text:
New Details Emerge About Yoselyn Ortega, the Alleged Killer Nanny
While her motive still remains unclear, new details have emerged about the life of alleged "killer nanny" Yoselyn Ortega, who is accused of stabbing two children, 2-year-old Leo and 6-year-old Lucia Krim, to death in a horrific crime on Manhattan's Upper West Side. According to a report in the New York Times, Ortega had become increasingly stressed and unstable in recent weeks.
The NYPD's chief spokesman, Paul Browne, said family members told police that Ortega "over the last couple of months was not herself," and noted that there were reports she had been seeking professional help.
Juan Pozo, a former neighbor, who spoke to Ortega's sister on Friday, said that, lately, "(Ortega) felt like she was losing her mind." He also said she had seen a psychologist recently.
Ortega's sister, Celia, told the New York Daily News she'd referred her sister for the job with the Krims, a fact which left her devastated. "I would like to die. I would give my life for the children to come back," she said.
Several neighbors mentioned Ortega's financial concerns. Earlier this year, she'd moved with her teenage son from her sister's apartment in Harlem to a place of her own in the Bronx. But the person she'd been renting the apartment from, an acquaintance who'd relocated to the Dominican Republic, returned several months ago, forcing Ortega to move back in with her sister. A neighbor said the move occurred after Ortega had already "spent a lot of money on the Bronx apartment." Ortega had also starting selling cheap jewelry and makeup in her spare time.
Another neighbor in Harlem said that in recent weeks Ortega appeared to be "kind of devastated" and was "in bad shape." They also noted that she would regularly work 12 hour days. "I am tired," the neighbor remembered her saying. "Work."
Even with Ortega's increasing personal problems, her relationship with the Krims remained positive.
A law enforcement official said Ms. Ortega had had no previous brushes with the law, nor have detectives learned of any tensions in her relationship with the Krims.
"No fighting with the mom, the family, the kids," the official said. "Everybody is looking for a reason here." He added, "We've got nothing bad other than the fact that she killed two children."
In an interview with the New York Daily News, one of the victims' grandmother, Karen Krim, echoed those sentiments.
"My daughter-in-law, if she thought there was anything wrong, she would have never left the two with her. This had to be something simmering inside this woman. Obviously, she went insane."
The Times also interviewed one of the Krim's neighbors, Charlotte Friedman, who may have been the last person to see the children alive. She shared an elevator with Ortega and the two children late Thursday afternoon.
She asked the girl if she had been on a play date. The child replied that she had been dancing. Ms. Friedman described the girl as "happy, happy, happy."
The times she had encountered Ms. Ortega, she found her cold. There in the elevator, she said, the nanny smiled but said nothing. And then, she and the children got off on the second floor.
[Image via Getty]


text:
"Lucy" Wasn't Alone? Had Neighbors in Trees, Fossil Foot Suggests
New fossil adds to complexity of our evolutionary march to bipedalism.
As our prehistoric ancestor "Lucy" was making tracks in eastern Africa millions of years ago, another type of pre-human might have been watching from above, a new study suggests.
Scientists have pieced together a new type of pre-human foot from 3.4-million-year-old fossils found in Ethiopia. The bones don't belong to the Lucy fossil's species, Australopithecus afarensis—the only hominid (or member of the human lineage) thought to be living then, according to findings reported today in the journal Nature.
Researchers say the partial foot points instead to the existence of a previously unrecognized pre-human that was a contemporary of Lucy.
Whereas Lucy was designed for upright walking—a crucial step in human evolution—her newly identified neighbor appears to have been a bit of a swinger. Analysis of the newfound foot suggests its owner had an apelike gait and spent a good deal of time in the trees.
(Related: "'Lucy' Was No Swinger, Walked Liked Us, Fossil Suggests.")
That's a surprise, because "once walking on two legs evolved, we didn't think there was an additional species that had the capability for climbing up trees," said study leader Yohannes Haile-Selassie, an anthropologist at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
Discovered in the Burtele area of the Afar region in 2009, the fossil foot has a separated, thumblike big toe—perfect for climbing and grasping branches, the study team said.
The foot's other toes were somewhere between those of other hominids and apes, although the curiously elongated bone of the fourth toe is more like a monkey's, the team noted.
Yet the foot also reveals upright-walking traits. For instance, the toe bones have joints and ends that would have allowed the species to hyperextend its toes to push off while walking, the study found.
(Also see "'Lucy' Kin Pushes Back Evolution of Upright Walking?")
Feet Not Made for Walking
"The foot belonged to a species that was more efficient walking on two legs when on the ground than apes"—but less efficient than Lucy, due to those foot "thumbs," Haile-Selassie said.
Since only a partial foot of the mysterious hominid, or hominin, has been found, the team can't say if the Burtele foot marks a new species, only that "it does not belong to the contemporaneous Australopithecus afarensis," said Haile-Selassie, whose work was partially funded by the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration. (The Society owns National Geographic News.)
The fossil remains do, however, closely resemble those of an earlier human ancestral species, Ardipithecus ramidus, which lived about a million years earlier.
Haile-Selassie said the Burtele foot's owner likely moved very similarly to Ardipithecus: on two legs on the ground, albeit clumsily, but using all fours when in the trees.
That an Ardipithecus-type foot should persist so late suggests our early ancestors trod a more tortuous evolutionary path towards full bipedalism than previously thought, said team member Bruce Latimer, of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.
"It's another window into solving the problem of how we got from a primitive foot to a modern human foot," he said.
If the Shoe Fits?
Harvard University evolutionary biologist Daniel Lieberman, who wasn't part of the study, agreed the new fossil foot fits Ardipithecus's shoes quite neatly.
"This looks very much like the same kind of foot, but it's a million years younger, so that lineage of hominins didn't go extinct when the australopithecines evolved—they continued to be there," he said.
"The same time Lucy and her kin were walking upright ... there were other hominins walking in a very different manner," Lieberman added.
Lieberman cautions against overhyping the find, however, since "we've known for a while that the feet out there are diverse.
"We've had lots of scraps of fossil feet here and there, and all of them have suggested that the process is pretty complicated," he said. "This doesn't really overturn what we previously thought—it just adds to what we previously thought."
Even so, the study team maintains that the Burtele foot is the first solid evidence for more than one pre-human living between three and four million years ago.
There is, however, another contender for the title of Lucy's neighbor: Kenyanthropus platyops, a putative ancestral human species from Lucy's time.
Due to the distorted condition of the K. platyops fossil's pieced-together skull, some researchers think it's just a Kenyan variant of A. afarensis, study leader Haile-Selassie said—which, if proved, might leave the Burtele foot as our best evidence yet that Lucy had company.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Eat your heart out, Wolverine. The X-Men superhero won't be the only one with metal fused into his skeleton if a new titanium foam proves suitable for replacing and strengthening damaged bones.
Bone implants are typically made of solid metal – usually titanium. Though well tolerated by the body, such implants are significantly stiffer than bone.
This means that an implant may end up carrying a far higher load than the bone it is placed next to, according to Peter Quadbeck of the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Advanced Materials Research in Dresden, Germany. In a worst-case scenario, the decrease in stress placed on the bone means it will deteriorate, while the implant loosens and needs to be replaced.
Spongy inspiration
Now Quadbeck and colleagues have created a titanium implant with a foam-like structure, inspired by the spongy nature of bone. The titanium foam does a better job than solid metal when it comes to matching the mechanical properties of bone, such as flexibility, and this encourages more effective bone regrowth.
What's more, the foam is porous, so the bone can grow around and within it, truly integrating the implant with the skeleton.
The titanium foam is made by saturating polyurethane foam with a solution of titanium powder and binding agents. The titanium clings to the polyurethane matrix, which is then vaporised away along with the binding agents. This results in a titanium lattice which is finally heat-treated to harden it.
Though the foam has yet to be approved for use in humans, Quadbeck and colleagues are now working with physicians to explore its suitability for treating certain injuries.
Peter Lee of the Department of Materials at Imperial College London is impressed. He says there are applications where inserting one of these titanium foams "looks like the most promising solution", such as bridging long gaps between broken bones.
Yuyuan Zhao, a materials engineer at the University of Liverpool, UK, adds that "if human bone isn't good enough, an implant could give your body better performance" than leaving bone to heal naturally or using other types of implant.


