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Secrets of the Brain
New technologies are shedding light on biology's greatest unsolved mystery: how the brain really works.
Van Wedeen strokes his half-gray beard and leans toward his computer screen, scrolling through a cascade of files. We're sitting in a windowless library, surrounded by speckled boxes of old letters, curling issues of scientific journals, and an old slide projector that no one has gotten around to throwing out.
"It'll take me a moment to locate your brain," he says.
On a hard drive Wedeen has stored hundreds of brains—exquisitely detailed 3-D images from monkeys, rats, and humans, including me. Wedeen has offered to take me on a journey through my own head.
"We'll hit all the tourist spots," he promises, smiling.
This is my second trip to the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, located in a former ship-rope factory on Boston Harbor. The first time, a few weeks ago, I offered myself as a neuroscientific guinea pig to Wedeen and his colleagues. In a scanning room I lay down on a slab, the back of my head resting in an open plastic box. A radiologist lowered a white plastic helmet over my face. I looked up at him through two eyeholes as he screwed the helmet tight, so that the 96 miniature antennas it contained would be close enough to my brain to pick up the radio waves it was about to emit. As the slab glided into the cylindrical maw of the scanner, I thought of The Man in the Iron Mask.
The magnets that now surrounded me began to rumble and beep. For an hour I lay still, eyes closed, and tried to keep myself calm with my own thoughts. It wasn't easy. To squeeze as much resolution as possible out of the scanner, Wedeen and his colleagues had designed the device with barely enough room for a person of my build to fit inside. To tamp down the panic, I breathed smoothly and transported myself to places in my memory, at one point recalling how I had once walked my nine-year-old daughter to school through piles of blizzard snow.
As I lay there, I reflected on the fact that all of these thoughts and emotions were the creation of the three-pound loaf of flesh that was under scrutiny: my fear, carried by electrical impulses converging in an almond-shaped chunk of tissue in my brain called the amygdala, and the calming response to it, marshaled in regions of my frontal cortex. My memory of my walk with my daughter was coordinated by a seahorse-shaped fold of neurons called the hippocampus, which reactivated a vast web of links throughout my brain that had first fired when I had clambered over the snowbanks and formed those memories.
I was submitting to this procedure as part of my cross-country reporting to chronicle one of the great scientific revolutions of our times: the stunning advances in understanding the workings of the human brain. Some neuroscientists are zooming in on the fine structure of individual nerve cells, or neurons. Others are charting the biochemistry of the brain, surveying how our billions of neurons produce and employ thousands of different kinds of proteins. Still others, Wedeen among them, are creating in unprecedented detail representations of the brain's wiring: the network of some 100,000 miles of nerve fibers, called white matter, that connects the various components of the mind, giving rise to everything we think, feel, and perceive. The U.S. government is throwing its weight behind this research through the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative. In an announcement last spring President Barack Obama said that the large-scale project aimed to speed up the mapping of our neural circuitry, "giving scientists the tools they need to get a dynamic picture of the brain in action."
As they see the brain in action, neuroscientists can also see its flaws. They are starting to identify differences in the structure of ordinary brains and brains of people with disorders such as schizophrenia, autism, and Alzheimer's disease. As they map the brain in greater detail, they may learn how to diagnose disorders by their effect on anatomy, and perhaps even understand how those disorders arise.
On my return trip to his lab Wedeen finally locates the image from my session in the scanner. My brain appears on his screen. His technique, called diffusion spectrum imaging, translates radio signals given off by the white matter into a high-resolution atlas of that neurological Internet. His scanner maps bundles of nerve fibers that form hundreds of thousands of pathways carrying information from one part of my brain to another. Wedeen paints each path a rainbow of colors, so that my brain appears as an explosion of colorful fur, like a psychedelic Persian cat.
Wedeen focuses in on particular pathways, showing me some of the circuitry important to language and other kinds of thought. Then he pares away most of the pathways in my brain, so that I can more easily see how they're organized. As he increases the magnification, something astonishing takes shape before me. In spite of the dizzying complexity of the circuits, they all intersect at right angles, like the lines on a sheet of graph paper.
"It's all grids," says Wedeen.
When Wedeen first unveiled the grid structure of the brain, in 2012, some scientists were skeptical, wondering if he'd uncovered only part of a much more tangled anatomy. But Wedeen is more convinced than ever that the pattern is meaningful. Wherever he looks—in the brains of humans, monkeys, rats—he finds the grid. He notes that the earliest nervous systems in Cambrian worms were simple grids—just a pair of nerve cords running from head to tail, with runglike links between them. In our own lineage the nerves at the head end exploded into billions but still retained that gridlike structure. It's possible that our thoughts run like streetcars along these white matter tracks as signals travel from one region of the brain to another.
"There's zero chance that there are not principles lurking in this," says Wedeen, peering intently at the image of my brain. "We're just not yet in a position to see the simplicity."
Scientists are learning so much about the brain now that it's easy to forget that for much of history we had no idea at all how it worked or even what it was. In the ancient world physicians believed that the brain was made of phlegm. Aristotle looked on it as a refrigerator, cooling off the fiery heart. From his time through the Renaissance, anatomists declared with great authority that our perceptions, emotions, reasoning, and actions were all the result of "animal spirits"—mysterious, unknowable vapors that swirled through cavities in our head and traveled through our bodies.
The scientific revolution in the 17th century began to change that. The British physician Thomas Willis recognized that the custardlike tissue of the brain was where our mental world existed. To understand how it worked, he dissected brains of sheep, dogs, and expired patients, producing the first accurate maps of the organ.
It would take another century for researchers to grasp that the brain is an electric organ. Instead of animal spirits, voltage spikes travel through it and out into the body's nervous system. Still, even in the 19th century scientists knew little about the paths those spikes followed. The Italian physician Camillo Golgi argued that the brain was a seamless connected web. Building on Golgi's research, the Spanish scientist Santiago Ramón y Cajal tested new ways of staining individual neurons to trace their tangled branches. Cajal recognized what Golgi did not: that each neuron is a distinct cell, separate from every other one. A neuron sends signals down tendrils known as axons. A tiny gap separates the ends of axons from the receiving ends of neurons, called dendrites. Scientists would later discover that axons dump a cocktail of chemicals into the gap to trigger a signal in the neighboring neuron.
Jeff Lichtman, a neuroscientist, is the current Ramón y Cajal Professor of Arts and Sciences at Harvard, carrying Cajal's project into the 21st century. Instead of making pen-and-ink drawings of neurons stained by hand, he and his colleagues are creating extremely detailed three-dimensional images of neurons, revealing every bump and stalk branching from them. By burrowing down to the fine structure of individual nerve cells, they may finally get answers to some of the most basic questions about the nature of the brain. Each neuron has on average 10,000 synapses. Is there some order to their connections to other neurons, or are they random? Do they prefer linking to one type of neuron over others?
To produce the images, Lichtman and his colleagues load pieces of preserved mouse brain into a neuroanatomical version of a deli meat slicer, which pares off layers of tissue, each less than a thousandth the thickness of a strand of human hair. The scientists use an electron microscope to take a picture of each cross section, then use a computer to order them into a stack. Slowly a three-dimensional image takes shape—one that the scientists can explore as if they were in a submarine traveling through an underwater kelp forest.
"Everything is revealed," says Lichtman.
The only problem is the sheer enormity of "everything." So far the largest volume of a mouse's brain that Lichtman and his colleagues have managed to re-create is about the size of a grain of salt. Its data alone total a hundred terabytes, the amount of data in about 25,000 high-definition movies.
Once the scientists have gathered this information, the really hard work begins: looking for the rules that organize the brain's seeming chaos. Recently Lichtman's postdoctoral researcher Narayanan Kasthuri set out to analyze every detail in a cylinder of mouse brain tissue measuring just a thousand cubic microns—a volume 1/100,000 the size of a grain of salt. He selected a region surrounding a short segment of a single axon, seeking to identify every neuron that passed through it.
That minuscule patch of brain turned out to be like a barrel of seething snakes. Kasthuri found a thousand axons and about 80 dendrites, each making about 600 connections with other neurons inside the cylinder. "It's a wake-up call to how much more complicated brains are than the way we think about them," says Lichtman.
Complicated, but not random. Lichtman and Kasthuri discovered that every neuron made nearly all its connections with just one other one, scrupulously avoiding a connection with almost all the other neurons packed tightly around it. "They seem to care who they're connected to," Lichtman says.
Lichtman can't say yet whether this fastidious pattern is a general rule or a feature of just the tiny area of mouse brain he sampled. Even as they scale up the technology, he and his colleagues will need another two years to complete a scan of all 70 million neurons in a mouse. I ask about scanning an entire human brain, which contains a thousand times more neurons than a mouse's.
"I don't dwell on that," he says, with a laugh. "It's too painful."
When and if Lichtman completes his three-dimensional portrait of the brain, it will reveal much—but it will still be only an exquisitely detailed sculpture. His imaged neurons are hollow models; real neurons are crammed with living DNA, proteins, and other molecules. Each type of neuron uses a distinct set of genes to build the molecular machinery it needs to do its own job. Light-sensitive neurons in the eyes produce photon-catching proteins, for example, and neurons in a region called the substantia nigra produce dopamine, crucial to our sense of reward. The geography of proteins and other chemicals is essential to understanding how the brain works—and how it goes awry. In Parkinson's disease the substantia nigra neurons produce less dopamine than normal, for reasons that aren't yet clear. Alzheimer's disease scatters tangles of protein through the brain, although scientists have yet to firmly settle on how those tangles give rise to the devastating dementia the disease causes.
A map of the brain's molecular machinery called the Allen Brain Atlas has been generated at the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, founded ten years ago with funds from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Using the brains of recently deceased people, donated by their families, researchers there use a high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan of each brain as a three-dimensional road map, then slice it into microscopically thin sections that are mounted on glass slides. They then douse the sections with chemicals that reveal the presence of active genes harbored in the neurons.
