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Obama Keeps Bush's "Continuity of Government" Plans in Place
Power Shifts in Plan for Capital Calamity
Editor's Note:
Global Research brings to attention of our readers a New York Times article which reveals that the Obama White House has kept in place the Bush administration plans for "Continuity of Government" in the event of a "catastrophic emergency."
A shift in authority has given military officials at the White House a bigger operational role in creating a backup government if the nation's capital were "decapitated" by a terrorist attack or other calamity, according to current and former officials involved in the decision.
The move, which was made in the closing weeks of the administration of President George W. Bush, came after months of heated internal debate about the balance of power and the role of the military in a time of crisis, participants said. Officials said the Obama administration had left the plan essentially intact.
Under the revamped structure, the White House Military Office, which reports to the office of the White House chief of staff, has assumed a more central role in setting up a temporary "shadow government" in a crisis.
And the office, a 2,300-person outfit best known for flying Air Force One, has taken on added responsibilities as the lead agent in shepherding government leaders to a secure site at Mount Weather in rural Virginia, keeping classified lists of successors and maintaining computer systems, among other operational duties. Many of these types of tasks were previously handled by civilians at other agencies, led by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Supporters of the plan inside the Bush White House, including Vice President Dick Cheney's office, saw the erratic response to the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005 as a mandate for streamlining an emergency response process they considered clunky because it involved too many agencies.
Yet during the debate, officials at other agencies that have traditionally played critical roles expressed concern that the new structure placed too much power in the hands of too few people inside the White House. They also saw the move as part of the Bush administration's broader efforts to enhance the power of the White House.
Though the office reports to the White House, many of its employees are uniformed soldiers, and it has sometimes been led by a military officer. So concerns about the perception of growing military influence in the emergency process set off an internal struggle, and the White House decided not to move ahead with a more ambitious proposal to give the power of the purse to the military arm, rather than FEMA, for budgeting the emergency operations, one official said.
While Obama administration officials would not discuss details of their continuity plan, they said the current policy was "settled," and they drew no distance between their own policies and those left behind by the Bush administration.
Obama transition officials were told of the changes during a joint emergency exercise held in January, one of several dry runs using the new structure, officials said.
Officials in the Obama White House appeared unaware of the tensions the plan had set off. They rejected as "flat-out wrong" the idea that military officials in the White House had assumed any "decision-making authority" in a crisis but declined to discuss their logistical responsibilities.
"Many components of government, within civilian and defense establishments, play an important support role to ensure that our constitutional form of government, and its civilian leadership, prevails even under the most catastrophic circumstances," said Nick Shapiro, a White House spokesman.
A Pentagon spokesman, Geoff Morrell, said senior Defense Department officials believed the changes represented "minor tweaking" in the system, not a major overhaul.
Former Representative Tom Davis, the top Republican on the House Committee on Government Reform when the debate started, said his committee had never been informed of the changes. Mr. Davis said he believed it should have been told, though he said he did not disagree with the changes.
A directive by President Bush signed in May 2007 set in motion a classified review at the White House that led to the changes put in place at the very end of his administration.
Before, some 200 people governmentwide were assigned to Mount Weather in a catastrophe to set up a working government under the direction of FEMA. The number of officials from outside the White House has significantly shrunk , and the new team is made up mostly of White House civilian and military personnel, the officials said.
The new pecking order for emergency operations order was made clear when non-White House officials central to the old command structure arrived at Mount Weather for a training exercise last year. They found their meeting space gutted to make way for a new office planned for the White House team.
Bush administration officials saw FEMA as ill-equipped to handle a governmentwide emergency, and they cited problems with the agency's execution of a classified training exercise in May 2008 as evidence.
But the White House Military Office has recently had its own problems.
President Obama's civilian director of the office, Louis Caldera, authorized what turned out to be an alarming photo shoot of a low-flying Air Force One speeding by the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline. Mr. Caldera resigned in May.
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In this poor housing market, Quonset huts are widespread with new homeowners in addition to with retirees searching for an reasonably priced technique to transfer to a hotter local weather. The south-east is pricey whether or not you reside in a superb area or a not-so-good area, and in all the regions I point out above, the dearest properties are usually still much, less expensive than a comparable house in Sussex, Surrey or Hampshire. You see, the door that results in the garage into the house will get significantly banged up -particularly from the outside which is shown here. Orientation – Check the orientation of the house in relation to the solar angle and the way natural lighting will penetrate the house. Also, the sun might really feel good to you, however rabbits are extremely delicate to warmth and weak to dehydration, indoor ones especially, but all of them will die in the event that they get too hot. You can assist protect a wholesome and various wildlife ecosystem by inviting extra bats into your yard habitat with these bat field plans for a straightforward to make and decorative bat home.
This was a change from the unique Dream House in several ways – not solely was it significantly bigger, however one could set up the home itself in different methods, not just the furniture inside. Love will not be based mostly on shopping sprees, purchases that costs more than the down payment on a home (owning not renting/pretending), and tons of cash. They could also be scrap wood from around the house, in that case the canine house may or may not come out too attractive relying upon the pieces you've got accessible and you could have to cobble collectively a plan for building the canine house since the items aren't likely to match what could be required for the plans accessible. The home is believed to have been transformed in 1850, when the second story was added over the primary a part of the house and a room was added to the principle floor. I was just a little disenchanted as a result of the home (which was gray and white with a red door within the present) is now painted purple.
Dumfries, nonetheless, has a variety of funds-priced houses accessible, and in June 2016 RightMove was listing a number of three-bedroom homes with guide prices (offering prices) from £70,000 to £75,000 on the market on this space. If you are keen to do a money provide, you are completely an attractive candidate for the correct gross sales particular person.. Some realtors have large private and skilled networks that can discover you a home by writing on to some home owners in that space. They offer you statistics so you can see how many people have considered your own home advert. They will worth your property attractively, aiming to achieve a fast sale for you. It turns out one other agent he works with beneath the umbrella had an agent buddy wanting the identical place and my agent did every part potential to keep me away from that house. If you want to lease your property quick, use , it's free to publish your property.
My stairs have a tread depth of 250mm, a rising of 175mm (which using that outdated maths stuff works out at tan-1(one hundred seventy five/250)=34.99°), and my 2r+g=600. There's all the time something to do in the home whenever you go to – take heed to Keats' world-well-known poetry, watch a movie about his busy life in Hampstead, or create your own poem. To get into most house complexes in the United States, candidates will need to have a good credit history and have a job at which they earn at least three times as a lot because the month-to-month rent. Don't have it face on-coming storms, you don't need rain blowing in. Having it face the sun will make it too warm through the summer season in heat climates. Writing, e-mails, texting and all ways of protecting in contact with others rule this house. One you are happy with the check match, its time to begin the actual assembly of the bat home.
Approximately £one hundred eighty,000 needs to be sufficient to safe a fundamental three bed room house in Tavistock. Have simply moved in to this home which has a large flat roof extension to the rear subsequently all the walls are exterior walls. A three-bed room terraced home in the Potteries space, in cities corresponding to Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle-Under-Lyme, might be bought for as little as £fifty five,000 to £65,000. Today, a lot of Baltimore's historic row house neighborhoods have turn out to be enclaves of younger professionals. We have a tap and hose linked outside to our internal water system so we are able to additionally entry water from our home tank if necessary. They will promote your own home in local papers and on their website and likewise on other web sites they are affiliated with. He had to have been at the very least 3 feet tall and his wingspan was at least 5 ft.

subset: commoncrawl


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People Are LOVING What Trump Handed A Busboy…
Donald Trump is giving back to Americans.
IJR reports:
10:14 PM: President Trump and his party get up to leave his new flagship property in D.C., the Trump Hotel, after a private dinner at the BLT Steakhouse. The president is stopped momentarily for selfies and handshakes.
Discretely, Trump can be seen handing cash to one of the latino busboys for his table.
The president handed the young man a $100 bill.
Just curious — when did you ever see Barack Obama hand a bus boy a massive tip, let alone a simple tip in the first place?
President Trump tips busboy $100 bill pic.twitter.com/IpCXGCvF2Q
— Trump was in NYC (@JackPosobiec) February 27, 2017
SHARE on Facebook and Twitter if you agree that Donald Trump is doing a great job in his first month!


