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About OPSC
Just like the other States of India, the State Government of Odisha formed the Odisha Public Service Commission in the year 1949, on 1st April. Before 1949, the states of Odisha and Bihar had a common Public service Commission. The Odisha PSC has achieved great success and acquired great experiences as well as expertise in selecting able and efficient personnel for doing several vital services so that the State Government of Odisha can govern efficiently. At the time of its establishment, OPSC had only three members, including the Chairperson. Its strength became five in 1979. In 1996, the number of members became six.
Responsibilities of Odisha Public Service Commission
These are the most crucial functions of the Odisha Public Service Commission for Odisha PSC recruitment as the following:
- Firstly, Advising the State Government on framing rules for recruitment for several Group 'A' and Group 'B' posts.
- Advising on issues related to the promotion of several officers as well as fixation of salary based on the pay scale of Group 'B' and Group 'A' officers
- Thirdly, Conducting exams for recruiting candidates for several services belonging to the Group 'B' under the Odisha State Government
- Conducting competitive PSC exams according to the rules of recruitment through written test and viva
- It also forms Interview Boards consisting of experts in concerned subjects that interview candidates for several posts
Odisha College Service Commission jobs
If you are looking for College Service Commission job notifications in Odisha, visit the official website of Odisha Public Commission which is www.opsc.gov.in. Here you will get all latest information about the following vacancies in several posts, exam dates, mode of application, examination fee, eligibility criteria, exam syllabus, etc. for CSC jobs in Odisha.
Public Service Commission of Odisha online website
Now the Public Service Commission of Odisha has introduced an official website for the convenience of the applicants. Here you will get the detailed list of the following all upcoming OPSC exams. After the results are out for various jobs that OPSC conducts, they also publish the OPSC result on their official website. You can check your result from the site with the help of your roll number and other relevant details.
Important Details of Odisha PSC
- OPSC Website: http://www.opsc.gov.in
- Odisha Public Service Commission Head Office: 19, DR. P.K. Parija Road Cuttack, Odisha, 753 001
- Public Service Commission of Odisha Helpline Numbers: 0671 2305611, 2304141
- Odisha PSC Contact Details: http://www.opsc.gov.in/contact.php


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With growing antisemitism on the rise, in the United States and across the globe, Idaho Lieutenant Governor Janice McGeachin has issued a statement expressing her strong opposition to all forms of antisemitism.
In her letter, Lieutenant Governor Janice McGeachin stated:
"I oppose all forms of Antisemitism, including but not limited to dividing Israel with the establishment of a Palestinian state, assault of Jewish people, business deals with Iran, BDS, funding of Antisemitic U.N. agencies like UNRWA and others; defacing Jewish places of worship, business, monuments as well as desecration of cemeteries in Vilnius, Lithuania and elsewhere by building over the graves of the Jewish people."
The statement was discussed in detail in an interview by White House Journalist Dr Antony Harper. Lieutenant Governor Janice McGeachin's interview can be reviewed on YouTube.
The passing of a resolution by the Lithuanian government in 2015 to construct a conference center on the 500-year old Snipiskes Jewish cemetery, invoked a global outcry.
After general elections in December 2020, the changing of the Lithuanian guard and establishment of a new government, officials have moved to address antisemitism and Holocaust denial.
In August 2021, the Lithuanian government announced that it would be freezing plans to develop the conference center on the Jewish cemetery. The decision was met with world applause.
The international community has moved to support a proposal that will see the restoration of the Snipiskes cemetery and return to its former glory. Expert economists believe that Jewish tourism will result in a windfall for the Lithuanian economy, given the positive benefits that Jewish tourism has achieved in neighboring countries, such as the Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary. Tour organizers believe that in a post COVID era, this option is a compelling alternative.
The prospect of restoration of the cemetery remains uncertain. There are interest groups that have continued to lobby the government to reinstate the Conference Center proposal. The Vilnius City Council is one of them.
Although the evidence suggests that consensus favors restoration of the cemetery, the realization of such a proposal is far from a slam dunk.
The international Jewish community however, is committed towards achieving a return of the Jewish cemetery to its former glory. Momentum for this cause, has gathered significant momentum over the past few months.

subset: commoncrawl


text: Partner content Associate Feature: Peatland restoration is a win for local communities, job creation, and nature and climate Share this page Scotland has over two million hectares of peatland. It's a unique habitat capable of storing vast amounts of carbon - on average 10 times more carbon per hectare than any other land-based ecosystem. Functioning peatlands are also important for biodiversity, supporting a wide range of plants, birds and other species, as well as being a source of clean water and helping to reduce the likelihood of flooding downstream. They are part of Scotland's iconic landscapes and cultural identity. However, past drainage and management have damaged much of this peatland and it is now in such poor condition that instead of storing carbon, it is emitting greenhouse gasses. We estimate that it is responsible for more than 10 per cent of Scotland's total emissions, second only to transport in the list of largest of sources. The good news is that we can repair and restore peatlands to a condition where they are functioning properly once again. Creating wetter conditions to encourage the growth of active peat-forming plant species starts the process of changing the peatland from one that is emitting carbon to one that is actively storing it. But the benefits of restored and functioning peatlands are wider than just carbon capture. For example, restoration improves the surface habitat leading to greater plant diversity and in turn higher numbers of invertebrates, a food source for birds such as grouse and other upland species. Restored areas absorb and hold rainwater for longer than damaged areas before slowly allowing it to seep into river systems. This regulation of water flow is important as it reduces the likelihood of flooding downstream. It also helps alleviate issues associated with drought conditions such as wild fires. Restoration reduces soil erosion helping to improve water quality at source, which is important for fisheries, and drinking water catchments. And these broad benefits help to support our economy whether used in farming, tourism or crofting, or by indirectly benefiting whisky production. The Scottish Government-funded Peatland ACTION programme provides advice and resources to deliver on-the-ground peatland restoration, funding multi-million pound large-scale projects over multiple years, as well as smaller community-based restoration projects. The programme also monitors the impact of the work, which in turn allows us to understand the broad benefits. Undertaking peatland restoration is a relatively new and growing sector. In the 10 years since the Peatland ACTION programme began, new techniques have been developed and refined, whilst in the process restoring more than 30,000 Ha of peatland. Scottish Government Infrastructure Investment Plan funds of £250m are earmarked for peatland restoration over the next 10 years. Also, the likelihood that billions of pounds of funding will be required to help restore Scotland's 1.6 million hectares of degraded peatland, means that this is a growing industry. In order to meet these ambitious targets NatureScot and the other Peatland ACTION delivery partners (Cairngorms National Park Authority; Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park Authority; Forestry and Land Scotland; and Scottish Water) are actively seeking to support landowners to get involved in peatland restoration and its sustainable management. The partners recognise that this ambition needs to go hand in hand with a rapid development of the delivery industry. Working with organisations like the Crichton Carbon Centre, NatureScot is providing training, capacity building and guidance to contractors who will design the restoration schemes and undertake the capital work. Whilst the broad benefits of peatland restoration are just coming to fruition, it is estimated that around 1,500 local and skilled jobs will be needed in peatland restoration over the next ten years. It has the chance to become a significant employer in rural and remote communities. For example, skilled machine operators are a critical element of peatland restoration activity. Indeed, the civil engineering firms who are leading this work have developed specialist skills in restoration techniques and operating specialist machinery in this sensitive habitat. This developing industry will create new opportunities for skills development and job opportunities. NatureScot is developing skills pathways to support the range of specialist and technical jobs needed for its growth. This includes support for expanding the pool of highly skilled machine operators, but also the hydrologists, satellite data analysts, surveyors, ornithologists, ecologists and project managers that underpin the restoration proposals/works. In the short term, restoration of functioning peatlands provides opportunity to deliver for the climate, biodiversity and the economy – a triple win for Scotland's people. For more information on Peatland ACTION email firstname.lastname@example.com or visit: www.nature.scot/PeatlandACTION This article was sponsored by NatureScot Holyrood Newsletters Holyrood provides comprehensive coverage of Scottish politics, offering award-winning reporting and analysis: Subscribe


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Almost a year into varying levels of quarantine, the country has experienced quite a lifestyle shift that made people wary of going out too far from their homes.
While most are expecting the restrictions to taper off, we are still far from being "back to normal". So there are still a few who choose to err on the side of caution, especially families who live with children and/or seniors.
Shoppers queue to get their daily needs at a nearby Alfamart. Foot traffic has gone down throughout the pandemic, but each customer buys more to stock up their respective pantries. |
"I try not to go far, or to any places that may be crowded, when I have to shop for our household needs," said Beverly, a household helper in a Quezon City subdivision. Beverly is employed by a senior citizen couple so she cannot go off too far and risk infection. "Fortunately, we have an Alfamart here inside the subdivision; walking distance from the house. That's where I tend to shop nowadays," she continued in Filipino.
Beverly added that, over the past year, she and other people in their subdivision have gotten used to going to Super Minimarts. "We thought the [Alfamart] was just a convenience store, but over the pandemic we discovered that it does provide other items like meat, fish, and many other household needs." she said.
A customer is assisted by Alfamart staff. As more people turn to nearby Alfamart branches to get their needs, store staff are all the more helpful. |
Minimarts have become a welcome convenience to communities, especially during the pandemic. According to Alfamart, the first and only Super Minimart chain in the Philippines, while there has understandably been less foot-traffic in their stores, the amount of items purchased per customer has increased.


