text:
Inpatient Rehabilitation Center
Inpatient rehabilitation services are provided in Eisenhower Medical Center's new state-of-the-art, CARF accredited, 23-bed Inpatient Acute Rehabilitation Center located on the second floor of the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Pavilion.
The Inpatient Rehabilitation Center uses a multidisciplinary teamwork approach to provide inpatients with the highest quality of care possible to maximize patient outcomes. Employing the latest evidenced-based therapies, we are committed to providing the highest quality care possible by clinicians with advanced certifications unmatched by any other provider in the Coachella Valley.
In addition to comprehensive physical, occupational and speech therapy services the Inpatient Rehabilitation Center offers, Eisenhower Medical Center's Rehabilitation Services department has various specialty programs for both inpatient and outpatient services.
Eisenhower Medical Center Inpatient Rehabilitation Center - Video
The Inpatient Rehabilitation Center seeks to create a compassionate and safe environment, using a patient-centered approach to care and healing by creating an individualized treatment plan based on impairments (what type of disease caused the dysfunction), activity limitations (disabilities) and participation limitations (community integration). The program is individualized to each patient's specific needs.
Utilizing physical, occupational and speech/language therapies as required by the patient's treatment plan, inpatient acute rehabilitation is structured to return the patient to a high quality of life and assist the patient to regain the highest level of normal daily functioning.
Both the patient and their family will learn to manage impairments that affect:
- Self care
- Mobility
- Communication
- Cognitive skills
- Other activities of daily living
Employing a team approach - physicians, nurses, therapists and other specialized rehabilitation professionals as well as the patient and their family members, will create a customized intensive inpatient therapy program to meet the patient's needs. Education and training necessary to manage medical needs following discharge will be provided to both the patient and family or caregiver.
Inpatient programs
Inpatient specialty programs, focused on Eisenhower Medical Center's four centers of excellence, include the following:
- Orthopedics
- Neuroscience
- Oncology
- Cardiovascular
Common diagnoses for patients who require intensive inpatient acute rehabilitation therapy include:
- Stroke
- Brain Injury
- Spinal Cord Dysfunction
- Amputation
- Joint Replacement
- Neuromuscular Conditions
- Arthritic Conditions
For information regarding inpatient services, please call 760- 834-7870.
Equipment and Facilities
- A large open space for gait and transfer training
- State-of-the-art cardio and strength training equipment
- Training kitchen and bathroom
- Large exercise classroom
- Outdoor training space
- Car module for transfer training
- Case management support
- Smooth transition to primary care and specialty services after leaving the hospital
The goal of the Inpatient Rehabilitation Center is to provide patients with high levels of patient satisfaction with a functional recovery and community integration.
Admission Criteria
- Patients should be referred to the Inpatient Rehabilitation Center by a physician.
- Once a referral is made, a pre-admission assessment is conducted to determine if the patient is sufficiently stable to participate in a rehabilitation therapy program.
- The patient must need at least two therapy modalities - such as physical, occupational and/or speech therapy.
- Patients in the Inpatient Rehabilitation Center must participate in a minimum of three hours of directed rehabilitation therapy per day.
- Adequate support resources need to be available at discharge to allow the patient to return to a home setting with or without support.
- Insurance preauthorization for the Inpatient Rehabilitation Center is needed.


text:
Submit News
Science Says Oil Waste Caused Record OK Quake, Paid-Off Politicians Say Otherwise
Jason Mick
March 28, 2013 2:42 PM
Recipient E-mail
Sender E-mail
(Source: Shutterstock)
National study suggests that 5.7-magnitude quake was caused by wastewater injection (manmade)
A report by a team of prestigious scientific experts has rebuked an Oklahoma state-sponsored report claiming that wastewater injection over the last few decades had nothing to do with a record-setting earthquake centered in Prague, Oklahoma.
I. Paid-Off State Officials: Injection is Harmless
Fracking and pressurized injections of wastewater from traditional wells in Oklahoma's Wilzetta oil fields began in the 1990s. The controversial resource extraction technique involves injecting pressurized sand, water, and chemicals into shale formations, triggering the release of oil and natural gas that otherwise would be hard to extract.
Energy giants like Chesapeake Energy Corp. (
), OGE Energy Corp. (
) Exxon Mobil Corp. (
), NextEra Energy, Inc. (
), and Devon Energy Corp. (
) have made billions in revenue from the process. However, critics -- including some prominent scientists -- have criticized the process, claiming it creates seismic instability and may contaminate local water supplies. Those claims seemed prophetic when Oklahoma, a top fracking/wastewater injection state, was hit with a rash of uncharacteristic earthquakes which culminated in a magnitude 5.7 earthquake in 2011 which destroyed 14 homes.
Still, Oklahoma politicians and state-appointed scientists have defended the process. In a 2011 report entitled "
Response to Attacks on Hydraulic Fracturing
", the
Oklahoma Corporation Commission
(OCC) and
Oklahoma Geological Survey
(OGS) defend the process of fracking/wastewater injection.
And in a separate study, dubbed the "
OGS Prague Statement
" [PDF], they directly address claims that pressurized injections into sealed wells caused the quake, suggesting instead that it was caused by a segment of the Wilzetta Fault which was "favorably orientated for earthquakes." They cite other studies suggesting that such "swarms" of earthquakes are often naturally occurring along fault lines.
II. Following the Monetary Stench
But state politicians who appoint the OGS scientists and OCC officials may have a bit of a vested interest. Chesapeake Energy, OGE Energy, Devon Energy, and others have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to roll both state and federal Republicans in Oklahoma into office.
Thanks in part to their deep pockets, Republicans own a healthy majority in Oklahoma's legislature. And the oil industry's "hired help" appears eager to repay the favor.
U.S. Rep. James Lankford
received $24,300 USD from Devon Energy, $22,250 USD from OGE Energy, and an additional $113,800 from other oil and natural gas extraction companies, according to OpenSecrets.
