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European and national policies on Vocational Education and Training (VET) need to be informed by sound and internationally comparable statistical evidence. The VET country statistical overviews are concise, descriptive and user friendly statistical reports. For each country, they quantify and compare key aspects of VET and lifelong learning. The selection is based on the indicators' policy relevance and their importance in achieving the Europe 2020 objectives.
VET indicators for Denmark for the last available year
Index numbers (EU=100)
NB: The index numbers are derived from data summarised in the table. Data in the table have been rounded to one or two decimal places. The calculation of index numbers is instead based on not rounded data.
Denmark's performance on a range of indicators selected to monitor progress in VET and lifelong learning across the European Union (EU) is summarised below. The chart compares the situation in Denmark with that of the EU, based on the most recent data available (this differs by indicator). Data in the chart are presented as an index where the EU average equals 100. If the index for a selected indicator for Denmark is 100, then its performance equals the EU average. If the index is 90, its performance is 90% of (or 10% below) the EU average. If the index is 200, Denmark's performance is twice (or 200%) the EU average. For some indicators, such as early leavers from education and training, a country is performing better if its score is below that of the EU average.
Data on which the index is calculated are presented in the table, which also shows developments over time. A technical definition of each indicator is provided in the annex.
Key points
Access, attractiveness and flexibility
The percentage of upper secondary students in IVET (42.5%) is lower than the EU average (47.3%) but nearly all IVET students are engaged in combined work- and school-based programmes (99.7% compared with 28.4% in the EU, data for 2015). The share of upper secondary IVET students in programmes giving direct access to tertiary education (55.8%) is below the EU average (66.7%).
Data for 2016 show that adult participation in lifelong learning is more than two times the EU average (27.7% compared to 10.8%), and far above the average target (15%) set by the strategic framework Education and training 2020. Older adults, those with low-level education, and the unemployed are three to four times more likely to participate in lifelong learning than their counterparts across the EU. The percentage of adults who wanted to train, but did not, is slightly higher in Denmark (12.5%) than in the EU as a whole (9.5%).
Skill development and labour market relevance
Graduates from short-cycle VET programmes in Denmark account for a large share of first time graduates at tertiary level (17.9%), well above the EU average (9.0%).
The employment rate for IVET graduates (aged 20 to 34) at ISCED 3-4 (87.5%) is higher than the EU average (78.1%). Their employment rate is 6.7 percentage points higher than for graduates from general education (above the EU average premium of 5.7 percentage points) and 28.2 percentage points higher than the rate for graduates with lower-level qualifications (also above the EU average premium of 23.4). All these employment figures relate to 2016 and exclude young people in further education and training.
Overall transitions and labour market trends
In this section all data refer to 2016 unless otherwise stated.
Denmark scores favourably in nearly all indicators in this group. The rate of early leavers from education and training, at 7.2%, is lower than the EU average of 10.7%. This value for Denmark is below both the average target set by the Europe 2020 strategy and the national target of 10%. The percentage of 30 to 34 year-olds with tertiary-level education (47.7%) is higher than the EU average (39.1%), and surpasses both the Europe 2020 average target and the national target, both of which are set at 40%. The percentage of adults with a lower level of educational attainment in Denmark is lower than the EU average (19.3% compared with 23.0%). The employment rate for 20 to 64 year-olds (77.4%) is higher than the EU average (71.0%). The unemployment rate for 20 to 34 year-olds is 9.0%, lower than the EU average (11.8%). The NEET rate is about half that in the EU (7.7% compared with 15.2%).
Score on VET indicators in Denmark and in the EU, 2010,
last available year and recent change
EU refers to EU-28, unless otherwise specified. Arrows ↗ or ↘ signal a positive or negative change. Arrow → indicates: no change.
(A) UOE back reconstruction of 2010 values based on ISCED 2011 not yet available. (B) AES 2011, used as proxy for 2010 baseline. (C) 2014 b flags in Eurostat online tables ignored on the basis of other relevant Eurostat metadata. (D) Forecast made in 2016. (E1) Based on 28 countries, with partial information for NL. (E2) Based on 28 countries, with partial information for EL, ES, NL, PL, RO. (E3) Based on 28 countries, with partial information for IT, NL. (E4) Based on 23 countries (missing: DK, EL, HR, IT, PT), with partial information for IE and FR. (E5) Based on 23 countries (missing: DK, EL, HR, IT, PT), with partial information for IE and FR. (E6) Based on 28 countries, with partial information for DK, EL, NL. (E7) Based on 25 countries (missing: HR, IT, UK), with partial information for BE, CZ, DK, DE, EE, EL, LU, NL, PL, SE. (E8) Based on 25 countries (missing: IE, FR, UK), with partial information for BE, EL, LU. (E9) Based on 26 countries (missing: IE, UK), with partial information for DK, DE. (E10) Based on 28 countries. (b) Break after 2010, therefore baseline data not included. (u) Eurostat: 'low reliability'. (z) Eurostat: 'not applicable'. (e) Eurostat: 'estimated'.


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Gifts, as is known are matter of expressing intimacy and are exchanged without price. Golf gifts are no exception. Being a golfer when you think of gifting something to anyone the first thing which will come to your mind will surely be the golf gift. Usually golf gifts are given to potential young golfers to encourage them to play more and more golf.
You have to choose perfect golf gifts for these young beginners considering their style. You have plenty of golf articles and accessories to choose from. To name some of golf gifts they are golf clubs, golf irons, golf bags, golf knickers, classic ball case etc. IN the succeeding paragraphs we will elaborate on importance of each golf gift.
In my opinion golf books are the best golf gifts for beginners. A beginner learns lot of things about game and adds to his/her knowledge of the game by reading golf books
Next come golf lessons. These lessons help potential beginners to decide whether he/she really wants to take the game or he/she likes the golf or not. Golf lessons, golf books and CDs/DVDs are excellent golf gifts for beginners.
Many beginners start playing golf with hired or borrowed golf clubs. Usually, golf clubs are considered as matter of personal choice. However, one may not be willing to purchase expensive golf clubs at the beginning. For such people first set of golf club is considered as best gift amongst other golf gifts. Remember to present these golf clubs in a golf bag.
There are number of golf accessories available in markets which as categorized as golf gifts. Golf gloves, ball markers and tees, though some what expensive, are nice golf gifts. Depending to you affordability and intimacy to the person you are going to present golf gifts you may like to present a full set of golf starter kit to a potential beginner.
Golf balls are also the popular articles for presenting as golf gifts. Beginners are not concerned about the type, compression and construction of these golf balls. You can choose golf balls personalizing with nickname, name or customs logo of the beginner. Only disadvantage of gifting such golf balls is that if the ball is lost the person to whom you have gifted it may get upset.
Golf shoes are other option from the golf gifts. Golf shoes are basic requirement for playing golf. Choosing a right shoe that will be fitting and providing comfort to the person you are gifting is not an easy task. Remember you have alternate option of gift certificate. Instead of presenting golf shoes as golf gifts, present a gift certificate and allow him/her to purchase shoes of his/her choice.
Golf courses are considered to be one of the expensive ventures of sports due to their fees structure. To avoid such expensive venture, driving ranges are considered to be best alternative. Presenting a membership of driving range may be the best among golf gifts for a beginner.
Ball tokens, golf gift certificates and 10 bucket pass are the other golf gifts available. Golf gifts are considered to be a motivating factor for beginners.
Golf Grip kits are a common phenomenon amongst golfers. Golfers are always choosy about their golf grip kits. Golf grip kits consist of tape, instruction book and a CD or DVD containing photos about use of golf equipments. Usually, golf grip kits are provided with golf irons and golf grips. Golf grip kits provide you all information like specification, maintenance guide and instruction about the handling of the equipment. Golf grip kits are of utmost importance for the beginners are they get the required information of golf equipments through these golf grip