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Georgia at Vanderbilt
When: Noon Saturday
Where: Nashville, Tenn
On TV: CBS
ATHENS — Amarlo Herrera believes that Georgia's defense isn't nearly as bad as its numbers suggest.
Problem is the near meltdowns that occurred in narrow wins over LSU and Tennessee finally brought the Bulldogs down in last week's home loss to Missouri.
"It's been bad," Herrera said on Tuesday. "We want to win. We play defense so we don't like giving up points. We've just to work on that."
When the No. 15 Bulldogs (4-2, 3-1 Southeastern Conference) visit Vanderbilt (3-3, 0-3 SEC) on Saturday, coach Mark Richt hopes they can finally begin to build some momentum.
And the best way to do that is creating turnovers, a problem that's haunted Georgia all season.
The defense has just one interception this year, by safety Tray Matthews against North Texas. And of the Bulldogs' four fumble recoveries, two came on special teams.
Georgia ranks 117th in takeaways,105th in scoring and 97th in third-down efficiency, but Richt believes the defense is still evolving after losing nine players to the NFL during the offseason.
Of the 10 true freshmen who have played defense this year, seven have started. The Bulldogs also have used six veteran first-time starters on defense.
"We can't lose any kind of hope or faith, and there's enough progress going on that I still feel very comfortable that we're moving in the right direction with a lot of pups," Richt said. "There are a lot of good things happening."
Since Kedric Golston in 2002, Georgia had not started a true freshman on defense under Richt until this year's opener when Matthews, outside linebacker Leonard Floyd and cornerback Brendan Langley played in the loss at Clemson.
The abundant youth has likely affected how many halftime adjustments defensive coordinator Todd Grantham can make.
In beating No. 6 South Carolina in the second game, Georgia allowed 24 points in the first half but just six in the final two quarters, but that's the best the Bulldogs have done against top competition.
Clemson, LSU and Tennessee combined to score an average of nearly 21 points in the second half. In last week's 41-26 home loss to Missouri, the Bulldogs held the Tigers without a point in the third quarter, but gave up 13 in the fourth.
Richt, though, put a positive spin on the Missouri game.
"I thought in the second half that the defense really did a good job of giving the offense a chance to dig back in that game," he said. "With 4:12 to go, we're a drive away from tying the game and putting it into overtime, so there were some good things that happened, without a doubt. We just have to keep getting better."
Herrera acknowledged the frustration that's settled in after Georgia has forced opponents in third-and-long situations, only to give up a big play that keeps the drive alive.
"We're just not getting off the field on third down," Herrera said. "The pressure isn't getting there quick enough, and sometimes it's just not good coverage."
Herrera wouldn't say anything negative about the secondary, which has just one longtime starter in cornerback Damian Swann, but it's clear the young defensive backs are still figuring out how to accurately read formations, use the correct techniques and make plays when the ball is in the air.
But the Bulldogs are showing progress in other areas. Their pass rush, led by Floyd and left end Ray Drew, has produced 13 sacks in the last three games, and the run defense ranks fourth in the SEC.
Against Vanderbilt, Georgia will face an offense that's scored at least 28 points in 12 straight games. The Commodores are led by senior receiver Jordan Matthews, who ranks fourth in SEC career yards receiving. Vanderbilt put up 468 yards of total offense in its last game, a 51-28 home loss to Missouri two weeks ago.
"I think we're getting a little better at (third-and-long situations), and I think we're doing the right things, but we just have to execute better," Richt said. "Part of it is the learning curve of the young defensive backs. Let's face it — we're playing a bunch of rookies back there. It's tough to be great at it when you're just learning as you go."


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Local Bloomington Wildlife Removal and Wildlife Control
Think you may need professional Bloomington wildlife removal and wildlife control services? Are you hearing scratching in the attic or the pitter patter of feet running across the ceiling? Noise in the attic typically means trouble and if you are a homeowner, the animal removal solution typically is more expensive the longer you wait. We offer professional solutions for wildlife removal and wildlife control in homes, attics, and animals causing property damage. We also offer wildlife removal Peru IN and Chesterton Indiana Wildlife control service
Many wild animals in Indiana have become displaced as the result of urban growth and habitat loss. Species such as raccoons, opossums, coyotes and red foxes are becoming more common in urban areas and are frequently seen by people. These animals can cause problems when they use a person's attic for shelter, destroy shingles or eat garbage.
Due to the large volume of wildlife conflicts in Indiana, the DNR is unable to help remove wild animals. Indiana Department Of Natural Resources
Bat Removal and Exclusion
Wildlife like bats in an attic can be a nightmare. Not only do bats cause structural damage with the accumulation of guano, but they also present health risks. It's a well-known fact that bats are carriers of rabies and can transmit this fatal disease with an unnoticed scratch or bite.
Once the Bloomington bats have been removed from the structure and the remaining opening are sealed up, any necessary guano clean up must be done. This is for health hazards involved with bat droppings and the dangers of sweeping them up or using a conventional vacuum to get rid of the guano. Another is because bat guano can weaken drywall and destroy attic insulation.
Bird Control and Nest Clean Up
Nuisance Bloomington wildlife like birds can cause a mess that shocks the majority of homeowners. When professional bird control and bird removal is needed, it's usually because birds have taken up residence inside of an attic or an exhaust vent. Bird removal and bird control from exhaust vents usually hits its peak around May and June. These nuisance Bloomington birds will clog vents and build nests in attics that can reach heights over 6 feet. Our bird control and bird removal services include baby bird removal, deterrents, nesting clean out, adult bird removal from vents and bird proofing to prevent future bird problems in vents and attics.
We offer complete solutions for bird removal in Bloomington and have custom bird proofing and control that is second to none.
Squirrel Control and Prevention
A few signs that you may have wildlife like squirrels in your attic are the type of noises in the attic and the time that you are hearing the noise. Squirrels tend to move very quickly and will run back and fourth, often even playing or fighting with one another. Since they are diurnal, squirrel activity is usually heard during the day.
Our squirrel removal process is typically done by either setting baited traps near the entry points or multi-catch traps right over their entry points to catch them as they enter or exit. Trapping squirrels in an attic will produce on average 3-5 squirrels, however in some instances there can be many more or just a solitary squirrel.
Skunk Trapping and Proofing
Nuisance wildlife like skunks like to dig under sheds, decks, stoops and any other structure that can provide adequate cover. Skunk and wildlife control is usually the highest during baby (May-July) and grubbing season in the fall, but typically lasts all year long as skunks do not truly hibernate.
Our skunk trapping services are top notch, with many years of experience in conventional and unconventional trapping techniques. We can provide remediation for any skunk issue you are experiencing and provide skunk odor removal and skunk proofing as well once they have been removed.
We also provide dead skunk removal and skunk removal from window wells.
Raccoon Trapping and Damage Repair
Are you experiencing issues with problem raccoons? Raccoons can be problematic almost every where. From tearing through roofs to going under decks, sheds and stoops to den, they can be a real danger to a homeowner, pet owner or parent.
Our services range from raccoon trapping, baby removal from inside an attic or under a structure, carcass excavation, and raccoon feces removal. Our Bloomington wildlife control services also cover dead raccoons that need to be dug out from a structure or cut out from behind walls. These occurrences are rare for day-to-day services however, as with all wildlife issues, nothing is a surprise.
Our services also cover dead raccoons that need to be dug out from a structure or cut out from behind walls. These occurrences are rare for day-to-day services however, as with all wildlife issues, nothing is a surprise.
Snake Removal Services
Looking for snake removal services in Bloomington Indiana?
General Information
Of the 34 species of snakes that occur in Indiana, only 4 are venomous. Copperheads, cottonmouths, timber rattlesnakes, and massasauga rattlesnakes are the only venomous species found in Indiana, and they are rare and found only in certain parts of the state
Wildlife like snakes are less likely to frequent an area where they have little cover or food. Control rodent populations around your home, remove piles of junk, rocks, brush and boards, and keep grass mowed.
If you need professional wildlife control and wildlife removal services, call us right away!
Indiana Service Areas
Wildlife Control Lawrence IN
Wildlife Control Lafayette IN
Wildlife Control Kokomo IN
Wildlife Control Michigan City IN
Wildlife Control Muncie IN
Wildlife Control Marion County IN
Wildlife Control Long Beach IN
Wildlife Control Lebanon IN
Wildlife Control Hobart IN
Wildlife Control Hammond IN
Wildlife Control Granger IN
Wildlife Control Goshen IN
Wildlife Control Gary IN
Wildlife Control Valparaiso IN
Wildlife Control Rolling Prairie IN
Wildlife Control Fort Wayne IN
Wildlife Control Porter IN
Wildlife Control Peru IN
Wildlife Control Zionsville IN
Wildlife Control Anderson IN
Wildlife Control Beverly Shores IN
Wildlife Control Bloomington IN
Wildlife Control Carmel IN
Wildlife Control Chesterton IN
Wildlife Control Cicero IN
Wildlife Control Crown Point IN
Wildlife Control East Chicago IN
Wildlife Control Elkhart IN
Wildlife Control Evansville IN
Wildlife Control Frankfort IN
Wildlife Control Jeffersonville IN
Wildlife Control Westville IN
Wildlife Control Mishawaka IN
Wildlife Control Portage IN
Wildlife Control Indianapolis IN
Wildlife Control La Porte IN
Wildlife Control South Bend IN
Wildlife Control Terre Haute IN
Wildlife Control Tipton IN
Wildlife Control Warren IN
Wildlife Control West Lafayette IN
Wildlife Control Westfield IN
Wildlife Control Fishers IN


text:
JSCalendar is a Javascript class that adds accessible and unobtrusive date-pickers to your form elements. By using it, you can set up the coolest calendar in the shortest amount of time.
Supports IE6+, Firefox, Chrome, Safari.
Supports inline and popup mode.
Supports slide window, you can define image and text.
Supports multi-language, you can define it yourself or acordding to browser's settings.
CSS is changed easily, you can set css as you wish.
Supports select muilt-date(only inline mode).
Supports keyboard.
Note: This does not require any other JS library.
I accept further customization job if you require more functions. Please send me a message via my contact page. Thanks.