Sen. James M. Inhofe
received a whopping $537,750 USD from oil and natural gas firms.
Here's the contact info for those gentlemen:
U.S. Rep. James Lankford:
Local Phone 405-234-9900 / D.C. Phone 202-225-2132
Email https://lankford.house.gov/contact-me/email-me
U.S. Sen James M. Inhofe
Local Phone 405-608-4381 / D.C. Phone (202) 224-4721
Email http://inhofe.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.ContactForm
Here's a summary of the special interest payouts to the top state-level politicians from the Republican majority:
(Click to enlarge)
Notice that every major leader in the state house and senate was paid off by the
Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Assoc.
(OIPA)-- a pro-oil industry group -- and every politician also received healthy contributions from several other oil and natural gas firms. (Source: VoteSmart.org)
Here's the contact info for those gentlemen:
Sen. Brian Bingman (R, president pro tempore)
Local phone (405) 521-5528 / State capital phone (918) 227-1856
Sen. Mike Schulz (R, majority floor leader)
Local phone (405) 521-5612 / State capital phone N/A
Rep. T.W. Shannon (R, speaker of the house)
Local phone (405) 557-7374 / Asst. Phone (405) 557-7374
Rep. Mike Jackson (R, speaker pro tempore)
Local phone (405) 557-7317/ Asst. Phone (405) 557-7317
The OIPA's mission statement basically acknowledges that its mission is to pay off polticians, writing:
The OIPA is committed to promoting the interests and welfare of independent oil and gas operators, working interest owners, royalty owners, and those businesses who provide services for the energy industry.
Specifically, the association strives to provide its members with outstanding legislative and regulatory representation.
In a recent post it
, "Since President Obama's election to office in 2008, the nation's oil and natural gas producers have faced constant scrutiny from the federal regulatory agencies under White House control."
III. Unbiased Research Contradicts Oil-Industry Funded Findings
So the oil companies paid the politicians, and the politicians hired scientists and appointed officials who were willing to claim fracking/wastewater injection is safe. But what do unbiased national scientists say?
The answer came in a peer-reviewed study
[abstract] in the journal
, which rebukes the biased reports from state-sponsored researchers. The new article entitled "Potentially induced earthquakes in Oklahoma, USA: Links between wastewater injection and the 2011 Mw 5.7 earthquake sequence' was written by
Prof. Katie M. Keranen
of the
Univ. of Oklahoma
Prof. Heather M. Savage
and Prof.
Geoffrey A. Abers
Columbia Univ.
, and Dr. Elizabeth S. Cochran of the
US Geological Survey
It finds:
We use the aftershocks to illuminate the faults that ruptured in the sequence, and show that the tip of the initial rupture plane is within ∼200 m of active injection wells and within ∼1 km of the surface; 30% of early aftershocks occur within the sedimentary section. Subsurface data indicate that fluid was injected into effectively sealed compartments, and we interpret that a net fluid volume increase after 18 yr of injection lowered effective stress on reservoir-bounding faults. Significantly, this case indicates that decades-long lags between the commencement of fluid injection and the onset of induced earthquakes are possible, and modifies our common criteria for fluid-induced events. The progressive rupture of three fault planes in this sequence suggests that stress changes from the initial rupture triggered the successive earthquakes, including one larger than the first.
In other words, it traces the earthquakes to sealed well sites near their epicenter, which were injected with toxic pressurized wastewater from the oil extraction process.
The study finds that wastewater injection-- injecting pressurized liquid to extract deep oil/natural gas deposits -- destabilizes local sediments and likely caused seismic activity.
Note, that while the study does not directly implicate fracking (which involves fluid injection as well), it does raise concerns about the the process, as it implicates similar wastewater injections in creating seismic activity.
The authors determined that the volume of the sealed wells changed over time, causing stress that appears to have triggered at least two quakes of magnitude of 5.0, and then the biggest quake -- a magnitude of 5.7. These quakes were felt in 17 states.
Fluid injection in the wastewater wells began after 1993, according to the current paper and the authors suggest the risk could have been adverted if the well owners had followed the criteria for injection established by Davis and Frohlich (1993), which suggests locating injection wells away from seismic faults.
The findings correspond to a previous 2011
[PDF] by the
US National Research Council
(NRC), which showed that fracking caused smaller quakes (although failing to definitively show whether or not it caused larger quakes). A 2012 USGS report
also links fracking to earthquakes
Note that the difference between fracking injection and wastewater injection is that fracking typically injects the pressurized fluid deeper under the ground, so more research is needed to determine just how much commonality in seismic risk there is between the two practices.
IV. Lawsuits, Legal Challenges to Future Fracking Loom
The study raises serious questions.
First, given the blatant payouts to state politicians by oil and gas interests, it seems pretty interesting that an unbiased team of experts would come to the conclusion that wastewater injection
cause the earthquakes, while a team of state-sponsored researchers whose pay is dependent on politicians paid by special interests would claim that it
the cause.
Aside from questions of scientific integrity regarding the researchers at the OGS/OCC, the report also raises questions of liability. If the quakes were indeed directly correlated to the wastewater injection processes and the causative mechanism was properly determined in the new report, then homeowners or business owners whose properties were damaged could (in theory) sue NextEra Energy, Chesapeake Energy, Exxon Mobil, Devon Energy, OGE Energy,
et al.
for damages.
Fracking projects are being considered in a number of states.
[Image Source: U.S. Energy Information Agency]
Of course don't be surprised if state politicians try to author some sort of legislation to exempt their energy industry "sponsors" from such litigation, given that they already appear to have tried to cover up the damage done.
The report is also of keen interest as various other states, such as Illinois and Pennsylvania are considering new fracking or wastewater injection projects or expanding existing ones. Overseas in England, fracking/wastewater injection is also a major topic of debate, where special interests are similarly trying to sway the discussion.
The new study is critical as it's the most definitive, clear, and detailed document to date indicating that fluid injection can cause seismic activity. Citizens in states with fracking or wastewater injection projects should consider this carefully.