So far the researchers have mapped the brains of six people, charting the activity of 20,000 protein-coding genes at 700 sites within each brain. It's a colossal amount of data, and they've only begun to make sense of it. The scientists estimate that 84 percent of all the genes in our DNA become active somewhere in the adult brain. (A simpler organ like the heart or pancreas requires far fewer genes to work.) In each of the 700 sites the scientists studied, the neurons switch on a distinct collection of genes. In a preliminary survey of two regions of the brain, the scientists compared a thousand genes that were already known to be important for neuron function. From one person to the next, the areas of the brain where each of those genes was active were practically identical. It looks as if the brain has a finely grained genetic landscape, with special combinations of genes carrying out tasks in different locations. The secret to many diseases of the brain may be hiding in that landscape, as certain genes shut down or switch on abnormally.
All the information from the Allen Brain Atlas is posted online, where other scientists can navigate through the data with custom-made software. Already they're making new discoveries. A team of Brazilian scientists, for instance, has used it to study a devastating brain disorder called Fahr's disease, which calcifies regions deep inside the brain, leading to dementia. Some cases of Fahr's disease had already been linked to a mutation in the gene SLC20A2. In the atlas the scientists found thatSLC20A2 is most active in precisely the regions that are targeted by the disease. They also found a network of other genes that is most active in the same areas, and now they're trying to find out whether they're involved in Fahr's disease as well.
Of all the new ways of visualizing the brain, perhaps the most remarkable is one invented by Stanford neuroscientist and psychiatrist Karl Deisseroth and his colleagues. To see the brain, they begin by making it disappear.
On my visit to Deisseroth's lab, undergraduate Jenelle Wallace led me to a bench where half a dozen beakers rested in a plastic-foam base. She pulled one out and pointed to a grape-size mouse brain resting at the bottom. I didn't look at the brain so much as through it. It was nearly as transparent as a glass marble.
Needless to say, a normal human or mouse brain is decidedly opaque, its cells swathed in fat and other compounds that block light. That's why Cajal had to dye neurons in order to see them and why Lichtman's group and the Allen Institute scientists slice the brain into thin sections to gain access to its inner depths. The advantage of a transparent brain is that it allows us to peer into its workings while the organ is still intact. Along with postdoctoral researcher Kwanghun Chung, Deisseroth came up with a recipe to replace the light-scattering compounds in the brain with transparent molecules. After making a mouse brain transparent in this way, they can then douse the brain with glowing chemical labels that latch on to only certain proteins or trace a specific pathway connecting neurons in distant regions of the brain. The scientists can then wash out one set of chemicals and add another that reveals the location and structure of a different type of neuron—in effect untangling the Gordian knot of neural circuits one by one. "You don't have to take it apart to show the wiring," says Deisseroth.
It's not easy to dazzle neuroscientists, but Deisseroth's method, dubbed CLARITY, has left his colleagues awestruck. "It's pretty badass," says Christof Koch, the chief scientific officer at the Allen Institute. Wedeen has called the research "spectacular ... unlike anything else in the field."
Because of our shared evolutionary heritage, a clarified mouse brain can reveal a great deal about human brain function. But Deisseroth's ultimate goal is to perform the same transformation with a human brain—a far more difficult task, not least because a human brain is 3,000 times as large as that of a mouse.
A CLARITY picture showing the location of just one type of protein in just one human brain would create a monstrous heap of data—about two petabytes, or the equivalent of several hundred thousand high-def movies. Deisseroth anticipates that CLARITY may someday help the sort of people he treats in his psychiatric practice, by revealing hidden features of disorders like autism and depression. But for now he's keeping those hopes in check.
"We have so far to go before we can affect treatments that I tell people, Don't even think about that yet," he says. "It's just a voyage of discovery for now."
As revealing as a transparent brain may prove to be, it will still be dead. Scientists need different tools to explore the terrain of living brains. The scanners Wedeen uses to trace white matter patterns can, with different programming, record the brain in action. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) pinpoints regions of the brain recruited during a mental task. Over the past couple of decades fMRI has helped reveal networks involved in all manner of thought processes, from recognizing faces to enjoying a cup of coffee to remembering a traumatic event.
It's easy to be dazzled by fMRI images, which festoon the brain with rainbow blobs. But it's important to bear in mind that those images are actually quite coarse. The most powerful scanners can record activity only down to the scale of a cubic millimeter—a sesame seed's worth of tissue. Within that space, hundreds of thousands of neurons are firing in synchronized patterns, trading signals. How those signals give rise to the larger patterns revealed by fMRI remains mysterious.
"There are ridiculously simple questions about the cortex that we can't answer at all," says Clay Reid, a former colleague of Jeff Lichtman's at Harvard who moved to the Allen Institute in 2012.
Reid has come to Seattle hoping to answer some of those questions with a grand series of experiments he and his colleagues call MindScope. Their goal is to understand how a large number of neurons carry out a complex task.
The function Reid and his colleagues have chosen to decipher is vision. Scientists have been investigating how we see for decades, but they've been able to study it only piecemeal. A neuroscientist might place an electrode in the region of a mouse's brain involved in visual perception and then note whether nearby neurons fire when the animal sees a particular image.
This approach has allowed scientists to map regions of the visual brain that specialize in different tasks, such as detecting the edges of an object or perceiving brightness. But scientists haven't been able to see all those regions work together at once—to learn how the million or so neurons in the visual regions of a mouse's brain instantly put information together into the image of a cat.
Reid and his colleagues are setting out to solve that problem by engineering mice so that their visual neurons will release flashes of light when they fire. The flashes record the neural activity when a mouse sees a specific object, be it a cat, a snake, or an appealing piece of cheese. The scientists can then compile the data to create massive mathematical models of vision. If the models are accurate, the researchers will be able to literally read the mind of a mouse.
"Our goal is to reconstruct what the mouse sees," says Reid. "And I think we can do it."
Reid's research on mouse vision is another step toward neuroscience's ultimate goal: a comprehensive view of how this vastly complicated organ really works—what the scientists I talked to call a theory of the brain. Such a grand vision is still a long way off, and for the most part, the search for it has yet to change the way doctors treat patients. But there is one line of research—brain-machine interfaces—where the mapping of the mind has started to change people's lives.
When she was 43 years old, Cathy Hutchinson suffered a massive stroke, leaving her unable to move or speak. Lying in her bed in Massachusetts General Hospital, she gradually figured out that her doctors didn't know if she was brain-dead or still aware. Her sister asked Hutchinson if she could understand her. She managed to answer by moving her eyes up on command.
"It gave me such a relief," Hutchinson tells me 17 years later, "because everybody talked about me as if I was dying."
It is a chilly winter day at her home in eastern Massachusetts, and she's sitting in a wheelchair in the middle of the living room, dressed in a dark green jogging suit and sneakers. Still almost completely paralyzed and unable to speak, she communicates by looking at letters arrayed on a computer monitor bolted to her wheelchair, a camera tracking the movement of a tiny metal disk attached to the center of her eyeglasses.
Near the top of the brain is a region called the motor cortex, where we generate commands to move our muscles. For more than a century we've known that each part of the cortex corresponds to a particular area of the body. When people like Hutchinson become paralyzed, the motor cortex often remains intact, but it can't communicate with the rest of the body, because its connections have been destroyed. John Donoghue, a neuroscientist at Brown University, wanted to find a way to help people with paralysis by tapping into the signals from their motor cortex. Perhaps they could eventually learn to type on a computer or operate a machine merely with their thoughts. Donoghue spent years developing an implant and testing the device on monkeys. Once he and his colleagues knew it was safe, they were ready to start working with human patients.
One of them was Hutchinson. In 2005 surgeons at Rhode Island Hospital drilled a hole the size of a poker chip in her skull and inserted the sensor for Donoghue's device. About the size of a ladybug, the sensor contained a hundred miniature needles, which, pressing into Hutchinson's motor cortex, recorded the signals from nearby neurons. A set of wires anchored to this device passed through the hole in her skull and led to a metal connector sitting on her scalp.
After her surgery had healed, the Brown University researchers plugged Hutchinson's implant into a cable that relayed signal patterns from her brain to a cart of computers they wheeled into her room. As a first step, the scientists trained the computers to recognize signals in her motor cortex and use them to move a computer cursor around a screen. This was achieved the first time she tried because they had learned how to translate patterns of brain activity into movements. Two years later they coupled a robotic arm to the computers, refining a program that could interpret Hutchinson's brain signals to move the arm forward and back, to raise it up and down, and to open its robotic fingers and squeeze them shut.
After just a few sessions Hutchinson, the computer, and the robotic arm had become a team. "It felt natural," she tells me. So natural that one day she reached out for a cinnamon latte, grabbed it, and brought it to her lips to drink.
"Cathy's smile when she put down that drink—that's everything," Donoghue says.
Today Donoghue and other scientists are building on that success, hoping to create human-machine interfaces that will be powerful, safe, and easy. At Duke University Miguel Nicolelis has been experimenting with exoskeletons that strap on to the body. Signals from the brain control each limb. Already he has gotten monkeys to control full-body exoskeletons. If all goes well, a paraplegic wearing a simpler version of the device will deliver the opening kick at the 2014 World Cup in Nicolelis's native Brazil.
"Eventually brain implants will become as common as heart implants," says Nicolelis. "I have no doubt about that."
When it comes to the brain, predicting the future is a tricky game. Advances in the past have inspired giddy expectations that in many cases have not been met. "We can't tell a schizophrenic brain from an autistic brain from a normal brain," says Christof Koch. But the research that's going on now, he believes, is moving neuroscience to a remarkable new stage. "I think we can begin to put the pieces together."