subset: commoncrawl


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Commonly considered Stephen Crane's greatest accomplishment, The Red Badge of Courage (1895) ranks among the foremost literary achievements of the modern era. When its publication was announced in Publisher's Weekly on 5 October 1895, Crane was largely unknown. Although his volume of poetry published earlier that year, The Black Riders, had made some waves in literary circles, it struck most readers as quirky and cryptic. The gritty social realism of his first novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893) had earned praise from literati such as Hamlin Garland and W. D. Howells, but Crane probably gave away more copies than were actually sold. (The story is told that Crane, in a desperate advertising scheme, paid men to ride the Manhattan El train and conspicuously read copies of Maggie.) When Crane signed a contract with D. Appleton and Co. to publish Red Badge, he was not well-known enough to command an advance, and agreed to a flat 10 per cent royalty on the retail price of all copies sold (Weatherford, 5). Published in the autumn of 1895, Red Badge went through two editions before the end of the year. By March of 1896 the novel was in eighth place on the international booksellers' list and had gone through fourteen printings; remarkably enough, Red Badge has never been out of print (6). Unfortunately, unremunerative contracts with publishers and a general lack of good business sense kept Crane insolvent for much of his life. But with the publication of Red Badge, Crane achieved almost overnight celebrity.
During Crane's lifetime, public interest often focused on his personal life--his bohemian lifestyle, daring journalistic exploits, and eventual expatriation to Britain-- rather than on his writings. Much of the initial press about Crane's novel was full of speculation about who he was, where he came from, and how he could write so convincingly about a war he had never seen. Nevertheless, early reviewers of Red Badge introduced many of the issues which have remained of interest in subsequent critical investigations of Crane's work. His "war novel" won him widespread international praise, from admiring newspaper notices like those in the New York Times and the Philadelphia Press to the more discerning responses of critics such as Englishman George Wyndham and the contemporary dean of American letters, William Dean Howells. For a list of several of the important early reviews of Red Badge, consult the Reviews page of this project.
British and American reviewers argued quite a bit about who should get credit for the "discovery" of Crane. While the novel was not universally praised, almost without exception Crane's critics marveled at the emotional power of his vivid, visual prose. Some critics groused about Crane's idiosyncratic grammar--he begins one sentence with "Too," for example--while some others who became involved in the Dial controversy voiced discontent about what they perceived to be Crane's lack of patriotism. English critics tended to take Red Badge more seriously than their American counterparts, pointing out its affinities with works by Tolstoy, Zola, Kipling, and the battle scenes of the Russian realist painter Verestschagin (13). The English critic Sydney Brooks, totally convinced by Crane's depictions of combat in Red Badge, assumed that Crane had fought in the Civil War. If Red Badge were "altogether a work of the imagination, unbased on personal experience," Brooks asserted, "its realism would be nothing short of a miracle." Crane's imaginative effort remains a marvel.
Perhaps the most perceptive of Crane's English critics was George Wyndham, a Member of Parliament and veteran of the British army. Wyndham was the only one of Crane's early critics to grasp the significance of narrating the novel from the point of view of Private Henry Fleming. Generals' accounts, Wyndham noted, had usually been written from the "band-box" viewpoint and emphasized large-scale concerns (troop movements, tactical maneuvers, wins and losses), neglecting the much more limited but in many ways more intense experience of the anonymous foot soldier. ("The real war," Walt Whitman had declared in his Civil War memoir Specimen Days [1882], "will never get in the books.") What distinguished Crane in his effort to portray modern warfare was his use of what Wyndham called a "new device," that of focusing on the youth and tracing the successive impressions made by the picturesque and emotional experience of war on his "morbidly sensitive" temperament. Wyndham wrote: "[Crane] stages the drama of war, so to speak, within the mind of one man, and then admits you as to a theatre." Crane's reportage of the "procession of flashing images shot through the senses into one brain" combined the "strength and truth of a monodrama with the directness and color of the best narrative prose" (109-110). Wyndham concluded that Crane's account authentic, Henry's soul "truly drawn."
Much of the impact of Red Badge arose, then, from its powerful pictures of war, the images that leapt off the page into the mind of the reader. But equally important in Wyndham's review was his illumination of the intersection between the picturesque and ethical aspects of the novel. Given that Henry had enlisted in "hasty pursuit of a vanishing ambition," Wyndham suggested that Crane's "battle pictures" were used to dramatize the replacement of Henry's early "tinsel bravado" with his later discovery of "courage in the bedrock of primeval antagonism" (113). Henry's tragic resignation to duty--his commitment to a cause larger than himself--is his final acknowledgment that the "justification of any one life lies in its perfect adjustment to others." Crane's account prophesies the regeneration of America at the same time it suggests the insignificance of heroes. Readers of Red Badge, Wyndham concluded, should infer from Henry's experience that "the virtues so instinctual in moments of distress may be useful also in everyday life" (114).
Early American reviewers of Red Badge were generally not as incisive as Wyndham. Perhaps most surprisingly, one American critic writes suggests that in the novel "a serio-comic effect seems to be intended throughout" (Weatherford, 15). William Dean Howells, writing in Harper's Weekly, praises Crane's "divinations of motive and experience" but expresses doubt about whether Crane can be considered a realist' writer, preferring to call his prose style "impressionistic" (critics still debate about which, if either, of these labels to use). Novelist Harold Frederic, London editor of the New York Times, recognized Red Badge as a masterpiece. He wrote that it would likely be "one of the deathless books which must be read by everybody who desires to be, or to seem, a connoisseur of modern fiction" (116). From our current perspective we can see that Frederic was right: Crane's journalistic description and ironic understatement comprise a stylistic legacy which has descended through Hemingway and early Mailer and done a great deal in shaping American literature as we know it (Delbanco, 57).
Like many early reviewers, Frederic expressed admiration for the emotional power of Crane's work, but he was one of the very few who recognized the boldness and originality of Crane's technique. "The Red Badge," Frederic claimed, "impels the feeling that the actual truth about a battle has never been guessed before" (Weatherford, 116). Like Wyndham before him, who had compared the novel to a monodrama presented in the "theatre" of war, Frederic emphasized the novel's visual aspects and its radical reduction in point of view and narrative scope. "We do not know, or seek to know...anything...except what, staring through the eyes of Henry Fleming, we are permitted to see" (117). Red Badge was a "tremendously effective battle painting;" the trial of a soldier in war, he maintained, "seems never to have been painted as well before" (118). Henry's actions seemed the actions of the readers' own minds.
But later in his review Frederic made a more suggestive assessment. Acknowledging that battle painters have always depicted horses in motion "not as they actually move, but as it has been agreed by numberless generations of draughtsmen to say that they move," Frederic held that Crane's novel shatters such conventions. "At last, along comes a Muybridge [American photographer who specialised in pictures of animals in motion], with his instantaneous camera, and shows that the real motion is entirely different." Red Badge is remarkable for its abandonment of painterly conventions and conveyance of a "photographic revelation." Frederic concludes that the authenticity of Crane's vision is a "novel force" which may do other "remarkable things" (119). This intelligently enthusiastic review of the novel did much to focus international attention on the relatively unknown Crane. The two men became friends but remained literary rivals: Frederic's The Damnation of Theron Ware outsold Red Badge in 1896.
One of the most notable features of Red Badge's reception in America is the controversy about Crane's patriotism that raged in the pages of the Dial, a magazine owned by the conservative General Alexander C. McClurg. The outspoken McClurg, who had risen to the rank of Brigadier-General in the Northern Army, attacked Red Badge for portraying a Union soldier as a coward. Although Dial editor William Morton Payne had already made evident the magazine's disapproval of Red Badge, McClurg maintained that Payne's assessment had not been unfavorable enough. Criticizing those English and American reviewers who had praised Red Badge, McClurg fumed at what he saw as another installment in the habitual English ridicule of American soldiers. Mistakenly assuming that Crane's novel had been first published in England, McClurg denounced it as a "vicious satire upon American soldiers and American armies," as part of a plot to undermine confidence in the nation's armed forces (15). Such books, McClurg finished, should never be allowed to be published in America.
The first response to General McClurg's broadside came in a letter from J. L. Onderdonk, who, expressing his agreement with McClurg's position, ridiculed Red Badge as a "literary absurdity." In the same issue of the Dial, Ripley Hitchcock writes to the editors on behalf of the publishers of the novel, D. Appleton & Co. In an understated tone which contrasts pointedly with McClurg's heated prose, Hitchcock points out and corrects some of the General's mistakes while reminding readers of the numerous favorable notices garnered by the novel. English critic Sydney Brooks, who had earlier praised Red Badge in the Saturday Review, wrote to the Dial in defense of Crane's novel. Dismissing McClurg's incendiary speculations about English opinion of the novel as "misjudged patriotism and bad criticism," Brooks rightly points out that McClurg's notion of literary standards constituted a form of censorship which would allow only the most celebratory accounts of American life to be published (16). The good-natured good sense of Brooks' letter ended the Dial controversy.
A quarter-century after Crane's death, Joseph Conrad remembered in Last Essays (1926) that the appearance of Red Badge had been "one of the most enduring memories of my literary life." Calling Crane "non-comparable" as an artist, Conrad notes sorrowfully that Crane's life bore a marked parallel with that of Red Badge's "tattered soldier": "it was his fate, too, to fall early in the fray." Today, Crane's critical reputation remains strong, and a resurgence of attention to literary realism--New Essays on the Red Badge of Courage (1986), Amy Kaplan's The Social Construction of American Realism (1988), Giorgio Mariani's Spectacular Narratives: Representations of Class and War in the American 1890s (1992)--demonstrates the continued centrality of many of the questions expressed by the early reviewers of Red Badge. Much of this recent criticism grapples with issues first raised in Wyndham and Frederic--the photographic and theatrical aspects of Crane's prose; his abandonment of narrative conventions in pursuit of a more "authentic" reality. Mariani, for example, reads Red Badge as a novel of specatular descriptions--vivid scenes which would satisfy the embryonic consumer society of the 1890s' desire for thrilling spectacle (Mariani, 4). For Amy Kaplan, realism is a "representation of reality struggling against other forms of representation" (Kaplan, 1986, 13). This definition restores to realism its "dynamic literary qualities" by integrating it with the social context out of which it developed: Red Badge struggles with other representations of late 19th century reality--popular war novels, chivalric romances, jingoistic journalism. Thus although much of the early critical scrutiny of Red Badge boiled down to biographical speculation and nationalistic cheerleading, we can be grateful to those few reviewers who realized Red Badge was doing important cultural work. Their analyses suggest some of the reasons why Red Badge became the standard against which all of Crane's subsequent work was measured.
Early reviews of Red Badge raised three issues that will remain of central interest to the remainder of this project. First, there is Crane's concern with authenticity. Written in a post-photographic age, Red Badge discards contemporaneous conventions of battlefield prose for a discontinuous succession of "flashing images" that yield "photographic revelations." Crane limits the novel's point of view and fragments its narrative in order to focus the impact of each of his "battle pictures" and make us see the truth of his descriptions. Second, although much of General McClurg's commentary about Red Badge's lack of patriotism, for example, is overheated and irrelevant, he was not entirely wrong to suggest that Crane's novel raised potentially disquieting questions about the state of turn-of-the-century American society. The next two sections of this project confront some of those questions. And finally, while Crane's early critics did not realize that Red Badge is set at the Civil War battle of Chancellorsville, subsequent scholarly inquiry has revealed this to be the case. The next section of this project, "The Battle: Chancellorsville," suggests that Crane drew on literary and pictorial sources in order to establish the factual framework of Chancellorsville as the setting for Red Badge.
Imaging the Civil War: Authenticity in Painting, Photography, and The Red Badge of Courage | Bibliography