If earthquakes occur, consider suing your local oil and gas companies for damages -- science supports you. And in the meantime look into (on VoteSmart or other sources), which of your local politicians are taking money from big oil and gas companies -- the results may surprise and disturb you.
In all though, this shouldn't be terribly surprising -- a recent
University of Kansas
School of Business
[PDF] revealed that for $1 given to a federal politician as a business, you get $243 USD in kickbacks -- either indirectly (via lesser taxation) or directly siphoned off citizens taxes.
An earlier version of the story erroneously refered to the wastewater as being from fracking, where as the wastewater that researchers suggest caused the quakes was, in fact, from traditional drilling. Several other publications -- including a
on the topic make similar errors or offer somewhat ambiguous statements -- and remain uncorrected.
Nonetheless, the issue of cash payments to state legislators to allow injection/fracking remains, as does the issues surrounding special-interest endorsed research that suggested the quakes to have occurred naturally (when they appear to be energy-industry/wastewater caused).
Geology [abstract]
Opensecrets [campaign funding info]
"I f***ing cannot play Halo 2 multiplayer. I cannot do it." -- Bungie Technical Lead Chris Butcher
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Walter Thurman
Mon, 12/16/2013
PERC Senior Fellow Wally Thurman talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the world of bees, beekeepers, and the market for pollination.
Walter Thurman
Fri, 08/02/2013
Are bees really vanishing? Watch as PERC's Wally Thurman busts the myth with John Stossel on the FOX Business Network. As Thurman explains, market forces have kept honey bees buzzing.
Walter Thurman
Mon, 07/02/2012
Wally Thurman talks bees with John Batchelor. He discusses colony collapse disorder and the state of the bee industry.
Randy Rucker, Walter Thurman
Sat, 01/14/2012
This policy series on Colony Collapse Disorder, a mysterious phenomenon affecting honey bees, shows how real people resolve environmental problems.
Sat, 05/14/2011
By Lawrence Solomon
Walter Thurman
Mon, 11/08/2010
This workshop will consider the potential for contracting for ecosystem services by focusing on the transaction costs of such contracting, other impediments to contracting, and public policies that could promote market transactions. Specific focal areas include: water quality and quantity, wildlife...
Dominic Parker, Walter Thurman
North Carolina State Economist July/August 2004
Dominic Parker, Shawn Regan, Walter Thurman
PERC scholars compare the Conservation and Wetland Reserves, both federal programs, with two private land trusts,The Nature Conservancy and the Land Trust Alliance,to determine their influence on each other.
Walter Thurman
by Wally ThurmanTyler Cowen has recently promoted the idea that parking in America is costly and inappropriately provided mostly for free. Summarizing a recent book by Donald Shoup, The High Cost of Free Parking, he argues that at zero price, Americans park their cars a lot and generate congestion...


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Download ASRock AppCharger Driver
Are you looking driver for a ASRock H87M Motherboard? Do you have the latest drivers for your ASRock H87M Motherboard? Helpalife.us has the web's largest collection of Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8 device drivers for a ASRock Motherboards. Please select the correct driver version and operating system for download ASRock H87M device driver.
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text:
Equine Collapse Reviewed
Equine collapse frequently presents a diagnostic challenge for veterinarians, and many cases go unsolved.
Photo by Photos.com
Equine Collapse Reviewed
July 17, 2013
Equine collapse frequently presents a diagnostic challenge for veterinarians, and many cases go unsolved.... Read More
Concerning Collapse
February 05, 2013
My horse collapsed at a show, but had normal vitals upon standing. Now she's lethargic. What could be wrong?... Read More
Neurologic Problems in the Foal
May 15, 2011
Nothing disrupts the joy of foal ownership like the observation of potential problems: A disinterest in nursing, a depressed attitude, strange mannerisms, or seizures could mean a foal is suffering from some serious neurologic problems. During a ... Read More
Equine Collapse: Once in a Lifetime?
January 08, 2011
A horse that collapses while under saddle is both a hazard to himself and others. ... Read More
Taming the Beast: A Review of Equine Neurologic Disease
June 01, 2010
To take the dizzy factor out of understanding neurologic disease in horses, I.G. Joe Mayhew, BVSc, FRCVS, PhD, Dipl. ACVIM, ECVN, has dedicated much of his career to helping practitioners and owners understand equine neurology.... Read More
Horse Sleep Disorders and Seizures Reviewed for Equine Vets
November 02, 2009
If you have ever witnessed a horse having a so-called "episodic event," you aren't likely to soon forget it, particularly if the event occurred while the horse was under saddle. Episodic events are defined here as unusual or... Read More
Sleep and Sleep Disorders in Horses, AAEP 2008
March 10, 2009
Unlike humans, adult horses average only about three to five hours of sleep per day, with sleep events occurring intermittently throughout the day and night, with most occurring at night. Lack of sleep or a sleep disorder has the potential to impact ... Read More
Unsettled Slumber
August 01, 2007
My horse might have sleeping problems. I have seen him almost fall over trying to sleep. Is this normal?... Read More
Fainting Foals, Sleepy Horses
April 01, 2006
Humans have been fascinated with narcolepsy for centuries. The sight of an otherwise normal person suddenly lapsing into unexplainable deep sleep was cause for curiosity, if not amusement, even after scientists in the late 1800s found that... Read More
July 01, 2004
In any of the equine behavior literature that I have read, I am unable to find any description of the sleeping behavior we see in our retired broodmare (17 years old). She has functioned as the watch horse in the small herd she was from, and she... Read More
Senior Citizen Surgery
July 01, 2003
When a senior horse needs surgery, there is a concern that he will not survive the procedure because of age. ... Read More
Equine Narcolepsy
March 01, 2001
As Jennifer Johnson stood in the lineup awaiting the judge's decision with her recently acquired Quarter Horse mare Dobie Breeze, the last thing she expected was that her mount suddenly would collapse in a heap beneath her. But that's just what... Read More
Narcolepsy in Horses
February 01, 2001
I am requesting information regarding narcolepsy. I haven't found any sources with any information. ... Read More
Find more related content in:
Farm Call: Your Questions Answered
Concerning Collapse
Q. My mare collapsed while warming up at a show. Upon standing, I checked her vitals and all were normal. Since then, she's been lethargic and more marish. My vet and I have been trying to figure out what is wrong. Any ideas?