text: On schedule and as we exclusively reported, Apple announced its Joint Venture service this weekend to Apple Store employees. The new offering aims to bring small business customers into retail stores, providing more business-centric and personalized services. Users can enroll in Joint Venture for an annual fee of $499. What does that steep fee get you? The fee covers up to five users (additional users can be added for $99 per person per year) and provides priority service at Apple's Genius Bars (skip the line), phone support from business-focused Geniuses, loaner machines for repairs taking over 24-hours, and access to customized workshops. The new service is set to roll out beginning March 2nd.


text:
I'd like to run a Listener in a Thread from a certain point of time on for a certain amount of time (some hours).
I found Timer and TimerTask classes, however JavaDoc tells me that TimerTasks should complete quickly, which is not the case for my Thread. Is there a better and easy possibility to achieve the task?


text:
This document has been archived and replaced by: arradatamodel.
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) Recipient Quarterly Reporting Instructions Archived
Document Type: Policies and Procedures.
Document Number: arradata92809
Document History: Posted: September 28, 2009. Replaces: arradatamodel. Replaced By: arradatamodel.
For more information about file formats used on the NSF site, please see the Plug-ins and Viewers page.


text:
Panthers all-pro defensive end Greg Hardy was arrested Tuesday on charges of misdemeanor assault and communicating a threat after police were called to his condo following an alleged altercation with his girlfriend. Hardy appeared in court and was released on bond today, and more details about the alleged assault emerged.
From the Charlotte Observer:
The arrest warrants accuse the Panther lineman of throwing girlfriend Nicole Holder to the floor and into a bathtub, slamming her against a Futon and "strangling" during an argument at his home.
Hardy also said he would kill her, the warrant said, a threat "made in a manner and under circumstances which would cause a reasonable person to believe that the threat was likely to be carried out."
Holder filed for a restraining order against Hardy on Wednesday, according to public records. In her complaint, she accuses Hardy of throwing her on a couch covered "in assault weapons and/or shotguns."
She said he bragged that all of the assault weapons were loaded. As part of the assault, she said Hardy "threatened to shoot me if I went to the media or reported his assaults to anyone."
Holder filed for a restraining order against Hardy today, and the Observer reports that although she did not attend Hardy's hearing, but was spotted in the hallway afterward, her arm in a sling.
During the hearing, Hardy's attorney denied Holder's version of events. He claimed that Holder attacked Hardy and one of his friends, and that Hardy had to call the police when she refused to leave his home.


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The Android Market currently has about 50 applications, but that number should go up next week when Google opens the market to developers.
Starting on Monday, any developer will be able to register for $25 and upload their application to the market. The registration and fee will help make sure that "each developer is authenticated and responsible for their apps," Google's Eric Chu wrote in a blog post on Wednesday.
The first phone running Google's Android software, the G1, went on sale on Wednesday from T-Mobile in the U.S. It costs $180 with a two-year contract.
Unlike Apple's iPhone App Store, Google's Android Market doesn't have any approval process for applications. Once developers register, they can begin offering their applications in the store without any further validation or approval, Chu said.
Some developers have criticized Apple's application submission process, which can take several months. In addition, once a developer spends the time creating an application, Apple serves as a gatekeeper and can decide not to include it in the store.
For now, applications can only be offered to Android users free. But starting in the first quarter next year, developers will be able to sell their applications. They'll get 70 percent of the revenue from each purchase. The rest goes to the carriers that offer the phones and to billing settlement fees, Chu said. Nothing goes to Google.
iPhone application developers also get 70 percent of the price of their application.
Applications already available in the Android Market store include those created by winners of a developer contest that Google sponsored.
A few new Android applications have begun appearing in the market over the past couple days, presumably made available through special arrangements Google made with the developers. They include one from MySpace, a mobile banking application from Bank of America and a T-Mobile Hotspot locater.
The Android Market includes a rating system where users can rate applications and comment on them. Google will highlight the applications with the best ratings and usage at the top of the market, although for now it has chosen which apps appear there.
Apple, which this week said it has already sold 10 million iPhones this year, reported that its App Store has supported 200 million downloads in around 100 days. Apple's store launched with more than 500 applications in July.
Apple pioneered the concept of offering phone users a store accessible on the phone for downloading new applications. Others are now following suit. In addition to the Android Market for users of phones running Google's software, BlackBerry users will also soon see a store on their phones where they can buy new applications. Historically, mobile users only rarely downloaded new applications, but that trend is changing mostly due to Apple's easy-to-use store.


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U.S. News rankings place William & Mary grad programs among the best
William & Mary's graduate programs and professional schools continue to place well in U.S. News and World Report's annual ranking.
In the 2015 survey, released today, William & Mary Law School climbed nine spots to 24th -- tied with the University of Washington. This is the highest rank ever given the country's oldest law school by the magazine, which began publishing an annual ranking of law schools in 1990. The Law School's previous best ranking was 27th in 2005, 2006, and 2011. The Law School was ranked 33rd in 2013.
The school improved in several key categories this year compared to its peer schools, including the percentage of students who had jobs nine months after graduation, the students' bar passage rate, the quality of the first-year class as measured by students' LSAT scores and the reputation of the law school among law deans and legal academics.
Dean Davison Douglas said that the rise in the U.S. News rankings "confirms what we already know: that William & Mary Law School continues to make impressive strides forward with its terrific new faculty hires, highly accomplished students and alumni, and an increasingly rich array of educational opportunities such as legal clinics and externships."
According to Douglas, U.S. News rankings are only one yardstick of a school's vitality. Other strong indicators of William & Mary's upward trajectory include the record-breaking $3.58 million raised during the school's FY 2013 fundraising campaign and the recent establishment of new clinics devoted to appellate litigation, elder law, and Virginia coastal policy. During the fall of 2013, for example, five students in the Law School's Appellate Litigation Clinic briefed and argued constitutional law cases in U.S. Courts of Appeals across the nation, so far winning two of those cases. Moreover, the Law School's Veterans Benefits Clinic continues to capture prominence as a national leader in providing legal assistance to wounded veterans.
The William & Mary School of Education (SOE) also remained in the top 40, ranking 39th among the nation's education schools. They tied with Florida State and Rutgers – New Brunswick. SOE placed well in the administrators and experts assessment category, scoring 4.3 out of 5.
"It is particularly noteworthy that the SOE continues to be among the top schools of education in the United States, while also being one of the smallest," said Spencer G. Niles, dean of the School of Education. "This provides a learning context in which students and faculty are highly engaged collaboratively and in which everyone's effort matters. We look forward to new initiatives that will continue to place the SOE among the very best in the nation."
In February, the William & Mary school psychology program received continuing national accreditation from the National Association for School Psychology. Additionally, since last July, the School of Education received over $2.6 million in new grants. These grants support a broad scope of programs that impact both William & Mary students and K–12 students and teachers across the state. The programs included VA Education for the Homeless, Operation Pride, School University Research Network (SURN) Visible Leaders, Principals Academy and a Williamsburg-James City County Student Intern.
Last year the School of Education saw the largest jump within the survey in its history, ranked 32nd tied with Purdue, the University of Illinois, the University of Iowa and the University of Pittsburgh. The school ranked 43rd in 2012 and 41st in 2011. In 2010, the program jumped nine spots from 48th to 39th following the opening of its new facility.
William & Mary's Mason School of Business saw a jump in the ranking of their part-time MBA program, rising 12 spots to 57th in the survey.
U.S. News & World Report annually ranks graduate and professional school programs in education, law, medicine, engineering and business using a variety of scoring categories, such as peer assessments, student/faculty ratios and funding for faculty research.
Highlights of the graduate school rankings are scheduled for publication in the 2014 issue of The Best Graduate Schools guidebook which will be available for purchase in April. A complete list of the rankings is also available online.