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Steven Horwitz writes
In some free-market circles fractional reserve banking (FRB) is blamed for everything from business cycles to bad breath. Defenders are seen as apologists for inflation and fraud. Thankfully these views remain a minority because they are gravely mistaken. As I, and other Austrian monetary theorists, such as George Selgin and Larry White, have argued, there's nothing wrong with FRB that getting rid of a central bank can't cure. Fractional reserve banking works just fine in a free market.
As you'd expect, his post has kicked off a lively discussion. The debate rolls on.

subset: commoncrawl


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The days are counting down and can you believe Pagan Pride Raleigh 2013 is only 60 days away (just under 2 month for those who aren't counting)? Trust me, everyone involved in the festival can not wait for it to get here.
We have a many returning vendors such as Camelot Treasures, The Sojourner Whole Earth Provisions, and Truely Unique. In addition to the returning vendors, we also have a brand new group of vendors to we would like to welcome this year. Please welcome Bewitching Dreams, Diane's Creations, and the Mystical Gift Shop to name a few!
While we all love the vendors and the musical acts, Pagan Pride Raleigh wouldn't be what it is without the amazing workshops we host with topics ranging from Wild Earth Magick with Poetry with presenter Dena M. Ferrari, Understanding Astrocartography with Darrell Steen, and Spiritual House Cleaning with Magus.
The 2013 Pagan Pride Raleigh event is shaping up to be one of the we've ever had and will no doubt be one of the largest Pagan Events in the US this year!
We can't wait to see you all there!


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1972 Chevy C-10 Cheyenne Super - The C-10 King
Related Video
Now that we've all been briefed about Rene Martinez's state of mind and well-being in the feature on his '68 CST (page 20), we'll take another dive into his utilitarian psyche with a look at the 12th '67-72 Chevy to reside in his garage. Rene found this truck on eBay not too long after he bought what he says was the most beautiful truck he'd seen yet, an ultra-clean dark green and white '72 Cheyenne Super even his wife said he needed. Well, when the auction ended on this ochre and white shortbed before your eyes, it looked like he needed this one, too!
Number 12 arrived as a cherry original truck that just needed a polish and a lowering job. Remember the bit about Rene seeing a slammed mustard Chevy that got his wheels turning? After having a dozen of these things, he knows his way around 'em fairly well, and in the shade of the 1,800-square-foot shop he recently built in his backyard to better facilitate his habit, he buffed the stock paint and polished the original chrome with blinding results.
Rene got down and dirty with his buddies at Fat Fender in Fresno to rid the '72 of its nosebleed stance. They used parts from Early Classic Enterprises to bring the front down 3 1/2 inches, while the back came down a full 5 inches to lower and level the Cheyenne Super that much closer to the dirt. Other than that, the truck's underpinnings are as GM intended, with factory power disc and drum brakes capped with Boyd Coddington Hot Rod 8x10 and 10x20 wheels that give the Chevy that "just right" stance.
Inside the cab, the interior is 100 percent original, including the houndstooth upholstery. Like Rene's CST, this one has a fully instrumented dash panel with the factory tach, but unlike the CST, this has a tilt column that Kevin Hernandez at Kev's Classics freshened up. You'll also notice the factory air conditioning, which is a must in the sweltering summers of Atwater, California, and the Delco AM radio still tunes in with the best of 'em.
Under the hood might be Rene's favorite thing about this truck, a ZZ4 crate motor. Even with its Edelbrock 750-cfm carb, this puppy gets 19 mpg on the open road. The balanced and blueprinted 10:1 motor has a forged steel crank, powdered rods, and a .510-lift hydraulic roller cam that puts the ponies to the ground via a 700-R4 trans through the stock 12-bolt. The MSD HEI starts the fire that leaves through a 2 1/2-inch exhaust system with block huggers and Super Sonic turbo mufflers.
With the economy and comfort of a new truck but 10 times the cool factor, this one gets picked out of the bunch for cruising duties quite often. Rene loves leaving his buddies with similar trucks at the gas station while he's still got half a tank to spare. You can bet he's using the money he saves on gas for another C-10!
|Rene Martinez
|Atwater, California
|1972 Chevy C-10 Cheyenne Super
|Rear suspensioN:
|stock w/5" drop Early Classic coils
|Rear brakes:
|stock drum
|Front suspension:
|stock w/3 1/2" drop Early Classic coils
|Front brakes:
|stock power disc
|Steering Box:
|Saginaw power
|Front wheelS:
|Coddington Hot Rod 8x20
|Rear wheelS:
|Coddington Hot Rod 10x20
|Front tires:
|Hankook 245/40R20
|Rear tires:
|Hankook 275/40R20
|Gas tank:
|stock in-cab
|Year and make:
|'98 Chevy ZZ4 350ci
|Chevy 58cc aluminum
|Valve Covers:
|stock stamped steel
|Manifold / Induction:
|Edelbrock / Edelbrock 750 cfm
|block hugger
|Super Sonic turbo
|Chevy 700-R4
|Cheyenne Super
|Bodywork and paint by:
|General Motors
|Paint Color:
|ochre and white
|Headlights / Taillights:
|stock chrome
|stock w/tach
|Air conditioning:
|stock GM
|Steering wheel:
|Steering column:
|stock tilt
|stock bench
|Material / Color:
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Agencies Make Plans to Face Diversity Issues
In a move to avoid embarrassment during Advertising Week, several Interpublic and WPP agencies, have promised to set goals for increasing black representation at their firms and signed agreements with the City of New York that call for the agencies to provide reports on hiring, promotion and retention and to develop recruitment programs. The City's Human Rights Commission has plans to hold hearings beginning September 25 at which agency executives would have to testify to their company's position in the area of diversity.
According to the Human Rights Commission Chair Patricia Gatling, African American make up one quarter of the city's population. That's is sharp contrast to findings by the Commission that just two percent of agency upper management are black. Of 8,000 employees looked at in the industry by the Commission, 22 percent make over $100,000 in contrast to 2.5 percent of African-Americans.
Omnicom is conspicuously absent from these agreements saying they are crafting their own internal effort towards increasing diversity at their agencies. The agency plans to finance its own diversity program associated with Medgar College.
Ever the touchy subject, the lack of diversity could stem from any number of areas. Perhaps agencies really aren't recruiting heavily enough. Perhaps, as on ad exec has pointed out, there's far more money to be made at an early career stage on Wall Street or at a Fortune 500 company. Why toil as a lowly agency employee, not even making rent money, when one can make 3-4 times that in most other industries? Perhaps there truly is conscious or unconscious racial profiling going on to protect the old white boy's club. It's unclear but now seems to be the time to hit the issue head on.
Topic: Agencies, Good, Policy