text:
This study is provided by Resource Center for Minority Data (RCMD).
Current Population Survey, August 2008: Immigration/Emigration Supplement (ICPSR 31201)
Principal Investigator(s): United States Department of Commerce. Bureau of the Census; United States. Bureau of Labor Statistics
This data collection is comprised of responses from two sets of survey questionnaires, the basic Current Population Survey (CPS) and a survey on the topic of immigration and emigration, which was administered as a supplement to the August 2008 CPS questionnaire.
The CPS, administered monthly, is a labor force survey providing current estimates of the economic status and activities of the population of the United States. Specifically, the CPS provides estimates of total employment (both farm and nonfarm), nonfarm self-employed persons, domestics, and unpaid helpers in nonfarm family enterprises, wage and salaried employees, and estimates of total unemployment. Data from the CPS are provided for the week prior to the survey.
The August 2008 supplement questions were asked of all household members interviewed in the basic CPS. The supplemental questions collected information on contemporary migration patterns, such as multiple years of entry to and emigration from the United States, time spent living outside the United States, and money sent and received from family and friends living outside the United States.
Demographic variables include age, sex, race, Hispanic origin, marital status, veteran status, educational attainment, occupation, and income.
Series: Current Population Survey Series
Access Notes
Data in this collection are available only to users at ICPSR member institutions. Please log in so we can determine if you are with a member institution and have access to these data files.
WARNING: This study is over 150MB in size and may take several minutes to download on a typical internet connection.
ASCII + SAS Setup SPSS Setup Stata Setup
Study Description
United States Department of Commerce. Bureau of the Census, and United States. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Current Population Survey, August 2008: Immigration/Emigration Supplement. ICPSR31201-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2011-10-06. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR31201.v1
Persistent URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR31201.v1
Export Citation:
- RIS (generic format for RefWorks, EndNote, etc.)
- EndNote XML (EndNote X4.0.1 or higher)
Scope of Study
Subject Terms: census data, citizenship, demographic characteristics, emigrants, emigration, employment, Hispanic or Latino origins, households, immigrants, immigration, income, industry, labor force, layoffs, money supply, naturalization, occupational status, occupations, part-time employment, population characteristics, population migration, unemployment, wages and salaries, work, work experience, working hours
Geographic Coverage: United States
- 2008-08
- 2008-08
Unit of Observation: individuals within housing units
Universe: The universe for both the basic CPS monthly and the immigration/emigration supplement surveys consisted of all persons, all ages, civilian and military of the population of the United States.
Users are strongly encouraged to refer to the User Guide (produced by the Principal Investigators), which contains the questionnaire for the supplement, as well as additional detailed technical documentation regarding the study design, sampling frame used, and response rates.
The universe statements for each variable are defined in either the basic or supplement record layout, which is located in Attachments 6 and 7, respectively, of the User Guide.
ICPSR removed all FILLER and PADDING variables from the data. As a result, the column locations in any ICPSR-released data product (e.g., codebook and setup files) will have column locations that are not consistent with locations described in the User Guide.
Sample: A multistage probability sample was selected to represent the universe of approximately 71,000 households.
There are seven basic CPS weight variables:
- Household Weight -- HWHHWGT -- Used for tallying household characteristics.
- Family Weight -- PWFMWGT -- Used only for tallying family characteristics.
- Longitudinal Weight -- PWLGWGT -- Found only on adult records matched from month to month (used for gross flows analysis).
- Outgoing Rotation Weight -- PWORWGT -- Used for tallying information collected only in outgoing rotations.
- Final Weight -- PWSSWGT -- Used for most tabulations, controlled to independent estimates for (1) States; (2) Origin, Sex, and Age; and (3) Age, Race, and Sex.
- Veteran's Weight -- PWVETWGT -- Used for tallying veteran's data only.
- Composited Final Weight -- PWCMPWGT -- Used to create BLS's published labor force statistics.
There are household (HHSUPWGT) and person (PWSUPWGT) supplement weights associated with the August 2008 immigration/emigration supplement. Use these weights for tallying the supplement items. The household weight limits the sample to one record per household for household tallies.
Users are strongly encouraged to refer to the User Guide for detailed information on how to use the weights, as well as how they were derived.
Mode of Data Collection: computer-assisted personal interview (CAPI), computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI)
Original ICPSR Release: 2011-10-06
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Export Study-level metadata (does not include variable-level metadata)
If you're looking for collection-level metadata rather than an individual metadata record, please visit our Metadata Records page.


text:
Intelligence and Special Operations in Counterterrorism
This innovative new workshop was offered at the Institute from February 15-17, 2013, bringing established speakers in the intelligence, special operations, and counterterrorism fields.
Course Information
From 15 February to 17 February 2013, the Middlebury Institute of International Studies offered a one-of-a-kind workshop entitled, "Intelligence and Special Operations in Counterterrorism." This workshop convened professionals in the fields of special operations, intelligence, and counterterrorism to share with students their experiences in applying theory to practice across these fields. The material presented laid the groundwork for students' understanding of the intricacies inherent to each of these institutions and the histories and structures of each.
Course Background
The course was constructed by Patrick Stellmon and Brigadier General (RET) Russell D. Howard and taught by General Howard, who lent his more than thirty years of U.S. Special Forces training and experience to the course. Joining him as guest lecturers were: Colonel (RET) Paul Mullin, Major (P) Paula Broadwell, Dr. Kalev "Gunner" Sepp, and a Navy SEAL. These speakers exhibited a wide range of expertise gained from experiences such as: U.S. Special Operations Command, U.S. Army Special Forces, U.S. Naval Special Warfare Group, U.S. Army Intelligence, the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, U.S. Military Psychological Operations, and U.S. Marine Joint Terminal Attack Controller.