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Let R be a local, normal domain of dimension 2. Suppose that R contains a finite field. I am interested in knowing when the class group of R is torsion. In characteristic 0, this is known to be related to R being a rational singularity.
Lipman showed that if X is a desingularization of Spec(R), then one has an exact sequence:
$0 \to Pic^{0}(X) \to Cl(R) \to H $
Here $Pic^{0}(X)$ is the numerically trivial part of the Picard group of $X$, and $H$ is a finite group. Thus the second one is torsion if and only if the first one is. I do not have much understanding of the first group, unfortunately.
Does anyone know an answer or reference to this? Does anyone know an example in positive characteristic such that $Cl(R)$ is not torsion? Thanks a lot.


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Dodd-Frank Does Regulate Oil Speculation -- But The Financial Industry Is Suing To Block It
Fox News commentators have attacked the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law by falsely suggesting that it doesn't address oil speculation. In fact, Dodd-Frank does address speculation, and regulations on oil speculation have been issued. However, financial industry groups are suing to block them.
Fox Commentators Attack Dodd-Frank For Purportedly Failing To Crack Down On Oil Speculation
Fox News Contributor Mary Katherine Ham: Dodd-Frank "Was Supposed To Solve All These Speculation Problems." From the April 18 edition of Fox News' Happening Now:
HAM: [A]gain, follow the president's logic here. They passed Dodd-Frank -- it was supposed to solve all these speculation problems. They have a Commodity Futures Trading Commission -- it's supposed to catch all these problems. It didn't catch MF Global. And then in the end, they say, "Hey, we suck at our jobs, give us 52 million more dollars." [Fox News, Happening Now, 4/18/12]
Public Notice's Gretchen Hamel: Dodd-Frank Speculation Rules Are "Not Working." From the April 18 edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom:
HAMEL: We've been told time and time again that speculators have a -- have affecting prices. But Dodd-Frank was actually supposed to fix this problem. They promised us that Dodd-Frank would fix this problem of speculation affecting prices. In fact, it even gave a government board the power to regulate prices. But it's not working. And why is that? Because oil prices are not affected by speculation. They are affected by supply and demand, volatility in the Middle East, and emerging economies like China. [Fox News, America's Newsroom, 4/18/12]
In Fact, Dodd-Frank Does Include Rules On Speculation; Financial Industry Is Suing To Block Them
Commodity Futures Trading Commissioner calls out industry's obstructionism
CFTC Commissioner Chilton On Fox: "The Wall Street Banks ... Have Taken Us To Court, Tried To Stop Us." From an interview with CFTC commissioner Bart Chilton on the April 13 Fox News special Paying at the Pump:
CHILTON: But what I think we need to do, and what Congress told us to do, was to put caps on speculation, to limit the speculation to 10 percent of a market. I mean, who needs to control more than 10 percent of a market? And unfortunately, the Wall Street banks, Eric, have taken us to court, tried to stop us. Meanwhile, consumers and businesses alike are paying more than they should at the pumps. [Fox News, Paying at the Pump, 4/13/12]
Chilton: Financial Industry Uses Threat Of Lawsuits To Prevent Implementation Of Dodd-Frank. From a March 18 Bloomberg News article:
Wall Street banks are using the threat of lawsuits to prevent regulators from writing rules mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act, said Bart Chilton, a Democrat on the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
"Some regulators live in constant fear and are virtually paralyzed by the threat" that they will face "spuriously" filed suits alleging that the costs and benefits of their rules weren't adequately considered, Chilton said in a speech prepared for the Trade Tech 2012 conference today in New York. "It is a bastardization of the conduct and use of cost-benefit analyses in regulatory rulemaking."
The CFTC is defending against a challenge filed last year in federal court that the agency overstepped its authority under the Dodd-Frank Act and inadequately assessed the costs of new limits on speculation in oil, natural gas and other commodities. The lawsuit was filed by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association Inc. and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. [Bloomberg.com, 3/8/12]
CFTC approved regulations in October, and financial industry sued in December
October 2011: Commodity Futures Trading Commission Authorizes New Regulations. From The Hill:
A divided Commodity Futures Trading Commission voted along party lines Tuesday to impose new restrictions on speculative trading in energy futures markets.
The rules, required under last year's Dodd-Frank law, are aimed at reigning in speculative Wall Street trading that some allege has driven up oil prices and worsened market volatility in recent years.
The rules impose "position limits" on the amount of futures and swaps contracts for oil and other commodities that traders hold. [The Hill, 10/18/11]
December 2011: Financial Industry Groups Sue To Block Regulations. From a Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association press release:
The International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Inc. (ISDA) and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) today filed a legal challenge to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's (CFTC) final rules that limit the positions that investors may own in certain commodities. The Associations believe that the Position Limits Rule may adversely impact commodities markets and market participants, including end-users, by reducing liquidity and increasing price volatility. In addition, the Associations contend that the CFTC's decision-making process in enacting the Rule was procedurally flawed. Among other deficiencies, the CFTC adopted the Rule without making findings as to the necessity and appropriateness of the position limits, as required by statute. Furthermore, the CFTC failed to conduct any meaningful cost-benefit analysis and lacked a reasoned basis for its rule. [Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, 12/2/11]
January 2012: CFTC Votes To Apply Rules While Lawsuit Continues; Industry Groups File Motion To Oppose. From The National Law Review:
On January 4, the CFTC voted along party lines, again, not to delay implementation of the rule until the legal challenge is resolved. The CFTC also filed a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction at the circuit court arguing that the relevant statutes do not provide for direct appellate review and that the case should be heard first in district court. On January 9, the trade groups filed a motion requesting that the circuit court stay the effective date of the rule while the litigation is pending. [The National Law Review, 1/16/12]
January 2012: Appeals Court Dismisses Industry Group's Challenge. From HedgeWorld Daily News:
A U.S. appeals court has dismissed a lawsuit by the financial industry challenging new federal regulations aimed at cracking down on speculation in commodities markets, a move that will likely delay a decision over whether the rules pass muster.
The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association and the International Swaps and Derivatives Association in December filed challenges to the regulations adopted last year by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit dismissed the lawsuit saying that the case must first be heard by a lower court - an argument advanced by the CFTC. [HedgeWorld Daily News, 1/23/12, via Nexis]
February 2012: Industry Groups Re-File Case In District Court. From Reuters HedgeWorld:
The financial industry asked a federal court late on Tuesday [February 7] to temporarily block regulations approved by the U.S. futures regulator aimed at preventing excessive speculation in commodity markets such as oil and gold.
The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association and the International Swaps and Derivatives Association told the court if the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission's rules go into effect they would irreparably harm their members and the public.
In a 50-page filing with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the groups said unless the court granted a preliminary injunction to delay the rules until the case is decided, the industry would shoulder additional costs that could never be recovered. [Reuters HedgeWorld, 2/8/12, via Nexis]
Febraury 2012: Judge Rejects Preliminary Injunction, But May Still Rule Against Regulations. From a February 27 McClatchy Newspapers article:
A federal judge on Monday refused to halt efforts by a key regulator to limit excessive speculation in the trading of oil contracts -- which is driving up oil and gasoline prices -- but hinted that he might soon rule in favor of Wall Street and let speculation go unchecked.
Robert Wilkins, a judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, declined a request for a preliminary injunction to halt the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from implementing a congressional mandate to limit how many oil contracts any single financial speculator or company can control.
However, Wilkins told both the CFTC and lawyers for the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association and the International Swap and Derivatives Association that he expected to make a ruling soon on whether to hear the case. His line of questioning left both sides with the impression that he was concerned about how the regulatory agency has proceeded.
The two influential lobbies for Wall Street sought the injunction hoping to thwart what are called "position limits," which were ordered by Congress as part of the landmark Dodd-Frank Act in 2010. The act was the broadest revamp of financial regulation since the Great Depression. The limits sought to prevent excessive speculation not just in oil but across the broad range of commodities, including farm products and metals. [McClatchy Newspapers, 2/27/12]
If Regulations Are Upheld, They Can Take Full Effect In June. A CNN Money report stated: "Even if Wall Street loses in court, the new position limit rules can't take full effect until two months after the agency has issued a definition of what qualifies as a swap, which is due out in April." [CNNMoney, 2/27/12]


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Men Completely Fail at 'The Crying Competition'
You know the whole notion that men aren't emotionally in touch with themselves? These guys in Venice Beach aren't doing a whole lot to dispel it. All they had to do was cry one measly tear and they would win. But they couldn't do it.
Filmmaker Brent Hoff created 'The Crying Competition.' The rules are simple: "four men at a table, whistle blows, first tear to hit the table wins." They got off to a promising start as Mike, Will, David and Kent put on super-serious faces and concentrated really hard on making stuff come out of their eyes.
Basically, they prove that such a feat is impossible, regardless of technique. There's the internally-motivated crying technique, the blinking technique, and the 'keep your eyes open as long as possible without blinking technique,' all of which fail to produce even a lonely teardrop. Where are your souls, you monsters?!
To further bolster their point about how men are emotionally disconnected, after everybody gave up, an assistant producer (and lady) named Emily sat down and started crying in 25 seconds. BOOM.