text:
This add-on replaces both my UK TV Guide and Search and UK TV, and Radio, Guide and Search add-ons. The former's data feed is due to cease on the 16th June 2016, and the later... well, you won't be able to afford its data feed.
It is available here: XMLTV Guide and Search
To use this add-on you will need to be able to provide your own XMLTV formatted file(s). The add-on was developed and tested with data fetched using mc2xml - specifically, this was using the Service: microsoft legacy, the County code: GB, and a valid UK postcode, for a Freeview lineup, and also using the Service: schedules direct json, Country code: GB, and a valid UK postcode area, for a Freeview lineup.
Not all data sources support all of the possible features included in the add-on, in which case some information may not be shown - for example, Series and Episode numbers are not a part of the microsoft legacy Service.
On first use the add-on will invite you to set up an XMLTV Data Source. This simply means you need to point to an XMLTV file on your computer. You can, optionally, also specify the application to run that produces that file so that it can be coveniently launched from within the add-on on demand.
Once you have at least one XMLTV Data Source set up you can then run an Import which will populate the Channel list on the left. As you tick channels from the list the Guide view will be updated.
If you only want to use a single XMLTV Data Source, that's it. The Execute button on the bottom right can be used to fire up the application that produces the XMLTV file, and the Import button can be used to Import it. You can use these as often as required.
If you want to have more than one XMLTV Data Source, for example to include more than one lineup, you can use the Execute and Import buttons for the different sources using the Sources tab. The buttons on the bottom right can also be linked to any of the Data Sources using the Source drop-down menu above the Channels List - picking the 'All' Source will display all of the channels from all of the sources in the Channel list but this will disable the buttons on the bottom right.
Once you have your chosen channels selected you can navigate the Guide and play with the Search.
On the Guide tab the Now button will navigate to the current date and time whereas the Refresh button will navigate to whatever date and time you enter. You can assign colours to the different genres from the Colours drop-down, and highlight the current search using the Highlight Search check-box.
On the Search tab there are 5 filters: Channels, Dates, Genres, Attributes, and Title. Assigning something to one or more of these will create a filter that is applied when the Search button is clicked. If a filter is not assigned it will not apply any filter for that category.
Be careful with the 'Omit' options on the drop-downs. If, for example, you tick 'Omit Channels' then any channels that you tick will be Omitted, if you untick 'Omit Channels' then any channels you tick will be Included. In this way you can use your ticks to either include or omit items - whichever means less clicking. There are tool-tips on all of the 'Omit' options to remind you how they work.
There is a 'context menu' - one of those right-click menus - on the Channel list that allows a number of operations. You can Alias the channel names, for example you might like to see simply 'ITV1' in the list instead of 'ITV1 Thames Valley North'. You can also Add, Rename, and Delete channel groups so, for example, you might like to create separate groups for Freeview channels and Sky channels, or Sports channels and News channels.
Also, look out for the context menus on the Guide, Search, and Favourites panes. Wherever you can see a programme there are options to add and delete your Favourites ♥.
Otherwise, just click stuff. That's what I do. And look out for the tomatoes.
Have fun.
[Disclaimer: Use of this add-on does not guarantee that you will find anything worth watching on TV.]
Instructions for obtaining an xmltv.xml file needed to import into the XMLTVGuide add-on.
Go to mc2xml and download mc2xml.exe using one of the links given under the Downloads section.
Put mc2xml.exe into its own folder somewhere on your computer
Optionally, in the same folder, create a file called mc2xml.chl - for speed, this file can limit the list of channels you grab, although, you may prefer to use this option later. For example:
Code: Select all
# includes
Optionally, in the same folder, create a file called mc2xml.ren - this file can contain a list of channels you want to rename during the grab, again, you may prefer to use this option later, or not at all if the channel numbers appear to be correct and up to date. For example:
Code: Select all
# Renumber
Not optional...
- · Manually run mc2xml.exe - initially, just pick the Service: microsoft legacy, the Country code: GB, and for Postcode: enter a valid UK postcode within your transmitter area. Press OK.
· From the 'lineup selection' list pick the entry for your preferred Provider and Local Region. Press OK.
Two new files should appear in the mc2xml.exe folder: mc2xml.dat and xmltv.xml. The .dat file carries the choices you made, plus some timing information - this file will get used whenever you run mc2xml.exe from now on. The .xml file carries the TV schedule data - this is the one we will need to import into the add-on.
From within the XMLTVGuide add-on go to the Sources tab and Add a new source.
- · Enter a 'friendly' description.
· Click the folder icon for the Executable location and navigate to wherever you have mc2xml.exe
· Click the folder icon for the Import File location and navigate to wherever you have xmltv.xml
· Click Add
Then select your chosen channels from the Channel list, with each selection the guide should populate.
In the future you can click the Execute button on the bottom right to re-run the data grab, and after it has finished, the Import button to refresh the add-on's schedule data.
There other ways to produce xmltv.xml files, and the add-on can support multiple data sources for different Services and Lineups. Although I can offer no warranty, in theory, they can all be imported into the add-on.
Sorry, that this is such a humongous wall of text!