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Over 100 runners put their best foot forward for CAFT!
Over 100 runners put their best foot forward for CAFT!
An amazing £10,000 has been raised by this wonderful group of people who donned their running shoes on Sunday 26th May and took to the streets of Manchester to help us in our work. As if running 10k isn't challenging enough, they also had the British weather contend with – but not for the usual reasons! After a rather chilly Spring, Sunday was sweltering with temperatures averaging out at about 70 degrees!
Teams from M&S Money, AddPeople, Agilysis, Gateley, Barclays, Salford Arms and Subway Deansgate were joined by individuals from all over the North West in this fantastic event which attracts tens of thousands of runners. They were cheered on by family and friends, and this year we even provided our runners with a noisy and very rowdy cheer squad en route, including our very own Bobby mascot!!
Our staff were also on hand at our stand in the Charity Village, providing refreshments, encouragement and most importantly – chairs! We were so pleased to also attract lots of interest from the general public who were interested to hear all about the Adventure Farm and what we do.
It was a fabulous day and we're so grateful to each and every person who took part and lent their support. Every penny raised will make a huge difference and we really can't thank you all enough.


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Well, I wasn't going to get anymore Owlcrates, but silly me skipped last month's box instead of completely cancelling it – and I forgot until I received the "Your Owlcrate has been renewed!" email. Whoops!
It was great to retry this subscription box though, especially after taking a month off to 'cleanse my palate' so to speak. See what I thought of this month!
This month's Owlcrate theme was Myths & Legends, and I'm a fan of both of those things, so I was eager to see what this box would have in store.
The first thing that caught my eye was the giant box of tea by Adiago Tea that had taken over an entire side of the box. I am not complaining at all, because this is the best smelling tea ever. I'm not a huge tea girl, so I'm really excited to try it out and see how I like it.
Next up was the GORGEOUS drawstring bag (custom made for Owlcrate) by The Geeky Cauldron – one of my all time favorite shops. I was so excited to find the castle locket inside. Unfortunately, I'm not a huge fan of magnet lockets and many of my chains have gotten tangled up in it, but it's definitely cute! Just not a piece I'd wear very often.
The Colorful Geek contributed with a rubber Percy Jackson themed Camp Half-Blood bracelet which was precious. I haven't read the series yet, but I'll definitely be rocking that once I do.
And My Clockwork Castle (another favorite store) added in a pretty little pocket mirror perfect for any little princess (mythical or real).
Finally, the book selected for this month was Soundless by Richelle Mead. I hadn't heard much hype about this book but it sounds absolutely amazing and I'm so glad it included not only a bookmark but temporary tattoos as well. I only wish for a signature but we can't have it all, can we?
Overall I am MUCH more impressed with this box than I was the last few times I received Owlcrate. Unfortunately, I still can't afford this additional subscription box to the many I already receive and have officially canceled my subscription with them. However, I definitely recommend this box to anyone seeking a beautiful, YA book-inclusive, monthly subscription box.
Good job Owlcrate! ;D


