – is not a great look for a prince; an even worse one is a prince who insists he "can't remember" meeting her, despite the inconvenient photograph of Andrew wrapping his mitt around Giuffre's waist while Ghislaine Maxwell – currently awaiting trial for sex trafficking, a charge she denies – grins in the background, Aunt Lydia with a Cheshire cat smile. Andrew's "friends" (his what?) insist the photo is clearly faked because "the prince has chubbier fingers", which, as alibis go, is as ironclad as being at Pizza Express in Woking. The task of making the prince even vaguely palatable to the public is, according to the article, "the rebranding job from hell", given that, as one strategist beadily noted, he "has no accomplishments or public admiration he can leverage, no day job he can go back to". Treasonous talk there from the PR industry, and yet not even the Queen could defend her favourite child against any of it.
There is another problem for Andrew's PR, aside from sheer uselessness, personal unlikability and general idiocy that have wafted off him for most of his adult life. It's that he doesn't think he's done anything wrong. This has been a lifelong problem. When interviewed in 2017 , he was asked about his various "gaffes", which included allegedly giving Maxwell and – naturally! – Kevin Spacey a tour of Buckingham Palace and allowing them to sit on thrones; inviting Maxwell and later convicted sex offenders Jeffrey Epstein and – but of course! – Harvey Weinstein to his daughter Beatrice's 18th birthday party; selling his house to the Kazakh oligarch, Timur Kulibayev, for £3m over the asking price, which seemed strangely generous of the buyer, given it had been on the market for years. The prince, as per, denies he has done anything wrong.
How, the journalist asked, did he keep getting himself into these little scrapes? "Everybody should be given an opportunity. Sometimes you find that somebody's done something after the event, or you find that perhaps that wasn't quite as wise. You don't get it right all the time. It doesn't bother me, really. It's just part of life's rich tapestry," Andrew replied. Indeed. Although Andrew increasingly seems to be re-enacting the Bayeux tapestry, specifically the section depicting the royal flailing around with an arrow stuck in his eye.
Like Andrew, former prime minister David Cameron was born blessed with only gilded opportunities, and then, with almost impressive determination, plunged his reputation through a shredder. Cameron has insisted he lobbied ministers during the pandemic to prop up Greensill Capital because "he sincerely believed there would be material benefits for UK businesses at a challenging time". And "UK businesses" appears to have meant "myself", given he banked £7m, whereas taxpayers are footing the bill for Greensill's collapse of up to £320m. Good to see Cameron's judgment is just as sharp as when he gave the go-ahead to the Brexit referendum.
What can be done with such men? PR executives insist that Andrew must make "almost a full, authentic and credible apology", although either man doing anything "authentic and credible" is as likely as the two of them growing matching quiffs and becoming the new Jedward. One PR quoted in the article suggests that Andrew "devote himself to good works and public service for the rest of his life", but that's what he was already supposed to be doing before, and look how that turned out. Eddie Murphy once wisely observed "the best way to hurt rich people is by turning them into poor people". But poverty, or even normality, is a strange concept in Andrew and Cameron's worlds, when it applies to themselves. Prince Harry insists he moved to California because he wanted a "normal" life, although his version of normal turned out to mean living in an £8m mansion, hitting up his father for cash and flogging tales of his royal family. Well, it's all relative. Or in Harry's case, all about the relatives. Meanwhile, Cameron's off living the humble life in his various £25,000 shepherd's huts , which surely cost more than his book, which he famously wrote in them, has made in profit.
There really is only one solution. These men won't change personally, so they need to change geographically. One PR suggested Andrew should "devote himself to charity work, perhaps in Africa", but Britain has inflicted enough pain on Africa already. Instead, both men should build a time machine and go back to when useless posh politicians could be snout-deep in the trough and no one would notice, and the royals could do anything they damn well pleased. So maybe the 19th century for Cameron and the 16th century for Andrew? It's for their sake as much as ours; they'll feel so much more at home there. Bon voyage, guys.