General Howard presented basic structural and procedural information regarding both the intelligence and special operations communities. Guest speakers then added their own anecdotes and insights into these communities and their operations. Additionally, the challenges both policy makers and practitioners face in counterterrorism planning and operations were discussed. Speakers were engaging and challenged students to think creatively about ways to ameliorate these challenges.
Required Readings
The required readings for the course were drawn from a variety of sources, including: General Howard's monograph concerning intelligence in denied areas, official government sources, timely news articles, and academic publications. The deliverable was a two-page op-ed on the subject of the student's choice regarding one of the challenges addressed in the workshop.
MonTREP's Role
The preparatory research for this workshop was conducted using MonTREP funding with the goals of studying new subject areas, expanding the terrorism studies program's core competencies, and exploring the feasibility of using this subject matter in a full-time seminar course in the near future.
Paula Broadwell
Paula Broadwell is an author and a graduate of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, the University of Denver's Korbel School of International Studies, and the United States Military Academy. She is an Army Military Intelligence officer with active and reserve military service in various fields of intelligence and counterterrorism.
COL (ret.) Paul Mullin
COL Paul Mullin retired from the J3, Information Operations at USSOCOM(A). He works for FRDA LLC, a leadership consulting company.
He commanded 9 units, and served 19 of his 25 years with troops up to Group/Brigade level. He also served as an infantryman and intelligence officer in West Berlin. He was a Task Force J3 in Mogadishu, Somalia during Operation RESTORE HOPE. COL Mullin is the founder of US worldwide Humanitarian Demining. He also served as the Chief of Psychological Operations.
COL Mullin's studied as an Army War College Fellow in the Special Operations Defense Analysis Group at the Naval Postgraduate School. He is a graduate of the South East Asia Program at the State Department's Foreign Service Institute in Washington DC. He also studied at two foreign universities. He is a graduate of the Army War College, both the Army and Marine Corps Command and Staff Colleges, Special Forces Officer Qualification Course, Psychological Operations, Anti-Terrorism Instructor's Training Course.
After military retirement, Mr. Mullin served as a branch chief and staff officer in several US Embassies overseas. Until April 2012, he was the inter-agency liaison officer for Special Operations/Counterterrorism Directorate for the ASD/SOLIC in the Pentagon.
Dr. Kalev Sepp
Dr. Kalev Sepp is a Senior Lecturer in Defense Analysis at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. He was previously the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations Capabilities and was responsible for the U.S. Department of Defense global counterterrorism portfolio. A former U.S. Army Special Forces officer, he earned his Ph.D. at Harvard University, and his Combat Infantryman Badge in the Salvadoran Civil War. His unit assignments included the 82d Airborne Division, the 2d Ranger Battalion, the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, and the 2d Infantry Division, among others. He was also an instructor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.


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Roadrunner was designed by engineers and scientists at IBM and the Los
Alamos National Laboratory. Ultimately, Roadrunner will be placed into a
classified environment where it will be used to simulate
what effects aging has on the stockpile of nuclear weapons the U.S. has in
its arsenal. The problem it will work on is modeling how aging nuclear weapons
behave the first fraction of a second during an explosion. Before beginning its
nuclear weapons research, Roadrunner will be used to model the effects of
global warming.
The Roadrunner supercomputer costs $133 million and is built using chips
from both consumer electronics and more common server processors.
Roadrunner has 12,960 chips that are an improved version of the Cell chip
used in the PS3. These Cell processors act as a turbocharger for certain
portions of the calculations the Roadrunner processes. The computer also uses a
smaller, unspecified number of AMD Opteron processors.
A computer researcher from the University of Tennessee, Jack Dongarra told
the New York Times, "This [breaking
the petaflop barrier] is equivalent to the four-minute mile of supercomputing."
Horst Simon from the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory said, "Roadrunner
tells us about what will happen in the next decade. Technology is coming from
the consumer electronics market and the innovation is happening first in terms
of cell phones and embedded electronics."
Technology first appearing in the consumer electronics market and then
making its way into supercomputing is a stark contrast to a process that
commonly works in the exact opposite manner.
In total, Roadrunner has 116,640 processing cores and the real challenge for
programmers is figuring out how to keep all of those processing cores in use
simultaneously to get the best performance. Roadrunner requires about 3
megawatts of power, or about enough electricity to run a large shopping center.
To put the processing power in perspective, Thomas P. D'Agostino of the
National Nuclear Security Administration said that if all 6 billion people on
Earth entered calculations on a calculator for 24 hours a day, seven days per
week it would take 46 years to do what Roadrunner can do in one day.
How Roadrunner is cooled is unknown, IBM has recently moved
to liquid cooling for its supercomputers, but Roadrunner appears to be air


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Bankrate.com's McBride: Fed's Low Rates Will Fuel Home Equity Business
The Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee this week, as expected, kept the federal funds rate at 0 to 0.25%, and said it would continue the exceptionally low range until certain key measures are reached, like unemployment dropping to 6.5%.
Low rates are great for consumers, but make survival on margins difficult to impossible for financial institutions. However, Bankrate.com Senior Financial Analyst Greg McBride sees a new silver lining in the low rate environment for credit unions: home equity lending.
Savvy and disciplined consumers are drawing off the growing equity in their homes and investing in equities, he said.
"They're borrowing at a low, tax-deductible rate, and after inflation, it's like borrowing for free," he said. "They're not using the money to buy big screen TVs. They're using that money to create wealth."
McBride also said the home equity market in general will be better in 2013 than lenders have seen since the waning days of the housing boom. Stabilizing housing values, low rates and a returning appetite for borrowing among consumers could mean a pretty good year for home equity lending.
"Make no mistake, this isn't going to be 2005 all over again, but it will better than recent years," he said.