text:
John D. Rockefeller
John D. Rockefeller (John Davison Rockefeller, Sr.) (1839 – 1937) was a leading American industrialist, financier, philanthropist and founder of a powerful family of bankers and politicians. He revolutionized the oil industry and defined the structure of modern philanthropy. He was one of the two or three most prominent businessmen and philanthropists of the Progressive Era, and captured its spirit of efficiency. From childhood, Rockefeller strongly believed that his purpose in life was to make as much money as possible, and then to use it wisely to improve the lot of mankind. In 1862, Rockefeller founded the Standard Oil Company and ran it until he retired in the late 1890s. He kept his stock and as gasoline grew in importance, his wealth soared and he became the world's richest man and first billionaire.
He was the target of multiple vicious attacks from the left, before and after Standard Oil was convicted in federal court of criminal monopolistic practices and broken up in 1911. Rockefeller spent the last forty years of his life creating the modern systematic approach of targeted philanthropy, creating foundations that had a major impact on medicine, education, and scientific research. His foundations pioneered the development of medical research, and was instrumental in the eradication of hookworm and yellow fever. He was a devout Northern Baptist and supported many church-based institutions throughout his life, most notably the University of Chicago.
Early life
John was born at Richford, New York, the son of William Avery Rockefeller and Eliza (Davison) Rockefeller. His father, a travelling salesman of dubious medical cures, was supporting a bigamous second family and was seldom home. John was of Scots, Yankee and German ancestry. His mother was a devoutly religious Baptist, strait-laced, and austere. John was the second of six children and the oldest of three sons. The family moved around a great deal and he attended public schools haphazardly in several towns until he received a good education in Owego, New York and then attended the excellent Cleveland High School in 1853–55; he now studied hard, and did well in mathematics. He never attended college, but three months at a local business school gave him the basics of bookkeeping and commercial and banking practice.
Business career
First business
His first job, starting at $3.50 a week, was clerking for commission merchants who had a diversified business with railroads, steamship lines, producers, and merchants. Three years later the young man was well known, and trusted in the Cleveland business community. He formed a partnership with a young Englishman, Maurice B. Clark, for handling grain, hay, meats, and other goods. On a combined capital of only $4,000 they had sales the first year, 1859–60, of $450,000 and made a profit of $4,400. Clark & Rockefeller boomed during the Civil War, shipping the army many products of the city and region.
Deeply religious, John not only joined the Erie Street Baptist Church in 1854 but soon became its leading lay figure. He helped with maintenance of the building, served as recording clerk, taught Sunday School, and became one of the five trustees. Starting with his first pay packet he always gave to charities about 10% of what he received. He was opposed to slavery and helped a Cincinnati Negro to buy his slave wife. By 1860 he was head of the family as his father was largely gone. His family responsibilities and his business role in supplying the army precluded him from volunteering for the army.
In 1865 he married Laura Celestia Spelman, daughter of a Cleveland business man of Yankee origins.
Rockefeller's entrepreneurial interests turned to the frenzied development of the "Oil Regions" in northwestern Pennsylvania. Oil was used to make kerosene for lighting; it was much superior and cheaper than candles or ehale oil. The industry grew explosively, with wells being drilled, refineries opened, an export market created, and the opening of the Atlantic & Great Western Railroad linking Cleveland to the oil fields. Many small refineries were built in Cleveland.
Boom and bust was the story of oil, as too many wells were drilled and too many refineries opened. Rockefeller realized that Cleveland's closeness to the oil fields and its superb transportation system by rail and steamboats on the Great Lakes gave it a competitive advantage over other cities. In 1863 he, three Clark brothers, and chemist Samuel Andrews, an expert in refining methods, built the Excelsior refinery. In February 1865, he paid $72,500 to buy out the Clarks and partner only with Andrews. That marked his full-time entry into the oil business and, he wrote later, "was the day that determined my career."
By November his refinery was the largest of the 30 in Cleveland. Its sales in 1865 reached $1,200,000; its capacity of 500 barrels a day was double that of the nearest competitor. Rockefeller built a second refinery, the Standard Works, and send his brother William, now a partner too, to New York to organize the export and eastern trade. The leading Cleveland bankers funded the firm. "I was always a great borrower in those days," he recalled. Unlike most oilmen he was methodical, systematic and thorough in his planning, avoiding the speculation, waste, and guesswork that characterized most of his get-rich-quick competitors. Oil prices were high in 1865-66 and now there were fifty rival refineries in Cleveland and 80 in Pittsburgh. Overproduction resulted, ending prices down in 1867–68. Bankruptcy engulfed both well-owners and small refineries that had over-expanded on borrowed money they could not repay. The strength, efficiency, and foresight of the Rockefeller firm kept it profitable.
Predeceased by his wife Laura Spelman Rockefeller, the Rockefellers had four daughters and one son (John D. Rockefeller, Jr.). "Junior" was largely entrusted with supervision of the foundations.
Standard Oil
Having outgrown the partnership form of organization, Rockefeller incorporated Standard Oil Company of Ohio in early 1870 with 10,000 shares of $100 par value, of which Rockefeller held 2,667.
Cleveland was one of the main refining centers in the U.S., and Standard was the most profitable refiner in Cleveland. When it was found out that at least part of Standard Oil's cost advantage came from secret rebates from the railroads bringing oil into Cleveland, the competing refiners insisted on getting similar rebates, and the railroads quickly complied. By then, however, Standard Oil had grown to become one of the largest shippers of oil and kerosene in the country.
The railroads were competing fiercely for traffic and, in an attempt to create a cartel to 'stabilize' freight rates, formed the South Improvement Company. Rockefeller agreed to support this cartel if they gave him preferential treatment as a high volume shipper which included not just steep rebates for his product, but also rebates for the shipment of competing products. Part of this scheme was the announcement of sharply increased freight charges. This touched off a firestorm of protest, which eventually led to the discovery of Standard Oil's part of the deal. A major New York refiner, Charles Pratt and Company, headed by Charles Pratt and Henry H. Rogers, led the opposition to this plan, and railroads soon backed off.
Undeterred, Rockefeller continued with his self-reinforcing cycle of buying competing refiners, improving the efficiency of his operations, pressing for discounts on oil shipments, undercutting his competition, and buying them out. In six weeks in 1872, Standard Oil had absorbed 22 of its 26 Cleveland competitors. Eventually, even his former antagonists, Pratt and Rogers saw the futility of continuing to compete against Standard Oil, and in 1874, they made a secret agreement with their old nemesis to be acquired. Pratt and Rogers became Rockefeller's partners. Rogers, in particular, became one of Rockefeller's key men in the formation of the Standard Oil Trust. Pratt's son, Charles Millard Pratt became Secretary of Standard Oil.
For many of his competitors, Rockefeller had merely to show them his books so they could see what they were up against, then make them a decent offer. If they refused his offer, he told them he would run them into bankruptcy, then cheaply buy up their assets at auction. Most capitulated.
Standard Oil gradually gained almost complete control of all oil production in America. At that time, many legislatures had made it difficult to incorporate in one state and operate in another. As a result, Rockefeller and his partners owned separate companies across dozens of states, making their management of the whole enterprise rather unwieldy. In 1882, Rockefeller's lawyers created an innovative form of partnership to centralize their holdings, giving birth to the "Standard Oil Trust". The partnership's size and wealth drew much attention. Despite improving the quality and availability of kerosene products while greatly reducing their cost to the public (the price of kerosene dropped by nearly 80% over the life of the company), Standard Oil's business practices created intense controversy. The firm was attacked by journalists and politicians throughout its existence for its monopolistic practices, giving momentum to the anti-trust movement.
One of the most effective attacks on Rockefeller and his firm was the 1904 publication of The History of the Standard Oil Company, by Ida Tarbell. Tarbell was a leading muckraker. Although her work prompted a huge backlash against the company, Tarbell claims to have been surprised at its magnitude. "I never had an animus against their size and wealth, never objected to their corporate form. I was willing that they should combine and grow as big and wealthy as they could, but only by legitimate means. But they had never played fair, and that ruined their greatness for me." (Tarbell's father had been driven out of the oil business during the South Improvement Company affair.)
Ohio was especially vigorous in applying its state anti-trust laws, and finally forced a separation of Standard Oil of Ohio from the rest of the company in 1892, leading to the dissolution of the trust. Rockefeller continued to consolidate his oil interests as best as he could until New Jersey, in 1899, changed its incorporation laws to effectively allow a re-creation of the trust in the form of a single holding company. At its peak, Standard Oil had about 90% of the market for kerosene products.
By 1896, Rockefeller shed all of his policy involvement in the affairs of Standard Oil; however he retained his nominal title as president until 1911; he kept his stock.
In 1911, the Supreme Court of the United States held that Standard Oil, which by then still had a 64% market share, originated in illegal monopoly practices and ordered it to be broken up into 34 new companies. These included, among many others, Continental Oil, which became Conoco; Standard of Indiana, which became Amoco; Standard of California, which became Chevron; Standard of New Jersey, which became Exxon; Standard of New York, which became Mobil; and Standard of Ohio, which became Sohio. Rockefeller, who had rarely sold shares, owned stock in all of them.
Medical cronyism involvement
Rockefeller helped fund the Flexner Report, a medical "report" started by Abraham Flexner for the Carnegie Foundation. The Flexner Report claimed to be intended to standardize the practice of medicine, though it shut down many medical schools it itself deemed "unscientific" and "outdated".[1] Rockefeller then used alarmist propaganda to scare the then-Congress into declaring the American Medical Association as the only organization allowed to grant medical licenses.[2] Some say the Flexner Report went as far as to jail non-conforming medical doctors at the time who refused to comply with the monopolistic demands.[citation needed]
From his very first paycheck, Rockefeller tithed ten percent of his earnings to his church. As his wealth grew, so did his giving, primarily to educational and public health causes, but also for basic science and the arts. He was advised primarily by Frederick T. Gates after 1891, and, after 1897, also by his son.
Rockefeller believed in the Efficiency Movement, arguing that
- "To help an inefficient, ill-located, unnecessary school is a waste...it is highly probable that enough money has been squandered on unwise educational projects to have built up a national system of higher education adequate to our needs, if the money had been properly directed to that end."[3]
He and his advisors invented the conditional grant that required the recipient to "root the institution in the affections of as many people as possible who, as contributors, become personally concerned, and thereafter may be counted on to give to the institution their watchful interest and coöperation."[4]
In 1884, he provided major funding for a college in Atlanta for black women that became Spelman College (named for Rockefeller's in-laws who were ardent abolitionists before the Civil War). Rockefeller also gave considerable donations to Denison University and other Baptist colleges.
Rockefeller gave $80 million to the University of Chicago under William Rainey Harper, turning a small Baptist college into a world-class institution by 1900. He later called it "the best investment I ever made." His General Education Board, founded in 1902, was established to promote education at all levels everywhere in the country. It was especially active in supporting black schools in the South. Its most dramatic impact came by funding the recommendations of the Flexner Report of 1910, which revolutionized the study of medicine in the United States.
Despite his personal preference for homeopathy, Rockefeller, on Gates's advice, became one of the first great benefactors of medical science. In 1901, he founded the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York. It changed its name to Rockefeller University in 1965, after expanding its mission to include graduate education. It claims a connection to 23 Nobel laureates. He founded the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission in 1909, an organization that eventually eradicated the hookworm disease that had long plagued the American South. The Rockefeller Foundation was created in 1913 to continue and expand the scope of the work of the Sanitary Commission, which was closed in 1915. He gave nearly $250 million to the foundation, which focused on public health, medical training, and the arts. It endowed the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, the first of its kind. It built the Peking Union Medical College into a great institution, helped in World War I war relief, and it employed William Lyon Mackenzie King of Canada to study industrial relations. Rockefeller's fourth main philanthropy, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Foundation, created in 1918, supported work in the social studies; it was later absorbed into the Rockefeller Foundation. However, all told, Rockefeller gave away about $550 million.
Oddly enough, Rockefeller was probably best known in his later life for the practice of giving a dime to children wherever he went. He even gave dimes as a playful gesture to men like tire mogul Harvey Firestone and President Herbert Hoover. During the Great Depression, Rockefeller switched to giving nickels instead of dimes.
He died on May 23, 1937, 26 months shy of his 100th birthday. Rockefeller is buried in Lake View Cemetery, Cleveland, Ohio. Visitors to the gravesite often place dimes at the base of the stone, perhaps hoping that their money will increase as Rockefeller's did.[5]
Rockefeller had a long and controversial career in industry followed by a long career in philanthropy. His image is an amalgam of all of these experiences and the many ways he was viewed by his contemporaries. These contemporaries include his former competitors, many of whom were driven to ruin, but many others of whom sold out at a profit (or a profitable stake in Standard Oil, as Rockefeller often offered his shares as payment for a business), and quite a few of whom became very wealthy as managers as well as owners in Standard Oil. They also include politicians and writers, some of whom served Rockefeller's interests, and some of whom built their careers by fighting Rockefeller and the "robber barons."
Biographer Allan Nevins, answering Rockefeller's enemies, concluded:
- The rise of the Standard Oil men to great wealth was not from poverty. It was not meteor-like, but accomplished over a quarter of a century by courageous venturing in a field so risky that most large capitalists avoided it, by arduous labors, and by more sagacious and farsighted planning than had been applied to any other American industry. The oil fortunes of 1894 were not larger than steel fortunes, banking fortunes, and railroad fortunes made in similar periods. But it is the assertion that the Standard magnates gained their wealth by appropriating "the property of others" that most challenges our attention. We have abundant evidence that Rockefeller's consistent policy was to offer fair terms to competitors and to buy them out, for cash, stock, or both, at fair appraisals; we have the statement of one impartial historian that Rockefeller was decidedly "more humane toward competitors" than Carnegie; we have the conclusion of another that his wealth was "the least tainted of all the great fortunes of his day."[6]
Biographer Ron Chernow wrote of Rockefeller:
- What makes him problematic—and why he continues to inspire ambivalent reactions—-is that his good side was every bit as good as his bad side was bad. Seldom has history produced such a contradictory figure."[7]
Notwithstanding these varied aspects of his public life, Rockefeller may ultimately be remembered simply for the raw size of his wealth. In 1902, an audit showed Rockefeller was worth about $200 million—compared to the total national wealth that year of $101 billion. His wealth grew significantly after as the demand for gasoline soared, eventually reaching about $900 million, including significant interests in banking, shipping, mining, railroads, and other industries. By the time of his death in 1937, Rockefeller's remaining fortune, largely tied up in permanent family trusts, was estimated at $1.4 billion. Rockefeller's net worth over the last decades of his life would easily place him among the very wealthiest persons in history. As a percentage of the United States economy, no other American fortune—including Bill Gates or Sam Walton—ever came close.
The Rockefeller wealth, distributed as it was through a system of foundations and trusts, continued to fund family philanthropic, commercial, and, eventually, political aspirations throughout the 20th century. Grandson David Rockefeller was a leading New York banker, serving for over 20 years as CEO of Chase Manhattan (part of JP Morgan Chase). Another grandson, Nelson A. Rockefeller, was Republican governor of New York and Vice President. A third grandson, Winthrop Rockefeller, served as Republican governor of Arkansas. Great-grandson Jay Rockefeller (John D. Rockefeller IV) is a Democratic former governor and current senator from West Virginia.
Rockefeller has passed into popular culture as the embodiment of wealth. "Oysters Rockefeller" (colored green by the spinach) was named for him because the dish was so rich. The Rockefeller family was a major benefactor in funding the reconstruction effort in France after World War I. As a consequence, Rockefeller (along with the Rothschilds) was considered in that country the canonical billionaire—synonymous with extreme wealth. "John D. Rockerduck" is a Walt Disney character popular in Europe who is a foil to other well-known rich duck, the avaricious "Scrooge McDuck".
- Bringhurst, Bruce. Antitrust and the Oil Monopoly: The Standard Oil Cases,. (1979).
- Chernow, Ron. Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. (1998). Major recent biography. Online review.
- Folsom, Jr., Burton W. John D. Rockefeller and the Oil Industry from The Myth of the Robber Barons. , 2003. conservative interpretation
- Fosdick, Raymond B. The Story of the Rockefeller Foundation. 1989.
- Harr, John Ensor, and Peter J. Johnson. The Rockefeller Century: Three Generations of America's Greatest Family, 1988.
- Harr, John Ensor, and Peter J. Johnson. The Rockefeller Conscience: An American Family in Public and in Private. 1992.
- Hawke, David Freeman. John D: The Founding Father of the Rockefellers. 1980.
- Hidy, Ralph W. and Muriel E. Hidy. History of Standard Oil Company, New Jersey: Pioneering in Big Business, 1882-1911. (1955), in- depth history of the company
- Johnson, Arthur Menzies; The Development of American Petroleum Pipelines: A Study in Private Enterprise and Public Policy, 1862-1906 Cornell University Press, 1956 online edition
- Jonas, Gerald. The Circuit Riders: Rockefeller Money and the Rise of Modern Science. 1989.
- Josephson, Matthew. The Robber Barons. (1934). online edition coatins a left-wing attack on JDR
- Kert, Bernice. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller: The Woman in the Family. (1993).
- Knowlton, Evelyn H. and George S. Gibb. History of Standard Oil Company: Resurgent Years (1956).
- Latham, Earl ed. John D. Rockefeller: Robber Baron or Industrial Statesman? (1949). excerpts pro and con from experts; online edition
- Morris, Charles R. The Tycoons: How Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan Invented the American Supereconomy . (2006), conservative interpretation.
- Nevins, Allan. John D. Rockefeller: The Heroic Age of American Enterprise. (2 vols. 1940) revised as Allan Nevins, Study in Power: John D. Rockefeller, Industrialist and Philanthropist. (2 vols. 1953). A favorable scholarly biography
- Rose, Kenneth W. and Stapleton, Darwin H. "Toward a "Universal Heritage": Education and the Development of Rockefeller Philanthropy, 1884–1913." Teachers College Record" 1992/93(3): 536–555.
- Stasz, Clarice. The Rockefeller Women: Dynasty of Piety, Privacy, and Service. (1995).
- Tarbell, Ida M. The History of the Standard Oil Company, 2 vols, (1904). online edition, famous muckraking attack
- Williamson, Harold F. and Arnold R. Daum. The American Petroleum Industry: The Age of Illumination,, 1959; online edition; the major scholarly history. less useful is vol 2, American Petroleum Industry: The Age of Energy, (1964).
Primary sources
- Gates, Frederick Taylor. Chapters in My Life. (1977).
- Rockefeller, John D.; Random Reminiscences of Men and Events. (1909). online edition
- Ernst, Joseph W., editor. "Dear Father"/"Dear Son:" Correspondence of John D. Rockefeller and John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (1994).
External links
- The Rockefeller Archive Center: bibliography
- American Experience: The Rockefellers A full transcript of the PBS documentary
- The History of the Standard Oil Company, by Ida Tarbell, full text
- Illustrated article about John D Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Company
- Financier's Fortune in Oil Amassed in Industrial Era of 'Rugged Individualism' NY Times Obituary, May 24, 1937
- ↑ Medical Definition of Flexner Report
- ↑ The Flexner Report: How John D. Rockefeller Used the AMA to Take Over Western Medicine
- ↑ [Rockefeller, 168]
- ↑ [Rockefeller p 183]
- ↑ Lake View Cemetery - John D. Rockefeller's Grave, About.com
- ↑ Latham p 104
- ↑ Chernow, Titan