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ALLIANCE, Ohio -- Fifth-ranked Mount Union won its second consecutive and record 33rd Ohio Athletic Conference title at the OAC championships at Peterson Fieldhouse.
Mount Union junior Tyler Mettille repeated as Don Frail Most Outstanding Sprint Athlete while junior Sean Donnelly was awarded Bud Yoest Outstanding Field Athlete.
Fourth year men's head coach Kevin Lucas and his staff was named OAC Coaching Staff of the Year for a second consecutive year.
The Purple Raiders amassed 206 points which was 75 points clear of second place Ohio Northern (131). John Carroll (104), Otterbein (83) and Baldwin Wallace (66) finished out the top five.
Mettille was part of three event victories as he won the 200-meter dash with an OAC and school-record time of 22.20 seconds, the 400 meter dash with a time of 49.18 and was part of a 4x200 meter relay team with Chase Swisher, Tyler Sparks and Chad Gentry that won with an OAC and school-record time of 1:28.91.
Donnelly swept both the weight throw, with an OAC record mark of 67-9, and the shot put (54-2 3/4).
Other event wins came from Sparks in the 500 meters with a school record time of 1 minute, 5.06 seconds, Dan McGeary, in the 3,000 meters (8:41.13), Josh Clemence in the 1,000 meters (2:34.65), Gerardo Vargas in the pole vault (15-8.25).
Top three finishes earned all-conference honors.
Swisher had three third place finishes in 200 meters (22.34), 60 meter dash (7.00) and long jump (22-10).
Zach Wukotich placed second in the high jump (6-10.25) while McGeary grabbed a second in the 1 mile run (4:24.87) and Alex Wilson was second in the 5,000 meters (15:24.87).
The 4x400 meter relay team of Gentry, Sparks, Andrew Schroeder and Dannie Mack finished second (3:22.98).
Southern Connecticut State wins New England championships; No. 7 MIT 16th, No. 9 Tufts tied for 23rd
BOSTON, Mass. -- Just two individuals and one relay competed for No. 7 MIT on the second day of the New England championships. Tech wrapped up the weekend in 16th place out of the 37 entered in the meet with 13 points.
Sophomores Carrington Motley and Angel Echevarria competed in the Triple Jump. Motley came in sixth with a jump of 47-01.00, while Echevarria was 10th in 45-06.25. Both were narrowly off their season-best marks.
MIT's 4x400 relay came in fifth place with a time of 3:15.58, crossing the line two tenths of a second behind Tufts's relay with its time of 3:15.35.
The Tufts quartet of senior Graham Beutler and sophomores Mitch Black, Francis Goins and Alex Kasemir broke the school record and qualified for NCAA's in the 4x400 relay.
The group's time of 3:15.35 was good enough for fourth in the meet, ranks in the top five nationally, and broke the school record of 3:16.36 set in 2012.
The 4x4 scored five of the Jumbos eight points in the meet, which landed Tufts in a tie for 23rd of 37 scoring teams. Southern Connecticut State (118), Rhode Island (99) and Northeastern (96) were the top-three squads.
Buffalo State captures second SUNYAC title
BROCKPORT, N.Y. -- Buffalo State won its second State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) title with 130 points. Oneonta followed with 122 points while Cortland placed third with 109 points.
The Bengals' foursome of Cory Cox, Alex Ngabo, Dallas Taylor and Austin Becker ran the 4 x 400 relay in 3:21.61 breaking the conference meet record set by Buffalo State in 2011. Richard Pete also broke a conference meet record set in 1982 after jumping 14.88 in the triple jump.