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By Robert J. Wicks
Published by Oxford University Press, $21.95
As more and more of us face financial insecurity, longer work hours and the increasingly complex personal and social demands of our fast-paced, multitasking, high-tech lifestyle, finding healthy ways to handle stress is more important than ever.
Robert Wicks is a leading expert on stress. His prescription for handling it is to become more resilient. A professor of pastoral counseling at Loyola University in Maryland, his most recent book is Bounce: Living the Resilient Life (Oxford University Press). His other books include Riding the Dragon: 10 Lessons for Inner Strength in Challenging Times and Prayerfulness: Awakening to the Fullness of Life (Sorin Books).
NCR: What is resilience and why is it important to have?
Wickss: Resilience is the ability to meet, learn from, and not be crushed by the challenges and stresses of life. Each of us has a range of resilience formed by our heredity, early life experiences, current knowledge, and our level of motivation to meet life's challenges and enjoy each day to the fullest, no matter what happens.
If we become the most resilient person we can be, new positive realities and perspectives arise and flourish in the most surprising ways.
Each of us has an opportunity to become deeper and more compassionate in response to the stressors in our lives if we are aware of some basic practices to contain and understand stress, are mindful, reasonably self aware, and can learn how to maintain a healthy sense of resilience and perspective.
Read more stories like this on the NCR Spirituality page.
A good example of resilience was, for me, a physician I heard interviewed who was working in Somalia during a devastating famine. He was approached by an interviewer from U.S. public radio and asked, "Doctor, there is carnage everywhere here, children are dying in such numbers that you are stacking them up in the corner like firewood. How can you stand it?"
The physician answered, "When you watch this horror on television you are overwhelmed by it, aren't you? Well, we feel the same in country, but there is one difference. You can't lose hope as long as you are making friends."
That's a perfect example of that ability to have a sense of perspective and resiliency. It's not the amount of darkness in the world that matters or even the amount in yourself, but how you stand in the midst of that darkness.
Novelist Walker Percy asked once, "What if you missed your life like a person misses a train?" It's easy to do today with all the multitasking we do and the stresses we face. When you have a sense of resiliency you are able to learn from and bounce back from stress. You not only limit the stress, you gain from it. It raises the quality of our lives.
Resiliency is a wonderful quality to have but it is also a gift to those who cross its path. Resiliency has an effect of positive contamination in society. Spirituality writer Frederick Buechner said: "People may forget what you said but they will never forget how you make them feel."
Resilient people tend to open up a space for people where they can rest their burdens. People who are not resilient tend to contaminate that space with their own needs, their needs to be liked or be seen as helpful, right or in control.
How can one maximize that resiliency range?
People have the sense you are either born resilient or not. That's true but not entirely. Some people do seem to be more resilient from childhood but that's not the crucial issue for leading a fuller life. It's maximizing the range of our resiliency.
One of the best assets we can have to increase our range of resiliency is a well-rounded circle of friends. For all major religious traditions "community" is an essential element.
In my own work, both personal and professional, I have found that for the circle to be rich we need, at the very least, four "types" or "voices" present. These are the prophet, the cheerleader, the harasser and the guide.
The prophet's voice is often quiet and fleeting but nonetheless strong. She or he is living an honest and courageous life guided by truth and compassion. Having someone like that in our lives is never easy, but the prophet challenges us to look at how we are living our lives.
The cheerleader is unabashedly, enthusiastically and unconditionally accepting of us. Their love encourages us to do the right thing.
The harasser forces us to take ourselves less seriously, to laugh at ourselves.
Complementing all these is the guide, who listens to us carefully and then searches and looks for nuances in what we share with them in order to help us uncover the voices that guide us unconsciously.
It's dangerous to try to go it alone with no one to debrief with or cry with, with no one to laugh with and no one to really look at what's important. We've seen this in the church where people have designated leaders who feel they can't share things with people.
You cite three treasures from the Christian and Buddhist spiritual traditions -- solitude, silence and mindfulness -- as ways to cope with stress and become more resilient.
Many of the world's religions and ancient philosophies extol the benefits of solitude, silence and mindfulness. But their value has only recently gained traction in our world, and then only for its purely psychological worth.