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- Terrorist killings at Iranian parliament and mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini bring into focus something Riyadh and Tehran have in common – the stoking of ethnic tensions and proxy wars they use to destabilise each other
by James M. Dorsey,
Islamic State's targeting of key religious and political symbols in Tehran is likely to aggravate an already escalating proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
A war of words in recent weeks between the two Middle Eastern heavyweights offered Iranian officials a rich background to justify their pinning of responsibility on the Saudis for Wednesday's simultaneous attacks on the Iranian parliament and the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic republic. At least 12 people were killed and 42 others wounded in the attacks, the first in Iran to be claimed by Islamic State (IS).
Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in an interview last month with Middle East Broadcasting Corp, warned the battle with the Islamic republic would be fought "inside Iran, not in Saudi Arabia".
Iranian Defence Minister General Hossein Dehghan responded that if Saudi Arabia engaged in "such stupidity" nothing would be "left in Saudi Arabia except Mecca and Medina", Islam's two holiest cities.
The irony is that Wednesday's attacks laid bare a picture of the pot calling the kettle black, highlighting mirror images that both the Islamic republic and the kingdom would have like to have kept hidden.
The US-Saudi plot for Iran that spells trouble for China's new Silk Road
Saudi Arabia and Iran both discriminate against ethnic and religious minorities that populate their oil-rich provinces: primarily Sunni Muslim ethnic Arabs in Iran's Khuzestan as well as Sunni minorities elsewhere in Iran, and Shiites in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province. The perpetrators of Wednesday's attacks appear to have been Sunni Muslims, including an Iranian Baloch and an Arab with a Gulf or Iraqi accent.
Members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard secure the area outside the Iranian parliament during the attack by Islamic State. Photo: AFP
Members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard secure the area outside the Iranian parliament during the attack by Islamic State. Photo: AFP
Saudi Arabia and Iran moreover both employ proxies to fight their battles. Saudi support for militant groups opposed to the Islamic regime in Tehran does not by definition implicate the kingdom in the attacks in Tehran. Yet, the dividing lines between militant groups are often fluid in the murky world of militancy and the possible covert operations of intelligence agencies.
Iran has recently recruited at least 3,000 Pakistani Shiites into its Xenobia brigade that is fighting in Syria in support of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. Pakistan also detained in May a commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) who was on a recruiting mission in Balochistan. The commander has since been released.
Wednesday's attacks moreover came amid mounting indications that Saudi Arabia is hoping to exploit ethnic and Sunni Muslim grievances to destabilise Iran. Pakistani militants report an influx of funds into viscerally anti-Shiite and anti-Iranian religious seminaries in Balochistan, the troubled Pakistani province that borders Iran's province of Sistan and Baluchistan, a crown jewel in China's Belt and Road Initiative.
Balochistan has witnessed a series of devastating attacks in the past year, some of which were claimed by IS, others by groups with past links to the kingdom, including cross border operations against border guards in Iran.
Saudi thinking was further reflected in the publication by a government-backed think tank in Riyadh of a roadmap for instigating unrest among Iran's Baloch written by an Iranian Baloch activist.
Wednesday's attacks, wittingly or unwittingly, served the purpose of both Saudi and Iranian hardliners. The attacks came weeks after a resounding electoral victory for Iranian President Hassan Rowhani, who has allowed official representatives of the Iranian Arab community to voice grievances.
"The more that this happens, the less the Saudi-backed separatists win. What the separatists want is the polarisation of views and to incite the regime to attack the [Iranian Arab] community, thereby securing a popular backlash. In recent weeks, they have conducted more murders, mostly of security personnel but also of non-security officials. They want mass arrests and public executions in order to establish themselves as the vanguard of the Ahwazi resistance," said an Iran watcher with close ties to the Iranian Arab community that refers to itself as Ahwazi.
Featured image: An image released by Islamic State shows a person inside the Iranian parliament in Tehran. Photo: Reuters


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What if we got the true message of Jesus wrong? What if his real message was hiding in plain sight, in familiar parables whose meaning we take at face value, but that contain deeper and more meaningful truths?
That is one of the primary themes in Jesus, A New Vision by the bestselling author Whitley Strieber, a book that forces us to look at the life and teachings of Jesus in a fresh light. Strieber believes that "for too many of us, the promise of the Jesus teaching has slipped away, encrusted in religious doctrine or dismissed because we find that doctrine impossible to accept."
Looking beyond the Bible for the real Jesus.
Strieber believes that the most important sayings and key teachings of Jesus are found in two gospels not found in the Bible, the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary. They are a part of the 52 "Gnostic" texts discovered at Nag Hamadi in 1945 and represent some of the earliest Christian teachings. In fact, the Gospel of Thomas may predate all 4 of the New Testament gospels. (For more on why Thomas and Mary weren't included in the Bible, see here.)
One of the key takeaways from these two Gnostic texts is the notion that "Jesus was not giving us the answers we seek but beseeching us to look within ourselves." Jesus wants us to use our own "self-knowledge" for answers and insights. It is an idea that was propagated by many early Christians sects, including the Valentinians, who claimed their fellow Christians were making a mistake by reading the scriptures only literally. This was especially true with the parables that Jesus used to teach his disciples. Strieber explains that:
Once one understands how to use the parables, which is by seeing them internally, their role as the hidden path "to the realm that is within you" is made plain.
For starters, let's look at the meaning of the "kingdom of heaven."
Writing in her book The Gnostic Gospels, the religious scholar Elaine Pagels informs us that 3 of the 4 Biblical gospels say that the Kingdom will come in the near future. But there's an outlier. It's the Gospel of Luke where Jesus explicitly says "the kingdom of God is within you." In other words, "the kingdom" should not be viewed literally, a belief that is amplified in the Gospel of Thomas.
As Pagels points out, "In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus ridiculed thinking of the "kingdom of God" in literal terms, as if it were a specific place." The kingdom cannot be found in the sky or in the afterlife but is "a state of self-discovery." One can find it while here on earth through internal transformation. While containing some of the same language found in Luke 17:21, Thomas expands on the notion of the kingdom:
The kingdom is inside of you and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will realize that you are the son of the living Father.
Strieber writes that "The disciple who comes to know himself (or herself) can then discover what even Jesus cannot teach." It is what the early Christian leader Simon Magus (mentioned in Acts 8:9-24) called "a dwelling place (of) infinite power…the root of the universe." It is no different today. To paraphrase Strieber, Jesus offers a realm of heaven that we can discover within us right now, before death. No matter how difficult our lives may be, we can bring the peace of the kingdom into our hearts in the present moment.
It's an idea that is echoed by the modern-day Christian leader Richard Rohr:
The realm of God is right here, right now, in the present tense. The relationship with God's love that sets us free is in our midst. The possibility of freedom, of a whole new world, is already here.
As with "the kingdom of heaven," there are other examples in the "approved" gospels where "the inner path" of the Jesus teachings shine through. Stieber calls out 4 specific biblical parables that show us how the teachings work. Here are two of them in edited form:
Parable One. The Parable of the Mustard Seed.
What Jesus Said: What is the realm of God like? What shall I compare it to? It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds perched in its branches. (Luke 13:18-19)
What Jesus Meant: The mustard seed is the self-knowledge that lives within you and grows as you progress along the spiritual path. Once planted in the fertile ground of a seeker, the seed will grow as knowledge grows, no matter how small it is to start. The birds represent the various facets of our true self, including the parts we may not especially like. Once the birds find shelter here (in our soul), we can begin to fully accept ourselves and find inner peace.
Parable Two. The Parable of the Weeds.
What Jesus Said: "The realm of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, the weeds also appeared." The farmer tells his servants not to pull up the weeds lest they also uproot the wheat. "Let both grow together until the harvest." At this time I will tell the harvesters, "First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn." (Matthew 13:24-30)
What Jesus Meant: The field is the experience of life and the sower is you, the person living that life. The weeds are the distractions of all kinds that come your way and that prevent you from spiritual growth. When Jesus instructs us to let both the weeds and wheat grow, it is because we often cannot separate the good from the bad until we are spiritually mature. We do not want to pull the weeds and mistakenly destroy the wheat, which is the wisdom that grows within us. In time, we learn to recognize the wheat, eliminating the weeds, allowing us to grow closer to God.


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Talk in English - US at ZendCon 2017
Short URL: https://joind.in/talk/df734
(QR-Code (opens in new window))
Data redundancy, computing clusters, load balancing, fail-over mechanisms, each of these individually addresses one potential issue, but none treats systems in your organisation holistically for maximising business revenue. You'll learn how to stop hating your existing infrastructure, prepare it for the leap to high availability using simple and intuitive changes that your DevOps team will love. Silos are a clever method of grouping servers in such a way that they can be scaled both horizontally and vertically, depending on the actual application needs. Most importantly, it frees you from over-optimizing the architecture upfront, by allowing fine adjustments easy to integrate in your Agile workflow. And they offer real A/B testing for your infrastructure and backend code. Then we'll look together at the awesome new things that you can do with your new silo superpowers. You'll be able to impress not only your fellow tekkies, but also marketing with helpful new tricks.
Comments are closed.
Great presentation! Well thought out and presented
Great talk. Especially liked the Q&A at the end which drew in several attendees for a great discussion.
very interesting
So interesting! Well presented.


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Great days out from Inverness – the road to Applecross
The fantastic weather we've been getting in the north of Scotland over the last few days is showing the Highlands at their best.
Yesterday afternoon we went over to Applecross for a late lunch. Travelling over the Bealach-na-Ba pass (at over 2000 feet, the highest paved road in the UK) was fantastic, with wonderful views in all directions.
We enjoyed a delicious lunch at the Applecross Inn, famous for its seafood and home of the best fish and chips in Scotland.
After coming back over the pass (for the more faint hearted there is the slightly longer but equally beautiful coastal route)
then back to Inverness via Torridon. The loch looked beautiful in the afternoon sunshine and the sides of the road were ablaze with the wild pink and purple rhododendrons.
At the end of this wonderful afternoon we were back in Inverness in time for dinner at Aspendos – terrific!