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BRCA1 (breast cancer early-onset 1) alternative splicing levels are regulated in a cell-cycle- and cell-type-specific manner, with splice variants being present in different proportions in tumour cell lines as well as in normal mammary epithelial cells. The importance of this difference in the pathogenesis of breast cancer has yet to be determined. Developing an understanding of the impact of BRCA1 isoform ratio changes on cell phenotype will be of value in breast cancer and may offer therapeutic options. In the present paper, we describe the splicing isoforms of BRCA1 exon 11, their possible role in cancer biology and the importance of maintaining a balanced ratio.
- alternative splicing
- breast cancer early-onset 1 (BRCA1)
- cancer
Splicing is an important mechanism which contributes to pre-mRNA maturation. Control of this process determines which pre-mRNA sequences are removed (introns) and which are spliced to form the mature RNA (exons). The machinery driving the splicing process is the spliceosome, a complex of many interacting proteins and snRNAs (small nuclear RNAs) [1].
In order to perform accurate splicing, the spliceosome must recognize the donor site at the exon–intron junction and the acceptor site at the intron–exon junction. These elements are necessary, but not always sufficient. Splice site strength often depends on nearby sequence elements known as splicing enhancers and silencers [2].
Different combinations of splice site selections allow a large number of mRNA and protein isoforms to be generated from a lower number of genes; this process, known as alternative splicing, is a critical mechanism and generates transcriptome and proteome complexity. Alternative splicing has been found to be associated with diseases, including cancer, and can influence cell proliferation, motility and response to drugs [3].
Mutations in splicing regulatory sequences as well as alteration in the levels of splicing regulatory proteins may affect alternative splicing. BRCA1 (breast cancer early-onset 1) mutations predicted to affect BRCA1 function have been found in 40–45% cases of hereditary breast cancer. In addition, a large number of BRCA1 sequence variants have been found in patients but their clinical significance is unknown. These unclassified variants could include potential splicing mutations [4].
Several mRNA splicing isoforms have been identified for the BRCA1 gene in normal tissues. Among those that result from exon-skipping events and retain the translational reading frame are variants that skip exon 5, exon 11 (all of it or most of it), exons 2–10, exons 9–11, exons 14–17 and exons 14–18 [5]. Some of these splicing isoforms have been associated with breast and ovarian cancer [6]. In particular, the relative levels of BRCA1 isoforms associated with exon 11 alternative splicing appears to be different between normal and cancer tissues/cell lines as well as between the phases of the cell cycle [7]. These isoforms include BRCA1 full-length (inclusion of all exons), Δ11 (skipping of exon 11), Δ11q (partial skipping of exon 11, throughout the use of a donor site within exon 11), Δ9,10,11q (skipping of exons 9, 10 and partial skipping of exon 11) and IRIS isoforms (skipping of exons 12–24, but retaining a short segment from intron 11) (Figures 1, 2 and 3). With the exception of IRIS, it is unclear whether altered levels of exon 11 splicing isoforms play a pathogenic role in cancer.
BRCA1 protein domains and multiple roles
The breast cancer susceptibility gene BRCA1 is a tumour-suppressor gene that was first identified on the basis of its linkage to early-onset breast and ovarian cancer in women [8]. The BRCA1 gene has 24 exons, including two untranslated exons, and encodes a protein of 1863 amino acids with three distinct regions of protein interaction: the RING domain, the RAD51-interaction domain and the BRCT (BRCA1 C-terminus) domain [8].
The N-terminal RING finger domain has been found to bind to several proteins, including formation of heterodimers with BARD1 (BRCA1-associated RING domain protein) [9]. Both BRCA1 and BARD1 contain the RING finger domain that seems to be important for several tumour-suppression functions [10].
The RAD51-interaction domain is enclosed by exon 11 and is involved in repair of double-strand DNA breaks [11]. It also contains multiple protein-binding sites, in addition to those for the RAD51 and RAD50 complex [12]. Loss of RAD51 binding may increase the risk of cancer as there could be an increment in the amount of damaged DNA.
The C-terminus of BRCA1 contains an acidic domain that can function as a transcriptional activation domain [8,13]. This domain contains a tandem repeat of approximately 95 amino acids called BRCT [14]. This domain is also found in proteins such as BARD1 which is involved in cell-cycle control and DNA repair [15].
BRCA1 has been implicated in diverse cancer-related activities, including roles in cell-cycle progression, DNA repair, DNA damage-responsive cell-cycle checkpoints, transcription regulation, ubiquitination, chromosome remodelling and apoptosis [16].
The presence of different BRCA1 splicing isoforms that are naturally expressed in various cellular settings may be the reason that BRCA1 is involved in such different activities.
The Δ11 isoform
The Δ11 isoform is composed of 21 coding exons, arising from skipping of exon 11 (Figure 1). Exon 11 is a large exon of 3.4 kb. The acceptor site (at the intron–exon junction) and the donor site (at the exon–intron junction) of exon 11 are predicted to have weak splice site consensus sequences and therefore may be also surrounded by additional regulatory sequences in order to be recognized. We have shown recently that such regulatory sequences exist at the beginning of exon 11 and they are important for regulating BRCA1 alternative splicing [17]. The identification of which factors bind to these sequences would provide insight into the mechanism of BRCA1 alternative splicing regulation and especially the maintenance of BRCA1 isoform ratios.
Although studies have attempted to determine the role of the Δ11 isoform, its importance in cancer has yet to be determined and has been implicated in both cell death and cell proliferation (Table 1).
Both BRCA1-null mice and mice that exclusively express BRCA1 Δ11 undergo embryo lethality [18,19]. However, embryos with exclusive expression of BRCA1 Δ11 die later, suggesting that, at least in part, the Δ11 isoform can compensate for the lack of the other BRCA1 isoforms during early embryogenesis.
Embryos exclusively expressing BRCA1 Δ11 (Δ11/Δ11 embryos) and also heterozygous for a p53 allele are able to survive, probably due to a reduction of the apoptotic barrier. These mice are susceptible to premature aging and also tumour formation [19,20]. In addition to these mouse models, in vitro studies have utilized cells that exclusively express BRCA1 Δ11.
Studies of mouse embryonic fibroblasts homozygous for the allele BRCA1 Δ11 (Δ11/Δ11) showed poor proliferation, suggesting a role of the BRCA1 Δ11 isoform in preventing tumour formation. However, these cells (BRCA1 Δ11/Δ11 fibroblasts) when immortalized proliferated faster than control immortalized fibroblasts [20]. A consideration is that the Δ11 isoform is inefficient at binding the protein RAD51 [21]. This can alter the capacity of Δ11/Δ11 cells to repair DNA double-strand breaks and cause an accumulation of defects in the cell cycle. This genetic instability and accumulation of defects may well explain the inconsistent behaviour of Δ11/Δ11 cells and mice that have been shown to potentially induce both apoptosis and a tendency to malignant transformation.
Besides studying the exclusive expression of the Δ11 isoform, Kim et al. [22] investigated mice lacking the Δ11 isoform. Female mice showed hyperplasia and spontaneous tumour in the gynaecological system, suggesting that the BRCA1 Δ11 isoform is involved in repressing tumour formation [22]. However, the cDNA knockin approach employed in this study, to specifically block BRCA1 alternative splicing from exon 10 to exon 12, could have generated mutant mice lacking not only the Δ11 isoform, but also other BRCA1 isoforms. For instance, as suggested by Kim et al. [22], the possibility cannot be excluded that depletion of BRCA1 IRIS, rather than depletion of the Δ11 isoform, is responsible for the hyperplasia and spontaneous tumour observed. As both BRCA1 IRIS and the Δ11 isoform seem to be involved in tumour formation neither hypothesis appeals.
A further possibility is that loss of balance between each isoform (e.g. the selective expression of the remaining BRCA1 isoforms or a combination of this with depletion of the Δ11 and BRCA1 IRIS isoforms) is causative of the phenotypes observed. In addition, overexpression (using retroviral transduction) of the Δ11 isoform in mammary epithelial cells showed hyperplasia in mice injected with these cells [22].
The Δ11q isoform
The Δ11q isoform derives from the alternative choice of a donor site within human BRCA1 exon 11 (Figure 2). It should be noted that the Δ11q isoform has not been described in mouse. Importantly, the splice site used within human BRCA1 exon 11 to produce the Δ11q isoform is not predicted in the murine sequence.
In the Δ11q isoform, part of exon 11 (nucleotides 905–4215) is excluded. As a consequence of this exclusion, the isoform (like the Δ11 isoform) lacks the NLS (nuclear localization signal). Isoforms lacking the NLS can be transported in the nucleus via an alternative mechanism that requires Ubc9 [23]. However, when Ubc9 is depleted, the Δ11q isoform becomes exclusively cytoplasmic and promotes growth and survival of breast cancer cells [23].
Although cytoplasmic Δ11q seems to play a role in tumour formation, the overexpression of BRCA1 Δ11q is able to inhibit growth of breast cancer cells [24] (Table 2). This ambiguous capacity of BRCA1 Δ11q to induce or repress cell proliferation in different contexts seems strictly related to its localization; overexpression may cause an increase in nuclear Δ11q that promotes apoptosis, whereas nuclear depletion (cytoplasmic retention) of Δ11q has the opposite effect.
To highlight further the different functional roles of BRCA1 isoforms, a study of human mammary epithelial cells has shown that the expression levels of many genes are altered in a BRCA1 isoform-specific manner [25]. Specifically, overexpression of Δ11q induced activation of 22 genes, whereas overexpression of the full-length isoform (that included all BRCA1-coding exons) did not. Moreover, whereas overexpression of the full length also repressed several genes, transfection of Δ11q did not result in repression.
This BRCA1 isoform-specific gene regulation is intriguing and suggests a hypothesis that a balanced ratio of BRCA1 isoforms is required to maintain normal cell physiology.
BRCA1 also encodes a 1399 residue polypeptide, termed BRCA1 IRIS. It consists of an open reading frame from codon 1 in exon 2 up to the first 34 codons in intron 11 (Figure 3). It is not completely clear whether this recently described BRCA1 IRIS isoform is the product of alternative splicing at the intron 11 donor site or simply the result of an alternative promoter usage as described previously [26]. A possible explanation is that the use of a different promoter may also affect the rate of transcription which in turn may affect splicing at the intron 11 donor site with the production of BRCA1 IRIS mRNA.
BRCA1 IRIS plays an important positive role in DNA replication [26]. Unlike full-length BRCA1, BRCA1 IRIS does not interact with BARD1; it is exclusively chromatin-associated, present in G0 cells and overexpression promotes cell proliferation, breast cancer and cisplatin resistance in ovarian cancer cells [26–30]. The effect on cells of BRCA1 IRIS depletion or overexpression is shown in Table 3.
Knockdown experiments of BRCA1 isoforms targeting exon 12, have claimed that down-regulation of the full-length isoform can cause overexpression of BRCA1 IRIS because of mRNA stabilization [31]. Whether this effect is related only to depletion of the full-length isoform or is also due to depletion of other isoforms that include exon 12 (e.g. Δ11 and Δ11q) needs to be determined.
The recent discovery of this oncogene-like BRCA1 IRIS isoform is of potential significance as it could represent a therapeutic target in breast cancer. In addition, discovery of BRCA1 IRIS should challenge the interpretation of various data. For instance, as suggested by ElShamy and Livingston [26], the embryonic lethality observed in BRCA Δ11/Δ11 mice was probably attributable to a loss of BRCA1 IRIS isoform rather than to the exclusive expression of the Δ11 isoform.
Moreover, mRNA levels of the full-length, Δ11 and Δ11q BRCA1 isoforms could have been misinterpreted considering that detection methods using oligonucleotides or probes upstream of intron 11 do not discriminate the IRIS isoform.
Concluding remarks
The fact that the physiological and pathogenic role of most BRCA1 isoforms tends to be opposite strongly suggests that cell fate can be switched in a particular direction that is dependent on changes in the overall splicing ratio rather than changes in a specific isoform. Understanding the significance of this ratio in cancer/apoptosis may be crucial in determining cancer predisposition and would also offer therapeutic options.
Currently, unclassified variants found to affect the ratio of natural BRCA1 splicing isoforms in patients with breast cancer are not classified as pathogenic mutations. Establishing that an unbalanced ratio can predispose an individual to cancer is fundamental in order to change the way that these variants are classified. Central to this, it will be critical a full understanding of the potential role of BRCA1 splicing.
D.B., M.R. and C.T. are supported by EURASNET, Cancer Research UK and the University of Southampton.
We thank Professor Diana Eccles.
RNA UK 2012: An Independent Meeting held at The Burnside Hotel, Bowness-on-Windermere, Cumbria, U.K., 20–22 January 2012. Organized and Edited by Raymond O'Keefe and Mark Ashe (Manchester, U.K.).
Abbreviations: BRCA1, breast cancer early-onset 1; BARD1, BRCA1-associated RING domain protein; BRCT, BRCA1 C-terminus; NLS, nuclear localization signal
- © The Authors Journal compilation © 2012 Biochemical Society