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The Great Steelhead Rescue
Soon after a century-old mill dam was destroyed by flooding, the small creek behind Jeff Opperman's house played host to dozens of steelhead making their way up the Chagrin River. The freshwater scientist with The Nature Conservancy used their arrival as an opportunity to reflect on nature in the age of human domination.
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March in northeast Ohio delivered several unexpected gifts: Day after day of pure sunshine, and river monsters that slipped silently into our backyard.
On a cool and clear Saturday, those river monsters dragged me from a self-seeded mental briar patch of angst and distraction. As someone who's written about nature's value as refuge in our too-often over-committed and frenetic world, they delivered a bracing reminder to practice what I preach.
The day started with the realization that I had dropped the ball. My wife, Paola, had searched for the perfect cabin for our spring break, leaving me to choose between two (alas, we had a surprising number of variables to fulfill, including a pond for my fishing-obsessed fourth grader, Luca). Her email with the links to my choices sank deep into my inbox, and I never responded. Four days went by and, that Saturday, we called; both were booked earlier that day.
Needless to say, Paola was not happy. I stammered, protested, apologized, and then vowed I'd solve the problem.
I sat down at the dining room table, opened my laptop, and began my quest for redemption. Luca filled the vacuum of parental oversight by playing Roblox, a stealth invader freely available on the Internet that had crept past our imperfect vigilance of "screen time."
I wallowed in my failure and the pitiful irony of it all: a gorgeous Saturday spent on a computer, trying to atone for my distracted oversight as my son played video games; I searched for a vacation retreat in nature even as sunlight loped through the trees of the small patch of forest behind our house.
My daughter broke the dark spell. She stood in the kitchen, a hat pulled down almost to her eyes, and said, "Daddy, let's go look for treasure in the creek." Wren had a knack for finding things buried in the gravel of our backyard: bricks from old houses, a toy tin car from the 1930s. These treasures were slowly shuffling their way down the creek, moving a few feet in a flood, then buried again in gravel, waiting for the next flood's nudge—or for a budding archaeologist to unearth them.
I sighed, closed my laptop, and joined her.
We walked through the woods searching the ground for the season's first ramps poking through the wet leaves. As we approached a long, flat glide of the creek I saw something out of the corner of my eye. A large, dark shape darted in the clear water under the surface.
It so briefly crossed through the edge of my vision that I was at a loss, "What the … is that an otter?" I couldn't think of anything else that size that could be in our tiny creek—easily crossed by a jump or two on most days.
I clambered over the rocks toward the water, and it darted again. Now looking right at it—a dark torpedo with a v-shaped wake—it clicked. I'd seen this before, salmon knifing through the shallows of a California river. But I still struggled to reconcile this fish with its surroundings. It seemed as logical as a chimp swinging from the oak by our deck.
Another step, another click. "Steelhead! Wren, there are steelhead in the creek!"
Now I remembered. Just a year before, a huge flood had destroyed a century-old mill dam on the Chagrin River, six miles downstream. The dam had been the primary barrier for steelhead trout swimming up the Chagrin from Lake Erie. (Steelhead are simply rainbow trout that live the life of a salmon. They are born in a stream, grow large in the ocean, or in this case, a Great Lake, then return to their birthplace to spawn.) When the dam blew out, I told Luca that the steelhead should be able to swim all the way to Chagrin Falls. But I didn't expect them in our creek. Though a small tributary to the Chagrin, our creek's connection to the river was through a 570-foot culvert buried under a road, apartment building, and parking lot.
But there they were. Searching the clear water, I saw four of them huddled in the deepest part of the long pool, tucked under some overhanging roots. Another hunkered down next to a rock, looking almost comically out of proportion with its surroundings, like a Great Dane riding in a mini Cooper. The giant fish must have come up during the recent storm when the creek was high. A week of clear weather followed the storm and the water had dropped and now most of the creek was too shallow for them.
I pulled out my phone and called home: "Luca, you've got to see this. There are steelhead in the creek!"
He appeared ridiculously fast, as if he'd beamed down (or apparated, in his worldview) rather than walked the 400 feet down a steep slope and through the swamp of skunk cabbage.
The kids were enthralled. But they could recognize the fish were oversized for their surroundings and they began to ask about their future.
I knew that the Lake Erie steelhead were maintained by a hatchery because there was little natural reproduction; juvenile steelhead need one to two years in a stream, and our streams simply get too warm during the late summer for them to survive. Thinking that their appearance in this creek must have required unusual flow conditions, I couldn't imagine them getting out on their own. "Well, the creek is going to keep getting lower and warmer and they'll probably die," I told them, speaking like a biologist.
The kids didn't want a biologist. They wanted Cousin Diego, or really anybody who would roll up their sleeves and step in and intervene with nature's harsh realities. "Can't we save them?" they pleaded.
I didn't know what to say. We probably should just leave them alone and let "nature run its course." On the other hand, I thought, what about the native fish of the stream? The steelhead were stocked in the Great Lakes beginning in the 1960s as a replacement for dwindling populations of lake trout. These introduced giants were now in our relatively healthy stream. Unlike salmon, steelhead continue to feed on their upstream migration, and I thought they could wipe out the comparatively puny resident fish during their few weeks' visit. And then I caught myself—what the hell's wrong with me? Stop thinking like a scientist and just let the kids have fun.
We got a net and a five-gallon bucket and the great steelhead rescue was on.
I waded into the deep part of the pool and flushed a fish upstream. Once it was in the shallows Luca pounced with his net.
The first fish we caught was shockingly big and beautiful, a blaze of red shot through a constellation of black spots on its glistening flanks. Its gill covers too glowed an angry red. As I transferred it from the net to the bucket it flexed and fought, and I struggled to hold on to its 10 pounds of surging muscle.
I awkwardly carried the sloshing bucket to the river, and we released the fish into the flowing water. We repeated that two more times. The net broke capturing the third fish, so the next two we caught with our bare hands.
We sat on the banks of the Chagrin River, exhausted and thrilled. Speaking with an authoritative air, I told the kids that it must have been unusual flow conditions that allowed them to come up our stream, and that we'd just experienced a wonderful, but rare, gift.
The next week there were 25.
A few days after a small rain, Luca came running up from the creek screaming that it was full of steelhead. I was sure he was exaggerating, but headed down to see. I started at the culvert and walked upstream. I saw one hiding at the edge of a small pool and waded in. Suddenly the pool exploded with four to five fish bursting out, brushing over my feet and knocking into my legs. As I waded upstream, I could see steelhead tucked into nearly every possible spot that provided enough depth to cover their backs. He wasn't exaggerating. Our creek was full of steelhead.
Far too many to rescue, I thought. Nature would have to take its course this time.
And eventually it did. But first, the kids took their course. As the creek shrank again, they dammed up areas to make deep "rehabilitation ponds" and transferred the fish there. They reported that they were able to get a half dozen into the culvert and that the fish swam away downstream even though the water was just an inch deep through the concrete box.
For a week, the whole neighborhood was captivated. After school, the kids gathered to watch the fish and move them to safer spots, if they could. They gave the fish names and reported on their distinct qualities. The creek, and perhaps all creeks, will never look quite the same to them.
These steelhead seem an apt symbol for nature in the anthropocene—the recently dubbed name for our current geologic era, one characterized by human domination of earth's major systems. Here the steelhead are a non-native species introduced to salvage a fishery in damaged lakes. The lakes have made great progress and now support commercial and recreational fisheries valued in the billions. Lake Erie, once declared "biologically dead," now offers up more fish than the other Great Lakes combined in an economically vital fishery composed of both native and introduced species. The lakes need continued attention with invasive species, climate change, and agricultural runoff threatening to erode decades of progress.
Native or not, these steelhead are ambassadors of wonder that can connect all of us to what persists: lakes and rivers that have been roughed up over the years but still remain the sources of incredible value to the people of the region. They remind us of our responsibilities, both for past losses and for the future. The anthropocene may mean we've left our mark nearly everywhere, but it doesn't mean that nature has been banished. We still depend on it, whether for clean drinking water or for the adrenaline rush of magnificent, fighting fish that link us to a primal past and shake us to be present in the present.
We had a freakishly warm March, with seven straight days in the 80s. Fuzzy white fungus began to grow on the steelheads' back and sides. Stinky carcasses, sometimes 30 feet from the creek, revealed that possums, raccoons, and coyotes were also enjoying a wonderful gift.
Finally, there was just one left —diminutive, almost small enough to be appropriately proportioned to this creek. He was likely a "jack," a precocious male that returns early as a small fish to surreptitiously join the reproductive dance by sidling up alongside a mating giant like a shepherd boy consorting with a goddess beneath the folds of Zeus' own robe.
Preordained to be scrappy, he persisted weeks longer than the rest, lurking in a deep pool where the kids had moved him with an enormous gnarled root mass providing a labyrinth of cover. He made it through the early hot spell and, who knows, perhaps is still hunkered down in his deep, cool refuge.
I asked Luca what his name was, reflecting on the others they'd given: Wren Jr., Luca Jr., Aidan Jr., Bomdiggity, Bomdiggity Jr., and Sir Awesome.
"Sir Viver," he said, "Get it? Sir … Viver?"
Like nature in the anthropocene: surviving, fighting, persisting and, where given the chance, thriving.
Jeff Opperman is a senior freshwater scientist at The Nature Conservancy, where he focuses on improving the environmental sustainability of hydropower.


text:
A Spiritual Treasury for the Children of God: Consisting of a Meditation for the Morning of Each Day in the Year, Upon Select Texts of Scripture ...
Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1765 - 510 sidor
Andra upplagor - Visa alla
A Spiritual Treasury for the Children of God: Consisting of a ..., Volym 1
William Mason
Obegränsad förhandsgranskning - 1803
A Spiritual Treasury for the Children of God: Consisting of a ..., Volym 1
William Mason
Obegränsad förhandsgranskning - 1803
A Spiritual Treasury for the Children of God: Consisting of a ..., Volym 1
William Mason
Obegränsad förhandsgranskning - 1803
Vanliga ord och fraser
affections assurance believe beloved blessed blood body bring called carnal cause Christ christian comfort confidence conscience corrupt covenant daily dear death delight desire disciples distress doth earth elect enemy enjoy eternal everlasting evil experience eyes faith Father fear feel flesh fruits give glorify glorious glory God's gospel grace hand happy hath hear heart heaven Hence holy honour hope humble Jesus John joyful keep knowledge light live look Lord lusts mind nature never object Paul peace perfect poor pray prayer precious present pride promises reason receive rejoice rest rich righteousness saints saith salvation Satan saved Saviour sense sight sinners sins soul speak Spirit suffer sure sweet thee thine things thou thou art thou hast thoughts true truth unto views walk wisdom wrath
Populära avsnitt
Sida 114 - Thy words were found, and I did eat them ; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O Lord God of Hosts.
Sida 18 - I will hear what God the Lord will speak: for he will speak peace unto his people, and to his saints: but let them not turn again to folly.
Sida 414 - But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
Sida 279 - Come, and let us return unto the Lord: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight.
Sida 156 - What shall we say then ? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound ? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein...
Sida 261 - Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations : that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.
Sida 112 - My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written; Which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.
Sida 225 - The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in Him. The Lord is good unto them that wait for Him, to the soul that seeketh Him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.
Sida 145 - But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so. your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
Sida 187 - By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name. 16 But to do good and to communicate forget not : for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.