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SAO PAULO -- Brazilian authorities have moved to block assets of Barcelona star Neymar, including a yacht, a jet and several properties in his home nation.
The Sao Paulo federal court has started issuing warrants to freeze the assets worth 192 million reals (almost $50m, €45m).
Last year, Neymar, his family and related businesses were found guilty of evading 63m reals in Brazil taxes ($16m, €14m) between 2011 and 2013, while Neymar played for Brazilian club Santos. He has denied any wrongdoing.
✈ Porto Alegre pic.twitter.com/LklpZj0A46
- Neymar Jr (@neymarjr) June 8, 2015
The courts previously froze his assets in September, and Brazilian newspapers reported that the player's appeal against the decision was rejected last week.
In January, Neymar and his father were reportedly ordered to pay €100,000 as a fine for unpaid taxes during 2007-08.
Iagaro Jung Martins, an auditor with Brazil's federal tax agency, told The Associated Press that Neymar isn't likely to go to jail if he pays what he owes.
"He can still appeal that decision, but it is a step forward," Martins said. "Nothing changed to what was in place last year: if he pays what he owes, the case is closed. Our legislation isn't too harsh."
In a separate case, Neymar appeared in court in Spain earlier this month in matters relating to his transfer from Santos to Barcelona in 2013.


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Subtotal: $0
Grama Cushion - natural
Square cushion woven on loom with pure sheep wool with cut skin technique.
Soft texture and firm structure. These rustic cushions are ideal for arm-chairs, beds and any low-maintenance space
Back opening with cross flaps.
Includes silicone fleece filling.
Color: Natural
Tamaño: 16 x 16 in


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Investigation: Observing Diffusion and Semi-Permeable Membranes
- Page ID
- 26903
This page is a draft and is under active development.
How Can Diffusion Be Observed?
Introduction: In this lab you will observe the diffusion of a substance across a semi permeable membrane. Iodine is a known indicator for starch. An indicator is a substance that changes color in the presence of the substance it indicates. Watch as your teacher demonstrates how iodine changes in the presence of starch.
Prelab Observations: Describe what happened when iodine came into contact with starch.
1. Fill a plastic baggie with a teaspoon of corn starch and a half a cup of water tie bag. (This may already have been done for you)
2. Fill a beaker halfway with water and add ten drops of iodine.
3. Place the baggie in the cup so that the cornstarch mixture is submerged in the iodine water mixture.
4. Wait fifteen minutes and record your observations in the data table
5. While you are waiting, answer the questions.
1. Define diffusion. ____________________________________________________________
2. Define osmosis. ____________________________________________________________
3. Why is iodine called an indicator? _____________________________________________________
4. Molecules tend to move from areas of _______ concentration to areas of ______ concentration.
What's in the Bag?
We're going to think about concentrations now, which substances are more or less concentrated depends on which one has the most stuff in it.
1. Which is more concentrated in starch? [ beaker / baggie ]
2. Which is more concentrated in iodine? [ beaker / baggie ]
3. With regard to iodine, which is hypertonic? [ beaker / baggie ]
4. With regard to starch, which is hypertonic? [ beaker / baggie ]
Make Some Predictions
1. If the bag is permeable to starch, which way would the starch move? [ into bag / out of bag ]
2. If the bag is permeable to iodine, which way would the iodine move? [ into bag / out of bag ]
3. If the bag is permeable to iodine, what color would you expect it to change? [ orange / purple / no change ]
What about the solution in the beaker? [ orange / purple / no change ]
4. If the bag is permeable to starch, what color would you expect it to change? [ orange / purple / no change ]
What about the solution in the beaker? [ orange / purple / no change ]
Write your observations in the table below:
Starting Color | Color after 15 minutes | |
Solution in Beaker | ||
Solution in Bag |
Post Lab Analysis
1. Based on your observations, which substance moved, the iodine or the starch?
2. How did you determine this?
3. The plastic baggie was permeable to which substance?
4. Explain how the bag is a model for the cell.
5. Sketch the cup and baggie in the space below. Use arrows to illustrate how diffusion occurred in this lab.
6. What would happen if you did an experiment in which the iodine solution was placed in the baggie, and the starch solution was in the beaker? Be detailed in your description.
7. Why is it not a good idea to store iodine in a plastic bag? Related Documents:


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The effects of global warming have never been more felt as the weather seems to shift from one extreme to another. Cities like Surrey are currently experiencing intense heat, making it harder for people to perform everyday tasks. With this in mind, it's no wonder many companies are installing computer room air conditioning.
Heat and Productivity
Studies show that the heat only increases the impatience of workers, making them irritated and uncomfortable throughout work. This same research suggests that the optimum office air conditioning Surrey workers need for productivity is between 21 to 23 degrees Celsius. Between these temperatures, 98% of workers are productive and in a good mood, making for excellent office dynamics.
Air Conditioning for Computers
When it comes to office air conditioning Surrey company, workers aren't the only ones who benefit from controlled temperatures. The office equipment also works better with proper computer room air conditioning. This is because computers already generate heat when operating and exposing them to even higher temperatures can lead to overheating. Like humans, computers are more productive in slightly colder settings.
Air Conditioning and Air Quality Testing Surrey Services
Considering the many benefits of air conditioning, there's really no question about the importance of a proper cooling system in the office. Fortunately, Surrey is currently home to numerous air conditioning businesses that offer their expertise in providing, installing and even maintaining temperature conditions. Companies like AC Logic have been operating within Surrey and neighboring areas, making sure that all offices function within productive temperatures at all times.
About AC Logic
AC Logic is a long-standing company specializing in air conditioning and air quality testing Surrey based establishments. Their services involve everything related to temperature control starting from available products, installation, regular checkups and even regular maintenance. They also have all the tools needed to check indoor air quality and make sure that the temperature, humidity and even CO2 readings are within the normal range.
When choosing an office air conditioning Surrey servicing company, it's usually best to opt for one with multiple features on offer. For example, AC Logic is also an accredited provider of Energy Assessment (a requirement in today's government) and deals with thermal imaging, a high-tech method of predicting and fixing problems even before they become critical and expensive to address.
Of course, office temperature isn't the only factor that lends to productivity. Other considerations such as office dynamics and even the layout of the room can affect the drive of the employees to work. With proper air conditioning on your side however, you can be sure of achieving some progress and keeping the employees happy at the same time. For more information about air conditioning and office dynamics, try checking out AC Logic's main webpage and blog.