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My diary for the 11th month, 2015
(Dec 7th 20:01 to Jan 6th 2016 06:47 inclusive) Fu
—- —-
—- —-
—- —-
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—- —-
The Return
Hexagram 24
"The transformation of the old becomes easy."
During this Earth Rat month:
The Rat may be unusually quiet.
The Ox may appear to hold the whiphand.
The Tiger may be busy preparing.
The Rabbit may feel unappreciative.
The Dragon regains strength.
The Snake could be overwhelmed.
The Horse may shy.
The Sheep may speak up for another.
The Monkey may risk gloating.
The Rooster may withdraw from competition.
The Dog may count blessings.
The Pig can breathe again.
Going Gentle into the Good Night.
"What can men do against such relentless hate?" Boyens, Walsh and Jackson, The Lord of the Rings.
As I suggested last month and as you will have noticed, the descent of the qi into Winter has not been gentle. Only if you have been in a monastic retreat since October will you have failed to notice that the world is a perilous place right now.
And here comes an Earth Rat month; not generally a beast with much to say, this Rat's natural eloquence is clogged by the sheer bulk of what needs to be said. All Rats, being yang Water, signal the time of slowing down into the Winter sloth, otherwise generally a good time for catching up. We are used to exchanging around a glowing fire tales of the year passed as we prepare for next. But an Earth Rat is a gagged Rat; there is a dearth of good stories to tell and a certain misgiving in the air. The fear is that the year's drama is still not over.
What can we do about this? Well, paradox is sometimes called the route to wisdom and I think there's a triple paradox here. Ram Dass used to say that some of us need to ascend and some of us need to learn our zip code. So first step is to get real if we live in la-la land or to recognise the fundamental illusion of life if we're rooted in logic and the sensible. One way or another, we need to know what's going on if we are to change it. Second step is to continue to breathe in golden light, forgive, send love and hug trees. This last is essential but if it were enough of itself we wouldn't be in the mess we're in. Next take responsibility – we get the politicians, gurus and giants of industry we deserve; most of the desecration of the Earth has happened in my lifetime, I wear leather shoes, I turn on lightbulbs I am part of the problem. Then from this responsible position oppose: oppose callousness, greed and easy heartlessness. Resist excessive diagnosis and the analysis that grinds to nothingness. And above all oppose small-mindedness and meanness of spirit. When in doubt love. I know you do. Hope this helps though. These are dark times.
Where to do what, when and why.
The North has been the chief relationship and wealth area of the year and now the place of future planning. The Rat of the North is the great plotter; join him and dream your future here now. Face and locate this way – especially East Group people – for even greater inspiration and output. No more Water now but plants – and brightly lit Christmas trees – are fine.
Rat Pillars; know your Rat rating.
Birth in the Rat hour (23:00pm-01:00pm): wily kids.
Birth in the Rat month (December*): work involving discussion.
Birth on the Rat day#: natural articulacy.
Birth in the Rat year: a tradition of involvement.
* Caution, the Chinese month generally starts and finishes a few days after ours.
# Just ask.
Ba Zi Training starts the weekend of 16th & 17th January 2016 : http://www.imperialfengshui.info/courses.
Tune-Up for 2016
Richard is available again for the first few weeks of the year to tune your home or business up for 2016, the Fire Monkey, a year of turbulence. email@example.com
Richard Ashworth© 2015