text:
"Vaisampayana said,--"After the Pandavas had gone to the forest, Dhritarashtra the son of Amvika, whose knowledge was his eye, 1 became exceedingly sorrowful. And seated at his ease the king addressed these words to the virtuous Vidura of profound intelligence, 'Thy understanding is
p. 14
as clear as that of Bhargava. 1 Thou knowest also all the subtleties or morality, and thou lookest on all the Kauravas with an equal eye. O, tell me what is proper for me and them. O Vidura, things having thus taken their course, what should we do now? How may I secure the goodwill of the citizens so that they may not destroy us to the roots? O, tell us all, since thou art conversant with every excellent expedient.'
"Vidura said, 'The three-fold purposes, O king (viz., profit, pleasure, and salvation), have their foundations in virtue, and the sages say that a kingdom also standeth on virtue as its basis. Therefore, O monarch, according to the best of thy power, cherish thou virtuously thy own sons and those of Pandu. That virtue had been beguiled by wicked souls with Suvala's son at their head, when thy sons invited the righteous Yudhishthira and defeated him in the match at dice. O king, of this deed of utter iniquity I behold this expiation whereby, O chief of the Kurus, thy son, freed from sin, may win back his position among good men. Let the sons of Pandu, obtain that which was given unto them by thee. For, verily, even this is the highest morality that a king should remain content with his own, and never covet another's possessions. Thy good name then would not suffer nor would family dissensions ensue, nor unrighteousness be thine. This then is thy prime duty now,--to gratify the Pandavas and disgrace Sakuni. If thou wishest to restore to thy sons the good fortune they have lost, then, O king, do thou speedily adopt this line of conduct. If thou dost not act so, the Kurus will surely meet with destruction, for neither Bhimasena nor Arjuna, if angry, will leave any of their foes unslain. What is there in the world which is unattainable to those who cannot among their warriors Savyasachin skilled in arms; who have the Gandiva, the most powerful of all weapons in the world, for their bow; and who have amongst them the mighty Bhima also as a warrior? Formerly, as soon as thy son was born, I told thee,--Forsake thou this inauspicious child of thine. Herein lieth the good of thy race.--But thou didst not then act accordingly. Nor also, O king, have I pointed out to thee the way of thy welfare. If thou doest as I have counselled, thou shalt not have to repent afterwards. If thy son consent to reign in peace jointly with the sons of Pandu, passing thy days in joy thou shalt not have to repent. Should it be otherwise, abandon thou thy child for thy own happiness. Putting Duryodhana aside, do thou install the son of Pandu in the sovereignty, and let, O king, Ajatasatru, free from passion, rule the earth virtuously. All the kings of the earth, then, like Vaisyas, will, without delay, pay homage unto us. And, O king, let Duryodhana and Sakuni and Karna with alacrity wait upon the Pandavas. And let Dussasana, in open court, ask forgiveness of Bhimasena and of the daughter of Drupada also.
p. 15
[paragraph continues] And do thou pacify Yudhishthira by placing him on the throne with every mark of respect. Asked by thee, what else can I counsel thee to do? By doing this, O monarch, thou wouldst do what was proper.'
'Dhritarashtra said, 'These words, O Vidura, then thou hast spoken in this assembly, with reference to the Pandavas and myself, are for their good but not for ours. My mind doth not approve them. How hast thou settled all this in thy mind now? When thou hast spoken all this on behalf of the Pandavas, I perceive that thou art not friendly to me. How can I abandon my son for the sake of the sons of Pandu? Doubtless they are my sons, but Duryodhana is sprung from my body. Who then, speaking with impartiality, will ever counsel me to renounce my own body for the sake of others? O Vidura, all that thou sayest is crooked, although I hold thee in high esteem. Stay or go as thou likest. However much may she be humoured, an unchaste will forsaketh her husband.'
"Vaisampayana said, O king, saying this Dhritarashtra rose suddenly and went into the inner apartments. And Vidura, saying 'This race is doomed' went away to where the sons of Pritha were.'"
13:1 Dhritarashtra being blind is described as Pragnachakshu, i.e. having knowledge for his eye. It may also mean. "Of the prophetic eye."
14:1 The great preceptor of the Asuras, viz., Sukra, possessing the highest intelligence as evidenced by his various works on all manner of subjects particularly, the Sukra-niti.


text:
October 9, 2009
A Central Place for All Your Google Files
The "insert" dialog from Google Sites is Google's first attempt to aggregate the user generated data from the most important Google services: documents, spreadsheets, forms, presentations, calendars, custom maps, photos, bookmarks. Everything is searchable and you can see a list of most of the documents created using Google services.
We'll probably see this dialog more often when Google adds it to Gmail, Google Calendar or when it morphs into a full-fledged service.
If you don't like that the dialog is part of Google Sites, there's a direct URL for the document picker (internally named "Google OnePick"), but you can't use it to open files.
13 comments:
I don't use Google Sites myself, so I don't know if it's coming from it... What is the "Folders" entry ?ReplyDelete
Well, everything is good, except for the lack of support for insert PDF files in Google Docs... ...ReplyDelete
"What is the "Folders" entry ?"
These are the Google Docs folders, i.e. the folders in your Google Docs account if you have one.
@Cookie Lee
"except for the lack of support for insert PDF files in Google Docs.."
PDFs can be uploaded to Google Docs, in which way does this differ from what you want to be possible?
I mean PDF files aren't shown in the dialog described above.
useful, really useful.ReplyDelete
Very nice! But it would be even better if they intergated picasa and youtube into google docs. And add folder sharing.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousOctober 9, 2009 at 12:20 PM
I agree! Any idea when google will merge picasa web with docs? If I'm not wrong its been more that a year now since something has been said regarding this topic.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousOctober 9, 2009 at 1:59 PM
Agreed with PDF. Not being able to insert PDFs from Docs into Sites is singlehandedly preventing me from using Sites for a business solution.ReplyDelete
very usefull stuff here! like all of googles sites.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousOctober 9, 2009 at 8:46 PM
Use Get Drop Box. It is the best. Much better than Docs.ReplyDelete
ah i can't wait to upload all my files to the google cloud! Please take all my files google!ReplyDelete
- AnonymousOctober 15, 2009 at 12:10 PM
OK, So Folders doesn't actually share folders, but allows you to traverse your own? I wish it could actually share out the folder in some kind of widget fashion. I think that would beat File Cabinet pages in terms of flexibility for Apps business users.ReplyDelete
Is it possible to edit system footer and header in Google Sites?ReplyDelete
Some times ago I visited a Russian site builded on Google Sites WITHOUT FOOTER. But can't find at the net how to make that.


text: In this collection, you'll find tiles, mirrors, furniture, and sinks. Some are available for immediate delivery, and some are examples of what you might order. If you need to place an order, please call me. Orders will be handled in the order received, and generally take 8-12 weeks to complete, depending on the season. For additional inspiration, go to the Tile Installations section to see images of completed custom orders. Feel free to call me to get pictures of individual tiles I happen to have in stock at any given moment.