However, the low rate environment is bad news for auto lenders – McBride said he expects competition among lenders to sink auto loan rates even further than their current record lows. However, he said, auto lending doesn't pose excessive risk in today's market, from a credit or interest rate risk standpoint.
McBride said he expects "more of the same" for the economy in 2013: slow growth, high unemployment and low inflation. Wednesday's news that Gross Domestic Product decreased at an annual rate of 0.1% in the fourth quarter of 2012 isn't reason to believe the economy will slip back into a recession, he said.
He blamed the drop on a decrease in government defense spending and fiscal cliff uncertainty causing companies to cautiously keep inventories low.
"The underlying fundamentals were more positive than headlines," McBride said. "It's nothing to lose any sleep over, but it illustrates the fact that we're in a slow growth economy."
The Fed said it would continue its securities purchasing program at a pace of $40 billion per month and buy longer-term Treasury securities at a pace of $45 billion per month.
Curt Long, NAFCU staff economist, said it's unclear how long the Fed will continue its latest round of quantitative easing.
"The minutes from the December meeting revealed divisions among committee members on how long to keep the program going, with some Fed officials anticipating that the program could be wound down as early as this summer," Long said..
Four new members will join the FOMC: Jeffrey Lacker of Richmond, Sandra Pianalto of Cleveland, Dennis Lockhart of Atlanta and John Williams of San Francisco, which adds to the intrigue of how the committee will vote on the bond buying program and other policy, Long said.
"The minutes from the meeting – which will be released on Feb. 20 – will be highly scrutinized for indications of the committee's policy directions over the course of the year," Long said.


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OCZ Technology has become one of the biggest names in the Solid State Drive market, challenging even the mighty Intel Corporation for SSD supremacy. Its Vertex family has grown to include several series that cover the enterprise, enthusiast, and mainstream markets, while the Agility series has been sought after by the value market.
It was at last year's Consumer Electronics Show that OCZ showed us their Vertex drive, and this year they've got a lot more planned. The company is planning a massive expansion and a quick transition to 3xnm NAND flash memory, including 34nm NAND from IMFT and 32nm NAND from the likes of Samsung and Toshiba.
Most of the second generation SSDs will move to 3x NAND, including the Vertex, Agility, Solid 2, Vertex EX, and mighty 3.5 inch Colossus. The shift to cheaper NAND will lower prices, and allow OCZ to introduce 512GB versions of the Vertex and Agility series in the second quarter. There will also be a new 1.8 inch SSD built using the new Amigos NAND flash controller from Indilinx.
Anandtech was the first to disclose OCZ's third generation Vertex 2, but there will be other drives in this new generation. The Vertex 2 will be joined by the Vertex 2 Pro and the Vertex 2 Pro EX.
The Vertex 2 promises radical increases in random Read/Write performance thanks to the use of a customized SF-1200 flash controller from SandForce. It will be available in 50GB, 100GB, 200GB, and 400GB capacities, with an expected maximum read spead of 270MB/s and a maximum write speed of 260MB/s. OCZ is facing the upper limits of the SATA II interface thanks to protocol overhead, and these will be the fastest SATA II drives available from OCZ before switching to 6Gbps SATA.
While the Vertex 2 will be targeted at the performance market, the Vertex 2 Pro and the Vertex 2 Pro EX will target the enterprise market. They will use the SF-1500 SandForce controller, and the Vertex 2 Pro EX series will feature a supercapacitor to ensure data writes are completed successfully in case of a brownout or complete power failure. It will also use Single-Layer Cell (SLC) NAND, while the Vertex 2 Pro will use slower Multi-Layer Cell (MLC) NAND flash memory.
This all means that the Vertex, Agility, and Solid will be able to move downstream to the mainstream and value markets. OCZ has already discontinued the Summit series which used Samsung's inferior controller, and we expect a gradual phasing out of value SSDs using JMicron controllers.
OCZ is also expanding their series of Z-Drive SSDs which use the PCIe bus to overcome limitations of the SATA II interface. Their Z-Drive e88 will be able to achieve 1400MB/s read and 1500MB/s write, but will be targeted solely at the enterprise market at 512GB and 1TB capacities.
Enthusiasts can choose the Z-Drive p88 with an expected maximum read speed of 1300MB/s and maximum write speed of 1200MB/s. It will be available in 512, 1TB, and 2TB capacities. There will also be a new revision of the Z-Drive p84 with a max read of 870MB/s and max write of 780MB/s.
The mainstream Z-Drive m84 with 750MB/s read and 650MB/s write, and the Z-Drive m12, with 350MB/s read and 225MB/s write are available for those looking for something more affordable.
OCZ's three year standard warranty is expected to apply for all new products. DailyTech will work with OCZ to provide further information on performance, pricing, and availability closer to the release dates.
Live updates from the show are available via Twitter.


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St. Paul Croatian FCU Conviction Nets 37 Months in Prison
A Cleveland man who bilked $1.6 million in loans from the St. Paul Croatian Federal Credit Union in Eastlake, Ohio, will spend the next 37 months in federal prison.
Jukic Zrino also was ordered to pay $1.6 million in restitution by Judge John R. Adams in U.S. District Court in Akron on Thursday. Jukic pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud and one count of money laundering last July.
Jukic co-owned the Zlato Group with Anthony Raguz, the convicted CEO/president of SPCFCU, who was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison in November for his central role in one of the largest fraud cases in U.S. credit union history.
Federal prosecutors said Jukic provided false information on 11 loan applications from October 2003 to March 2009 to obtain $1.6 million in loans.
Through the Zlato Group, Jukic and Raguz invested most of the loans in businesses owned and operated by A. Eddy Zai. Zai pleaded guilty in November to nine counts or bank fraud, bribery, money laundering for his participation in the $70 million SPCFCU fraud case, and he faces sentencing Feb. 5 in the same Akron court.
Jukic also committed money laundering when he transferred $25,000 in SPCFCU loans from a Zlato Group bank account to his personal bank account, according to court documents.