text:
Rigoberto Advincula Publishes Key Findings Simultaneously in Three High-Impact Journals
Monitoring everything from explosives to tainted milk, materials for use in creating sensors for detection devices have been developed by a University of Houston (UH) chemist and his team. The findings recently appeared simultaneously in three journals.
"There are many dangerous substances, pollutants and infectious bacteria we are constantly exposed to," said Rigoberto Advincula, a highly cited materials scientist at UH. "Our work is poised to assist in such efforts as rapidly detecting explosives or banned substances in airports for homeland security, as well as monitoring commercial products like milk and pet food for substandard additive products. There is a need to measure this quantitatively and in a rapid manner."
In a two-stage effort on which a provisional patent has been filed, Advincula's team fabricated the polymer materials and then built a device that was used as a sensor. The work is based on what he calls "the artificial receptor concept." This is akin to an enzyme functioning as a biochemical catalyst within a cell, like an antibody, binding with specific molecules to produce a specific effect in the cell. The elements in Advincula's work, however, deal with metals and plastics and are called molecular imprinted polymers (MIP), a concept also used for making plastic antibodies. These polymers show a certain chemical affinity for the original molecule and can be used to fabricate sensors.
Based in electrochemistry, the films were prepared by electrodeposition, a process similar to electroplating used for metals in the automotive and metal industries. Their key innovation was to use a process called electropolymerization directly on a gold surface and attached to a digital read out. The group's next step is to put this film on portable devices, thus acting as sensors.
"Our materials and methods open up these applications toward portable devices and miniaturization. Our device will allow, in principle, the development of hand-held scanners for bomb detection or nerve agent detection in airports," Advincula said. "This means accurate answers in a rapid manner without loss of time or use of complicated instruments. We can achieve very high sensitivity and selectivity in sensing. The design of our molecules and their fabrication methods have been developed in a simple, yet effective, manner."
The culmination of a year's work, the research being published simultaneously in three journals is a record for Advincula's group. These publications – Macromolecules, Applied Materials & Interfaces, and Biosensors & Bioelectronics – are among some of the most prestigious and highly cited in this area of study.
Macromolecules is the most-cited journal on polymer science, and Applied Materials & Interfaces is an upcoming international forum for applied materials science and engineering. Both are put out by the American Chemical Society (ACS), which provides a comprehensive collection of well-cited, peer-reviewed journals in the chemical sciences. Biosensors & Bioelectronics is the principal international journal devoted to research, design, development and application of such devices and is published by Elsevier, one of the world's leading publishers of science and health information.
In the coming year, the researchers hope to expand the work to many other types of dangerous chemicals and also to proteins given off by pathogens. Ultimately, they plan to create portable hand-held devices for detection that will be made commercially available to the general public, as well as being of interest to the military. Advincula plans to seek additional funding and collaborators to reach these goals. Advincula currently has funding from the National Science Foundation and also works in collaboration with some companies.
Student success is another key element that Advincula emphasizes. In addition to becoming an ACS fellow last year, he received UH's undergraduate research mentoring award and is particularly committed to student success in a materials discovery environment. He says there are few labs like his that have the capability to develop all the chemistry in concert with developing the device and doing the surface analysis all in one location. The set-up provides students a unique environment for discovery.
The two students working on this project who are being trained in his lab are Roderick Pernites and Ramakrishna Ponnapati. Pernites, who is finishing his Ph.D. this semester, recently received the ACS best poster award in the colloids division and currently has eight publications in Advincula's group. Ponnapati, who studied under Advincula and received his Ph.D. in 2009, is now a postdoctoral researcher in UH's department of chemical and biomolecular engineering and previously received a best student award with the Society of Plastic Engineers chapter in Houston.
- Lisa Merkl, University Communication