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Fall, it can frustrate you.
The nice weather this week definitely slowed the fishing down some. Plenty of fish biting though. Many lakes still have hug schools of baitfish swimming around. Weeds are browning, but still thick, and water is high 50's to low 60's on most lakes in the area.
Panfish are in a full fall position. Tight to cover, and feeding aggressively in a couple of time periods a day. Bluegills are staged along weedlines at the end of major points or other mainlake structure. Look for bigger gills along the bottom, as deep as 25'. Crappie are suspended over deeper wood or humps, and some bigger crappie are being reported from 18-22' depths.
Bass fishing is baitfish related. Find bait, and you'll find the fish. Most fish are making a couple foraging runs a day, holding just off of transition areas, before moving in to feed during the warmer parts of the day. The water is cooler than the book says, but topwater bass fishing with minnow imitators can by absolutely dynamite this time of year. A deep-diving crankbait (I like Wiggle Warts and Norman D22's in natural color patterns) fished along sharp breaks can also produce some bigger fish. The livebait bite will get good as temperatures cool off again.
Pike fishing has been about average. You can still head out and fish shallow flats with clumps of weeds with a spinner, buzzbait or lipless crankbait and catch smaller pike. The bigger fish haven't made a move in from the deep wedlines yet and can be caught fishing larger plastics (like a reaper) or on slip-sinker live bait rigs. If you want to target pike, I'd hit the smaller lakes like Golden or Pretty and go after them with medium sized suckers or if you can get them, jumbo golden shiners.
Walleye fishing is still spotty. Water temperatures will need to drop some more before the fishing really picks up. The fish are in mid-depth weeds, but haven't turned on the way I would have expected them to just yet. A few walleyes are starting to turn up in the local rivers (Fox, Wisconsin and Rock), but the bite has been slow, and the water levels are lower than in recent memory. Stay tuned.
White bass reports are also starting to trickle in from Oshkosh, Freemont and Jefferson. I'd say its still early, but the water level is going to dictate how the fall river runs go this year.
Musky fishing is slow, but steady. Weed edges in 10-18 FOW have been productive. It is always a solid idea to keep a sucker out when casting, as many of the lazy follows you get will convert on the sucker you have hanging over the side. I personally raised fish on a bucktail, glider and Bulldawg this week, but Suicks are a traditional early fall favorite.
Good Luck,
Friday, September 28, 2012
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K-style Hub is a useful attraction or a tourist information center. The place is all about Korean culture and they provide you with all the guidance about Korea. K-Style Hub has four levels and each level has its importance and specialties to guide the tourists perfectly. It is a one-stop complex and has various experience zones, exhibition halls, and an information center.
What to expect in K-Style Hub
Introduction to K-Style Hub
The second floor has a Tourist Information Center where you can see comprehensive information on Korean tours and medical tours. The third floor is an exhibition hall on Korean culinary culture with a Korean ingredients experience table. The fourth floor is the Regional Tourism Experience Hall where you can cook Korean dishes. Lastly, the fifth floor is the regional tourism experience hall where you can experience Korean culture and regional tourism.
It's an undiscovered paradise for all the Korean culture lovers. The most interesting part about K-Style Hub is that many of the things here are free. You can know a lot about Korean food, clothes, real-life movies, to be specific a lot about Korean culture. Moreover, you will be able to attend classes and can get a hand guide book for free which will tell you about Korea.
Its located at 40 Cheonggycheon-ro, Jung-gu, Seoul, South Korea, 3 minutes from the Jonggok Station Exit 5 in the heart of Seoul.
Open hours
- 2F Tourist Information Center 09:00 – 20:00
- 3F Korean Culinary Culture Exhibition Hall 09:00 – 19:00 Weekdays | 09:00 – 20:00 Weekends
- 4F Korean Cusine Culture Center 10:00 – 20:00
- 5F Regional Tourism Experience Hall 09:00 – 19:00 Weekdays | 09:00 – 20:00 Weekends
Web: https://english.visitkorea.or.kr
Why I have to go to K-style Hub?
It's a must-visit place and is highly recommended by the tourists and travelers who went there. In K-Style Hub, you can learn almost everything about the Korean culture, starting from the food and clothes to the history, agriculture, and archaeology of South Korea. Besides, they will guide you about the next places you need to visit or about the bus routes. It's a complete hub and you will not regret your decision to visiting this place. We must say that this is the place that you must visit on the first day of your trip to Korea. If you are a Korean culture lover or you are eager to know about the Korean culture then this place is for you. You will get to know Korea from a local person's point of view.
What to do?
What to do while I am in K-Style Hub? An important question. Here we will tell you some of the things that you can do there and enjoy your time to the most while you are in K-Style Hub. This place has many things to do. Also, It offers some exhibitions and fun activities.
Obtain Travel information
If you want to relax your travel fatigue or you are tired, the Tourist Information Center can be a perfect resting place for you. You can relax there while sitting in a comfortable café and can get information about your trip to Korea. There are many brochures, travel guides, and maps. They'll help you know where you should visit for sightseeing next or at which time. The staff in K-style hub is very friendly and if you are finding difficulty in anything they are always there to help you.
Experience major attractions in Virtual Experience Zone
In the virtual reality experience zone, you can experience some of the major attractions in Korea through advanced technologies. If you get bored with brochures, go try it! The view is so real that you'll feel like you are there in person thanks to the advanced technologies. Furthermore, you can visit the panorama gallery and enjoy the feeling of walking around the beautiful and interesting attractions in Korea.
Who doesn't love taking photos while you are on a trip? If you are a big fan of K- pop, this is a treat. You can take some souvenir photos with the K-pop stars in the Hallyu Experience Zone with the help of some advanced and modern technologies. You can ring the bell of your idol house or imitate the trademark gesture of any star or can show your love for the K-pop star; these are some of the many options that are available for taking photos with your favorite Korean stars.
Korean food
This place is not like the other ones where you can try the local food of Korea but here you can cook your Korean food. Yes, your own customized Korean food! You can learn about the Korean Culinary Culture on the 3rd floor and can cook your food on the 4th one. You can make your Korean foods at the learning space, enjoy the taste of the foods that represent Korea in the Festive corner, and can learn some Korean recipes as well. Remember, the fees applicable to the class. But if you want to learn some delicious local Korean recipes the money is worth it. What's more, the Korean Culinary Culture exhibition is an important thing to do and the entrance is eye-catching while the video projection of Korean pottery is breathtaking.
Other Activities
You can do many other things that we are sure you will enjoy while you are in K-style Hub like getting the opportunity to wear traditional Korean clothes. In addition, you can get yourself medically tested here and can increase your medical knowledge. Plus, you can browse the representative products of Korea.
Nearby Attractions
There're many popular Seoul attractions nearby such as Myeongdong street for shopping and Korean street foods, Gwanghwamun, Gyeongbokgung Palace, Cheongyecheon stream, and Bosingak Pavilion where are all walking distances. If you feel hungry before starting your travel to Seoul, check this post for the best Korean restaurants in Jongnogu, Seoul.
A K-Style Hub is a place that you must visit before going to any other place in Korea because here they guide you about the next must-visit destinations in Korea. The place provides you with all the necessary information. They also provide exhibition halls and some fun-filled activities. This place is heaven for all Korean culture lovers.
You may also like
- Best Places to Buy K-pop Goods in Seoul
- Unique Things to Buy in Korea
- Breakfast Options in Korea from Typical Korean Style to Brunch Cafe
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IVK's Top Picks – Day Tours, Tickets, and Travel Activities
Seasonal Picks!😍


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On Tuesday Doug Jones defeated Roy Moore to became the first Democratic Senator from Alabama in a quarter of a century, and political pundits are eager to give their two cents on how he pulled it off.
Some of them claim that Jones's victory was due to the high turnout of Black voters, and Black women in particular
Let me be clear: We won in Alabama and Virginia because #BlackWomen led us to victory. Black women are the backbone of the Democratic Party, and we can't take that for granted. Period.— Tom Perez (@TomPerez) December 13, 2017
Others say it was due to those GOP voters who refused to back an accused child molester who had twice been kicked off the state supreme court
What was the real story of the Alabama special election? Disgusted conservatives went on strike. Breaking it all down with @xan_desanctis on the Liberty Files: https://t.co/50uvyrLCOJ— David French (@DavidAFrench) December 14, 2017
While others think that the credit should go to Doug Jones himself
Tonight is why you run real candidates even in races you don't think you can win. Democrats were lucky that Roy Moore's past spilled out into the open. But they only won because Doug Jones was good.— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) December 13, 2017
When something momentous happens in politics there's nothing the media loves more than fighting about what "the real reason" for it was. But these debates are always kind of dumb, because in reality political events never happen for just one reason.


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The highest award for regional television production, CIRCOM's Grand Prix, has been won by a documentary about the fight to stop an oil pipeline threatening a rural coastline in Ireland.
The Pipe (An Piopa), made for Irish language broadcaster, TG4, was announced as the winner at a live TV gala show in Romania on Thursday 5 May. The Pipe also won the award for Best Documentary against more than 40 other programmes in the competition. In all, there were 157 entries from 21 different countries in Europe.
David Lowen, President of the Prix CIRCOM, announcing the awards in Timisoara said: "The winner, said the judges, is a story to match David and Goliath. On the west coast of Ireland a giant oil company wants to build a pipeline. But the local fishermen say it will ruin their fishing grounds and their livelihood."
Frank Bohm, of Hessischer Rundfunk Germany and chair of the Documentary category judges said: "It has a very strong storyline, filmed and edited with a very good rhythm."
Rachel Lysaght, Producer from Underground Films, said "This is a great honour, and a very important moment for the film, and for us, as filmmakers. Director Risteard Ó Domhnaill spent four years filming this story, so to have been awarded Best Documentary and Grand Prix is a wonderful validation of all the hard work that went into making the film. Ultimately, these awards represent an important international recognition of, and solidarity with the continuing struggle of the people of Rossport".
The Pipe wins for TG4 total prize money of 5,000 euros and two specially commissioned trophies.
The complete list of winning and commended programmes and stations is:
DOCUMENTARY and GRAND PRIX
Winner: The Pipe (TG4 Galway,Ireland)
Commended: The Sound of Ole Bull (NRK Hordaland, Norway)
Winner: The Election: Extra Edition (SVT Gävledala, Sweden)
Commended: The Gauguin Towers: The Implosion (France 3 Limousin)
Winner: Nicola Rees (BBC Yorkshire, UK)
Commended: Magnus Brenna Lund (NRK Østfold, Norway)
Winner: Late Kick Off (BBC Midlands, UK)
Commended: Shoulder to Shoulder (TG4 Galway, Ireland)
Winner: The Secret Life of Waves (BBC Scotland)
Commended: Don't Try This At Home (NRK Trondelag, Norway)
Winner: Euphoria, MTV Pécs, Hungary
(No commended in this category)
Winner: Spas Kyosev (BNT Sofia, Bulgaria)
Commended: Frida Bjork (SVT Göteborg, Sweden)
Winner: The Lost Son (NDR Hamburg, Germany)
Commended: Body and Soul (TG4 Galway, Ireland)
Winner: A Symphony for Yorkshire (BBC Yorkshire, UK)
Commended: Women in Wartime (Omroep Gelderland, The Netherlands)


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I'm often asked where I get my inspiration from for my outfits. My answer is everything. Sometimes I'm inspired by celebrities. Other times I'm inspired by street style looks I discover on Instagram. Nature inspires, movies inspire me… and most recently my home has inspired my fashion.
What inspires your fashion?
It started when I saw this marble clutch. I often use bags as home decor and the I knew the shiny box clutch would look just perfect in a vignette on my media console. Of course, I plan on wearing it too. Then while shopping this week I stumbled upon marble sandals that were only $25! They obviously had to come home with me.
Shop Marble Bags
Shop Marble Shoes
Photos by Michelle Kyle
Bag: Bebe
Shoes: Forever 21
Nail polish: Essie Gel Couture "At the Barre"
Vase: Wayfair
Table: Room & Board