SPCFCU was placed into conservatorship in April 2010, when it served 5,400 members and reported assets of more than $238 million.
The NCUA closed SPCFCU when it was determined to be insolvent, making it one of the largest credit-union failures in American history.
To date, 24 people have been indicted for criminal activity related to the credit union.


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Other Patches
Other Boy Scout Patches
Order a Variety of Boy Scout Patches from the Boy Scout Store
Looking for a great selection of boy scout patches? You've come to the right place! At the Boy Scout Store, we carry several styles and designs of boy scout patches. Look below for what we offer and find what you're looking for. Save big on boy scout patches today!


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BID NO. 08-108 NOTICE TO BIDDERS Notice is hereby given that sealed bids will be accepted until 2:00 P.M. on March 19, 2008, by Leigh Daniels, Buyer III, St. Johns County Purchasing Department, 2446 Dobbs Road, St. Augustine, Florida 32086, (904) 209-0154, for the PRINTING SERVICES FOR ST. JOHNS COUNTY BUSINESS CARDS & STATIONARY. Bids will be opened promptly after the 2:00 p.m. deadline. Package request forms are available by calling the DemandStar.com at 800-711-1712 and requesting Document # 08-108. Many packages can be downloaded from the internet. Check the agency's site for download availability and any applicable fees. Vendors registered with DemandStar.com, Inc. can download packages at no cost from their website - www.demandstar.com . The Board of County Commissioners reserves the right to reject any and all bids and to waive minor formalities or to award the bid whose bid best serves the interest of the County. Any bidder affected adversely by an intended decision with respect to the award of any bid, shall file with the Purchasing Department for St. Johns County, a written notice of intent to file a protest not later that seventy-two (72) hours (excluding Saturday, Sunday and legal holidays) after the posting of the bid tabulation. Protest procedures may be obtained in the Purchasing Department. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF ST. JOHNS COUNTY, FLORIDA CHERYL STRICKLAND, CLERK BY: Yvonne King, Deputy Clerk L479-8 Feb 20, 27, 2008
Posted from 20-Feb-08 to 27-Feb-08
© 2018. All Rights Reserved. Contact Us


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Filene Fills New Position: Chief Engagement Officer
The Filene Research Institute has found its new chief engagement officer in Mollie Bell, former CUNA Mutual Group vice president in the program management office.
"Mollie is a leader with a rare combination of intellectual curiosity and a 'do-it' mindset," said Mark Meyer, CEO of the Madison, Wis., credit union think tank.
"She will fit beautifully with Filene's focus on research and developing innovative solutions for credit unions. She builds relationships and strategic partnerships and she just gets things done," Meyer said. "Bringing her on to the Filene team will make all of us better."
With Filene's commitment to engaging with partners and better disseminating a variety of research findings and emerging innovations, Bell will be responsible for communicating those findings and recruiting partners and supporters to build out the impact of Filene's work, Meyer said.
In the newly created position, she also will be charged with supporting and growing the many communities that Filene is building within the credit union system and across corporate and cooperative communities.
Prior to joining CUNA Mutual, Bell held consulting positions with Accenture, a global management consulting and technology services organization. Her previous experience also includes teaching, sales and business ownership. She earned a law degree from the University of Texas School of Law and a bachelor of business administration degree from Lamar University.
Bell said her varied background has served as stepping stones to her current role at Filene.
"So there's never been this direct career path. Everything I've done has been some new challenge and learning experience," said Bell. "For me, the bigger story is being open to new possibilities and growing intellectually as well. I never imagined I'd be landing where I am, but I can't express how much I think this role is such a nice fit and the next step to that story. "
She added she is looking forward to learning what members value most as she gets out in the industry more.
"I'm excited to be a part of such a dynamic organization that is continually looking to challenge the status quo," Bell said. "The team at Filene is always looking for the next big thing for credit unions. I look forward to growing the already strong brand recognition for research and innovation on issues involving consumer finance and credit unions."


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Then what is your explanation for why Ven. Sariputta speaks ofdaverupa wrote: Paticcasamuppada/-nirodha is not to do with that physical dart at all.
in his exposition of Paticcasamuppada/-nirodha?"Whatever aging, decrepitude, brokenness, graying, wrinkling, decline of life-force, weakening of the faculties of the various beings in this or that group of beings, that is called aging. Whatever deceasing, passing away, breaking up, disappearance, dying, death, completion of time, break up of the aggregates, casting off of the body, interruption in the life faculty of the various beings in this or that group of beings, that is called death. This aging & this death are called aging & death. "


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9th October Making a Game
During our recent Q&A sessions, some of you have been asking about the process we go through here when we make a game, so I thought Id jot down some notes on how our production process works.
As with most things, it starts with an idea. Inspiration for a game can come from numerous sources. A good game designer will be looking at the world around them and seeing "systems": mechanisms by which things interact with each other. By understanding the systems we see around us every day, we can see how these systems can be adapted into games.
Click here to see a larger version of this image.
Anyone can come up with a game concept here at Jagex; we take ideas from all sources. We have a short two-page document that highlights the core of the idea, why its fun and why its commercially a good idea. The concept then gets discussed by the Senior Design Group: a team of senior developers with a lot of design experience. We examine the likely pros and cons of the concept and, if we like the idea, its pushed forward into the prototype phase of development. Only about 1 in 5 ideas makes it to the prototype stage.
Prototyping comes in two forms: physical and code. Often we start the process by building a physical design for the game. We've done this with miniature figures, hex grids, paper counters, wooden models... you name it. These physical prototypes are used to test out the cornerstone rules of the game and make sure they work. From here we move on to a code prototype and this is where the real work begins. A lot of what we do here is pushing the boundaries of what the Jagex library code can accomplish, so we have to make sure that the game is fun, the rules for the game work and that the code required to create them is possible. On average we discard about 25% of our games at the prototype stage; some may be picked up again later, though.
Click here to see a larger version of this image.