text:
Till January of this year, the Wahoo Key for iPhone ($80) dongle pwned fitness on the iPhone. Why? Because the tiny, ubiquitous dongle gives the iPhone access to dozens of ANT+ sensors, and more fitness apps than any other system — turning your iPhone into a fitness-tracking powerhouse.
Then in January, Wahoo one-upped itself and introduced the Wahoo Blue Bluetooth heart-rate strap, which completely bypasses ANT+ and instead communicates via low-energy Bluetooth v4.0. Does this mean the Key is obsolete? Not by a long shot.


text:
In addition to the most recent figures on prosecutions, TRAC continues to provide additional free reports on current enforcement trends. Go to
TRAC is self-supporting and depends on foundation grants, individual contributions and subscription fees for the funding needed to obtain, analyze and publish the data we collect on the activities of the US Federal government. To help support TRAC's ongoing efforts, go to:


text:
NIH staff now have access to SciFinder-n, a comprehensive collection of chemical substances, reactions, and literature references, curated by expert scientists.
Announcements & News
Working Remotely? View HSTalks Biomedical & Life Sciences Online Lectures
The NIH Library is pleased to provide trial access to the HSTalks Biomedical & Life Sciences Collection of online lectures.


text:
Accounting for Nonrefundable Fees and Costs Associated with Originating or Acquiring Loans and Initial Direct Costs of Leases—an amendment of FASB Statements No. 13, 60, and 65 and a rescission of FASB Statement No. 17 (Issued 12/86)
This Statement establishes the accounting for nonrefundable fees and costs associated with lending, committing to lend, or purchasing a loan or group of loans. This project was undertaken in response to an AICPA Issues Paper that indicated a diversity in practice in the accounting for nonrefundable fees and costs associated with lending activities.
The provisions of this Statement apply to all types of loans (including debt securities) as well as to all types of lenders (including banks, thrift institutions, insurance companies, mortgage bankers, and other financial and nonfinancial institutions). This Statement also specifies the accounting for fees and initial direct costs associated with leasing.
The Statement specifies that:
Loan origination fees shall be recognized over the life of the related loan as an adjustment of yield.
Certain direct loan origination costs shall be recognized over the life of the related loan as a reduction of the loan's yield.
All loan commitment fees shall be deferred except for certain retrospectively determined fees; commitment fees meeting specified criteria shall be recognized over the loan commitment period; all other commitment fees shall be recognized as an adjustment of yield over the related loan's life or, if the commitment expires unexercised, recognized in income upon expiration of the commitment.
Loan fees, certain direct loan origination costs, and purchase premiums and discounts on loans shall be recognized as an adjustment of yield generally by the interest method based on the contractual terms of the loan. However, prepayments may be anticipated in certain specified circumstances.
This Statement changes the practice of recognizing loan origination and commitment fees at or prior to inception of the loan. It rescinds FASB Statement No. 17, Accounting for Leases-Initial Direct Costs, and amends FASB Statements No. 13, Accounting for Leases; No. 60, Accounting and Reportingby Insurance Enterprises; and No. 65, Accounting for Certain Mortgage Banking Activities.
This Statement shall be applied prospectively to all lending and leasing transactions entered into and commitments granted in fiscal years beginning after December 15, 1987 with earlier application encouraged in fiscal years for which annual financial statements have not previously been issued. Retroactive application with restatement of the financial statements for all prior years presented is encouraged but not required.


text:
C-x C-f "find" file i.e. open/create a file in buffer
C-x C-s save the file
C-x C-w write the text to an alternate name
C-x C-v find alternate file
C-x i insert file at cursor position
C-x b create/switch buffers
C-x C-b show buffer list
C-x k kill buffer
C-z suspend emacs
C-X C-c close down emacs
C-f forward char
C-b backward char
C-p previous line
C-n next line
M-f forward one word
M-b backward one word
C-a beginning of line
C-e end of line
C-v one page up
M-v scroll down one page
M-< beginning of text
M-> end of text
M-n repeat the following command n times
C-u repeat the following command 4 times
C-u n repeat n times
C-d delete a char
M-d delete word
M-Del delete word backwards
C-k kill line
C-Space Set beginning mark (for region marking for example)
C-W "kill" (delete) the marked region region
M-W copy the marked region
C-y "yank" (paste) the copied/killed region/line
M-y yank earlier text (cycle through kill buffer)
C-x C-x exchange cursor and mark
C-t transpose two chars
M-t transpose two words
C-x C-t transpose lines
M-u make letters uppercase in word from cursor position to end
M-c simply make first letter in word uppercase
M-l opposite to M-u
C-g quit the running/entered command
C-x u undo previous action
M-x revert-buffer RETURN (insert like this) undo all changes since last save
M-x recover-file RETURN Recover text from an autosave-file
M-x recover-session RETURN if you edited several files
C-h c which command does this keystroke invoke
C-h k which command does this keystroke invoke and what does it do?
C-h l what were my last 100 typed keys
C-h w what key-combo does this command have?
C-h f what does this function do
C-h v what's this variable and what is it's value
C-h b show all keycommands for this buffer
C-h t start the emacs tutorial
C-h i start the info reader
C-h C-k start up info reader and go to a certain key-combo point
C-h F show the emacs FAQ
C-h p show infos about the Elisp package on this machine
C-s Search forward
C-r search backward
C-g return to where search started (if you are still in search mode)
M-% query replace
Space or yreplace this occurence
Del or ndon't replace
.only replace this and exit (replace)
,replace and pause (resume with Space or y)
!replace all following occurences
^back to previous match
RETURN or qquit replace
^ beginning of line
$ end of line
. single char
.* group or null of chars
\< beginning of a word
\> end of a word
[] every char inside the backets (for example [a-z] means every small letter)
M C-s RETURN search for regular expression forward
M C-r RETURN search for regular expression backward
M C-s incremental search
C-s repeat incremental search
M C-r incremental search backwards
C-r repeat backwards
M-x query-replace-regexp search and replace
C-x 2 split window vertically
C-x o change to other window
C-x 0 delete window
C-x 1 close all windows except the one the cursors in
C-x ^ enlarge window
M-x shrink-window command says it ;-)
M C-v scroll other window
C-x 4 f find file in other window
C-x 4 o change to other window
C-x 4 0 kill buffer and window
C-x 5 2 make new frame
C-x 5 f find file in other frame
C-x 5 o change to other frame
C-x 5 0 close this frame
C-x r m set a bookmark at current cursor pos
C-x r b jump to bookmark
M-x bookmark-rename says it
M-x bookmark-delete "
M-x bookmark-save "
C-x r l list bookmarks
dmark bookmark for deletion
rrename bookmark
ssave all listed bookmarks
fshow bookmark the cursor is over
mmark bookmarks to be shown in multiple window
vshow marked bookmarks (or the one the cursor is over)
ttoggle listing of the corresponding paths
w" path to this file
xdelete marked bookmarks
qquit bookmark list
M-x bookmark-write write all bookmarks in given file
M-x bookmark-load load bookmark from given file
M-x shell starts shell modus
C-c C-c same as C-c under unix (stop running job)
C-d delete char forward
C-c C-d Send EOF
C-c C-z suspend job (C-z under unix)
M-p show previous commands
C-x d start up dired
C (large C) copy
d mark for erase
D delete right away
e or f open file or directory
g reread directory structure from file
G change group permissions (chgrp)
k delete line from listing on screen (don't actually delete)
m mark with *
n move to next line
o open file in other window and go there
C-o open file in other window but don't change there
P print file
q quit dired
Q do query-replace in marked files
R rename file
u remove mark
v view file content
x delete files marked with D
z compress file
M-Del remove all marks (whatever kind)
~ mark backup files (name~ files) for deletion
# mark auto-save files (#name#) for deletion
*/ mark directory with * (C-u * removes that mark again)
= compare this file with marked file
M-= compare this file with it's backup file
! apply shell command to this file
M-} change to the next file marked with * od D
M-{ " previous "
% d mark files described through regular expression for deletion
% m " (with *)
+ create directory
> changed to next dir
< change to previous dir
s toggle between sorting by name or date
M-x speedbar starts up a separate window with a directory view
M-x telnet starts up telnet-modus
C-d either delete char or send EOF
C-c C-c stop running job (similar to C-c under unix)
C-c C-d send EOF
C-c C-o clear output of last command
C-c C-z suspend execution of command
C-c C-u kill line backwards
M-p recall previous command
M-s center line
M-S center paragraph
M-x center-region name says
C-x ( start macro definition
C-x ) end of macro definition
C-x e execute last definied macro
M-n C-x e execute last defined macro n times
M-x name-last-kbd-macro give name to macro (for saving)
M-x insert-keyboard-macro save named macro into file
M-x load-file load macro
M-x macroname execute macroname
M C-\ indent region between cursor and mark
M-m move to first (non-space) char in this line
M-^ attach this line to previous
M-; formatize and indent comment
M-a beginning of statement
M-e end of statement
M C-a beginning of function
M C-e end of function
C-c RETURN Set cursor to beginning of function and mark at the end
C-c C-q indent the whole function according to indention style
C-c C-a toggle modus in which after electric signs (like {}:';./*) emacs does the indention
C-c C-d toggle auto hungry mode in which emacs deletes groups of spaces with one del-press
C-c C-u go to beginning of this preprocessor statement
C-c C-c comment out marked area
M-x outline-minor-mode collapses function definitions in a
file to a mere {...}
M-x show-subtree If you are in one of the collapsed functions,
this un-collapses it
M-. (Thats Meta dot) If you are in a function call, this will
take you to it's definition
M-x tags-search ENTER Searches through all you etaged
M-, (Meta comma) jumps to the next occurence for tags-search
M-x tags-query-replace yum. This lets you replace some text in
all the tagged files
M-x gdb starts up gdm in an extra window
C-x v d show all registered files in this dir
C-x v = show diff between versions
C-x v u remove all changes since last checkin
C-x v ~ show certain version in different window
C-x v l print log
C-x v i mark file for version control add
C-x v h insert version control header into file
C-x v r check out named snapshot
C-x v s create named snapshot
C-x v a create changelog file in gnu-style