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Until earlier this month I was a short-time subscriber to emusic.com. Extremely short-time. Nine days to be precise. For those of you who don't know emusic.com – it's an online music store where you can (legally!) buy music in MP3 format on a monthly subscription basis. Emusic.com specialises in independent labels. It offers a total of 4.5 million tracks for download with a fairly good selection of Jazz music, which was the reason I subscribed. So, I get DRM-free MP3 tracks at roughly 25 cents per track. Sounds perfect. What went wrong? Well, on the ninth day I looked at the emusic.com site and it said: "We're sorry but eMusic is not currently available in your area." Bummer. I was neither able to log into my account anymore, nor could I download any music. I contacted the their customer service to ask what had happened. No response. I contacted them again. No response. Only after threatening to initiate a chargeback procedure with my credit card company did I get a reply. It repeated the message, namely that eMusic wasn't available anymore in my country. It also promised a refund. Oh well. – As for the reason why eMusic suddenly unplugged Thailand (and possibly other countries as well) I can only guess. It must have to do something with contracts, record labels, and anti-piracy policies. Clearly, the music industry is shooting into its own foot by taking such steps. Now emusic.com has become one of several online music stores that is not available in Thailand. Another one is Amazon, which also offers MP3 music. Consumers in Thailand and other countries are thus left with two options. Either buy music in DRM-crippled format for the same price as a physical CD, or turn to other more doubtful sources. You can probably guess what most people would do in this situation. Since I am a hobby musician, I would very much prefer to pay artists for their work. However, given the current situation in Thailand it has almost become impossible to acquire music legally in MP3 format.
HTML 5 Preview
Because HTML is at the very core of the World Wide Web, you would expect it to be a mature and refined technology. You would also expect it to provide a flexible platform for Web application development and deployment. As most web developers know, the reality is a bit different. HTML started out as a rather simple SGML application for creating hyperlinked documents. It originally provided a basic set of elements for data viewing, data input, and formatting, whereas it did a little bit of all, yet nothing quite right. While this was practical for whipping up quick-and-dirty websites, it proved to be inadequate for more demanding presentation tasks and fine-tuned user interaction. Thus a whole bunch of supplemental technologies came into being, including CSS, JavaScript, Flash and finally AJAX. You know the story. All of this was quite a messy affair and unfortunately it still is.
While the HTML 4.01 specification has ruled the Web since 1999, the fifth incarnation of HTML was released by the W3C as a working draft earlier this year and is constantly updated since then. The HTML 5 specification is supposed to pave the way for future Web standards. It contains an older draft of W3C dubbed "Web Forms 2.0", which is W3C's answer to Web 2.0 and the World Wide Web becoming a platform for distributed applications. Don't expect anything too radical, though. It neither delivers the hailed "rich GUI" for the Internet, nor will it replace current technologies like AJAX. It is rather designed as a natural extension of the former. It provides good backward compatibility while smoothing some of the rough edges of HTML. No more no less. Let's have a look at the new features in more detail.
HTML 5 mends the split between the preceding HTML 4 and XHTML 1.0 specifications. Rather than being defined in terms of syntactical rules, it makes the DOM tree its conceptual basis. Thus HTML 5 can be expressed in two similar syntaxes, the "traditional" one and the XML syntax, which both result in the same DOM tree. It goes far beyond the scope of previous specifications, for example by spelling out how markup errors are handled, rather than leaving it to browser vendors, and by specifying APIs for new and old elements. These APIs describe how scripting languages interact with HTML. So, what's new? The following elements have been dropped from the specification:
- <acronym>
- <applet>
- <basefont>
-
- <dir>
-
- <frame>
- <frameset>
- <isindex>
- <noframes>
- <s>
-
-
- <tt>
-
- <xmp>
The following attributes are also goners:
- abbr, accesskey, align, alink, axis, background, bgcolor, border, cellpadding and cellspacing, char, charoff, charset, classid, clear, compact, codebase, codetype, coords, declare, frame, frameborder, headers, height, hspace, language, link, marginheight and marginwidth, name, nohref, noshade, nowrap, profile, rules, rev, scope, scrolling, shape, scheme, size, standby, summary, target, text, type, valuetype, valign, version, vlink, width.
Some of these elements and attributes are quite obscure, so perhaps they won't be missed. Others like , align, background, and  were heavily used in the past, although most of these were already deprecated in HTML 4. The message here is clear: get rid of presentational markup and use CSS instead. The , ,  and  tags have miraculously survived, however. Although primarily used for text formatting in the past, these tags have been assigned new (non-presentational) semantics to make them respectable. Another conspicuous omission are frames. Yes, frames are gone! But you might breath a sigh of relief to know that  is still there. Speaking presentational versus semantic HTML, there are quite a few additions to HTML 5 in the latter category. The new semantic tags are designed to aid HTML authors in structuring text and to make it easier for search engine crawlers to parse information in web pages. Here they are (explanations provided by W3C):
-
 represents a generic document or application section. It can be used together with h1-h6 to indicate the document structure.
-
 represents an independent piece of content of a document, such as a blog entry or newspaper article.
-  represents a piece of content that is only slightly related to the rest of the page.
-  represents the header of a section.
-  represents a footer for a section and can contain information about the author, copyright information, et cetera.
-  represents a section of the document intended for navigation.
- <dialog> can be used to mark up a conversation in conjunction with the
 and
 elements.
-
 can be used to associate a caption together with some embedded content, such as a graphic or video.
-  represents additional information or controls which the user can obtain on demand.
Most of these, except the last two, behave like the
 element, which means their primary use is to identify a block of content that belongs together. Unlike
 special semantics are associated with each of these elements. Not very exciting? HTML 5 also introduces the following new elements (explanations again from the W3C document):
- <audio> and <video> for multimedia content. Both provide an API so application authors can script their own user interface, but there is also a way to trigger a user interface provided by the user agent. Source elements are used together with these elements if there are multiple streams available of different types.
- <embed> is used for plugin content.
-  represents a run of marked (highlighted) text.
- <meter> represents a measurement, such as disk usage.
- <time> represents a date and/or time.
- <canvas> is used for rendering dynamic bitmap graphics on the fly, such as graphs, games, et cetera.
The <embed> tag supersedes the <applet> and <object> tags. It defines some sort of embedded content that doesn't expose its internal structure to the DOM tree. The content is typically rendered by a browser plugin. The <audio> and <video> tags are perhaps more interesting, because they make it possible to include multimedia files or streams directly into the HTML document without having to specify a vendor-specific plugin for playing the content. Granted, this could previously be done with the <embed> tag, but the <embed> tag was never a W3C standard and it isn't supported by all browsers. Obviously, W3C has decided not to follow the mainstream browser implementations and added the <audio> and <video> tags instead, while reserving the <embed> tag for the above named purpose.
Arguably the most exciting additions to HTML 5 -at least from the perspective of a web developer- are the extensions to form processing and data rendering, and the related APIs, such as the editing API or the drag-and-drop API. These additions have previously evolved as a separate standard under the term Web Forms 2.0 and are now incorporated into HTML 5. The <input> element has been enhanced to support several new data types. New elements for user interface components have been defined, similar to those that can be found in GUI applications. For example, HTML 5 finally features the long awaited combo box, a combination of text input and drop-down list, which is a standard component in GUIs for decades. A new <datagrid> element for the interactive/editable representation of data in tabular, list, or tree form, is also present. Here are the new <input> types:
- type="datetime"- a date and time (year, month, day, hour, minute, second, fraction of a second) with the time zone set to UTC.
- type="datetime-local"- a date and time (year, month, day, hour, minute, second, fraction of a second) with no time zone.
- type="date" – a date (year, month, day) with no time zone.
- type="month" – a date consisting of a year and a month with no time zone.
- type="week" – a date consisting of a year and a week number with no time zone.
- type="time"- a time (hour, minute, seconds, fractional seconds) with no time zone.
- type="number" – a numerical value.
- type="range" – a numerical value, with the extra semantic that the exact value is not important.
- type="email"- an e-mail address.
- type="url" – an internationalised resource identifier.
The input element also has several new attributes in HTML 5 that enhance its functionality (many of these also apply to other form controls such as <select>, <textarea>, etc.):
- list="listname" – used in conjunction with the <datalist> element to create a combobox.
- required – indicates that the user must provide an input value.
- autofocus – automatically focuses the control upon page load.
- form – allows a single control to be associated with multiple forms.
- inputmode – gives a hint to the user interface as to what kind of input is expected.
- autocomplete – tells the browser to remember the value when the user returns to the page.
- min – minimum value constraint.
- max – maximum value constraint.
- pattern – specifies pattern constraint.
- step – specifies step constraint.
The following new elements provide additional user interface components for web applications. The last three are actually not themselves UI components, but components used for scripting the UI through a server side language:
- <command> represents a command the user can invoke (e.g. toolbar button or icon).
- <datalist> together with the a new list attribute for input is used to create comboboxes.
- <output> represents some type of output, such as from a calculation done through scripting.
- <progress> represents a completion of a task, such as downloading or when performing a series of expensive operations.
- <menu> represents a menu. The element has three new attributes: type, label and autosubmit. They allow the element to transform into a menu as found in typical user interfaces as well as providing for context menus in conjunction with the global contextmenu attribute.
- <datagrid> represents an interactive representation of a tree list or tabular data.
- <ruby>, <rt> and <rb> allow for marking up Ruby annotations.
- <eventsource> represents a target that "catches" remote server events.
- <datatemplate>, <rule> and <nest> provide a templating mechanism for HTML.
Let's briefly look at the new <datagrid> element. <datagrid> usually has a
 child element, although <select> and <datalist> are also possible to create a tree control. The columns in the datagrid can have clickable captions for sorting. Columns, rows, and cells can each have specific flags, known as classes, which affect the functionality of the datagrid element. Rows are selectable and single cells (or all cells) can be made editable. A cell can contain a checkbox or values that can be cycled. Rows can also be separator rows. Datagrids have a DOM API for updating, inserting, and deleting rows or columns. They also have a data provider API that controls grid data content and editing.
I hope you found this brief overview useful. Please note that the features mentioned here don't cover everything that is new in HTML 5, but hopefully they catch the essence. The HTML 5 specification is a work in progress; it is still changing and evolving. You can find the latest editor's draft at http://www.w3.org/html/wg/html5/. An overview of the changes from HTML 4 is available at http://www.w3.org/TR/html5-diff/.
Web Standards: OpenID
OpenID appears to be red hot right now. The adoption of this emerging standard has accelerated in the first half of 2008 as it has entered the radar screen of web developers. Many large organisations, such as Google, Yahoo, IBM, Microsoft and AOL provide OpenID servers. Popular Internet sites, such as LiveJournal, Blogger, Jabber, Drupal and Wikitravel support OpenID logins, and the list is growing. Browser support for OpenID is just around the corner (it's a feature in Firefox 3 for example). But we are getting ahead of ourselves. What is OpenID and why is it good? Put simply, OpenID solves two common problems; that of having to manage multiple accounts on different websites and that of storing sensitive account information on websites you don't control. With a single OpenID account you can log into hundreds of different websites. Best of it, you -the user- manage the account information, not the website owner. In more technical terms, OpenID is an open, decentralised, user-centric digital identity framework. I'll explain this in some more detail.
OpenID is an open standard, because nobody owns it and because it's free of patents and commercial licensing. The standard is maintained by the OpenID foundation; free open source implementations are available in many languages, including Java and PHP. It is decentralised, because it does not depend on a specific domain server. An existing OpenID provider can be rerouted very easily, as we shall see. It is user-centric, because it allows users to manage and control their identity information. Users can identify themselves with a URL they own. While traditional authentication relies on a combination of either a name or an email address and a password, OpenID just requires one item which is either a URL or an XRI (extensible resource identifier). To understand how this works, let's look at the OpenID protocol and see what an OpenID login procedure actually does.
Let's assume you already have an OpenID. You can use the same OpenID with any OpenID-enabled website (called the "relying party") by typing it into the OpenID login field or by letting your browser fill out the field automatically. When you click Submit, the relying party performs a "discovery" procedure to retrieve an authentication URL and subsequently performs an "association" procedure for secure information interchange with the OpenID provider. You are then transported to the authentication URL (called the "OpenID provider"). Normally this is a site like yahoo.com or myopenid.com, but nothing keeps you from running your own OpenID server. After authenticating at the OpenID provider's secure login page, you are redirected back to the relying party. If the relying party has requested identity information (name, gender, birth of date, etc.), you are prompted which information should be sent to the relying party. Often this information is used to fill in a registration form at the relying party. This information isn't retrieved for a normal login, but the OpenID protocol supports it. Once you are back at the relying party's website, the relying party checks whether the authentication was approved and verifies that the information is received correctly from the OpenID provider.
It sounds slightly complicated and by looking at the OpenID specifications you will find that the protocol is indeed quite involved. However, from the users point of view, it is really simple. The user only sees the OpenID login screen. If the user has enabled automatic login at the OpenID provider via a certificate or cookie, the only screen the user sees is the "approve/deny" screen. Logging into a website could not be easier. Only one password needs to be remembered. Registration forms can be pre-filled. Login into specific sites can be fully automated. The best thing is that the user has full control over the OpenID provider thanks to the discovery process. During discovery, the relying party looks for two fields in the header of the web page that it finds at the OpenID URL. In HTML Discovery, there are two fields named openid.server and openid2.provider.Example:
<link rel="openid.server" href="http://www.myopenid.com/server" /> <link rel="openid2.provider" href="http://www.myopenid.com/server" />
These two entries commonly point to the same end point (the OpenID provider) and are used by version 1 and version 2 of the OpenID protocol. If you have a website, you could simply edit the HTML of your site to add these entries into the HTML header. You could then use the URL of that page as your OpenID. The advantage of using your own web page is that you control the OpenID end point. Hence, you can switch OpenID providers while retaining your OpenID simply by editing your site's HTML code.
If you are going to incorporate OpenID into your existing website, you might want to think twice about implementing the protocol yourself. It isn't trivial, and there are already several open source libraries that can be used, e.g. Openid4java if you program in Java, or the JanRain PHP OpenID library which works with PHP 4.3 up. Additional libraries for these two languages, as well as Ruby, Python, C#, C++, and other languages can be found at http://wiki.openid.net/Libraries.
Grid Computing For A Cause
A few months ago I wondered what to do with the computing power of my new Quadcore PC. It seemed that my daily compiler runs, virtual machines, and the occasional game session don't make full use of the capacity of this machine. The CPU meter rarely exceeds the 30% mark processing these mundane tasks. It doesn't even break a sweat when compressing MPEG data. In principle, this is a good thing of course. Yet, the thought that the CPU cores remain underutilised for most of their lifetime appeared slightly wasteful to me. What to do with it? Well, I have found the answer to that question. The answer is BOINC.
BOINC stands for Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing, which is quite a mouthful, but the program's purpose is easy to explain: it lets you donate computing resources to the research sector. With BOINC your computer becomes part of a research network. You can choose one or more research projects from a list to which you want to donate computing resources. The BOINC software downloads tasks from these projects, which are then executed on your machine. When the computing tasks are completed, the results are sent back to the project's host computer. Downloading and uploading happens automatically via the Internet. The project host computer distributes tasks to hundreds or possibly thousands of PCs and coordinates all computing tasks.
This is fashionably called "grid computing". In essence, the grid is made up by the group of volunteers in case of BOINC, or rather their computers, which are located all over the world. BOINC has more than half a million participants which bring together a whopping 900 to 1000 teraflops from their desktops. This is more computing power than the world's largest supercomputer, the IBM Blue Gene, currently offers. Unsurprisingly, this quasi-supercomputing platform is used for computationally intensive tasks, or "number crunching" tasks. The best thing about BOIC, however, is that it doesn't take away CPU cycles from your applications. The BOINC computing tasks run as low priority processes in the background and thus only use CPU cycles when no other program needs them. Hence, there is no noticeable performance decrease.
You might wonder at this point what the BOINC projects are about and why you should donate computing resources to them. There are plenty of projects with different aims and scopes, but it all began with one single project: SETI@home, whereas SETI stands for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. The SETI@home project began in 1999. It is different from other SETI projects in that it relies almost exclusively on donated computing power. The software analyses data from the Arecibo radio telescope and tries to identify potential ETI signals. Although no such signals were found yet, the project has been a big success and it still draws new volunteers. As one of the first volunteer-based grid computing projects, it has demonstrated that the approach is not only viable, but that results generally exceeded expectations. It has also given people a better understanding of some of the challenges that anonymous grid computing entails.
As mentioned, today there are many different research projects that make use of BOINC. The list is growing since BOINC was GPL-ed in 2003. I am sure you will find many worthy causes among them. For example, in the medical sector, there is cancer and HIV research as well as malaria control and human genome research. The World Community Grid, which uses BOINC as one type of client software, specialises in research projects that benefit humanity directly. Then there is climateprediction.net which tries to produce a forecast of the climate in the 21st century. There are a number of biology and bioinformatics projects, such as Rosetta@home which develops computational methods to accurately predict and design proteins and protein complexes. This may ultimately help to find cures for diseases. Finally, there's a growing number of science projects from quantum physics and astronomy to mathematics.
I am running BOINC for a week and my computer is happily plodding away at constant 100% CPU load. The resource usage graph shows all four CPU cores at max. It doesn't seem to affect the system negatively, although I have to say, the computer does get noticeably hotter at this load. This definitely means higher energy consumption and thus a higher electricity bill. According to the BOINC Wiki at Berkeley, the power consumption increase is around 50%. Admittedly, I was a bit concerned about overheating, because this is the hot season in Thailand and room temperature is often around 30 deg. Celsius. However, my computer has borne up bravely so far. In order to reduce the heat problem, BOINC allows you to throttle CPU usage to a certain percentage, say 70%, which results in a square pulse resource usage graph. I might try that if it is getting any hotter.
Info crawler addendum
Personal note: It's almost Christmas now. Since the beginning of this month, my TT&T Maxnet Internet connection has been quirky. I am supposed to have a fast DSL subscriber connection, at least that's what I am paying for. But I am currently getting 6-8 kbps download speed, which doesn't even make my old Hayes modem envious. Some sites such as Wikipedia aren't accessible at all, although I can still connect via proxy server. I hear that other people in Thailand are experiencing similar… um… surprises. To be honest, most people aren't really surprised. This experience is sort of common. When I was still subscribed with CAT, I was actually glad to get anything above 0 kbps because half of the time the connection didn't work at all. Once I made the mistake to call their customer service to inquire about this.The receptionist connected me to the "technician". The technician determined that this was a "special" problem and decided that I had to talk to a specialised technician. The specialised technician then connected me to another technician who was allegedly responsible for my area. That person finally routed me back to the first "technician" so the game could start anew. Well, it could have, but I hung up at that point. I am not even thinking about calling TT&T now. – It's the time to be merry.