Once this prototype is complete and the senior design group have agreed that its worth taking forward, the design work of the game can begin. Up until this point we've had an idea about how the game will work and we've experimented with the core systems. Now we sit down and design the key elements of the game and write them into a design document. Previously the design was done "on the fly" as part of the work of building the game, but this has proved inefficient for us. We now try to capture as much of the design work as possible early on in the process, but we are aware that there will be changes once ideas we want to implement are examined in a real game.
We then build the game. This simple statement incorporates a lot of work. Graphics and audio work needs to be allocated, performed and scheduled to arrive with the developer at the correct time. We work using build iterations: we add something, playtest it and change it until it works the way we anticipated. Sometimes we need to completely remove elements we've added, because they just didn't work the way we thought they would. And so the game progresses: add, test, refine/reject/replace, test again and so on, until we've got the best result we think we can get.
The last things we do to a game are often the most important. We add the instructions, the tutorial and the Achievements at the end of the process. These are critical elements in the game to get right and we've learned the hard way what can happen when we get it wrong. We also spend a lot of time on polishing the game. Polish is the term the industry uses to describe all the small elements you add to a game that really make it feel like a high quality product. These can be as simple as a transition effect or a button mouse-over, or as complex as CGI video, but these elements really make the game feel finished and superior in quality. The customer rarely notices when polish is there, but they always notice when the polish is absent.
The last element of the process is quality assurance or QA. We are always pressed for time where QA is concerned; we could always do with more testing, but there comes a point of diminishing returns where the game is essentially "good enough" to release. The difference in quality between "good enough" and "perfect" is usually small, but the difference in terms of time is staggering. Nothing ever goes live as perfect as we'd like to make it, but the delay that would be caused in making it perfect would simply be too long.
So thats a cut-down snap shot of the entire process. Concept - prototype - design - build - revise - build - revise - build etc., etc., etc. - test - release and then back to concept. I hope this has given you a good insight into what goes on here and just how hard the entire team works. Thanks for reading.
Mod Korpz
Head of FunOrb


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Revealed: Secret PIIs in Your Unstructured Data: Opinion
Personally identifiable information, or PII, is pretty intuitive. If you know someone's phone, Social Security number or credit card number, you have a direct link to their identity.
Hackers use these identifiers, along with a few more personal details, as keys to unlock data, steal identities, and ultimately take money. The lines between PII and non-PII data are blurring. It's been known for at least 10 years that there are specific pieces of data which may appear anonymous, but when they're taken together are just as effective at identifying a person as traditional PII.
The easiest to understand of these so called quasi-PIIs is the trio of full birth date, ZIP code and gender. If a company had published a dataset that had been "de-identified" by removing all the standard PIIs, but left those three data items alone, a smart hacker could with very high likelihood find the name and address of the person behind that data.
Why would this work? At a very basic level, the identity thief is effectively doing the work of a detective – essentially going through lists looking for matches. The lists in this case are voting records, which in the U.S. are available from most towns and counties at a nominal fee – typically around $40. In the UK this information is free.
Voting records contain name, address, and most importantly full birth date; postal codes can be easily determined from address. By looking for matching birth dates and postal codes, identity thieves narrow down the search to a few names. Add gender information and for most postal codes, hackers can arrive at a unique name.
Of course, the more additional information or clues gathered, especially taken from social media and other websites, the easier it is to filter and narrow down names when there's more than one candidate.
Take the U.S., for example. A quick back-of-the envelope calculation tells you why one might do very well with this approach. Taking 365 days –
ignoring leap years – and multiplying by an average age of 80, it works out that a complete birth date gives 29,200 "bins" to place a ZIP code's worth of U.S. citizens. If you have gender information, you double the number of slots, to a little over 58,000.
I can hear nitpickers out there that saying that voting rolls contain only the names of those over the age of 18, so you would have to remove 6,570 slots. True enough, but researchers have shown it's possible to exploit Facebook's leaky handling of data on school age minors to partially address this gap.
In any case, based on the last U.S. census, there are more than 40,000 ZIP codes, with an average of only 7,000 people per ZIP code. On a gut level, it seems there's a good chance most of those 7,000 people will find themselves alone in one of those 58,000 slots. In other words, the odds are that most of them won't share the same date of birthdate, ZIP code, and gender.
Carnegie Mellon computer science professor and data privacy expert Latanya Sweeney ran the numbers back in 2000: using then current census data (broken down by ZIP codes and age groups) she was able to identify 87% of the people in the U.S. using just those three non-PIIs.
Piecing the information together is even easier in the UK, as a post code will often cover little more than a single street.
Fortunately, Sweeney's research and results from other experts have made their way to policy makers. For example, when medical research on U.S. patients is published, HIPAA's Safe Harbor de-identification rules say that no geographic unit smaller than a state can be included in the public data. Full dates (e.g., admission, birth) must also have the year removed.
With U.S. regulations on PII varying by the particular legislation, this is by no means a universal rule. However, the Federal Trade Commission, an influential regulatory agency on privacy matters, has recently issued new best practices on data de-identification.
They've called for all companies to achieve a "reasonable level of confidence" that their public data can't be linked back to an individual. Clearly, the combination of birth date, ZIP code and gender would fail that test.
Are there other quasi-PII's out there? Of course! The larger problem is that consumers are sharing all kinds of information about themselves on websites and social forums.
In a possible scenario, think of an online retailer collecting preference data about its customers – sports interests, hobbies, etc. – along with geographic data and perhaps income information.
These data items would not be considered traditional PII. If hackers pulled this "anonymous" data from a poorly permissioned file on a server, you could imagine them mining various special interest sites, looking for names that match up based on those interests and geo data.
Once they have a match, the next step might be a phishing attack, with the hackers pretending to be the retailer.
For companies that want to stay ahead of the coming stricter de-identification rules — that are being considered in the US and will likely become law in the EU — it would be worth their while to start carefully reviewing their non-PII data. Wherever that data might be on their file system.
Andy Green is a technical content specialist at Varonis in London, England.