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via National Interest.
Reducing the number of large warships and adding frigates could help to reduce the cost of a larger fleet. A 9,000-ton-displacement Arleigh Burke-class destroyer costs more than $2 billion. A frigate, displacing just 5,000 tons, should cost around $1 billion, according to the Navy.I'm not understanding something here.
But the frigate still could carry many of the same weapons and sensors that a destroyer does, although somewhat fewer of them.
According to a Navy document that the Congressional Research Service obtained, the frigate will come armed with a 57-millimeter gun, a 32-cell vertical missile-launcher for SM-2 Block IIIC and Evolved Sea Sparrow missiles, a 21-round point-defense Rolling Airframe Missile launcher and eight launchers for over-the-horizon anti-ship missiles.
Its radar and combat system will be a smaller version of the Aegis system that equips the Navy's destroyers and cruisers. The frigate will embark an MH-60R helicopter and an MQ-8C drone. That weapons and sensor suite should give the frigate the ability to engage enemy aircraft, ships and submarines at a distance of 100 miles or more.
Over time, the ship could gain additional weaponry. The Navy document refers to potential upgrades for the frigate including a 150-kilowatt laser and an anti-submarine missile, which could be a rocket-boosted torpedo similar in concept to the defunct ASROC missile.
But the SM-2 Block IIIC, of which the frigate could carry 32, could be the new ship's most potent weapon. The Block IIIC replaces the semi-active radar-homing seeker on older SM-2s with the active radar-homing seeker of the SM-6 missile. The SM-6's seeker itself is a derivative of the Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile.
With a semi-active missile, the launching ship must use its own radar to guide the missile through most of its flight. An active missile has its own, tiny radar, allowing the ship to launch and leave, thus protecting it from retaliatory strikes.
The SM-2 Block IIIC can do much more than just shoot down aircraft. With small tweaks to the seeker, the Navy already has given the SM-6 and SM-2 Block IIIC missiles anti-ship capability. Additional tweaks could allow the SM-6 -- and by extension the SM-2 Block IIIC -- to hit targets on land.
The new frigate also could function as a command vessel for robotic vessels, using Link 11 and Link 16 data links, satellite communications and Network Tactical Common Data Link to help the unmanned vessels to navigate and also to authorize them to fire weapons.
The Navy soon could select a shipyard to build the new class of frigate starting in 2020. "All shipyards have agreed that they can give us the lethality we need," Merz said.
We get less than half the payload, 4.5K tons lighter and yet the cost is still half that of a Burke Class?
That don't seem like much of a bargain.
Which is better. 20 Frigates or 10 more Burke's? Distributed operations sounds good but I'm not seeing the economics of this thing actually playing out to our advantage.
Are we chasing a fleet number or are we going for a more lethal, survivable fleet that can go toe to toe with the Chinese? If its the latter than we need more Burkes, not Frigates (we already have a mess of LCS). If its the former then I need to know why that makes sense.
275 ships that are in fighting trim with well trained sailors manning them vs 350 that are tin cans?
It all boils down to which is better. Quantity or Quality? That's what the Navy has to decide.


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There are various question activities and head teasers that assist for making the brain active. It creates a good sense of enjoyment to players. The problem activities are therefore give fascinating nature of gaming. There are several puzzle recreations which can be played easily.
Questions are of different kinds and styles. These questions are available in challenge publications, publications, news documents or on internet. There are selection of questions to play from what type can choose from like mind, term, numeric, jigsaw, riddles and different enjoyment puzzles. These puzzles are great, fascinating and mind boggling. They are interesting, fascinating, relaxing and time consuming.
Common questions are among the most popular kind of Empires And Puzzles Hack for entertainment. You will find no worries for dropping the points. The aim is to solve mind games at rapidly rate to be able to test timing in that your problem has been solved. These puzzles are actually coming with great developing and design with remarkable features and technology. Term Brain Games are ideal for people who've fascination with playing word teasers. Word puzzles are excellent amusement supply which can be performed by folks of any party be it kids, people, senior people.
The main purpose of the activities is to boost the terminology and word power of players. Picture Activities are for anyone gamers who possesses innovative mind indulging in architect type of skills. Enjoying these activities is very exciting where one have to make a certain image or prepare things in a pattern. The people have to build greater pictures and prevents in type of fundamental designs like rectangle, square, etc. Numeric Questions have good demand among mental performance game lovers.
It helps in building aptitude amount of growing kids. The major section of numeric questions does enjoy Sudoku, that has become very popular in last several years. The main purpose of mathematical questions is increasing the arithmetic ability of players. Crossword Mind Games would be the oldest puzzle games focused to resolve the crosswords. They are the oldest and even, today these questions are printed in dailies and magazines. There are numerous trouble degrees of crossword puzzles. In fact, on line crosswords may be performed after selecting the difficulty stage one want to play. Today, on the web crosswords are available with new gaming strategies.
Problem games boost the innovative mind and thinking power of player. Systematic abilities are improve through enjoying these games. Through solving questions, players develop choice making ability and analytical energy to solve the dilemmas in real life. It is great for growing young ones in creating their mind and considering power. Reason and reason activities aid in getting participant smarter & raising clever quotient level. It will help in raising the strategic practices and discovering up arithmetic and language skills. Ergo, these questions are good way to enhance the skills.
Who does not want a great problem? Through the entire ages, puzzles have been important areas of our human experience. A problem is merely a problem, a straightforward question, or perhaps a challenge. It is intended to problem your brain, our feelings and our ingenuity to resolve complex problems often in logistical or mathematical nature. Successful quality can sometimes be caused by mathematics.
Certainly one of typically the most popular kinds of questions to have ever graced the entire world could be the Jigsaw puzzle. Their beginnings have been dated about 1760 the place where a London-based place machine and engraver chose to mount a chart on wood, reduce it and tried it in teaching geography to children. The theory became popular and since, jigsaw questions have become essential academic resources, actually today. Obviously, the wealth of puzzles for educational purposes is now expansive and today, you can find unique types of questions to try kids. Some puzzles are open-ended while others give you a particular conclusion.


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Danielle Carr
May 5, 2015
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Students Spring Break Plans 2024
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BSM Student Car Spotlights
What Were BSM Students and Faculty Grateful for?
What are BSM Students Reading?
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Authenticity is most important to prospects looking for a glimpse into the real lifestyle of your communities.
By Fara Gold McLaughlin
Now more ever, with all the noise about "fake news", consumers are cynical about product marketing. According to Milestone Communities, LLC, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Angela Neale Clark, "Authenticity is most important to our prospects looking for a glimpse into the real lifestyle of our communities. The OneDay mobile application is the most effective tool for our community sales leaders to show prospects what is actually going on in our communities." (OneDay is a Senior Housing Forum partner.)
Milestone created a three-pronged approach to using OneDay — and not just in one, but all 90+ Milestone Communities! Their community sales leaders were the first to adopt the OneDay mobile application in the sales process. Clark says, "Our sales leaders use OneDay as a follow-up communication after a prospect tour." The sales leaders record what the families said was important to them.
Clark goes on to say, "Showing the families and possibly out-of-town family members, the specific community features and solutions they want, is as real as it can get. Our sales leaders now have a way of offering more than a phone call or email to follow-up from a prospect's tour."
Working with the OneDay application development team, Milestone "focused on the community branding with each communities' unique geographic location, as well as, distinctive programs and events versus a corporate branding of programs to bring real meaning to the local prospects." According to HubSpot, 80% of customers remember a video they've watched in the last month.
Secondly, Milestone adopted OneDay for their internal marketing with residents and their families, as a "window into the lives of our resident's day-to-day experiences, as well as, to show community events and programs in our social media communication on Facebook and YouTube."
Milestone's third strategic approach to adopting OneDay is for recruiting new talent. Their desire is to "create a dynamic culture to attract and inspire Millennial's to work in our communities." They have found the benefits of using OneDay for recruiting is "quick, easy, and inexpensive to share employee testimonials, to show the fun of the community workplace, and specific job or tasks."
Finally, as an early adopter, Milestone Communities is recognizing the positive year-over-year data. "We have more effectively converted prospects to move-ins, increased our resident and family satisfaction, and improved our recruiting capabilities."
For more information about OneDay, click the button below to visit their website:
Download a PDF copy of this article by clicking on the button below:


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There's a De Beers Forevermark diamond for every occasion, perfect to celebrate your special moment. Out collections are handcrafted to perfection and available in a range of diamond color and precious metal. Every design has a De Beers Forevermark diamond at its heart, signifying our promisem of beauty, rarity and responsible sourcing.Explore our stunning range of diamond jewelry collections
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One economic conundrum has been the sub-par growth rate in average hourly earnings in spite of what appears to be an economy operating at full employment. In a fully employed economic environment, wages generally see fairly strong upside pressure and this becomes a concern with the Federal Reserve due to the upward pressure placed on the inflation rate. As the below chart does show, average hourly wages have grown at about a 2% annual rate since the end of the financial crisis. Prior to the onset of the last recession, wage growth was in the range of 3% to 4%. From a positive perspective though, wages have been growing faster than the rate of inflation for most of the last four years. Additionally, the differential wage growth and inflation in this cycle is on par with prior economic expansions.
The below chart shows the current unemployment rate is 4.3% and at a level reached prior to the 2008/2009 recession. Also included in the below chart (orange line) is the unemployment rate if the participation rate was equal to the participation rate prior to the 2008/2009 recession. The participation rate in March 2008 equaled 66.1% versus the current rate of 62.9%. At a 66.1% participation rate, the current unemployment rate would equal 9.0%. What this means in absolute terms is an additional 13 million people would be counted in the labor force, but unemployed.
Some economic strategist will say the 13 million person increase in the "not in labor force" figure is largely a result of baby boomer retirements. On the other hand, with such a low unemployment rate, one might ask why Amazon's (AMZN) recent national hiring day across twelve locations drew such long lines.
Certainly, given the reported unemployment rate of 4.3%, history would suggest wage growth should be more in the 4% range. However, if the participation should be higher and nearer the pre-financial crisis level, maybe the real unemployment rate is closer to 9% than the reported 4.3% rate and the current wage growth rate is in line with historical figures.
Interestingly, in a wage growth report released earlier this week by the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, references were made to workers being pulled back into the labor force. Also noted in the report was the fact newer job entrants put downward pressure on wage growth to the tune of about 2%.
And finally, I continue to evaluate the participation rate of the various employment age groups and the only group showing a participation rate higher than the pre-financial crisis participation rate is the 55 and over group. As the below chart shows, all other groups continue to show slack from a participation rate perspective.
In our view the unemployment rate is likely higher than the reported 4.3% given real demand examples like the Amazon National Hiring Day. Positively, wages are growing faster than inflation; however, the employment market is likely not as strong as it could be. However, this suggests additional employment growth can occur and provide further tailwind for economic growth going forward.