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River Hills Marina is in the heart of the River Hills Plantation community, located in Lake Wylie SC, just outside of Charlotte NC. Designed and built by The Sea Pines Corporation of Hilton Head, the Marina provides boating and recreational activity opportunities for its members and the residents of this lake oriented community. The Marina offers both covered and open mooring slips harboring a fleet of lake appropriate watercraft: sailboats, jet skis, bow riders, ski boats, bass boats, pontoons, cruisers and houseboats all find docking space at River Hills Marina. Round the clock security is provided, along with public rest room facilities and casual relaxation sites. Many boats remain in the water for year round use.
River Hills Marina offers it members and guests a true 'full service' approach to their boating needs. From protected dockage to seasonal light dining, marine fuel to nautical supplies, public rest rooms to seating areas, and lakeside viewing spots to relaxing walkways, River Hills Marina has it all. The Member Center is located at the River Hills Marina and serves as a community social center. It was developed to offer our members a private lounge facility for their use after a day on the lake or any time a social club environment is of interest to them. The Marina Club is also available to River Hills residents on a rental basis. For information specific to The Member Center at River Hills Marina, contact the Marina office at 803-831-1802 or by email at [email protected].
Pier 88 is located at River Hills Marina and offers a wide variety of boating related services to Marina members and boaters on Lake Wylie. Included in the Pier 88 offerings are a fuel dock (featuring non-ethanol 89 octane gas), and free pump out service, The Ships Store with boating equipment and apparel, and a café with for casual eating opportunities. Also a part of the Pier 88 offerings is the TowBoat US service facility. Contact Rikki or Paul Herrmann for Pier 88 details at 803-831-0088 or visit their website at www.pier88yachtclub.com.
The Eddie Knox Pavilion is a part of River Hills Marina. This covered facility sits above the water's edge, capturing the lake breezes while providing a spectacular view out Joe's Cove to the main channel of Lake Wylie. The Pavilion is large enough to host catered events for 200 and is available to River Hills residents for casual picnic activities. Rental of the Pavilion by River Hills residents or area non-residents is available at a nominal cost for weddings, reunions, birthdays or other special events. Contact the Marina office at 803-831-1802 (email [email protected]) for more information.
In addition to the dock areas, Pier 88, The Marina Club and the Eddie Knox Pavilion, River Hills Marina houses the Marina Corporate Center, a three building complex framing an open air deck with views of the lake and the marina cove. This conference and business center serves as a resource for the community and the surrounding Lake Wylie area. Small to mid size offices are available to accommodate one to five workers comfortably. The professionally staffed reception desk is open Monday through Friday from 9 AM to 5 PM. The Business Center also offers a conference facility, free Wi-Fi, and administrative services to tenants and River Hills residents. More information is available by calling the Marina office at 803-831-1802 during normal business hours.
River Hills Marina offers very competitive resident member, non-resident member and commercial docking rates. The Marina Club is guided by a volunteer Board of Directors with all proceeds from the operation being returned to the members and the residents of the community overall in the form of improved ambience, safety and available services. In 2011, River Hills Marina completed a major upgrade of its seawall and walkway areas and is proud of the new River Hills Promenade that is now available to everyone. The Marina serves not only its participating membership but the entire River Hills community as a quiet and relaxing oasis in the heart of this active community. Many neighbors stroll the new Promenade and cross the Cove Bridge at the end of the Marina property. River Hills Marina is currently designated as a pet friendly area, and will remain so as long as pet owners use the available pet waste disposal stations.....please, scoop the poop!!
Many members of the River Hills Marina also participate in other nautical activities in the area, including the River Hills Yacht Club, The United States Power Squadron, the US Coast Guard Auxiliary, and locally sponsored lake clean up events like "River Sweep". Additionally, the Coast Guard group also offers free vessel safety inspections several times each year at the RHMC.
There is no doubt in the mind of anyone who has visited River Hills Marina that this is the finest, cleanest, best looking, safest and most secure harbor and docking facility on Lake Wylie. We have extremely competitive lease rates on both our covered and open air docking slips. Come see for yourself. Contact the River Hills Marina office for membership and slip lease information. For more information on the River Hills Plantation community itself, please visit their website at http://www.riverhillsplantation.com/outside_home.asp.
NOTE: The River Hills Marina extends its sincere thanks to the family of the late Bill Hopkins Jr. for allowing us to use some of Bill's exceptional photography on this site.


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Yesterday at 3 p.m., just outside San Diego, a family of Iraqi immigrants ended the life support that had been keeping their mother, 32-year-old Shaima Alawadi, alive since Wednesday, when she was found beaten bloody in the dining room of her El Cajon home, with the house's glass door smashed apart. She'd been repeatedly hit in the head with a tire iron, her 17-year-old daughter told local news sources, and next to her body a note was found: "Go back to your own country." While police say they are investigating the possibility of a hate crime and are calling it an "isolated incident," Alawadi's tragic death has already become part of the increasing furor surrounding the "self-defense" killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, who was carrying nothing more threatening than a bag of Skittles and iced tea, by a still-free (and still gun-carrying) neighborhood watchman.
On Twitter, hashtags #RIPTrayvonMartin and #RIPShaima are showing up together in hundreds of messages like "hood or hijab — this needs to stop." One Million Hijabs for Shaima Alawadi groups are being organized while One Million (and One Hundred) Hoodie marches are planned for Illinois and New York today. Racism and hate, the signs and commenters say, are to blame in both tragic cases.
Indeed, the national conversation has largely boiled down to the two items of clothing that Trayvon and Saima were wearing at the times of their deaths: the hoodie that Geraldo Rivera now infamously said was "as much responsible for Trayvon Martin's death as George Zimmerman was," and Shaima's hijab. But Rivera's advice that people simply avoid wearing hoodies (or, by the same logic, hijabs) to avoid being profiled misses a broader point, that people still profile the young-and-black and Muslim as dangerous.
We reserve the right to wear a hoodie in the rain and not be racially profiled and killed because bigots think that their appearance is suspicious, or threatening.
That's from a statement by the Reverend Raphael Warnock, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church (where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once preached), announcing plans to conduct today's Sunday services in full hoodie regalia.
Apart from the simple right to wear what we each see fit, the fiery (and, at times, inflammatory) language used to discuss the Shaima Alawadi killing online reminds us that the hijab is not just a fashion accessory but an identity marker for many who wear it. And it was that identity — Iraqi, Arab, Muslim — that got Alawadi killed. The note found by her body indicates that pretty strongly, and so does the note the family found a month earlier, as remembered here by Alawadi's eldest daughter.
A week ago they left a letter saying, 'This is our country, not yours, you terrorists,' so my mom ignored that, thinking [it was] kids playing around, pranking. And so the day they hurt her, they left it again and it said the same thing.
Except this family had lived in the United States for seventeen years. Most if not all of their five children were almost surely born here and therefore full American citizens. Which adds xenophobia to the racism that so many already see at work in Trayvon Martin's and Shaima Alawadi's deaths and that, normally pulsing below the surface of our national awareness, have now broken into a full-fledged debate.