text:
OCEAN CITY – The Ocean City Police Department and the local community this week are mourning the loss of long-time OCPD Mounted Patrol horse "Buddy," who was put to rest last week one month after retiring from 16 years of service to the resort.
OCPD officials this week announced "Buddy" had to be put down last Monday, Oct. 6, after sustaining an injury to his right rear leg that was deemed inoperable.
Over the years, "Buddy" was involved in hundreds of arrests as well as crowd control situations, searches for lost children, public events, demonstrations and parades.
Because of his friendly demeanor and dependability, "Buddy" was regularly used as the primary training horse for new mounted patrol officers. His vast experience also made him a regular choice for high-profile events such as President William Jefferson Clinton's second inaugural parade in Washington, D.C. in January 1997.
Upon his retirement last month, OCPD Chief Bernadette DiPino promoted "Buddy" to the rank of sergeant. He is believed to have been about 27 years old.
"Buddy" spent his brief retirement, and remaining days, in a safe and tranquil environment at a nearby farm where he was cared for by his police family and enjoyed lush green pastures in a safe and peaceful setting.
According to an OCPD statement, "he will be greatly missed, not only by the members of the Ocean City Police Department, but also by the citizens that knew him well. His friendly demeanor and his hard work will be forever remembered."


text:
What is Yoneda's Lemma a generalization of?
I am looking for examples that were known before category theory entered the stage resp. can be known by students before they start with category theory.
Comments are welcome why the following candidates are good or bad ones.
Further examples are welcome!
Candidate #1: Axiom of extensionality (for sets)
A set is uniquely determined/can be recovered from its elements.
Candidate #2: Dedekind completions (for posets)
A completion of a poset S is the set of its downwardly closed subsets, ordered by inclusion. S is order-embedded in this lattice by sending each element x to the ideal it generates.
Candidate #3: Stone's representation theorem (for Boolean algebras)
Every Boolean algebra B is isomorphic to the algebra of clopen subsets of its Stone space S(B).
Candidate #4: Cayley's theorem (for groups)
Every group G is isomorphic to a subgroup of the symmetric group on G.


text:
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text:
Keep your Mac up to date
Periodically, Apple releases updates to your computer's software (which can include important security updates).
If you receive a notification that software updates are available, you can choose when to install the updates, or choose to be reminded the next day.
You can also check the App Store in the Apple menu to see if there are any updates.
Check for updates manually
To get your updates, choose Apple menu > App Store, then click Updates.
Set your Mac to check for updates automatically
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text:
More and more companies are requesting their suppliers to deliver subassemblies rather than components to their manufacturing lines. We offer many types of Value Added Services to help our Customers increase their own productivity.
These services include hydraulic manifold assembly, sectional valve assembly, port adaptor installation, electrical connector installation, kitting (combining multiple components under one part number), pre-setting of adjustable or configurable devices, custom nameplates, testing or certification to third party specifications and perhaps your unique need.


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Green Lantern #192 | Series 2 1960 DC Comics | Key Issue Star Sapphire Origin
Item Highlights
- Direct Edition
- Key issue – the origin of Star Sapphire
- Standard Cover A
- Comes bagged & boarded
- English language
Item Condition: Collector's Copy
- A comic that has some flaws from previous ownership. Overall the comic makes a nice addition to a collection, however, it may show some of the following: – Spine ticks – Fingerprints on the glossy pages. – Very light wear on the spine i.e a very light crease from opening the comic. – The corners will be maybe a little blunt but not too round. New comics will still contain their glossy finish. – Comics older than 1995 may have off-white pages. -All pages will lie flat. No other bends or creases are evident in the book. Suitable for Collectors who like great condition comics for their collection.
- Digital & coupon codes may not work as these are pre-owned comics
Be sure to check out our other back-issue comics while you are shopping.
Condition & Grading
All of our comics are ungraded unless otherwise stated. Different people have different versions of what a Very Fine or a Near Mint are, so we prefer to leave this to the experts such as CGC or CBCS. We divide our comics up into categories
- Investment Copy
- Collector's Copy
- Reading Copy
- Acceptable Copy
All of our comics come bagged & boarded. Unless otherwise stated all of our comics are first prints. Some pre-1995 comics may be Newsstand Editions. We will note in the product specifications if the comic is a direct or a newsstand edition.
Please note comic books sales are excluded from our refunds & returns policy.


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MACSI is a network of mathematical modellers and scientific computational analysts based in Ireland.
Our aim is to foster new collaborative research, on problems that arise in science, engineering and industry, in order to produce world-class publications on mathematical modelling and produce world-class research and research training in mathematical modelling.
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Free Shipping on most orders over $99
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Pick Up At CosmoAt checkout you can choose to pick up your order at our store in Richmond Hill. When all the items in your order are ready, a notification email will be sent. You can pick up your order in our retail store or use our curbside service. You may be asked for ID or proof of purchase (notification email). See further details.
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text:
Lotus Renault GP got both cars in the top ten in qualifying, which must have come as a relief after all the head-scratching in Singapore?
It was uncomfortable to watch the pace in Singapore. They weren't as competitive as they should have been, but things were back on track in Suzuka. Qualifying was impressive, and this is at one of the most demanding circuits ever built. So that's encouraging but based on where they started I was disappointed with the result. Ninth and 16th: I expected a little better.
What did you make of the fact that neither driver drove a Q3 lap in order to save tyres?
You can't blame the teams for wanting to conserve tyres, that's intelligent, but the regulation should change to prevent the cars from just sitting in the pits because it can be disappointing for the spectators.
By starting on the medium tyre, while those around them had the soft, both drivers struggled at the start – would you have started them on softs?
I don't think it's that simple. The team has all the data, they process all the scenarios with the drivers and come up with the best gamble. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. In this case it definitely didn't work for Bruno because he was baulked by traffic. Vitaly faired better. It's easy to say it was the wrong decision, but the car on soft tyres with a full tank wouldn't have worked either, often it's advantageous to try something different.
Sebastian Vettel became the youngest back-to-back champion in F1 history. It's been a stunning year for him, hasn't it?
Congratulations to him, and let's not forget about Jenson Button who took a brilliant victory. For Sebastian, I know he wanted to stand on the top step but third was more than enough. He only needed one point, so the suspense wasn't huge and he knew that if he didn't become World Champion this weekend he could do it next weekend. His whole season has been fantastic – fantastic speed, fantastic behaviour – he really deserves to win this title, and I have the utmost respect for what he has achieved these past two seasons.
He's only the ninth back-to-back champ. Given his dominance this year, do you think Vettel will go down in history like Senna, Clark, Schumacher and Fangio?
He is still so young, just 24-years-old, and having two titles in his pocket plus a very competitive team for next year we can imagine he'll break many more records and win more titles. But you know how it is in motorsport: The car is so important, and we need to see how the other teams are for next year.


