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Almost everything we know about flipping houses, we learned from TV. Fortunately we have a realtor who graciously gives us advice and encouragement. But that doesn't mean there aren't still surprises.
On Monday we closed on our first "flip house". The first closing, that is. We're at the beginning phase of rehab. There will be another closing at the end of this process.
At the closing, we discovered the contract included line items for Title Insurance and Title Handling by Lender. Since we declined Title Insurance and we're paying cash via a home equity loan, we were not prepared to pay for either of these items. We'd already wired over the cash, but a paperwork change meant we'd be reimbursed over $600. Yes, I wanted the paperwork changed. It took two iterations. (Oh, and…it will be up to us to chase down the reimbursement.)
While waiting on the revised paperwork, we discussed the rehab items that needed to be tackled. Our realtor expressed surprise that we were purchasing a 3/1/1 and not a 3/2/1. I was surprised that he was surprised. I'm not a fan of surprises, in general. I have a feeling this is the first of many.
Since our realtor will represent us in selling this house, I'd like to think he was considering the future marketability, but who knows.
Lesson 1: Be sure to ask the realtor "what about this house will make it hard to resell?"
He also mentioned the urgent need to acquire insurance. We were not prepared for the premium associated with insuring unoccupied houses.
After the closing we went through the house with the realtor, specifically reviewing the minimum effort and expense needed to get the house back on the market. Mr. H and I need to get aligned on expectations and our realtor is also our mentor. He has a lot of experience, which will hopefully help us avoid some trial-by-error education.
His key points: 1) Clean, clean, clean. 2) Paint and carpet, paint and carpet, paint and carpet. These areas will give the biggest bang for the buck. Everything needs to be considered as an ROI algebraic equation. If I input X in labor and Y in expenses, will I get Z in profit? What, exactly, will be the Return On Investment? We'll have to ask ourselves this question a million times before the project is a wrap.
Although Mr. H initially planned to repair the garage door, we're now pricing a replacement.
Kitchen: The realtor suggested we should not need to replace these cabinets, but a little bit of sanding and a fresh coat of paint will suffice. This is great news and should save us about $1,000 (kitchen and bath).
We are in the market for a low-end (or used) stove and a microwave/hood. Mr. H will be replacing the flooring with tile. Elbow grease and cleaning supplies should cover the rest of the kitchen & dining area.
The house will be painted end-to-end, inside and out. Our realtor indicated we could leave the cheesy mantel. More good news! Not shown – the windows, which will be dressed with 2″ mini-blinds.
It may not be obvious, but the previous painters were
sloppy overly generous in their application of paint. Our realtor recommended soaking the outlet and switch plates in rubbing alcohol to get the paint off. I've already started this process on the door hinges, and it seems to be working. We'll need to purchase more rubbing alcohol.
- Rubbing alcohol
- rubber gloves
- stiff-bristled brush
- elbow grease
We should have electricity turned on sometime Thursday so Friday morning we will be steam cleaning. I'm a girl who loves using chemicals so I consider these spots and stains a fine challenge. If we can't get the spots out, we'll be stuck replacing the carpet. I'm optimistic about the bedrooms but leery about the main room.
Another tip from the realtor: Replace the doors (front door and the flat interior doors with new, paneled doors) and replace the knobs so they match. We pulled all of the hinges, stripped the hinges of the latex paint and gone so far as to spray paint them with a metallic brass so they look as good as new.
And finally, the bathroom: I'm hoping that elbow grease and chemicals will go a long way towards sprucing this up. We'll also invest in a new fixtures for the sink and tub, as well as a matching set of hardware (for towels & toilet paper). Mr. H can also work magic with caulk.
Everywhere there is linoleum, there will be tile. If we have to replace the carpet in the living room, the linoleum in the hallway will (potentially) be replaced with carpet. As of today, we've reduced our budget and our schedule by half. We hope to spend $5k and 1 month in this investment before we put the house on the market.
- Purchase price: $56,000
- Budget for rehab: $5,000
- Target sales tag: $90,000
- Closing expenses: $7,200 (8%)
- Holding costs (pending sale): ~$1,800
- Anticipated profit: $20,000