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55058: PowerPivot and Report Builder Combo Pack Training in Burnsville
Enroll in or hire us to teach our 55058: PowerPivot and Report Builder Combo Pack class in Burnsville, Minnesota by calling us @303.377.6176. Like all HSG classes, 55058: PowerPivot and Report Builder Combo Pack may be offered either onsite or via instructor led virtual training. Consider looking at our public training schedule to see if it is scheduled: Public Training Classes
Provided there are enough attendees, 55058: PowerPivot and Report Builder Combo Pack may be taught at one of our local training facilities.
We offer private customized training for groups of 3 or more attendees.
Course Description
| This four-day instructor-led course concentrates on PowerPivot and Power
View in Excel 2013. The attendees will learn how to surface the
workbooks and visualizations using the Business Intelligence Center in
SharePoint 2013. As far as possible each of the modules is stand-alone
allowing for customization of the course for those audiences that may
not have an interest in a certain service. This course also provides
students with the necessary knowledge to develop reports using Microsoft
Report Builder 3.0. The training environment includes SQL 2008R2, SQL
Express 2012 and SQL 2012 Standard and Enterprise so that the students
can utilize Report Builder 3.0 and generate reports from multiple
sources to investigate the different features of each release. The
course covers the Report Builder 3.0 wizards, basics of report design,
intermediate reports with report parameters and report expressions,
report visualizations including graphs, charts, images, and gauges,
advanced reporting including the utilization of maps, interactive
reports, Report Parts and subreports. The course concludes with a
special module that includes over 100 tips and tricks for Report Builder
3.0 with step-by-step instructions.
Course Length: 4 Days
Course Tuition: $1690 (US)
|This course is intended for analysts, business intelligence (BI) developers and IT professionals that will be involved with the design, development, and maintenance of Excel workbooks utilizing PowerPivot and Power View 2013 to be surfaced on SharePoint.This course is also intended for power users, developers, and IT professionals that will be involved with the design, development, and maintenance of reports created with Report Builder 3.0.
Course Outline
Module 1: Course Overview
Course Materials
What We'll Be Discussing
Lab: Course Overview
After completing this module, students will be able to:
Successfully log into their virtual machine.
Have a full understanding of what the course intends to cover.
Module 2: PowerPivot
In this module we will explore PowerPivot and its analytical capabilities. PowerPivot is a data analysis add-on for Microsoft Excel that allows large amounts of data to be collected, aggregated, and analyzed in one workbook. Sound powerful? It is! We'll cover everything you need to know to get you up, running, and analyzing.
Best Things That PowerPivot Brings to Excel
What Will PowerPivot Do for the Analyst?
Introduction to PivotTables (Optional)
PowerPivot Versions
New 2013 PowerPivot Features
VLOOKUP Not Required (Use Relationships)
Architectural Changes in Excel 2013
PowerPivot and Excel 2013
PowerPivot and SharePoint
Enterprise Business Intelligence and PowerPivot
Importing Data
Data Models
Simple PivotTable Reports
Calculated Columns and Calculated Fields
Refreshing Data
SharePoint Sharing
Lab: PowerPivot
Pivot Tables (Optional)
PowerPivot User Interface
Importing Data
Importing Large Datasets
Importing Data with a Query
Creating Relationships
Creating a Cascading Relationship
Creating a Relationship Between Tables From Different Sources
Hiding Columns, Change Data Type, Sorting, and Filtering
Calculated Column and Calculated Field
Add a Calculated Field From the PivotTable
Filter Context Using One Table
Row Context and Dynamic Selection
FILTER Function
CALCULATE Function
Build a Date Table
Relate a Table to an Excel Calendar Table
Time Intelligence
After completing this module, students will be able to:
Use PowerPivot within Excel to import a table from SQL Server.
Use PowerPivot within Excel to import large datasets.
Use PowerPivot within Excel to import with a query.
Create relationships between tables.
Create a cascading relationship.
Create a relationship between two tables from different sources.
Hide columns they don't want reflected in the resulting PivotTable.
Change data types.
View the relationships existing within the imported tables from SQL Server and then import an additional table and configure a relationship between it and the existing.
Create a PivotTable within an existing worksheet.
Add a calculated field to a table from the PivotTable.
Use the FILTER function.
Use the CALCULATE function.
Build a date table in excel.
Relate a table to the date table created in Excel.
Create and configure perspectives.
Create and configure hierarchies.
Create and configure KPIs.
Module 3: Power View
In this module we will cover Power View and the reporting that can be created. From tables to charts and sharing on SharePoint, this module will have you ready to visualize your date in a variety of ways.
Report Design Principles
New 2013 Power View Features
Microsoft Power View User Interface
BI Semantic Models
Saving and Sharing
Lab: Power View
Power View
After completing this module, students will be able to:
Navigate and successfully use Power View.
Create a table.
Create a chart.
Save and share their work.
Module 4: SharePoint 2013 Business Intelligence Center
In this module, we will explore the new and improved 2013 SharePoint Central Administration site. We are going to cover specifically the new 2013 Business Intelligence Center template within SharePoint. Permissions and roles will be addressed and the included library and list apps will be explained.
Quick Architecture
New 2013 SharePoint Central Administration
New 2013 Business Intelligence Center
Permissions and Roles
Included Document Library and List Apps
Create Custom Apps (Libraries) for Visualizations or Workbooks
Lab: SharePoint 2013 Business Intelligence Center
Central Administration Tour and Web Application Creation
Introduction to the Business Intelligence Center
Permissions and Sharing
SharePoint 2013 Business Intelligence Center Create Apps
After completing this module, students will be able to:
Explore the options and settings available within the new SharePoint 2013 Central Administration.
Access and review the Secure Store.
Create a new web application and business intelligence site while exploring the features of both.
Create custom apps to store visualizations and/or workbooks in SharePoint 2013 Business Intelligence Center.
Module 5: Introduction to Report Builder 3.0
This module introduces the interface of Report Builder 3.0, the different features available, and variances in data sources and sets.
Plan Your Reports
The Interface
Variances Between SQL Versions
How to Use Report Builder 3.0 with SQL Express 2012
Data Sources
Lab: Introduction to Report Builder 3.0
Explore Report Builder 3.0
Create Embedded Data Sources and Sets
Create Shared Data Sources and Sets
After completing this module, students will be able to:
Plan the reports.
Use Report Builder 3.0 and understand the parts of the interface.
Launch Report Builder 3.0 from multiple sources.
Create embedded and shared data sources and datasets.
Module 6: Report Builder 3.0 Wizards
This module explains the wizards.
Explore the Report Builder 3.0 Wizards
Create Reports with the Wizards
Lab: Report Builder 3.0 Wizards
Use the Wizards to Create Reports
After completing this module, students will be able to:
Use the wizards to create reports.
Module 7: Report Builder 3.0 Basic Reports
This module covers report basics with lists, matrix, and tables, then goes into parameters and the expresionable aspect of reports.
Report Lists
Report Tables
Report Matrix
The Data Region
Report Parameters
Report Expressions
Formatting Reports
Lab: Report Builder 3.0 Basic Reports
Create a Report Using a List
Create a Report Using a Table
Create a Report Using a Matrix
Create a Report Using Multiple Data Regions
Use Report Parameters
Use Report Expressions
Format the Report
Save Report Parts for Reuse
After completing this module, students will be able to:
Create a report using a list.
Create a report using a table.
Create a report using a matrix.
Create a report using multiple data regions.
Use report parameters.
Use report expressions.
Format the report.
Module 8: Report Builder 3.0 Graphics
This module is a detailed look at graphics including embedded and Bing map.
Report Charts
Report Images
Report Sparklines
Report Data Bars
Report Gauges
Report Maps
Lab: Report Builder 3.0 Graphics
Create a Report with Charts
Create a Report with Images
Create a Report with Sparklines
Create a Report with Data Bars
Create a Report with Gauges
Create a Report with Maps
After completing this module, students will be able to:
Create a report with charts.
Create a report with images.
Create a report with sparklines.
Create a report with data bars.
Create a report with maps.
Create a report with gauges.
Module 9: Intermediate Reports
This module covers intermediate reporting with emphasis on actionable reports.
Time Intelligence
Drill Through
Interacting with Actionable Reports
Reuse Report Parts
Lab: Intermediate Reports
Create Subreports
Use Drill Through
Create a Report That Allows Interaction
Reuse Report Parts
Use Time Intelligence
After completing this module, students will be able to:
Create subreports.
Use drill through.
Create a report that allows interaction.
Reuse Report Parts.
Use Time Intelligence.
Module 10: Report Builder 3.0 Tips and Tricks
This module is a collection of how-to with examples.
Dozens of Step-By-Step Examples for Report Situations
Lab: Report Builder 3.0 Tips and Tricks
Dozens of Step-By-Step Examples for Report Situations
After completing this module, students will be able to:
Use the tips and tricks.
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The team wax-lyrical about this amazing product that saved time and money
It seemed like I was the last Resourcing Manager to know about Broadbean so after hearing my team wax-lyrical about this amazing product that saved time and money I thought I'd better pick up the phone and find out more.
When I called I was put through to Richard Essex initially and he (very patiently) talked me through the features of the bean and how it could benefit me and my team in terms of time spent posting and managing response.
After I signed on the dotted line I was then handed over to Andy Hill for some very thorough (and again patient) training - Andy took me and the team through everything we needed to know.
The team at Broadbean (especially Andy and Richard) have been so helpful and at times it's felt like they're an extension of our team at Swinton. It's a genuine pleasure to deal with them.
"Broadbean has not only enabled us to work more efficiently and allowed us to concentrate more on resourcing and less on processing; it has made us a considerable saving on unnecessary job site usage."