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Socratic Method, or Higher Education, Part IV.
First year students in law schools become well-acquainted with the Socratic method.
As plied in that setting, professors question students about cases they are assigned to read. The questioning, usually in front of another 100 or so students, can be intimidating and unsettling because often no matter what position the student takes the skillful practitioner can make it (or the student) look absurd. Nevertheless, the process is designed to cause a didactic experience (and develop a thick skin).
Business schools also routinely employ a similar case-method of teaching. Andrew Tobias wrote about the "Greatest Moment in [His] Life" in his (equally understated in title) book, The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need (2002). Here's an excerpt:
"Harvard Business School uses the 'the case method' to impart its wisdom, which on a practical level, means preparing three or four cases a night for the following day's classroom analysis. Typically, each case sets forth an enormous garbage dump of data. ... Typically, too, I could not bring myself to prepare the cases very thoroughly. ...
"The professor, a delightful but devious man, noting the conspicuous absence of paperwork by my station, had the out and out malevolence to call on me...
"My instinct was to say, with contrition: 'I'm sorry, sir, I'm not prepared'--a considerable indignity--but in a rare moment of inspiration I decided to concoct a bluff, however lame. ... Said I, 'Well, sir, this case obviously was meant to get us to work through the elaborate formula we were given to determine pricing, but I didn't do any of that. The case said that XYZ Company was in a very competitive industry, so I figured it couldn't charge any more for its sprockets than everyone else, if it wanted to sell any; and the case said that the company had all the business that it could handle--so I figured there would be no point in charging less than everyone else, either. So I figured they should just keep charging what everybody else was charging, and I didn't do any calculations.'
"The professor blew his stack--but not for the reason I had expected. It seems that the whole idea of this case was to have us go round and round for 55 minutes beating each other over the head with our calculations, and then have the professor show us why the calculations were, in this case, irrelevant. Instead the class was dismissed 12 minutes after it began--to thunderous applause, I might add--there being nothing left to discuss. [footnote: Herewith a list of my other triumphs at Harvard Business School: I graduated.]" (pp. 7-8; emphasis in original.)
So, what's the moral of the story?
Be unprepared? Or, it's better to be lucky than good? Or the ability to "think on one's feet" cannot be taught? It could be any number of these (or others), but it's such a good story I had to relate it here.


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Please note that this website has a UK government access keys system.
The statistics branches within all government departments, together with the Office for National Statistics, form the Government Statistical Service. Statistics are also provided to government by the Information Centre for health and social care. Statistics are used to inform debate, decision making and research both within government and by the wider community.
This page provides links to compliance arrangements with the Pre-release Access to Official Statistics Order 2008. Pre-release access lists to DH statistics and information on disclosure issues are also given.
The ROCR process ensures that central collections of information are appropriate to their purpose, do not duplicate existing collections, and minimise the burden on the NHS of submitting the data.
ROCR is now accessible on the Information Centre for health and social care (IC) website
Published statistics listed in the main statistical work areas in the DH: healthcare, workforce, public health, and social care.
Statistics and performance indicators in healthcare, social services, complaints handling and waiting times.
The Information Centre provides facts and figures to help the NHS and social services run effectively. It collects data from across the sector, analyses it, then converts it into useful information and statistics
Official UK statistics and information about statistics.
The Authority's statutory objective is to promote and safeguard the production and publication of official statistics that serve the public good.
Information about how to apply for jobs in the Government Statistical Service


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If you are 16+ and working towards your Gold or Platinum award on the CAYV programme and would like to be part of a new and exciting British Cycling Initiative, then the National Youth Forum could be for you.
The National Youth Forum has been set up by British Cycling to empower young people and enable them to actively help develop opportunities for their peers, providing the chance to ride, race and volunteer beyond 16.
We are looking to recruit a group of 8-12 proactive young volunteers who would like to represent other young people and ensure their voice is heard. Knowledge and understanding of the issues that your peers face, along with some understanding of current programmes available for young people in cycling is therefore important in order for you to undertake this role.
In return you will have the opportunity to:
- Develop leadership and communication skills
- Influence future British Cycling Initiatives
- Participate in Training/Team Building/other activities
- Meet other young cycling volunteers
If you love cycling and are committed to ensuring that young people remain involved in it then this is a fantastic opportunity for you to gain an insight into and have an influence on the sport's National Governing Body and gain valuable experience.
The National Youth Forum was launched at the Go-Ride Conferences. If you would like further information about the initiative or would like the application form in an alternative format please e-mail: email@example.com.