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Editor's note: This profile is a follow-up to an interview with Laurie Garrett we ran in March 2020, at the very beginning of the pandemic.
Pandemics expert Laurie Garrett is thrilled that "the adults are finally in the room" when it comes to a national COVID-19 response.
Garrett (Merrill '75, biology), an outspoken critic of the Trump administration's handling of the COVID outbreak, praised the Biden administration's strong emphasis on science and data, and its empathy toward victims of the devastating disease.
"We've seen compassion from leadership," said Garrett, a Pulitzer Prize–winning science journalist and frequent MSNBC science contributor. "For the first time, we've seen genuine understanding of grief."
And she recently retweeted an exhaustive breakdown of COVID data, released by Andy Slavitt, a senior adviser to the White House's COVID response team, showing viral-test positivity rates, and hospital bed and staff shortages in every state.
"This is the sort of info that we should have been seeing to guide our national and local response for a year," she said, taking a dig at the Trump administration and its shambolic response to the crisis.
This may sound like an unusually cheery outlook from Garrett, who warned of a deadly globe-spanning outbreak long before the novel coronavirus spread across the Earth.
But make no mistake; Garrett remains vigilant about the need for an all-out race to stay ahead of highly contagious COVID variants that have made inroads in the United States.
She's especially concerned about the paltry amount of genomic testing and surveillance that is needed to detect the new variants. The CEOs of Pfizer and Moderna have given interviews saying they are working on rapidly altering their existing vaccines so they will have mRNA code not just for the baseline COVID-19 but for the subtypes, but those vaccination tweaks raise logistical as well as regulatory concerns for Garrett.
"Then you get to the whole question of how regulatory agencies approve these rapidly. Do we have to do clinical trials all over again? Well, at the pace in which variants are showing up, the virus will keep winning," she said. "On the other hand, we can't just throw up our hands and get rid of all safety regulations."
A voice of caution and concern
Garrett has a longstanding reputation of noticing what others aren't seeing. Consider the fateful tweet she posted on December 31, 2019, with an understated tone that has come back to haunt her:
"A new, mysterious outbreak in China," she wrote. "Symptoms are described #SARS-like, but there is no evidence yet of human-2-human transmission. And it's centered around a fish market in Wuhan, not around live civets, as was the case with SARS. Still, merits watching."
Garrett now wonders at the calmness of that tweet.
"Frankly I would have sounded a greater alarm even then, except that I'd taken a lot of beatings on social media," she explained. "I was accused of being a fear monger, of whipping up hysteria, and all this kind of stuff, so I took a fairly 'this bears watching' perspective. What I really wanted to say was, 'Holy crap! My hair's on fire!'"
Since then, Garrett's media presence has increased exponentially. Her Twitter following has ballooned to nearly 240,000, and she is in constant demand to appear on news programs and on panels. The New York Times and Vanity Fair have dubbed her a COVID-19 "Cassandra" whose warnings went ignored for far too long. Now, she has the nation's ear—and her schedule is often overwhelming.
As she adjusts to a breakneck pace, Garrett, like everyone else, is pondering what the future will hold, and what a "new normal" is going to look like.
"I was saying to everybody back in February [2020], I was giving this a 36-month 'best case' timeline," Garrett said. "The worst case would be we end up with [COVID] as a permanent feature in the global health landscape."
An all-out race against variants
Worried Americans have some daunting questions about the immediate future as well as the long-term prognosis. For instance, could the United States ramp up genomic testing and surveillance in time to get a better handle on these spreading strains before the situation gets out of control?
Garrett noted that the new administration is trying to keep up with the variants, "But you can't just snap your fingers and have a national mechanism of genomic surveillance. And you can't snap your fingers and suddenly fix every single thing that is wrong with the vaccine rollout. There has been something wrong with every single step of it .… We are in this reactive mode, and the virus is racing ahead."
Garrett said that the global response to COVID remains "haphazard" and without broad agreement between heads of state about a clear strategic plan or even an explicitly stated outcome, ranging from COVID containment to outright eradication.
"We need a strategic plan," Garrett said. She calls Biden's COVID response impressive and an enormous improvement over Trump's response. "It's nearly 200 pages of basically tactical maneuvers on how to get around the virus. But it doesn't state the strategic goal. Is the goal to get everybody back to work, or deal with the economy, or eradicate the virus, or somewhere in between?"
Even in other countries, "strategic goals are unfortunately nonexistent," she said. "Containment, elimination, eradication are all specific terms, and nobody wants to make a declaration at this time [because] it's politically charged. But because we're not doing that, all the tactics we're using—vaccination, testing, quarantine—are haphazard, reactive. The virus has us by the reins and we are trying to tame the horse while it is bucking all over the place."
And while she was appalled by the Trump administration's COVID response—she accused him of "sabotaging America's response to the pandemic"—she noted that few other countries seem to have COVID under control.
"We are not ahead of the virus anywhere," Garrett said. "The closest you get are island countries like Taiwan, Iceland, and New Zealand. They managed to get control within their boundaries, but the new variants are moving quickly around the world and everybody's going to face another round. And then there's going to be another. We clearly have hit an evolutionary tipping point now where there are sufficient numbers of people harboring virus in their bodies for sufficient time so the virus has ample opportunity to evolve."
Unless there is a successful, massive push to vaccinate areas of the world that have had a disorganized approach to treatments and vaccinations, Garrett said, "we're putting selection pressure on the global viral population."
In response, Garrett warns Americans not to let their guard down.
"The mask is still the best protection you have," Garrett said, while expressing regret for remarks she made, early in the pandemic, in which she undervalued the use of mask-wearing indoors. "We now know this virus is more contagious as an aerosol than influenza, the common cold, and respiratory viruses."
Garrett strongly recommends continued mask use even for those who have already received vaccines.
And she commiserates with those who feel that quarantine and isolation has been wearing them down psychologically.
"This is a virus that exploits love and community and fun, and boy, you know, we are all really tired of not having fun," she said. "Our basic human psyche wants us to do the opposite of what we need to do."
Meanwhile, every society on Earth is struggling how to resolve the tension between economics and controlling the virus, though the strain is perhaps at a lower volume in places that have strong social-safety nets, she said.
Room for cautious optimism
Garrett said she's heartened by the Biden administration's willingness to cooperate with other countries in the global COVID fight.
"We're seeing steps taken to engage with the rest of the world so America is no longer going to be an isolated aberration. We'll be a player on the international stage again. All of this is cause for hope," she said.
"It doesn't mean that things are right around the corner going to get solved," Garrett cautioned. "But it does mean that we can begin to think again strategically of a disease that doesn't know borders, that can't be controlled in one country, and that requires a scale of international cooperation. And through the mere act of compassion, we can begin to see the vitriolic volume and incorrect protest come down a bit, and Americans can engage in conversation again. That would certainly help."


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A Station Eight Fan Web Site
Displaying 1 record.
I've just starting reading a book called Strange and Secret People by a woman called Carole Silver. The book details the various origins and theories behind fairies. In the introduction she mentions a changeling called Fenella in a story called Peveril of the Peak by Sir Walter Scott. Where you aware of Fenella? Is it a coincidence that her name is so similar to Finella?
Passingly familiar.
The name "Finella" is historical. So I'm not the one to ask if it's a coincidence.