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Your birthday party, game night, or other get-together will get a touch of added fun with the 10 ct. Pizza Light Set with Green Wire. This light set features 10 mini pizza slices, each lit by a clear mini bulb, strung on a green wire. About Kurt S. Adler Inc. The story of Kurt S. Adler Inc. begins after the close of World War II when Mr. Adler tried his hand at exporting general goods. Business grew, and European economies flourished so he turned his focus to importing. Ornaments were offered by the 1950s, and beautiful, handmade angels from East and West Germany found an enthusiastic audience in America. Adler expanded the line to glass ornaments from Czechoslovakia, hanging ceiling decorations from Germany, and miniature lights from Italy. The next decade, Adler started importing holiday decor from the Far East. Colorful snow globes and other animated items became a collector's favorite. In the 1980s and 90s, Fabriche santas, nutcrackers and other collectibles were ushered in. Recent additions include animatronics, fiber optic trees, interactive advent calendars, and synchronized musical decorations. Novelty light set. Pizza theme. Clear mini bulbs. 10 lights per cord; 12-inch light spacing. For indoor or outdoor use. Green wire; Lead wire 30L in..
Novelty light set
Pizza theme
Clear mini bulbs
10 lights per cord; 12-inch light spacing
For indoor or outdoor use


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OVERVIEW: What every practitioner needs to know
Are you sure your patient has medullary thyroid cancer? What are the typical findings for this disease?
Thyroid nodules are not uncommon in children and approximately 26% of these nodules represent malignancies. The vast majority of these malignancies are differentiated thyroid cancers (DTC), meaning that they are derived from and maintain features of normal thyroid cells. Medullary thyroid cancer (MTC) is a malignant tumor that arise from the parafollicular cells (or C-cells) of the thyroid gland and represents less than 5% of pediatric thyroid cancers. In the pediatric-age group, MTC is rarely sporadic, it more commonly occurs as a part of one of two tumor syndromes, either multiple endocrine neoplasia 2A (MEN2A) or MEN2B.
Patients with MEN2A have normal clinical appearance and are predisposed to developing primary hyperparathyroidism and pheochromocytoma. Patients with MEN2B have specific physical exam features, which can include mucosal neuromas of the eyelid, lips, tongue, buccal mucosa, and intestines. The intestinal neuromas may present with chronic constipation from pseudo-obstruction. In addition, patients have a marafanoid body habitus with a long, narrow facies, pectus excavatum, pes cavus, scoliosis, and high arched palate. MEN2B is associated with early onset and more aggressive MTC, an increased risk of developing pheochromocytoma, but not with an increased risk of hyperparathyroidism.
In general, patients that are evaluated for a thyroid nodule or a family history of MEN2A are asymptomatic. Patients with MEN2B may have symptoms related to the mucosal neuromas and/or a history of chronic constipation (pseudo-obstruction) from the presence of intestinal ganglioneuromas.
Continue Reading
What other disease/condition shares some of these symptoms?
There are several other tumor syndromes associated with an increased risk of developing thyroid nodules and thyroid cancer (see Differentiated Thyroid Cancer chapter), however, there are no other syndromes associated with an increased risk of developing MTC.
The most common etiology of a thyroid nodule is a benign thyroid adenoma or cyst. The most common diagnosis of a thyroid malignancy is differentiated thyroid cancer, with 90-95% being papillary thyroid cancer and 5-10% being follicular thyroid cancer.
Other causes of thyroid enlargement that may be mistaken for a nodule include; assymetric thyroid enlargement (goiter) from autoimmune thyroiditis or a thyroglossal duct cyst. Rarely, the thyroid can be the site of metastasis from a non-thyroid malignancy such as lymphoma.
In children and adolescents, cervical adenopathy is very common, usually due to an upper respiratory infection, minor head and neck trauma, or irritation. If the cervical adenopathy persists and/or increases over a 1-2 month time frame, evaluation for a more serious etiology should be pursued. The differential of cervical adenopathy includes; infection (cat scratch disease, mycoplasma and others), rheumatological disease, or malignancy (lymphoma, thyroid cancer and others).
What caused this disease to develop at this time?
MTC is associated with activating mutations in the RET proto-oncogene.
Most children with MEN2A have a germline RET mutation. That is, the mutation was inherited from one parent in an autosomal dominant pattern (= 50% chance of having the mutation and the disease).
Most children with MEN2B have a de novo mutation meaning the mutation is new, there is no family history.
Similar mutations are often found in other endocrine organs, to include the parathyroid and adrenal glands. The risk of developing these additional tumors relates to both the specific RET proto-oncogene mutation and the family history. Mutation specific risks and screening guidelines can be found in the American Thyroid Association (ATA) MTC guidelines (
The presence of the RET proto-oncogene mutation is associated with an almost 100% chance of developing MTC.
What laboratory studies should you request to help confirm the diagnosis? How should you interpret the results?
Thyroid function studies can be helpful in determining etiology of a thyroid nodule but they are not helpful in diagnosing MTC.
Calcitonin, a hormone produced from the parafollicular cells of the thyroid gland, can be used to help confirm the diagnosis of MTC. There are age specific normative values so make sure to refer to age reference norms provided by the laboratory. In general, calcitonin levels should be less than 10-15 pg/ml before 10 years of age and less than 5-10 p.m/ml during adolescence. In children over the age of 3-years with a thyroid US revealing nodules < 0.5 cm, a level of < 30-40 pg/ml is associated with a very low risk of having metastatic MTC. Calcitonin can also be measured by immunohistochemical staining of thyroid or lymph node tissue as well as in wash-out fluid from fine needle aspiration biopsy.
Would imaging studies be helpful? If so, which ones?
Ultrasound (US) is the best imaging study to evalute for potential thyroid lesions. Over 70% of MTC will have calcifications on US exam of the thyroid. US must include examination of the lateral neck for evidence of abnormal lymph nodes.
If baseline calcitonin is >400 pg/ml, whole body radiological screening should be completed, including a chest/neck computed tomography (CT), 3 phase contrast-enhanced liver CT or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with contrast.
Confirming the diagnosis
The most current consensus for the evaluation and treatment of MTC were published in 2009 by the American Thyroid Association. The guidelines can be found at ATA MTC Guidelines ( PUBMED:19469690) or they can be directly downloaded from http://thyroidguidelines.net/medullary/taskforce
If you are able to confirm that the patient has medullary thyroid cancer, what treatment should be initiated?
For patients with MEN, identified by family history (MEN 2A) or by physical exam and early onset of MTC (MEN 2B), care should be provided in a multi-disciplinary center. The team should consist of providers with expertise in evaluating and treating pediatric patients with thyroid nodules and thyroid cancer from the following specialties; endocrinology, surgery, pathology, radiology, genetics, and social work services. Referral and collaboration with a center that has a Hereditary Cancer Predisposition center is essential.
Treatment – for patients with;
Positive RET proto-oncogene testing (MEN2) and no clinically apparent MTC (normal physical exam and negative US).
Prophylactic total thyroidectomy, the timing dictated by the specific mutation and the family history.
Patients with
MEN2A – total thyroidectomy beginning at age 5, dictated by the specific mutation and family history of expression. Please refer to ATA guidelines for specific recommended ages.
Patients with
MEN2B – based on physical exam and/or RET proto-oncogene testing (codon 918 or 883) – total thyroidectomy as soon as diagnosis and as young as 1 year of age.
Apparent MTC
Total thyroidectomy and central neck (level VI) neck dissection.
Lateral neck dissection if staging US and/or MRI shows metastasis to lateral neck lymph nodes.
If the diagnosis of a RET proto-oncogene or MTC is confirmed, screening for hyperparathyroidism (MEN2A only) and pheochromocytoma (MEN 2A and 2B) should be completed prior to surgery.
Note: Unlike differentiated thyroid cancers, there is no role for radioactive iodine treatment. The goal is to surgically remove the thyroid gland before MTC develops and spreads. Once MTC metastasizes surgery is rarely curative and there are no approved pharmaceutical therapies for MTC that have been shown to be associated with long-term remission.
What are the adverse effects associated with each treatment option?
Surgical resection is the only effective treatment for MTC, however, it is associated with several risks. The risk of surgical complications increase with younger age of the patient and less experience of the surgeon. Thyroid surgery should be performed by a 'high-volume' surgeon (performing more than 30 thyroid surgeries per year) in a pediatric setting.
Hypocalcemia is seen in approximately 30-40% of patients in the immediate post-operative period and is due to parathyroid bruising or stunning related to the procedure. Treatment may include parenteral doses of calcium and calcitriol. About 1% of patients will have permanent hypoparathyroidism.
Recurrent laryngeal nerve injury is seen in less than 3% of patients.
Permanent hypothyroidism is part of the intended result of the surgery, therefore patients must remain on lifelong thyroid hormone replacement therapy. Thyroid hormone suppression is not necessary.
What are the possible outcomes of medullary thyroid cancer?
The goal of prophylactic thyroidectomy is to elimante the risk of developing MTC. However, a lifelong risk of developing hyperparathyroidism (MEN2A only) and pheochromocytoma (MEN 2A and 2V) exists. For specifics of time of surveillance, please refer to ATA guidelines.
For patients diagnosed with metastatic MTC the likelihood of cure is extremely low. Further surgery should be limited to large lesions that are symptomatic or pose risk to the patient.
Other clinical manifestations that might help with diagnosis and management
For patients that have prophylactic thyroidectomy after age 10 years of age, or sooner if any concern based on screening labs or symptoms, it is important to screen the patient for the associated disease prior to surgery.
– Hyperparathyroidism: Serum calcium with intact PTH.
– Pheochromocytoma: Serum or urine metanephrine/normetanephrine panel.
What complications might you expect from the disease or treatment of the disease?
The diagnosis of MEN2 has medical, social, and psychosocial implications for the patient and their family. All families should undergo evaluation by a genetic counselor and be evaluated by social work services and behavioral health specialists. There may be an increased rate of depression, anxiety and stress associated with the diagnosis of MEN and MTC and, therefore, it is important to offer patients access to appropriate support. This is best accomplished in the context of a multi-disciplinary center with experience in treating thyroid cancers and inheritable tumor syndromes. Evaluation and counseling should be conducted on a regular basis.
Are additional laboratory studies available; even some that are not widely available?
Metastatic MTC can produce other endocrine hormones that can lead to autonomous production of ACTH resulting in cyclic flushing and Cushing's syndrome and other neuroendocrine manifestations. MTC can also produce carcino-embryonic antigen (CEA). CEA levels may correlate with disease burden and may be used to help follow patients with metastatic MTC.
How can medullary thyroid cancer be prevented?
Early identification of patients at risk for having a RET proto-oncogene and early prophylactic thyroidectomy in these persons is essential. The prevention of MTC through screening for the RET proto-oncogene is one of the most powerful examples of the benefit that the molecular era of medicine has brought to patient care.
What is the evidence?
Kloos, RT, Eng, C, Evans, DB, Francis, GL, Gagel, RF, Gharib, H. "Medullary thyroid cancer: management guidelines of the American Thyroid Association". Thyroid. vol. 19. 2009 Jun. pp. 565-612. (A consensus on the evaluation and management by some of the leading experts in thyroid disease.)
Waguespack, SG, Rich, TA, Perrier, ND, Jimenez, C, Cote, GJ. "Management of medullary thyroid carcinoma and MEN2 syndromes in childhood". Nat Rev Endocrinol. vol. 7. 2011 Aug 23. pp. 596-607. (A consensus on the evaluation and management of MEN focused on the pediatric age group.)
Wells, SA, Robinson, BG, Gagel, RF, Dralle, H, Fagin, JA, Santoro, M. "Vandetanib in Patients With Locally Advanced or Metastatic Medullary Thyroid Cancer: A Randomized, Double-Blind Phase III Trial". J Clin Oncol. 2011 Oct 24. (The double blind trial that subsequently led to FDA approval of Vandetanib for treatment of MTC under the Vandetanib Risk Evaluation Mitigation Strategy (REMS) Program.)
Daniels, GH. "Screening for Medullary Thyroid Carcinoma with Serum Calcitonin Measurements in Patients with Thyroid Nodules in the United States and Canada". Thyroid. 2011 Sep 21. (A manuscript suggesting that routine screening of baseline calcitonin in patients with thyroid nodules is not indicated and may lead to increased, unnecessary surgery from false positive results.)
Noullet, S, Trésallet, C, Godiris-Petit, G, Hoang, C, Leenhardt, L, Menegaux, F. "Surgical management of sporadic medullary thyroid cancer". J Visc Surg.. vol. 148. 2011 Sep. pp. e244-9. (A review of the surgical approach to treating MTC.)
Ball, DW. "Management of medullary thyroid cancer". Minerva Endocrinol. vol. 36. 2011 Mar. pp. 87-98. (An update to the management of MTC after publication of the 2009 ATA guidelines.)
Rosenthal, MS, Diekema, DS. "Pediatric ethics guidelines for hereditary medullary thyroid cancer". Int J Pediatr Endocrinol. vol. 2011. 2011. (A discussion of ethical considerations in genetic screening in multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome.)
Ongoing controversies regarding etiology, diagnosis, treatment
Ongoing clinical trials regarding the efficacy of pharmaceutical therapy to include tyrosine kinase inhibitors are currently underway.
In patients with a family history that reflects later onset of disease expression (ie. later onset of developing MTC), it may be acceptable to delay prophylactic thyroidectomy if cautious and deliberate surveillance is used, to include annual thyroid US and calcitonin level testing. The opposite may also occur, with earlier than predicted expression of disease (i.e. earlier occurrence of MTC) and in these families earlier prophylactic thyroidectomy should be pursued. MTC has been reported in patients less 1 year of age. Further studies are needed to more clearly define the relation between a specific RET proto-oncogene mutation and the variation of expression within each family.
Copyright © 2017, 2013 Decision Support in Medicine, LLC. All rights reserved.
No sponsor or advertiser has participated in, approved or paid for the content provided by Decision Support in Medicine LLC. The Licensed Content is the property of and copyrighted by DSM.
- OVERVIEW: What every practitioner needs to know
- Are you sure your patient has medullary thyroid cancer? What are the typical findings for this disease?
- What other disease/condition shares some of these symptoms?
- What caused this disease to develop at this time?
- What laboratory studies should you request to help confirm the diagnosis? How should you interpret the results?
- Would imaging studies be helpful? If so, which ones?
- Confirming the diagnosis
- If you are able to confirm that the patient has medullary thyroid cancer, what treatment should be initiated?
- What are the adverse effects associated with each treatment option?
- What are the possible outcomes of medullary thyroid cancer?
- Other clinical manifestations that might help with diagnosis and management
- What complications might you expect from the disease or treatment of the disease?
- Are additional laboratory studies available; even some that are not widely available?
- How can medullary thyroid cancer be prevented?
- What is the evidence?
- Ongoing controversies regarding etiology, diagnosis, treatment