A time apart is essential, not simply to take a breather, but to lean back into the now, by yourself, to take a breath and ask yourself: Have I been going to where I wanted to go?
Solitude and silence allow us to take a step back from societal and cultural forces and really get back to basics. If I don't take some time each day, I find myself lost and confused. I get up early -- 4:30 to 5 a.m. I get coffee and take a half hour by myself quietly sit. After that, my wife wakes up and I bring her a cup and we chat for half hour or so and look at scriptural readings of the day.
That time is essential. During the day I can tap back into it, fall back into that solitude moment. It's not a chore or a duty. It's my contemplative period, my time to center and breathe.
Fr. Henri Nouwen said that solitude is not being alone with yourself, but being alone with God; silence is not listening to yourself but to God. Silence intensifies and solitude makes the silence richer and deeper.
Mindfulness is key too. It is really amazing how much we fail to be present to the things around us. Mindfulness, when it's formal, is meditation; informal mindfulness is just being present to the people and events around us. Mindfulness can be learned.
Another way to increased resiliency is facing failure in a productive way. I've often told the groups of people in the helping professions I work with that they should fail more than any other group. With failure, you're able to reassess how you're doing, gaining a natural sense of humility. Knowledge plus humility equals wisdom. Add wisdom to compassion and you get love. Failure is a deepening factor that allows us to put things in perspective and move away from the savior complex.
Another path to increased resiliency is recognizing your own resistance to change. When I work with patients in psychotherapy I try to get them to be intrigued by their resistance to growth and change.
Make friends with resistance. The defenses you put up to resist change are exaggerations of your gifts. In those areas where we feel most vulnerable is where the most resistance often is. If you can become intrigued by it, then it becomes an exploration into your own inner self and what you can do.
Understanding resilience and practicing exercises that lead to self knowledge and mindfulness can deepen our resources and make a difference in the world.


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Soil Health Institute Names Dr. Cristine Morgan as Chief Scientific Officer-
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C., December 18, 2018 — The Soil Health Institute (SHI) announced today that one of the nation's premier Soil Scientists, Dr. Cristine Morgan, will serve as its Chief Scientific Officer. Dr. Morgan will replace Dr. Steven Shafer who recently retired after serving in the position since 2016.
"Dr. Morgan brings a unique combination of technical, educational, and leadership experience to the position," said Dr. Wayne Honeycutt, SHI President and CEO. "Among her many accomplishments, Dr. Morgan has conducted ground-breaking research on how management practices influence soil-plant-water relations. She has also developed methods that were adopted by USDA for easily measuring soil carbon. She has a history of applying her knowledge for addressing real-world problems experienced by farmers and ranchers and is passionate about educating others along the way."
Dr. Morgan comes to the Soil Health Institute after serving as a Professor of Soil Science at Texas A&M University, where she received numerous awards for teaching and research. She serves on the Board of Directors for the Soil Science Society of America, Editor-in-Chief for the global soil science journal, Geoderma, and leads the U.S. effort for the Global Soil Security partnership. Dr. Morgan received her B.S. degree in Plant and Environmental Soil Sciences from Texas A&M University, and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Soil Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
"Dr. Morgan's research programs are characterized by organizing interdisciplinary research teams to solve problems with creative and practical solutions. Her academic program was recognized for outstanding teaching, research, and mentoring by local, national, and international organizations. Her students have been awarded numerous national and international awards and scholarships for their work advancing knowledge in soil physics and pedology. She is clearly the right professional to build on our momentum," said Bill Buckner, SHI Board Chair.
"Soil health is a global existential challenge that is closely linked to food, water, energy security, biodiversity, and human health," said Dr. Morgan. "I look forward to the opportunity to work with the Soil Health Institute team and its many stakeholders, recognizing the value of soil to benefit the sustainability and vitality of farms, agriculture, and society."
For further information, visit www.soilhealthinstitute.org.
About the Soil Health Institute
The Soil Health Institute's (www.soilhealthinstitute.org) is a non-profit whose mission is to safeguard and enhance the vitality and productivity of soil through scientific research and advancement. The Institute works with its many stakeholders to identify gaps in research and adoption; develop strategies, networks and funding to address those gaps; and ensure beneficial impact of those investments to agriculture, the environment and society.