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Finite Infinity - Delayed Reaction
It's been two weeks now since I upgraded to PivotX. It's worked well, and I'm really digging the Page function. However I had forgotten one of the first things I had wanted to do with it, until now.
One of the problems with working graveyard shift is there isn't really anything on television to watch in the middle of the night. Not that there's much worth watching during daytime TV either, but I can always manage to find something or other then. But nights make things more diffucult. As I sat yesterday, finishing up coding on a script editor for Spiral Island, I searched for something to watch in the background, but found nothing better than Matrix Revolutions.
As I watched the film play out, I had the urge to go back and read through HEHEHEE! The Story, and the amusing continuation of the story we came up with there (as opposed to the official continuation that the course of Matrix Online has played out). As I did that, I remembered that I had wanted to post all my written material when PivotX came out. So that's what I'm finally doing now.
There will be four stages to this. The first, going up now, will be a dump of my main HEHEHE.ODT document, where most of what I had written was located. Second will be the collection of the few other documents I had saved information in separately, which, at the moment what I can recall, is a segment of Aura visiting a zone based on OS-tans, and a summary document of the six fragments The Anaconda splits himself up into in Chapter Six. Third will be my second main document, BACKSTORY.ODT, which is where all my backstory work was done, telling roughly what happened between the end of the Chobits series up to the machine war in the Second Reniassance.
Those three documents will be posted unformatted, unedited. The first document has something struck out in it, since I had meant to re-edit the wording on the line but never got back to it, and in both sections not every event is in it's proper chronological order. The last document will be from two hand-written sections I penned while at a family reunion, the first describing the fight between Freya and the Architect, and the second the final ending of Ties to Infinity (not counting the extra GU-based chapter), the fragment I actually got the tile of the story from. Since I have to type both of these in, I might add some more to them, depending on what I'm in the mood for when I write it.
Sat, 28 Mar 2009 01:00:00 -0500That Which is Known
If you ever are in an area of absolute quiet, still your breathing and move not a muscle. After a few seconds, you will notice that the silence has a sort of "sound" of its own, a kind of empty ringing tone. This is nothing unique; everyone will hear this, given the proper setting. An informed person will tell you that your brain is trying to interpret the lack of stimuli to your hearing and so creates a bit of a filler sound. This ringing sound actually serves a more arcane purpose, covering up a noise we are not meant to hear. This noise is not impossible to hear, and if you are persistent you can effectively "break" the cover-up sound.
The next time you are silent and hear the ringing, shout at the top of your lungs for about half a minute, then be abruptly silent. It will be different for everyone. Some will hear nothing different for dozens of tries. Others might pick up soft murmuring. A special few auditory heroes might clearly make it out on the first attempt. What you will hear is a voice that relays an account of events about to happen in the immediate future. It's like a sportscaster relaying the events occurring 10 seconds into the future.
- Internet-born Creepypasta: The Voice
This is a movie review of sorts for Knowing. I say of sorts because I'm not a movie critic, and it's rare that I talk down about a movie. This is simply because I don't generally watch movies that don't seem interesting to me, I only watch movies that I will like. A growing number of these become Nicholas Cage movies, as he becomes one of my favorite actors. But what I'm going to go into here is the story.
The apocalypse story is about a piece of paper covered with numbers, buried in an elementary school time capsure 50 years prior, which had predicted on it every major disaster after that day. As Cage wonders over the numbers, Cage's son starts seeing people, dubbed the "whisper people". The Voice continues as follows:
As time goes on, you will be able to make out this voice under increasingly noisy circumstances, to the point that it can be heard at any time by just concentrating. Such ability would doubtlessly be invaluable, no? You will be able react to any immediate danger, relate to people around you with greater ease. No one would ever surprise you. Now, of course you are wondering what sort of horrible catch this ability entails. Perhaps the tone of the voice is so horrible that it will drive you mad, or maybe the voice will only predict your death over and over again.
Of course this isn't the case, though, it's a normal voice, your ears receive it no matter what, and it's simply a matter of noticing. But there is a danger. For you see, where there is a voice, there is a body. And just like you will notice new sounds, so shall you notice new sights. More importantly, you will be noticed.
I had thought this was one of the Easter Eggs from The King of Wolves, but it wasn't, so I had to take some time to find somewhere this was referenced besides saved posts from forums. But as soon as they stated talking about the whisper people, this short came to mind. It was at least over a year ago since I first read this story, I would think this would be on the internet for a lot longer. I would almost place this anonymous story from the internet as partial inspiration for this story, but who knows.
Anyway, back to the movie, I very much enjoyed it. It's a lot more real, a lot more bitter, then most "apocalypse" movies, with an ending you wouldn't expect from general Hollywood. Definately a movie I plan on buying as soon as it comes out.
Thu, 26 Mar 2009 16:00:00 -0500Plug and Play
Neon Genesis Evangelion. Battle Royale. The Path. Dokapon Kingdom. Very much unrelated to each other. Yet there is no border, no distinction, in the realm of the subconcious. Where one would not combine normally, the mind is free to combine, mix and match, and do whatever it feels. The subconcious has no limits, no regulation, and the path it may take you would never expect. I do not remember the details of the dreams of the two nights resulting from these, but they certainly were complex.
Sat, 21 Mar 2009 06:00:00 -0500Original Content
So I've got a second part up for that story now, accessible on the left. I might get one more out this week, then set it aside for a while before doing some more work on it.
Its rather refreshing, actually, to work on a new story. Nothing is already set, everything is free and open. I can do whatever I want, define whatever rules I see fit, completely ignoring anything else I have defined anywhere else. New characters, new world, a completely uncharted, undefined path, just waiting to go wherever the wills of imagination will go.
Sun, 15 Mar 2009 19:00:00 -0500Red Ice
Okay, now I think I have everything stable in my configuration, and all my templates are uniform. Everything seems to be moving smooth, so time to roll forward. I'll have to clean up some of the older entries, because of glitches converting the language-specific entries to UTF, but that is something that I will deal with later.
With the new functions I can now post what PivotX calls "Pages", or simply static information that doesn't roll with the blog. This comes very handy, especially for a writing blog like this, because it allows me to then just put whatever I feel like on the site. So to start it off, I have put up the first part of a new story I started the other day, Red Ice.
To introduce it, this story is the prequel to a game I have been working on for handhelds on and off over the last year or so. The name comes from that game's projet codename, Project Red Ice. I haven't really been able to come up with anything better at the moment, so I figured I might as well just stick it here, since it is effectively nameless until I come up with a proper name for that game.
Sat, 14 Mar 2009 10:00:00 -0500Template Trouble
Now I've updated the site to PivotX. However, some things are not acting the same way as they were in my test environment. I'm not sure what is going on, exactly, and I'll have to figure it out later. One everything's cleaned up, though, and running properly, I'm going to start with the new Pages function to post the first part of the new story I'm working on.
Sat, 14 Mar 2009 07:00:00 -0500Modern Description
Posting from Linux right now, using BloGTK. I would just do it from the website, but Firefox is clashing with my color scheme settings and is making all the forms on the site white text on white background (or if I reverse the colors with Compiz, black text on black background). The Firefox plugin ScribeFire was no help, doing the same thing. This utility works well enough, so I'll run with it. Setting that all aside for now.
I'm working on a story right now, and, as I haven't worn any rings for some time, I had to look up which hand is for generic rings and which hand is reserved for wedding bands. Apparently it's a much more complex answer than I thought, with some countries doing the opposite of others. In general, though, tradition around here is wedding band on left hand.
What gets me, though, is one particular site. Or, more specifically, what gets me is what they have to do to explain the concept to people. This excerpt in particular:
So in the old days they had a simple answer: they put the ring on the third finger which they believed had a vein, artery or nerve (a sort of a USB cable) running directly to the heart.
A USB cable. That's the description they have to use for a nerve. Is the modern generation such that they are so technologically capable (a highly debatable point, but set that aside), but so biologically inept, that in order for them to understand the concept of the nervous system, we have to resort to having to explain it by using parallels to computers?
Nevermind the fact that USB is generally for expansion through external devices, something humans are hardly capable of biologically.
Temporal Thoughts Alike
Since Spiral Island and some of my other titles are RPGs, one of the things I reference to sometimes for ideas is the OGL-licensed System Reference Document, a subset of the 3.5 edition rules of Dungeons and Dragons. Although a rather good reference, I don't really actually ever play Dungeons and Dragons, so for me particularly it lies as merely a reference, and, since the system of Spiral Island is already established, mostly useless aside from ideas.
One particular part of it, though, the Unearthed Arcana materials, has something of far more value then strictly a gameplay system. The Sanity gameplay variant, which in itself contains a miniature DSM. When I came across this while reading through the variant systems, I began to get ideas, thinking it would be interesting to use actual DSM-defined disorders for characters, and had one particular character from the Spiral Island games in mind as one subject. However, there was something I had forgotten, which I just barely remembered a couple days ago.
What I had forgotten was something from back when I was in high school, and originally writing the story Spiral Island and starting the story for another game idea I got at the time. We were doing registrations for the next year, I think it was my Senior year. I couldn't advance in mathematics, as the AP Calculus class was a 2 period class and only held at the same time as another advanced class that I was taking, so I was left with some free space. While trying to fill it up, I had wandered upon the Psychology class in the course list, and from that I began to get ideas, thinking it would be interesting to use actual medically-defined disorders for characters, and had one particular character from the Spiral Island games in mind as one subject.
I copied and pasted that, aside from the acronym DSM, for that exact reason. The exact same thing had occurred to me, with the same ideas. I ended up registering for the class, but retained almost nothing of it. The most useful piece I had gained was knowledge of the DSM, which I hadn't really thought about otherwise since. That aside, however, I find it now very interesting that I had come up with the exact same ideas 7 years apart, without realizing that I had come up with the idea before.
Continuing on with the previous topic of accents, another thing I've noticed change in my speech lately is the use of the letter "H". Or, more specifically, the lack of it. Growingly, recently, I've been dropping them, and pronouncing words without them. And I'm not even in in Soho.
Fri, 06 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0600