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Restrict Page Parents Updated to 1.1.0
22 April 2013
I've just pushed up an update to Restrict Page Parents with a new feature. Version 1.1.0, now available through WordPress, lets you turn the page parent restrictions you set up on or off for each post type.
Hopefully this makes the plugin even more useful! Get in touch if you find any bugs or have feature ideas.


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Last year, writer Raven Gregory put a modern day twist on Lewis Carroll's Wonderland stories in Zenescope's "Return to Wonderland." The book followed Alice Liddle's daughter Calie on her journey to the same twisted world her mother had famously visited before her. Gregory followed up the project with "Tales from Wonderland," a series of three one-shots that chronicled the origins of the Queen of Hearts, the Mad Hatter, and Alice, before Wonderland left its stamp on them. Now, Calie's journey continues in "Beyond Wonderland," and CBR News caught up with Gregory to get the on the six-issue miniseries, the first two parts of which are on sale now.
During her first visit to Wonderland, Calie Liddle made a startling discovery: Wonderland is the source of all madness and insanity in the real world. What's more, her mother Alice's gradual descent into madness can be traced back to the time the elder Liddle's spent in that twisted dimension. Come "Beyond Wonderland," young Calie has lost everything.
"Her mother, Alice, committed suicide in a vain attempt at saving her daughter from her own fate," Gregory told CBR. "Her adulterous father was murdered by her brother, Johnny," after which Calie sacrificed Johnny to the looking glass mirror before she and her boyfriend Brandon set out for New York City. "Along the way, she discovers she is pregnant, and that a piece of Wonderland may have indeed escape out into the real world."
Months after returning from the realm of madness known as Wonderland, a jaded and bitter Calie does her best to eke out some semblance of a normal life in the city that never sleeps. "But she soon realizes that things in her brand new life are going to get really bad, really fast," Gregory teased. "Something from the realm of insanity has found its way out and Calie knows that she could very well be the only one who has a chance to send it back."
Gregory said that his Wonderland stories have been, and continue to be, directly influenced by the original novels, "Alice's Adventures Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass," but, he added, "It didn't take long for the story to venture off into new and uncharted territories. The story has really become a creature all of its own with its own Lovecraft-like mythology."
And while Gregory foresees a number of spin-offs and one-shots in the series' future, he promised that Zenescope's Wonderland saga would not go on forever. "We have a definite end in mind for the series and everything, in one way or another, is leading us there."
Artist Rich Bonk was originally slated to pencil "Beyond Wonderland," but a bout with personal issues forced the artist to withdraw from the project. "We needed to find a replacement artist fast and as luck would have it, I thought of Dan Leister," Gregory said. Gregory was familiar with Leister's work on books like "The Sire," and had met the artist years earlier through "The Sire" writer Mike Dolce. Gregory had wanted to jam with Leister ever since that fateful meeting, but their schedules didn't sync up until "Beyond Wonderland."
Gregory characterized his collaboration with Leister as one of the highlights of his career. "Not only can he nail the action, but he has slowly become a master at nailing those quiet emotional moments that are at the heart of every great story," Gregory said. "He's really grown as an artist and brings such energy to everything he does."
The writer was also brimming over with praise for colorist Nei Ruffino. "She's such an amazing talent," Gregory said. "She brings so much to the table in finding just the right mood to convey the scene in such a way that blows my mind each and every time I see it. I can't think of another person I'd rather have on colors than her.
"We all spend hours chatting on the phone about ideas of what we can put in the book, different techniques we can try, always trying to push the envelope to get the best possible story we can," Gregory continued. "And through working together, we have become really good friends. And really, what more can you ask for in this business?"
Zenescope has snagged some of the industry's leading artists to provide guest covers for "Beyond Wonderland." "Two of my favorite artists ever did us the honor of doing the covers for issue one: Dave Finch and J. Scott Campbell," Gregory said. Upcoming issues will feature guest covers by Mike Deodato, Jr. and Joe Benitez, among others. "Most of these guys I've met while running the convention circuit over the years and have been nothing but supportive of me and my books and the fact that they would take the time out to do these amazing covers for an indie book really means the world to me."
"Beyond Wonderland" is not the only project on Raven Gregory's horizon. He's contributing a story to BOOM! Studios; "Cthulhu Tales" #10 and a two-part Red Sonja story coming up in Dynamite Entertainment's "Savage Tales." "I also co-wrote Zenescope's first 'Giant Size Grimm Fairy Tales' with [Zenescope President] Joe Brusha, as well the upcoming 'Grimm Fairy Tales Annual 2008' with [Editor in Chief/VP] Ralph Tedesco and Mike Kavolda (The Piper). 'The Waking,' my second creator-owned series, is currently in production and should be coming out early next year. And for fans of 'The Gift,' the maxi trade edition collecting the entire series should be out towards the end of the year."
"Beyond Wonderland" #1 and #2 are available now from Zenescope Entertainment.


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Pilot voting starts Feb. 1 for FltPlan's 2014 Pilots' Choice Awards, which recognizes favorite United States FBOs, top U.S. FBOs by region, small and large FBO chains, Canadian, Caribbean and Mexican FBOs, ATC Center, ATC Tower, and customs and border protection.
The 2014 Pilots' Choice Awards survey is open to the group of over 140,000 active pilots on FltPlan representing over 65% of all business aviation, according to company officials.
"The Pilots' Choice Awards is a pilot survey not a reader survey," said Ken Wilson, president of FltPlan.com, the internet-based source of flight planning tools. "As a pilot survey, it is the most accurate way to judge FBOs because pilots are the people who walk in and use the FBO."
Now in its fifth year, the Pilots' Choice Awards recognizes FBOs that provide arrival and departure services for private and business aircraft at more than 5,000 U.S. airports. FltPlan allocates one ballot per pilot per user account. For example, a FltPlan user that has 10 pilots in its account receives 10 ballots.
In 2011 FltPlan added two new awards, Star FBO and ACE FBO. The Star category was created by using airport arrival data to generate a ranking that takes into account the traffic at an airport and the amount of competition on the field. The ACE FBO award recognizes the FBOs who received the most votes at airports with fewer arrivals allowing some of the smaller FBOs to receive accolades for great service as well.
FltPlan, now in its 14th year on the web, supports pilots with services ranging from flight plan filing, FBO/airport information, flight tracking, certified eAPIS submissions, SMS (IS-BAO and ACSF), runway analysis, weight and balance, eLogbook program, Mexican/Caribbean/Central America handling, Mexican and Cuban overflight services, pre-departure clearances, FAA-approved certified weather, and participation in the FAA's CDM program.
For more information: FltPlan.com


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In Real Estate, Scammers Are Getting Unbelievably Tricky
A hip-looking website and a realistic-looking payment invoice. Real estate professionals in Florida were recently hit with a scam in which they were instructed to pay a fee to maintain their membership listing with the Florida Board of REALTORS®, but there is no such organization.
What's concerning about this latest scam to hit the real estate industry is how much the perpetrators paid attention to details. The website is slick and the invoice is serious. Whoever is behind this attempt to milk fees out of unsuspecting real estate professionals appears to be banking on the idea that the right design can mislead people. Which means it's not just realistic-looking emails you have to be on guard against; you have to be on guard against realistic-looking invoices and websites.
The scam is a top story in the latest Voice for Real Estate news video from NAR. Other segments look at what's happening in Washington. Among other things, the Trump administration has pushed the pause button on a rule that NAR had concerns with, paving the way for REALTORS® to have input into the rule should it be rewritten.
The rule concerns the expansion of bodies of water subject to Clean Water Act restrictions. That's a topic that seems remote from the everyday practice of buying and selling real estate but it has the potential to slow and even derail development of real estate because property that previously was not subject to environmental review would be subject to it. So, NAR favors reviewing that rule and seeing how it might be changed.
Another Washington story is about flood insurance. The federal flood insurance program is the only realistic game in town for home owners and buyers in many areas and it expires in a few months, so NAR has been pushing hard to get it extended soon, because the last time the program expired, it wreaked havoc on home sales in thousands of communities across the country. The good news is that Congress seems serious about not letting that happen again and the update explains what has to happen over the next few months to keep the insurance flowing.
The video also looks at a report that just came out from NAR that finds Gen Xers—those born between the mid-1960s and the early 1980s—are getting back into the market after enduring a rough ride during the economic crisis a few years ago. Of all the generations, this one was hardest hit, with a fifth of them going underwater on their mortgage and almost 15 percent having to sell under distressed circumstances. But they're back in the market now, and that's a good thing. Access the video.