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This icon is a part of the fresco wall painting called "The Holy Women at the Tomb" in the Mileseva Monastery in Serbia, and was made between 1222 and 1228. Here the radiant angel dressed in the brightest white robes announces the Resurrection to the Myrrh-Bearing Women. They had come to the Tomb to bring fragrant spices to adorn Christ's body for burial early on Sunday morning after the Sabbath had ended, now a day and a half after He had been laid in a new tomb. The angel tells the women to fear not, as they seek Christ, for He is risen from the dead and will meet the Disciples soon. The angel then points to the empty tomb with the folded grave-clothes telling them to "look where the Lord lay."
This White Angel has also been called the Angel of the Resurrection, since he announced it. Pure white in icons often represents the Glory of God illumining Creation. Christ is often shown in white garments after the Resurrection and at the time of the Transfiguration, for it is at such times that the immaterial Light that illumines all of the immaterial Heavens is seen on earth by those whose hearts are ready to receive it. May we, too, join them.


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Israeli officials have expressed serious concerns over the safety of the Jewish community in Tunisia. Some 2,000 Jews still live in the country, and the Foreign Ministry's office for fighting anti-Semitism said that instability in the country could have serious negative effects on the country's Jews.
The recent murder of leftist opposition leader Chokri Belaid has brought hundreds of thousands of angry Tunisians out into the streets, as popular opposition to the country's Islamist regime grows. The unrest, combined with a weak economy and high unemployment – running at about 17%, as opposed to the 13% that prevailed under the regime of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, deposed as part of the Arab Spring rebellion in 2011 – could be a recipe for attacks on Jews, the Foreign Ministry said.
Public declarations of anti-Semitism, in social media and traditional media, have risen significantly in recent days, the Ministry said. In addition, local imams in mosques have been inciting against Jews, claiming that they are responsible for the liberal opposition to the Islamist Ennahda party, which runs the country.
Several Jewish cemeteries in Tunisia were desecrated this past week, local residents reported. Many residents are living behind locked doors out of fear that pogroms could evolve.
The Foreign Ministry has instructed Israeli diplomats around the world to ask the governments of the countries where they are stationed to intervene with the Tunisian government to ensure the safety of the country's Jews.


text:
Tips to choose size:
Pls use the similar cloth of yours to compare with size chart.
The Item is Asian Korean Size,3-4 size smaller than Euro/US. Pls check the size chart carefully1. Pls allow 1-3cm tolerance due to manual measure.
2. Color may slightly vary from the image due to different computer screen and light affect.
3.If you are not sure about the size, Pls let us know your weight,height, Bust,Waist info etc, We can help to choose correct size.


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In continuing with my series of quick social media tips (check out 5 tips for LinkedIn and 5 tips for Facebook) I'm covering some tips for business use of Twitter here. I've actually written about some of these tips in great detail before in this free ebook – Twitter for Business, but this can act as a quick primer for folks who like their info snack sized like this.
1. Tweet great content 3-4 times a day – Follow people who always find great stuff, subscribe to blogs that feature great links and reviews of new tools, scan weekly and daily email news digests such as SmartBriefs, cruise over to the delicious popular page and read print publications of interest. All of these sources (most of which can be scanned in a 15 minute sitting once you have them set up) are rich with content that your followers and the twitter world in general wants to read. One of the most valuable services you can provide is to be a filter for the information overload your prospects, customers and network are feeling. In a way, your twitter stream can become that valuable filter for pointing out the best content, but do it consistently and watch your follower count grow.
2. Reply to conversations (@ducttape) – One of the best ways to get engaged with those you follow is to join conversations where appropriate and offer answers and suggestions. Many common tweets come in the form of a question from someone looking for help. When you offer the solutions to these forms of tweets you automatically become more engaged and demonstrate some of your own knowledge, expertise and willingness to help. Obviously, you can't sit around all day answering questions, but by focusing on addressing conversations that are related to your industry and field of expertise, you can build a reputation around topics that matter to your business objectives. Use 3rd party tools such as Seesmic Desktop (make sure you look at their browser based tool if you are having resource issues with desktop tools) or Tweetdeck so that you can easily scan conversations and be ready to reply to conversations that are directly related to you.
3. Retweet other people's content – Another network and follower building practice is to retweet other people's tweets. This is simply the act of taking someone's tweet and tweeting it in your stream – with full credit to the original tweeter. This has become a very standard practice on twitter (designated with a RT) and can be overdone, but you can also use it for two purposes. If you are following people who tweet what you find to be very interesting content you are doing your followers a favor by sharing that content with them. In addition, you are, in effect, acknowledging the person whose content your retweeted. This is a nice bit of the culture of sharing and usually comes back in some form to help you build your following. People generally pay attention to the folks that are retweeting their content. However, this can become a crutch as well – make sure you are pushing your own content out in a nice mix. You can use tools like tweetmeme to track the most popular retweets. This can be a way to find new content for tip #1.
4. Use search to meet objectives – For many twitter power users search in the most important feature of twitter. You can use the twitter advanced search tool to create very elaborate searches that can filter out only the tweets that address your specific industry in your specific geography. Or you can find people talking about your expertise, whining about a problem you can help with, or proving a solution you need. Searches you create on twitter also produce an RSS feed so you can set your searches up in a way that deliver the results to your RSS reader on a daily basis. I would also include the use of the #hashtag function (I wrote in greater detail about hashtag use here) as a search tool. Get in the habit of using it to promote your events and promotions and while attending events, in person or online, as it's a great way to find and connect with like-minded folks attending events. People who follow the event tag from afar will bump into your content this way as well. Once again, 3rd party tools like Seesmic Desktop and Tweetdeck allow you to monitor your searches, including hashtags, on your desktop.
5. Be easy to retweet and follow – This one is both on twitter and off. Sharing great info is the first rule, but you can do other things as well. While twitter allows 140 characters, if you aim for 120 your tweets will be easier for someone to RT. This way people can add their handle and a bit of commentary. Use tools, such as the Tweetmeme WordPress plugin I have at the beginning of this post (go ahead you know you want to click that green retweet), that make your content off twitter easy to tweet. Add your "follow me on twitter" button to web pages, email newsletters and email signature. Add your @name to your business cards, stationary and invoices.