text:
Juvenile Fiction, Series (Spy School), Paperback
In this follow-up to the Edgar-nominated Spy School, top-secret training continues into summer for aspiring spy Ben Ripley--and so does the danger.
Ben Ripley is a middle-schooler whose school is not exactly average--he's spent the last year training to be a top-level spy and dodging all sorts of associated danger. So now that summer's finally here, Ben would like to have some fun and relax. But that's not going to happen during required spy survival training at a rustic wilderness camp, where SPYDER, an enemy spy organization, has infiltrated the spies' ranks. Can Ben root out the enemy before it takes him out--for good?


text:
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text:
81110039: Made with Love in the USA
E-Gift Certificate Peonies
This item is excluded from coupons and promotions. Need a gift that's sure to fit? Give her the gift of style with a Kiyonna Gift Certificate. All gift certificates are delivered to the recipient via email once the order has been approved. Please note that this may take 1-2 business days to process.
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text: The FBI is using antiquated computer systems to deliberately foil requests made under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, a new lawsuit alleges.Ryan Shapiro, a national security researcher and Ph.D. candidate at MIT, has been studying the Freedom of Information Act for years with a particular focus on noncompliance by government agencies. He already has multiple FOIA lawsuits in motion against the FBI, and earlier this month he filed a new one.In it, he describes numerous attempts to obtain information over the past two years, and the FBI's frequent response that it can't locate what he's looking for."When it comes to FOIA, the FBI is simply not operating in good faith," Shapiro said via email. "Since the passage of the Freedom of Information Act, the FBI has viewed efforts to force bureau compliance with FOIA as a security threat."The FBI has established "countless means" of foiling FOIA requests, he alleges, including a process by which searches fail "by design."In particular, the FBI typically conducts FOIA searches in the "universal index" portion of its legacy Automated Case Support system, which was deployed in 1995. Because of the limitations of that technology, those searches frequently produce no results, he says.Furthermore, despite the existence of two much better search applications within ACS -- along with newer search technologies implemented since then -- the FBI "almost always refuses" to use those more modern systems on the grounds that they're no more likely to produce results, and that using them would be "unduly burdensome and seriously wasteful of FBI resources," Shapiro says."The FBI\u2019s assertion is akin to suggesting that a search of a limited and arbitrarily produced card catalogue at a vast library is as likely to locate book pages containing a specified search term as a full text search of a database containing digitized versions of all the books in that library," Shapiro said. "Simply, the FBI\u2019s assertion is absurd."In January, a judge in the District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in Shapiro's favor in a related case, finding that the FBI\u2019s policy is \u201cfundamentally at odds" with FOIA.\u00a0The FBI, meanwhile, has argued that Shapiro's work constitutes a threat to national security.In his latest lawsuit, filed July 4 in the same court, Shapiro requests that the FBI turn over the documents he says were withheld from him, waive the fees it tried to charge him, and cover his attorney fees and other litigation expenses.Access to information about the operations of government is essential to democracy, but FOIA is "broken," Shapiro said. "If we hope to know even some of what our government is truly up to, FOIA must not only be defended against the FBI and others who view transparency as a threat, but strengthened and dramatically expanded."The FBI is a component of the U.S. Department of Justice, which declined to comment for this story."Many government agencies deal with software older than the interns servicing them," said Raymond Van Dyke, a technology attorney based in Washington, D.C.In time, with more challenges to the FOIA protocol and better safeguards built into the FBI's current Sentinel software, the bureau "will better honor FOIA requests," Van Dyke predicted. "For now, however, the protocol is to go back to the mainframe era -- the days of Reagan."