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search results
Boat on the Bay.jpg
Boat in Biscayne Bay, Miami, FL USA
- Copyright
- © 2008 Daniel Korzeniewski. All rights reserved.
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america, beach, Biscayne Bay, boat, boats, clouds, colorful, costguard, destination, dusk, Florida, harbor, leisure, lookout, marina, marine, Miami, Miami Beach, Miami Dade, nature, ocean, outdoors, outside, sailboat, sailing, scene, sea, ships, sightseeing, southeast, sunny, sunset, tourism, transportation, travel, tropical, tropics, united states, USA, vacation, vessel, yatch
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On Nov. 28, Bend Park and Recreation District will host an open house-style meeting to present the proposed design for Mirror Pond. But don't get your hopes up, anti-dredgers and pro-dredgers, because that design is not going to touch the topic of silt removal—not even with a mucky 10-foot pole. The Nov. 28 meeting is about the trail construction and bank restoration along Mirror Pond, and won't cover much in the way of dredging.
If you thought dredging had to be completed—or even decided upon—in order to restore the banks of Mirror Pond, or to add trails alongside it, you'd be wrong. Park board members tell us that dredging is beyond the scope of this project—and that's exactly where we think it should stay.
Completing the Deschutes River Trail is something voters voted in favor of when they approved the BPRD bond in 2012. Today, most of the funds from that bond have been spent, and board members say they'll use general funds, if needed, to complete what voters asked for, to remain true to their commitment.
And while a host of surveys, public meetings, editorials, letters to the editor and even social media comments have been put forth, indicating either support or no support for dredging Mirror Pond, thus far, no one has been able to definitively say whether dredging the pond—at this point, at an estimated cost of $6.7 million—is something the wider community wants. From about 2012 to 2015, there was a flurry of activity around resolving this issue.
Then Pacific Power decided it wouldn't sell the Newport Dam, the source of impoundment for Mirror Pond, after all, and the wind seemed to go out of the community's sails around this issue. Lately, the pair who bought the mud underneath the pond, Bill Smith and Todd Taylor, have been attempting to curry favor with local officials, in the hopes of garnering BPRD and City of Bend funds to help pay for dredging. Neither body is equipped to pay.
Were the city, the parks district, or any other agency ready to come to the table and ask the public to pay for yet another bond, our community has a growing list of wants and needs that we feel are more pressing. More important needs include a large performing arts center, community investment in the Central District, a public warming shelter and improvements to our transportation system that would make public transit easier, faster and more accessible to more areas, and more people... just to name a few.
In summary, our public agencies don't have the funds to dredge. The public hasn't come out resoundingly in one camp or the other. The movements to take action on this issue have fallen apart, becoming a source of embarrassment to the community.
So, barring a public vote in which residents can say, democratically, that they wish to A, free the river and return it to its natural state, or B, preserve the state of the pond as it's been for a century and dredge it in order to retain that scene, then the only other option is C, let the Mirror Pond issue stay dead in the water, for now. In this case, we're willing to let sleeping geese lie.
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During the Summer School, the students usually develop a project on the topic of biodiversity and ecosystem services, with the surrounding region as case study. This allows applying in practice the knowledge each student brings, together with the knowledge gained in the lectures and school discussions, while gathering insights directly from the field and from the local stakeholders that the students have the chance to meet.
The student project offers an excellent opportunity for students to put their skills into play, to work as a team, to manage lifelike constraints (e.g. time and data), or to develop their creative communication ability.