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As November comes to a close, there's no better time to begin thinking about all of those year-end administrative tasks. Diana got us off to a great start last week with a very handy meaningful use to-do list. This week, we turn our attention to the physician value-based payment modifier (VM) and its sidekick the Quality and Resource Use Report (QRUR).
Where's Waldo?
Once again, actually putting your hands on the QRUR is half the battle. In July, CMS sent our old friend the IACS account packing and they now require you to use an Enterprise Identity Data Management (EIDM) account to access your QRUR. Of course if you already have an IACS account you need to follow the yellow brick road to obtain an EIDM. Your journey begins here. A word of caution, this journey can take more than just a few minutes. If this is your first rodeo, make sure you have all of your practice demographics handy and the NPI/PTANs for at least 2 providers if you are not in solo practice.
The report
Once you've successfully obtained the required EIDM account, the next step is to retrieve the QRUR. CMS has created another useful map to help you navigate this part of the journey. The 2014 QRUR was posted in early September. It's basically a summary of how your practice performed in 2014 on the designated cost and quality metrics that make up the 2016 VM. As you may recall, the VM is a practice-level incentive program that modifies the Part B physician fee schedule for your entire practice. The 2016 VM will only apply to practices with at least 10 NPI providers. The program expands to include all medical practices in 2017, and the 2017 VM will reflect the work you do in 2015. Bottom line, regardless of practice size, you should jump through the necessary hoops to get your hands on the 2014 QRUR. It will be great practice for small medical groups and will let larger groups know what to expect in 2016.
As I mentioned above, the VM is unique among the CMS incentive programs we usually visit in this blog as it is administered by Tax-ID number as opposed to individual NPI number. Medicare beneficiaries are attributed to your practice using a two-tiered attribution scheme, very similar to the one used in many ACOs. Attribution is based on the plurality of primary care services rendered to the beneficiary during 2014. The first cut looks at services rendered by primary care providers. If the patient is not attributed in the first pass, services rendered by specialists are then considered.
At a very high level, a cost and a quality score are calculated for your practice. Those scores are then compared with the scores of other practices around the country. Of interest to nephrologists, 2014 represents the first time the VM comparison groups will be restricted to the same specialty. Stated another way, nephrology practices will now be compared to other nephrologists in the country, as opposed to all providers as was the case in years past.
The VM calculates a Quality Composite Score for your practice by rolling up two specific quality buckets:
- PQRS—the VM examines PQRS measures reported by the TIN, or PQRS measures reported by individual providers within the TIN. (The days of being paid to simply report these measures are behind us.)
- The three outcomes measures related to hospitalizations, which CMS captures by examining Medicare claims data for the beneficiaries attributed to your practice:
- Admissions for acute conditions (dehydration, pneumonia, UTI)
- Admissions for chronic conditions (diabetes, CHF, COPD)
- 30-day, all-cause readmission
By the way, as a sign of just how serious they are about this program, if your practice decided to ignore PQRS last year, not only will you incur the 2% PQRS penalty in 2016, but CMS will park your practice in the maximum VM penalty bucket and slap another 2% penalty on you. These penalties are additive, meaning you face a 4% haircut for your 2016 Part B book of business. While it's too late for 2014, unless you plan to retire before January 2017, everyone reading this post should make absolutely certain they report PQRS in 2015. The consequences of not doing so will be devastating in 2017.
Your practice's Cost Composite Score is made up of three components:
- The total Medicare Part A & B allowed charges incurred by the beneficiaries attributed to your practice in 2014 (per capita costs for attributed beneficiaries).
- The total Medicare Part A & B allowed charges incurred by specific types of beneficiaries attributed to your practice in 2014 (per capita costs for attributed beneficiaries with specific conditions). The conditions under scrutiny are diabetes, CAD, COPD, and CHF.
- Medicare Spending per Beneficiary (MSPB). A lot of confusion out there about this component of cost, but based on my read, the TIN that provides the plurality of physician services during a beneficiary's hospital stay is stuck with the Part A & B allowable charges incurred by the beneficiary during the period that begins 3 days prior to admission and ends 30 days post discharge. Perhaps the best explanation I have seen for this one is here.
Value vs Volume
It's difficult to give this topic the attention it deserves in a blog post. For those of you interested in taking a deeper dive into the components of the VM, I'd recommend this well-written explanation. As we've mentioned in the past, the shift from volume-based care to value-based care has many tentacles. Alternative payment models are an important piece of the puzzle. But whereas APMs are largely optional, the VM is mandatory. Groups with more than 10 providers will face the VM next year, and every provider is in starting in 2017. If you have not done so, do yourself a favor and navigate the steps necessary to retrieve your practice's QRUR. It will be time well spent.
Terry Ketchersid, MD, MBA, practiced nephrology for 15 years before spending the past seven years at Acumen focused on the Health IT needs of nephrologists. He currently holds the position of Chief Medical Officer for the Integrated Care Group at Fresenius Medical Care North America where he leverages his passion for Health IT to problem solve the coordination of care for the complex patient population served by the enterprise.


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Welsh Contact Centre Forum
Trusted employment agencies and charitable organisations (including the Prince's Trust and government departments such as the Department for Work and Pensions) have partnered with WCCF and their contact centre members in Wales to help train unemployed people in the skills they need to find work in the contact centre sector.
The business benefits
The Welsh Contact Centre Forum is a partnership that works brilliantly for all concerned. The organisations working with unemployed individuals, help them to gain the skills needed to find work in a contact centre and start an exciting career in this growing sector.
Your contact centre will have priveleged access to a steady stream of new, sufficiently skilled, eager recruits. And, as you appreciate, finding the right staff with the right dedication is essential for any business operating a contact centre.
As a partner of the Welsh Contact Centre Forum, you'll be able to interview motivated applicants who have already been given comprehensive contact centre training by Wales' primary industry training providers. Not only will you reduce recruitment and training costs, your organisation will also be supporting the local community by giving unemployed people that chance to kick-start their careers.
What support will you get?
Since 2006, our pre-employment training courses have had one single minded focus - to help some of Wales' biggest Contact centre organisations find trained, motivated entry level staff. WCCF training has been written and devised by contact centre operation specialists specifically for contact centre operators.
For over 10 years, we've proved that the more focused you make the training, the more effective it will be. Training is delivered by our carefully selected group of experts, all of whom have at least a decade of experience within the contact centre industry.
What's more, the training is funded by the agencies and organisations who are working directly with the unemployed individuals, and not by the contact centre organisations.
Your commitment
A partnership such as the Welsh Contact Centre Forum is all about sharing the load. For their part, the unemployment agencies and charitable organisations find the recruits and fund their training. In return, we expect our Contact Centre partners to guarantee job interviews for those who successfully complete the training. You are not obliged to take on any recruit, but we do expect you to give them every opportunity to prove themselves to you, and to convince you of their worth to your organisation.
Is your business eligible?
Any contact centre employer of any size operating in Wales and with current front-line vacancies is eligible to join the Welsh Contact Centre Forum.
We also encourage organisations working with unemployed individuals in Wales to join us as stakeholders.
Call the Business Wales Helpline on 03000 6 03000 or contact us.
Rydym yn croesawu galwadau yn Gymraeg / We welcome calls in Welsh.


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ASTANA (Sputnik) — The delegations from Russia, Turkey and Iran as well as UN's Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura have already arrived at Astana.
"I can confirm to you: the delegation of the [Syrian] opposition is already in Astana," Jainakov told RIA Novosti.
The foreign ministry spokesman added that the Syrian government's delegation would arrive later.
The Syrian opposition groups agreed to attend the talks brokered by Russia, Turkey and Iran as an attempt to end the six-year civil war in the country, which sees government forces fighting against a number of opposition and terrorist groups, including the Islamic State, which is banned in Russia and many other countries.
The talks will begin on Monday.
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These Crunchy Peanut Butter Bars with Dark Chocolate are made with crispy rice cereal and a blend of nuts and seeds with a drizzle of dark chocolate.
Rice crispy treats have always been a favorite in my family and growing up my mom would make a batch for most special occasions. She was very experimental and would typically incorporate some new ingredient, whether it be m&ms, skittles, sprinkles, chocolate chips, or peanut butter.
My way of eating has changed so much from when I was younger. Although I do enjoy the taste of a traditional rice crispy treat every once in a while, I prefer this new twist on the classic dessert made with more wholesome ingredients and an extra boost of fiber and protein.
These bars use sprouted brown rice cereal, a mixture of nuts & seeds, and are bound together with a honey and peanut butter "caramel." A drizzle of dark chocolate tops it off and takes these from tasty snack to a decadent treat. They're like the adult rice crispy treat. 😉
The nice thing about these treats is that you can easily substitute different ingredients to add a variety of flavors. Use almond butter instead of peanut butter, a different nut or dried berry instead of the almonds, or omit the nuts all together. Any variation you decide on is sure to be equally as delicious. Enjoy!
Crunchy Honey Peanut Butter & Dark Chocolate Bars
- Total Time: 17 mins
- Yield: 12 servings 1x
These bars made with crispy rice cereal and a blend of nuts and seeds are like the adult version of rice crispy treats, but the drizzle of dark chocolate takes them to a whole new level!
Crunchy Honey Peanut Butter Bars:
- 4 cups Crispy Brown Rice Cereal
- 1 cup Almonds, peanuts, or other nut, roughly chopped (can also omit and use extra rice cereal)
- 1 tablespoon Chia Seeds
- 1 tablespoon Flaxseed Meal
- 3/4 cup Honey or brown rice syrup
- 1/3 cup Natural Peanut Butter or almond butter
- pinch of sea salt
Chocolate Drizzle:
- 1 cup Dark Chocolate, chips or a roughly chopped bar
- 2 teaspoons Coconut Oil
- Flaked Sea Salt, optional (unless using salted peanut butter)
Honey Peanut Butter Bars:
- Place a sheet of wax paper (or plastic wrap) into a 9×9 pan (an 8×8 pan can be used too, but bars will be thicker) and set aside.
- Into a large bowl, mix together the rice cereal, nuts, chia seeds, and flaxseed meal. Set aside.
- In a small saucepan, heat honey over medium-low heat until it comes to a low boil. Continue to boil for about 1 minute, or until it reaches the firm ball stage on a candy thermometer, about 250ºF.
- Remove from heat and mix in peanut butter and a pinch of salt.
- Pour honey peanut butter mixture over the cereal mix in the bowl and gently stir to combine, making sure to coat all dry ingredients evenly.
- Transfer mixture into the prepared parchment lined pan and spread across evenly. Use your hands or the bottom of a glass to press the mixture into the pan, getting the sides and corners well. Cover and place pan into the fridge for 10-15 minutes or until firm.
- Use the parchment paper to lift the bars out of the pan. Place on a cutting board and cut bars evenly. You can get 12-16 bars, depending on how large you cut them. Slightly separate the bars on the parchment paper so that you can drizzle the chocolate over the top.
Chocolate Drizzle:
- Into a small saucepan, combine the chocolate and coconut oil and place on the stove over medium-low heat. Stir often until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth. Use a spoon to drizzle the chocolate over the bars and top with flaked sea salt if desired.
- Prep Time: 15 mins
- Cook Time: 2 mins
- Category: Dessert, Snack, Gluten Free


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Killing of swallows
The Eco Pan Green phone received a report in which the applicant is concerned about the actions of her neighbor; specifically, the neighbor in question kills swallows with his air rifle. She asks what to do or how to prevent him from doing that? Swallows are a strictly protected species under the Ordinance on strictly protected species (Official Gazette 144/13) and the Nature Protection Act (NN 80/13) explicitly prohibits their killing, destruction of nests, habitat destruction and the like. The killing or torture of animals is also restricted by Article 205 of the Criminal Code (Official Gazette 125/11, 144/12, 56/15, 61/15) as a criminal offense punishable with imprisonment of up to one year. Eco Pan has therefore filed a report to the Nature protection inspection in which it requests the enforcement of inspection supervision and the imposition of legally prescribed measures against the perpetrator. Given that this is also a criminal offense, the offender was reported to the police.