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TechRadar Verdict
- +
Good screen
- +
- +
Battery life
- +
- -
- -
Some flex around disk drive
Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you're buying the best. Find out more about how we test.
Asus may be best known for its Eee PC range of netbooks, but the Taiwanese manufacturer also offers a solid range of full-sized laptops. The Asus K72F-TY011V is a slightly more sizeable laptop and proves to be a highly usable machine, as well as a decent performer.
Its 17.3-inch screen offers ample viewing space, but is still pleasingly sharp, thanks to its 1600 x 900-pixel resolution. It may not be as bright as some other screens, but it delivers deep blacks, excellent contrast and appealing colours.
The bulky chassis is fairly large, while the 3.2kg weight is also the heavy if you're thinking of taking this on the commute.
The chassis offers a solid if unexciting build, with a plain black finish, and we only noticed the smallest bit of flex around the area of the optical drive.
Decent battery
Despite the hefty build, we still managed 249 minutes of battery life from a single charge - a better performance than most machines of this size. This is definitely a desktop replacement machine, but at least you can carry it between rooms without lugging the charger too.
An Intel Core i3 350M processor powers this portable, with solid performance as a result. While the Core i5 laptops produce more power, the Asus can comfortably handle the needs of most users. Multi-tasking is no problem, with little in the way of slowdown, even with several applications open at once.
The majority of the laptops at this price have integrated graphics, suitable only for basic multimedia tasks, and the Asus is no exception. Nevertheless, you can still watch HD video and even play basic games.
The wide chassis leaves plenty of room for the isolation-style keyboard which comfortably includes a separate numeric keypad. While the keyboard doesn't span the whole width of the chassis, the keys are still well-sized and firmly mounted. The touchpad is also generously sized and responsive, making it easy to use.
Networking is comprehensive, with 802.11n Wi-Fi for connecting to wireless networks and Gigabit Ethernet for wired connections.
The 500GB hard drive is also fairly generous, offering plenty of room for your files and media.
Four USB ports are in place and allow plenty of peripherals to be connected. A 3-in-1 memory card reader is also provided and can be used to quickly access your holiday snaps or other portable media.
The Asus K72F-TY011V should satisfy anyone looking for a solid and dependable desktop replacement machine. Portability is limited, despite the impressive battery life, but this is a highly usable and dependably powerful laptop.
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text:
NOBULL: The Corporate 'Predator State' — 'This isn't the free market; it's a rigged market.'
"Can a right/left, small-business/worker odd bedfellows alliance emerge to counter the predatory interests?"
vanden Heuvel: 'This isn't the free market; it's a rigged market.' (photo: Adbusters)
The Corporate 'Predator State'
By Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Washington Post
27 March 13
ipartisan agreement in Washington usually means citizens should hold on to their wallets or get ready for another threat to peace. In today's politics, the bipartisan center usually applauds when entrenched interests and big money speak. Beneath all the partisan bickering, bipartisan majorities are solid for a trade policy run by and for multinationals, a health-care system serving insurance and drug companies, an energy policy for Big Oil and King Coal, and finance favoring banks that are too big to fail.
Economist James Galbraith calls this the "predator state," one in which large corporate interests rig the rules to protect their subsidies, tax dodges and monopolies. This isn't the free market; it's a rigged market.
Wall Street is a classic example. The attorney general announces that some banks are too big to prosecute. Despite what the FBI called an "epidemic of fraud," not one head of a big bank has gone to jail or paid a major personal fine. Bloomberg News estimated that the subsidy they are provided by being too big to fail adds up to an estimated $83 billion a year.
Corporate welfare is, of course, offensive to progressives. The Nation and other media expose the endless outrages – drug companies getting Congress to ban Medicare negotiating bulk discounts on prices, Big Oil protecting billions in subsidies, multinationals hoarding a couple of trillion dollars abroad to avoid paying taxes, and much more.
But true conservatives are – or should be – offended by corporate welfare as well. Conservative economists Raghuram Rajan and Luigi Zingales argue that it is time to "save capitalism from the capitalists," urging conservatives to support strong measures to break up monopolies, cartels and the predatory use of political power to distort competition.
Here is where left and right meet, not in a bipartisan big-money fix, but in an odd bedfellows campaign to clean out Washington.
For that to happen, small businesses and community banks will have to develop an independent voice in our politics. Today, they are too often abused as cover for multinational corporations and banks. The Chamber of Commerce exemplifies the scam. It pretends to represent the interests of millions of small businesses, but its issue and electoral campaigns are defined and paid for by big-money interests working to keep the game rigged.
An authentic small-business lobby has finally started to emerge, as William Greider reports in the most recent issue of the Nation. The American Sustainable Business Council, along with the Main Street Alliance and the Small Business Majority, are enlisting small business owners to speak for themselves – and challenging the corporate financed propaganda groups such as the Chamber and the National Federation of Independent Business. Their positions often align with those of progressives. They loathe the big banks and multinationals that work to undermine competition.
Greider reports on the antipathy these small business owners have for the big guys. Camille Moran, president and chief executive of Caramor Industries and Four Seasons Christmas Tree Farm in Natchitoches, La., rails against the "Wall Street wheelers and dealers." They knew, she argues, that they " would get no sympathy saying that ending the high-income Bush tax cuts would hurt them, so instead they pretend it would hurt Main Street small business and employment. Don't fall for it…. That's a trillion dollars less we would have for education, roads, security, small business assistance and all of the other things that actually help our communities."
ReShonda Young, operations manager of Alpha Express, a family-owned delivery service in Waterloo, Iowa: "We're not afraid to compete with the biggest delivery companies out here, but it needs to be a fair fight, not one in which big corporations use loopholes to avoid their taxes, stick our business with the tab."
Polls show these aren't isolated views. The ASBC, the Main Street Alliance and the Small Business Majority sponsored a poll by Lake Research of small business owners. Ninety percent believe "big corporations use loopholes to avoid taxes that small businesses have to pay," and three-fourths said their own businesses suffer because of it.
The ASBC and its allies have the potential to become what Jamie Raskin, a Maryland state senator, dubbed a "Chamber of Progress," a small-business voice that is willing to take on the big guys that tilt the playing field.
The possibilities are endless. Wall Street argues for rolling back financial regulation on the grounds that it hurts community and small banks. What if community and small bankers joined the call of conservative Dallas Federal Reserve President Richard Fisher to break up the big banks?
Multinational executives have just launched the "LIFT America" Coalition to push for a territorial tax system that would exempt from U.S. taxes all profits reported abroad. ASBC and its allies could rally small businesses to demand closing down overseas tax havens and imposing a minimum tax on profits sitting abroad, so that they didn't face a higher tax burden that their global competitors.
In today's Washington, powerful corporate interests stymie progress on areas vital to our future. Can a right/left, small-business/worker odd bedfellows alliance emerge to counter the predatory interests? We can only hope so.


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New Delhi: Suspected cases of Avia influenza at the Delhi zoo have prompted authorities to shut down its premises.
According to zoo sources, around 8 water birds and a few ducks and pelicans were reported to have been affected by bird flu last week.
"The zoo has been shut down until further notice. We have sent samples of a couple of dead ducks to Jalandhar and Mathura. We are awaiting the report," a zoo official said.
These cases come a nearly month after India declared itself free from the highly contagious avian influenza (H5N1) or bird flu.
The official claimed that the influenza will not affect humans and the shutting down of zoo premises was a precautionary measure.
A team of Central Zoo Authority will shortly visit the premises of the zoo which houses around 40 pelicans and 20 ducks.
The National Zoological Park has been battling with a spate of animal deaths since earlier this year. Around 46 spotted deers were found dead at its premises in January.
India had declared itself free from bird flu in September. In a statement, the Centre had also emphasised the need for "continued surveillance especially in the vulnerable areas bordering infected countries and in areas visited by migratory birds".
Bird flu affects mainly the domestic poultry. The disease spreads from infected birds to other winged creatures through contact with nasal and respiratory secretions and also due to contamination of feed and water.


text:
Freeform, 3mm front drill hole, one of a kind, handmade bead that I made (coldworked) from broken Fiesta ware I've collected over the years. Dimensions are in the title in millimeters. I cut, sanded, drilled and THEN tumbled it to make it look like a piece of sea glass so the finish is consistent and the edges rounded & smooth, like it washed up on a beach. Great as a pendant or an ornament.
CHAIN NOT INCLUDED. I have a variety of chains for sale in my store in different styles and lengths. Most, but not all, chains will fit most of my beads. If you want a specific chain for a specific bead check first. Feel free to check out all the items here in my DVHdesigns Store and don't hesitate to contact me with general inquiries or about custom work that I could make and list for you. Thanks for shopping DVHdesigns!
Back in the mid 90's I noticed some local art jewelers who were using beach glass in their work. I asked one gallery owner in Seattle how a certain jeweler got so much uniform beach glass for her production work. She let me in on the secret that this jeweler made her own beach glass. A light went on in my head! I could easily make my own beach glass! Since then I've collected all kinds of patterned glass from Value Village, Goodwill, garage sales, and even my Grandma's estate. I've been making all sorts of unusual pieces from this. No two are ever exactly alike. I cut up the glass on my diamond saw, shape it, sand it, drill it if it's going to be a bead, and then tumble it to create a matte finish. I hope you enjoy my creative recycling efforts as much as I do making them!