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Sadly we've had plenty of our own Rodney Kings in Baltimore... Tyrone West and Anthony Anderson among them. In reality there are far too many to name.
On this day in 1991, once again as in times past, America was forced to face police brutality. 24 years later the question is; how far have we come?
Sometimes it's important to be reminded just how long this mess has been going on. They keep trying to tell you things are changing, but I think reality show us different.
Personally, as a black man living in America, I've shed far too many tears over the years for men I've never met. This land is filled with brutal, corrupt, criminals running things. One day they'll have to answer to the Chief Judge. And with Him there aren't any postponements. They all have their rewards. Their eternal sentence awaits.


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Shalini Pereira, MS, PhD
Clinical Assistant Professor;
Director, HLA Laboratory
Scisco Genetics
Contact Information
Scisco Genetics
1100 Fairview Avenue East, Suite D4-100
Seattle, WA 98109
Tel: 206-257-1356
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Personal Biography
Dr. Pereira enjoys reading, baking, traveling and spending time with family.
Education and Training
- BS Microbiology and Biochemistry, Bombay University, India, 1987
- MS Biochemistry, Bombay University, India, 1989
- MS Biochemistry, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, New York, 1991
- PhD Biochemistry, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, New York, 1996
Clinical Interests
- HLA typing of patients, family members, and potential related and unrelated or cord blood donors prior to allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT).
- Evaluation of patient alloimmune status, antibody sensitization and resultant donor compatibility prior to HSCT.
- Post-transplant Chimerism testing of patients after HSCT (and for certain specific protocols before transplant) to determine recipient/donor origin of nucleated hematopoietic cells.
Research Interests
- Studying anti-HLA antibodies and their role in stem cell transplantation
- The use of desensitization protocols to reduce or eliminate high risk antibodies
- Evaluating new bio-markers for Graft versus Host disease
Current Research
Dr. Pereira's research is aimed at developing tools to evaluate micro-chimerism and to provide surveillance for post transplant relapse/minimal residual disease.
Selected Publications
- Mack SJ, Cano P, Hollenbach JA, He J, Hurley CK, Middleton D, Moraes ME, Pereira SE, et al (2012) Common and Well-Documented HLA Alleles: 2012 Update to the CWD Catalogue. Tissue Antigens. 2013 Apr;81(4):194-203. doi: 10.1111/tan.12093.
- McGoldrick SM, Bleakley ME, Guerrero A, Turtle CJ, Yamamoto TN, Pereira SE, Delaney CS, Riddell SR. (2012) Cytomegalovirus-specific T cells are primed early after cord blood transpant but fail to expand and control virus in vivo. Blood. 2013 Apr 4;121(14):2796-803. doi: 10.1182/blood-2012-09-453720. Epub 2013 Feb 14.
- O'Donnell, P.V., Harrington, E., Gooley, T.A., Pagel, J.M., Pereira, S., Flowers, M.E., Hansen, J.A., Burroughs, L.M., Sandmaier, B.M., Storb, R.F., Luznik, L., Jones, R.J., Symonds, H.J., Kasamon, Y.L. and Fuchs, E. (2012) Cyclophosphamide-induced tolerance following hematopoietic cell transplantation from haploidentical donors. Hematologica. In Press.
- Newell, LF, Milano, F, Nicoud, IB, Pereira, S, Gooley, TA, Heimfeld, S, Delaney, C. (2012) Early CD3 Peripheral Blood Chimerism Predicts the Long-Term Engrafting Unit Following Myeloablative Doube-Cord Blood Transplantation. Biol Blood Marrow Transplant. 2012 Aug;18(8):1243-9. Epub 2012 Feb 8.
- O'Brien KL, Pereira SE, Wagner J, Shadman M, Hendrie P, Nelson K, Gernsheimer TB, Price T, Reyes JD, Nester T. Transfusion-associated graft-versus-host disease in a liver transplant recipient: an unusual presentation and review of the literature. Transfusion. 2013 Jan;53(1):174-80.
Honors and Awards
- University of Rochester, Dept of Biochem Graduate Fellowship, 1989-1996
- NIH Post-Doctoral Fellowship, Project Grant, 1996-1997
- California Cancer Research Program, Post-Doctoral Fellowship, 2000-2002
- McCormick Travel Grant Award, 2007
Last updated: 10/20/2015


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If you are a victim of a motor vehicle accident, you may be entitled to compensation for your injuries, medical expenses and loss of income. Duncan Basheer Hannon personal injury solicitors are highly experienced in this area, and will work hard to ensure that your car accident claim is resolved in the best possible way and that your entitlements are protected.
Click to download the Motor Accident Commission (MAC) claim forms below and complete before sending into Duncan Basheer Hannon. Details as to where and how to send the forms are printed on the first page of the forms.
How much will it cost to make a claim?
The first interview with a DBH motor accident solicitor is an obligation free appointment so if you decide not to proceed, it won't cost you anything.
There are generally no upfront fees. You will be liable for you own disbursements. Disbursements are out of pocket expenses (like medical report fees) that support your claim. If you are unable to fund your own disbursements we can assist you in finding the right disbursement funder for you.
We will explain how fees are calculated and keep you updated throughout the process.
How does the claim process work?
Firstly, we will assess the details of your car accident and let you know if you have a realistic case. This initial consultation is free with no obligation to proceed. We will then contact the insurance company and notify them of your claim. The insurance company will then advise their position regarding partial or full responsibility. We will collect the relevant facts to prove your motor accident claim. This includes documentation such as medical reports, treatment expenses, and wage loss details. We will then negotiate a settlement and arrange for you to receive the compensation payout.
If you go direct to the insurance company it is standard practice that they will offer you a minimal settlement. There are many cases we have settled where the final amount was tens of thousands above the offer made by the MAC to our clients before they decided to instruct DBH to act on their behalf.
If we don't win your case, there is no fee.


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Gales are again expected to hit Huddersfield at the weekend.
Huddersfield weatherman Paul Stevens warned that the strong winds could hit 60mph and will be accompanied by driving rain.
Today saw a cloudy day with strong winds in some areas, expected to hit 45mph in parts by this evening.
Mr Stevens added: "Saturday will start off bright and chilly but cloud will thicken quickly again from the west with gales developing through the afternoon along with some heavy rain and squally rain.
More: Watch our reporter Susie Beever battling with Storm Jonas on top of Castle Hill
"There could be gusts of up to 50-60mph clearing to colder conditions through the evening with a few wintry showers on Saturday night.
"Sunday will be another very windy day with bands of rain sweeping from the west some heavy with some sleet and wet snow to start with.
"Gales will develop and continue for much of the day with gusts again up to 50-60mph."


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|December 2012 Sales Figures - Pan India
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Indian Car Sales Figures - December 2012
11 comments:
- Jon snow said...
According to these car sales figure Maruti leads th e market with highest sales.But Mahindra is also making a good profit in the market with good sale.
- January 8, 2013 at 2:06 AM
- jackson mike said...
maruti alto 800 is newly launched car and sells allover India very rapidly. alto is always very favorite car among the customers.
- January 9, 2013 at 8:11 AM
- hibbynana na said...
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- January 14, 2013 at 5:49 PM
- Alex Ted said...
There is more than ample power and torque for city driving and the Alto 800 is quick to reach 80 km/h.
- January 15, 2013 at 1:21 AM
- Ross Taylor said...
Such excellent chart given here about how many cars selling by yearly and it's growth. The Indian automotive industry performance is monthly up and down. All OEMs got the best to offer. This did not have much impact on the down acquire determine of the Auto companies. This automotive market report is more helpful for us.
- January 16, 2013 at 3:28 AM
- Daniel Kwok said...
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- February 28, 2013 at 8:50 PM
- shaving mirrors said...
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- March 28, 2013 at 9:53 PM
- MILLER WILSON said...
This part of the sales process starts with verbal communication
and moves into seeing and touching the vehicle. Models, trim levels
and options are discussed while trying to determine what the
customer's hot buttons or must haves that will influence their
decision to purchase a vehicle.
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- April 5, 2013 at 8:57 AM
- usedcarshubindia said...
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- June 25, 2013 at 11:08 PM
- Dwayne Charles said...
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- July 30, 2013 at 1:06 AM
- Micheal Hussey said...
Well as I understand according to the sales figure the Maruti is leading the auto industry as being the most selling brand in India.
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- October 8, 2013 at 9:50 PM