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It's no secret that things do slow down a bit during the winter months when it comes to real estate on Fire Island. However, if you're a buyer, that's not a bad thing. While you may have to break out your ski gear to make sure you're adequately bundled up for your house tours, here […]Read More
Now that we're into November and you've probably gotten every last bit of use out of your beach house, it's time to think about how to safely close your home for the winter. We've put together a checklist to help walk you through the big jobs and the often-overlooked details to ensure your home […]Read More


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Dr Andrew Choo(Catholic Doctors Association of Malaysia) and Fr Dass ,Jesuit Refugee Service(JRS), have just returned to Malaysia from their recent trip to Aceh to assess the Tsunami Situation first hand. They left for Medan on 5th January 2005 and have just returned a few days ago. Following is a brief report on the current situation based on our discussion with them:
1) The problem in Aceh is still chaotic and the logistics problem has yet to be fully sorted out. Aid and supplies are still stuck in the airports in Medan, Subang(KL), Bangkok and Jakarta. The German medical team still has a mobile operating theatre stuck in Bangkok
2) Transport to Banda Aceh is still limited. Flights from Medan to Banda Aceh are fully booked. Dr Choo and Fr Paul waited 2 days in Medan and could not get a flight and instead they hired a van and brought their supplies by road, a journey that took them 12 hours.
3) Banda Aceh is full of Aid Agencies and many medical teams from all over the world. The main problem is getting these teams to the severely affected areas which is the West Coast. Most of the severely injured have been airlifted to Medan or Jakarta. Dr Choo ran a mobile clinic one morning. He saw about 60 patients but only 2 of them were actual tsunami survivors.
4) The severely affected areas are the West Coast of Aceh Province which is still inaccessible by road. Only recently has aid been able to reach the 2 largest coastal towns of west Aceh which is Calang and Meulaboh. Even then these 2 towns are only accessible via helicopters, light aircraft or via a road from the southern part of Sumatra. A return boat ride from Banda Aceh to the coastal villages on the west coast may take 5 to 7 days. The villages along the western seashore of Aceh have mostly disappeared. The survivors are now living in their relatives' houses, public spaces or temporary shelters. There are many public buildings destroyed, including schools, hospitals markets and government offices. Nobody knows when the infrastructure can be rebuilt and repaired. It appears that they are in dire need engineers and others to repair roads, bridges and provide proper sanitation and safe water supplies.
5) It would be useful to have proper contacts with a local agency who know the local people and the geography in Aceh. It was fortunate that Dr Choo and Fr Dass were with the JRS in Aceh. There were some French and German doctors who also had to seek the help of the JRS office in Aceh. The JRS have been working in Aceh since June 2001. Over the years they have played a significant role in assisting the displaced persons in Aceh. Their present goal now is to respond to the needs of the Tsunami and earthquake victims, especially in remote areas in order to help the people restore their lives. Their current activities are directed towards improving things like health and sanitation, education, trauma healing, supporting local NGOs and restoring normal life. They have appealed for aid and donations can be sent to: Account Name: Yayasan JRS Indonesia, Account Number: 0372 197 101, Bank Name: Bank Central Asia_Sudirman Yogyakarta, Address of Bank: Jl. Sudirman, Yogyakart, Indonesia, Swift Code: CENAIDJA
Posted By Dr K Y Chong, Malaysia


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Clickable platform enables Fortune 500 firm to automate delivery of data during Global Sports Event
Delivering billions of data points during global sports events is hard, even for Fortune 500 firms. With data stored across thousands of social media locations across 25 social media networks, delivering timely data in a data warehouse can be challenging. Clickable automated the delivery of data from Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Instagram, Vine, Foursquare, Vimeo, Renren, Mxit, Naver and Youku. With embedded data science, Clickable made it easy for the marketing team to organize the data and visualize custom metrics computed in real-time.
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- Respond more quickly to your most valuable customers.
- Optimize content performance
- Understand how to create compelling content via machine-driven insights and optimization.
- Maximize return on high-performance social content across different product lines, regions and languages through content syndication.


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The human brain has always been a secret black box but it could change…
Understanding the human brain is close to reach a first milestone: DATABASE. "When it's complete, the database will be the first in the world to collect information from individual cells along four basic but crucial variables: cell shape, gene expression, position in the brain, and electrical activity." (Wired Article quote)
Several institutions are working to increase the knowledge about our most important organ: Human Brain Project (Europe), BRAIN Initiative (US).