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DES MOINES, Iowa — No one hit the Powerball jackpot this weekend, so the money will roll over and create a roughly $400 million prize for Wednesday's drawing.
The midweek jackpot remains below the record $590.5 million jackpot won in May by an 84-year-old Florida woman. But as it stands, it would be the third-largest Powerball jackpot ever and the fourth-largest lottery prize on record.
Saturday's winning numbers were 21, 24, 36, 42 and 45; the Powerball was 15.
The changes Powerball organizers made to the game last year are coming to roost in the billowing jackpots, with Wednesday's pushing into record territory less than three months after Gloria C. Mackenzie of Zephyrhills, Fla., claimed the biggest Powerball prize ever.
Powerball tickets doubled in price to $2 in January 2012 as part of a plan to help jackpots grow bigger, faster. And when the jackpots reach astronomical levels, ticket sales take off, with jackpots following close behind.
If Wednesday's jackpot doesn't top $400 million, a single winner choosing the cash option would collect $230.3 million before taxes.
No matter how many people play the game, the odds of matching all six numbers remains 1 in 175.2 million.
Half of the $2 cost of a Powerball ticket goes toward the prizes, the rest to the state lottery organization.
Powerball is played in 43 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Each state that participates in the game decides how to use the money. Some states earmark the money for a specific purpose, such as education, while others use it in their general funds.


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1860s Front Avenue
This is downtown Portland in the early 1860s. This is Front Avenue and looking south. You can see shops and businesses are on the ground floor with offices and residences above. People needed the sidewalks. They very clearly didn't need the street area for moving around. You can see that they just piled all kinds of junk in the street because the street wasn't very important. This is one of the reasons that Portland was called a stump town. That is, we had not taken the tree stumps out of our streets yet.


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The Hecl Programming Language is a high-level, open source scripting language implemented in Java. It is intended to be small, extensible, extremely flexible, and easy to learn and use. Infact, it's small enough that it runs on J2ME-enabled cell phones!
I personally can't stand web pages for new programming languages without a quick link to some examples. Here you are: Hecl Examples
Why Hecl? Hecl is intended as a complement to the Java
programming language, not a replacement. As such, it
tries to do well what Java doesn't, and leaves those
tasks to Java for which it is best suited. Hecl aims to
be a very immediate language - you can pick it up and
start doing useful things with it quickly. It is also
meant to be easy to learn. Where Java is verbose and
rigid, Hecl is forgiving and quick to write. For
System.out.println("Hello World"); vs
puts "Hello World" - 41 keystrokes
(shifted letters count double) versus 22. Hecl is built
to "scale
This makes Hecl ideal for large applications written in Java that would like to provide a user friendly scripting interface, rather than, say, a clunky XML based configuration system. Examples include: scripted web pages, command/control logic in long running applications, and, I'm sure, many environments I've never considered.
|Hecl example app for J2ME
|Edit the code...
|... and run it!
|Naturally, this is just an example - you don't have to edit the source code on your phone. Indeed, for normal applications, you wouldn't expose it at all.
Hecl is also a small language with a minimal core. The idea is to provide only what's necessary in the language itself, and as needed, add in extensions for specific tasks. Core Hecl is small enough to run on my Nokia 3100 cell phone as a J2ME application, presenting the interesting possibility of writing scripts, or at some point, maybe even scripting entire applications, for devices running embedded Java. As an example, you can try this MIDlet: Hecl.jar Hecl.jad
Licensing: Hecl is available under the liberal Apache 2.0 license. Which says, more or less, that you may use Hecl in your own applications, even if they are not open source. You have to give the authors credit, though. Read the license itself to clear up any doubts.
About: Hecl is developed by David N. Welton and Wolfgang Kechel. New contributors are more than welcome!


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Athens, Ga. – University of Georgia researchers, working with representatives from most of the world's major cotton-producing countries, have led the description of the first "gold-standard" genome sequence for cotton.
In the Dec. 20 edition of the journal Nature, an international consortium of researchers from 31 institutions presents a high-quality draft assembly of the simplest cotton genome—known scientifically as Gossypium raimondii.
Additionally, the team compared the genome from this ancestral species indigenous to the Americas to several other sets of cotton data contributed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The results have allowed the researchers to trace the evolution of cotton over millions of years from wild varieties to the domesticated species now associated with textile production.
The effort to develop a gold-standard sequence of the cotton genome was jump-started in 2007 when the U. S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute Community Sequencing Program approved a proposal from UGA Regents Professor Andrew Paterson.
Among the 74 authors of the paper, 18 were from UGA, the largest among the 31 institutions involved.
"My group set out toward this goal in 1991, and this achievement is not an ending but a beginning," Paterson said. "We are enthusiastically pursuing next steps using the genome sequence to better understand cotton biology and identify important genes that will improve sustainability of cotton production and increase its role in the more bio-based economy of the future."
The DOE hopes to maximize cotton's potential as a biofuel stock while developing more efficient and sustainable crop varieties for the fiber's traditional uses.
This new "cotton data will help accelerate the study of gene function, particularly cellulose biosynthesis, the understanding of which is fundamental to improved biofuels production," said Jeremy Schmutz, head of the DOE Joint Genome Institute Plant Program and a faculty investigator at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, who led the effort to sequence and assemble the genome for the Joint Genome Institute.
"In addition, the unique structure of the cotton fiber makes it useful in bioremediation, and accelerated cotton crop improvement also promises to improve water efficiency and reduce pesticide use."
The worldwide cotton community chose G. raimondii to be the first of 50 cotton species sequenced as the best model for the New World progenitor of commercially important upland and pima cottons.
In collaboration with Mississippi State University and the USDA's Agricultural Research Service, Paterson and others selected several additional genomes for sequencing, which enabled the team to trace cotton's evolution and the gene duplications that accelerated fiber development.
The cotton genome sequence will be invaluable both on the farm and in the biotechnology laboratory, Paterson said.
On the farm, the identification of key cotton genes and their importance will provide data crucial to increasing cotton production, quality and sustainability.
In the lab, the comparison of an elite cotton cultivar to its wild ancestors provides new insights into how a polyploid—a hybrid of more than one type of cotton—becomes more than the sum of its ancestors. All flowering plants have experienced polyploidy, a process by which the entire hereditary blueprint of an organism is doubled.
"This study represents the first time that a polyploid plant was compared to its progenitors over the entire genome," Paterson said. "This study reveals evolutionary processes salient to all plants and provides a strategy to better understand the genome of many other crops, such as canola, wheat and peanut."
This cotton sequence is among the highest-quality flowering plant sequences yet produced. And it revealed G. raimondii to be among the most complex of flowering plant genomes, experiencing at least a 30-fold multiplication of its genetic complement since its origin from an ancestral flowering plant.
Paterson's colleagues built their understanding of this complexity based on information accumulated over more than 20 years of research funded by the NSF, the USDA, Cotton Inc., the Consortium for Plant Biotechnology Research, Bayer Crop Science and other public and private agencies.
Cotton production contributes heavily to many economies. The value of cotton fiber grown in the U.S. is typically about $6 billion per year. Cottonseed oil and meal byproducts add nearly $1 billion more value. More than 430,000 domestic jobs are related to cotton production and processing, with a combined influence of about $120 billion on the annual U.S. gross domestic product and an estimated annual $500 billion worldwide.
Don Jones, director of Agricultural Research responsible for biotechnology research at Cotton Incorporated, said this G. raimondii gold-standard sequence will be the foundation for further sequencing of commercially important upland cotton know as G. hirsutum.
"This sequencing effort demonstrates that wise investment of grower-supplied Cotton Inc. funding produces cutting-edge research, which benefits the greater cotton community," Jones said. "This sequence is a cornerstone that will help advance our knowledge so we more thoroughly understand the biology that leads to enhanced yield, improved fiber quality and better stress tolerance—all improvements that will benefit growers in the not-too-distant future."
Among the collaborators on the genome project were the DOE Joint Genome Institute, USDA, Cotton Inc., Iowa State University, Mississippi State University, the Consortium for Plant Biotechnology Research and the National Science Foundation.
The journal article is available at http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v492/n7429/full/nature11798.html.