"The big plan is to try to understand how the brain works," says Lydia Ng, director of technology for the database. "Cell types are one of the building blocks of the brain, and by making a big model of how they're put together, we can understand all the activity that goes into perceiving something and creating an action based on that perception." (Wired Article quote)
We are just at the beginning of a fascinating journey in our brain. Up to now, researchers only have been able to have a big picture about the functioning of the cells together. It is still unclear how billions of neurons act together resulting in patterns of behavior and activation.
More on human brain research:
TED Videos on Brain – From brain plasticity to the understanding of consciousnes through the paradox of choice among others… Intriguing topics around the brain!
Brain Basics: Know Your Brain – 2015
Human Brain: Facts, Anatomy & Mapping Project – 2015
Brain & Nervous System Health Center – WebMD – 2014
8 Things We Simply Don't Understand About the Human Brain – io9
Introduction: The Human Brain – 2006


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You probably have wondered when I was going to put up the obligatory "New Years Resolution" blog post like every other blogger you follow. Well to be honest, I sat down to write that post about 3 times and for some reason it just wasn't coming to me. So let's try this a 4th time….
It honestly feels weird typing 2015. It sounds so futuristic! Like one of those years you never thought would come. Yet, here it is. Every year honestly feels like it goes by faster and faster. When I think about all the possibilities that 2015 holds for me, it makes me so excited to think of the amazing memories that are waiting to be made this coming year. 2015 is going to be a big year. I'm going to turn 20 (like, what?!), this summer will mark my half way mark of my college experience, I will be spending the month of May in Italy, and possibly spending September- December studying abroad in Europe! In the next 12 months, I know I will be pushed outside of my comfort zone, learn invaluable lessons, and ultimately grow and change as a person.
I think about the second or third time I sat down to write this post I finally googled the definition of resolution. Not because I didn't know what it meant, I guess I googled it just hoping for some inspiration or ideas.
Resolution:: a firm decision to do or not to do something
I don't think you should just sit down and come up with resolutions that you came up with as you wrote. I think they should be things that you have thought long and hard about and truly wish to improve upon. So many people blog about their New Years Resolutions just as another post. This year I don't want to make resolutions. The definition of resolutions just sounds so harsh, "to do or not to do something." Instead of changing a habit completely and deciding not to do it any longer I want to focus on improving different aspects of my life.
Then I googled the term aspiration…
Aspiration:: a hope or ambition of achieving something
In 2015 I hope that I will achieve something great. I want to strive to become a stronger, more confident, woman with a better understanding of myself. I aspire to write a 365 page book, filled with memories and lessons and surprises. So without further delay, these are my 2015 aspirations.


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What's a little pronoun between presidential candidates? That's the attitude of the McCain campaign, which says that it's the Obama campaign that's getting its underwear in a bunch over the fact that McCain referred to Obama at one point in that debate of theirs Tuesday night simply as "That one." Got that?
"My friends, I know you grow a little weary with this back-and-forth," McCain said in the debate in Nashville. "It was an energy bill on the floor of the Senate loaded down with goodies, billions for the oil companies, and it was sponsored by Bush and Cheney.
"You know who voted for it?" McCain asked, pointing a dismissive finger in Obama's direction. "You might never know. That one. You know who voted against it? Me."
Don't get me wrong. McCain's little aside wasn't that big a deal. But that's not the point. "That" is.I don't have any doubt that what McCain meant in using that term was "This guy." Maybe even "This little jerk." Maybe, better still, "This sanctimonious, snot-nosed S.O.B." But that's not what he said. He said "that."
And here's what's interesting about that: It's not idiomatic; in fact, it's quite off-key. "That" is a word you use when you're pointing to a distant mountain, or a donut in the glass case. It's not a word you use about another person, who is standing just a few feet away from you, and entitled to civility, whether or not you can muster respect. Used about another human being, "that" is de-humanizing. That's all there is to that.
We say: "Look at that. Look what the cat dragged in!" "If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I can sell you!" "Fancy that!" When someone asks us who is our brother, we don't say, "That!" We say, "He is."
When McCain's campaign complained this morning that the Obama camp's umbrage over "that" meant that it was "the fussiest campaign in American history," that just seemed par for the course. After all, McCain's aides have long mocked Obama as "the one." That was meant as a definitive term of dismissal. But it turns out to have been only the half of "that."


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Ethiopia's Genzebe Dibaba broke the women's indoor mile world record as she ran 4:13.31 for the win at the Globen Galan meeting in Stockholm.The previous world record was set in 1990 by Romania's Doina Melinte in 4:17.14. Dibaba was clocked at 3:56.27 for 1,500 meters, which was just 1.1 seconds off her world record in the 1,500 meters from indoors.In her last two appearances at the meet, Dibaba set world records in the 3,000 meters and 5,000 meter in 8:26.21 and 14:18.86, respectively.Last year, Dibaba, 25, earned the International Athletics Federation's Athlete of the Year honors after setting the world record in the 1,500-meters in 3:50.07.Dibaba says that she expects to double in the 1,500 meters and 3,000 meters at the IAAF World Indoor Track and Field Championships in March. She will make her final decision with her coach in the coming days.Dibaba is an early favorite to win gold in the 1,500 meters at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro after winning the event at last year's world championships.
Genzebe Dibaba Keneni (Amharic: ገንዘቤ ዲባባ;[1] Afaan Oromo: Ganzabee Dibaabaa; born 8 February 1991) is an Ethiopian middle- and long-distance runner. She is the sister of three-times Olympic champion Tirunesh Dibaba and Olympic silver medallist Ejegayehu Dibaba, and the cousin of former Olympic champion Derartu Tulu.[4]
She was the 2012 World Indoor Champion for the 1500 m, and is the reigning 2014 World Indoor Champion and World Indoor Record Holder in the 3000 m. She represented Ethiopia at the 2012 Summer Olympics and has twice competed at the World Championships in Athletics (2009 and 2011). She was highly successful as a junior (under-20) athlete, having won two junior world cross country titles and one world junior 5000 m gold medal. At the 2015 World Championships in Beijing, she became World Champion in 1500 m as well as claiming the bronze medal in the 5000 m event.
She is the current world record holder for the 1500 m (both indoor and outdoor), the indoor 3000 m, the indoor mile, and the indoor two mile.
In February 2016, Genzebe competed in Stockholm's Globen Galan meeting. She ran the indoor mile in 4 minutes and 13.31 seconds, breaking Doina Melinte's 26-year-old world record of 4:17.14 which had been set in 1990.[24]
Personal bests[edit]


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Don't go ga-ga over red wine stains yet. Here's how you can remove red wine stain on your dress.
Common Items Used to Remove Red Wine Stain
1. Salt. It will fix the stain in a jiffy! Yes, sodium is used in the clothing industry to fix dye. So if the waiter in the restaurant accidentally pours red wine on your white dress, just grab the salt shaker and sprinkle some salt on the spot.
2. White Wine. Who knew that two wrongs make a right. Pour some white on the red wine stain. White wine counteracts the red wine making it easier to remove the original stain.
3. Hydrogen Peroxide. Remove red wine stain with a little science– or not. Hearing someone say hydrogen peroxide sounds fancy sciency to the ears but it's actually easy to find. Drug stores sell it over the counter so the next time you have to remove red wine stain, make a quick detour to the pharmacy.
4. Mixed Household Items. You don't like to pour your fancy white wine, salt alone is not working and you are lightyears away from the nearest pharmacy? Then just get some household items and start mixing. Get water, vinegar and soap and mix them together. Apply the 'concoction' to the stain, then blot it with clean rag and cold water. Then blot it again with a clean and dry cloth.
Also, it's important to remember that when you are trying to remove a stain, always work from the outside of the stain toward the middle of the stain. This will make it easier to remove most of the stain and, at the same time, it prevents the stain from further spreading.
Although wearing a red dress might be a better preventive option. Think about it. You won't have to remove red wine stain because you won't even notice it on your red dress….Are we a genius or what?
Speaking of red dress, check out some designs available at http://www.womensclothesonline.com/Trendy/Red/Dresses