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The Nudie Jeans Repair Shop in Shoreditch is an innovative concept shop from the denim brand. The second repair shop location from Nudie Jeans, the jeans repair shop is a great way to strengthen brand-consumer relations.
When asked, the brand explains, "if you sell a lot of cars, you're gonna need a lot of service stations." Clearly aware of the power of creating a relationship between the consumer and the product, Nudie Jeans is aiming to extend the lifespan of their jeans and in the process, create another opportunity for the customer to interact face-to-face with the brand.
By investing in the continued experience of past customers rather than merely worrying about wrangling in new ones, Nudie Jeans is building a resilient community of loyal fans.
Denim Brand Repair Shops
More Stats +/-
Community Hub Supermarkets
Repair Shop Cafes
Guitar Repair Cafes
Clothing Repair Pop-Ups
Artisanal Tool Boxes
The Nudie Jeans Repair Shop is a Clever Concept Now Open in Shoreditch
- By: Rebecca ByersApr 27, 2015
References: nudiejeans & superfuture
References: nudiejeans & superfuture

subset: commoncrawl


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What do you guys think about these?
Fun Friends animal cell phone covers - Christmas Gift ideas
Personally, I find them ugly and immature. Ok if given to a kid. I'd be embarassed to pull that out of my purse. :shame:
They are so ridiculous looking that I LOLed. I LOLed even louder when I see the teenage "models" that they got advertising it. A failed attempt to make it look cooler.
Lol me too. It's a little bit much. I can't imagine answering the phone that on there..it looks kind of hard to do
<----- That kinda sums up my feelings on those!!


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So do you think of most beautiful woman in the world is my beautiful? Please keep your sanctimonious this is a superficial question comments to yourself... Especially guys who are want to be feminists... it's just a silly question. :D
Most Helpful Guy
Alessandra Ambrosio
she's a man
- Show AllShow Less
billion times >>>> alessandra
Lol screw you guys!


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Article Side
Online Article Directory!
Ascertaining the Requirements of a Software Project
The assessment of requirements to be targeted in a project is amongst the most necessary preparatory activities that any good software developer pays attention to. While accessing these requirements the developer tries to interact with users who are currently using the software and also users who may use them in the future. Theoretically also according to waterfall projects, it has been stated that it's imperative to realize the whole problem at hand first before embarking on a journey to solution designing and providing. The concept of agile projects on the other hand puts forward the view that only some basic understanding of a project is sufficient to get on with it and the subsequent gaps in the knowledge shall itself be filled in at later stages in the project.
A requirement gathering activity needs to be conducted for a project irrespective of its type. It's for this reason important to understand that the process of requirement gathering suffers from an in-built anomaly. To know how, read on:
How a requirement gathering process works:
Suppose a client needs a new Intranet, he approaches a software development company to get the same done. The problem with the intranet is that though it functions alright in the main but the technology used in the intranet has turned obsolete. The client is also interested in adding some latest features to the intranet. The software developer performs the following steps to gather requirements:
A web software developer plans the meeting based on the key areas that needs to be addressed in the software i.e. assessing the old intranet, experiences of users, features required to be added etc. The software developer makes it a point to gather all this information from people who have maximum exposure with these categories.
She/he makes a list of major issues discussed during these meetings.
Instead of relying on third party impressions, he himself checks the way Intranet is functioning to create an opinion of his own.
She/he prepares a report when the requirement gathering activity comes to an end with some recommendation from his end too.
Once the report is prepared, the software developer goes back to his team with all the requirements of software but the requirements collected aren't free from bias and have incomplete information. This happens because the communication of requirements takes place in a really fragmented format beginning from the client's perception to the way consultant puts it forward. This is where a lot of noise gets attached to it making it imperfect. The actual information which the client thinks of expressing to the way the developer receives it has the chances of toning down or distorting it by a considerable 40%. The only purpose behind analyzing this distortion is to improve the requirement gathering process in all and to adopt a process which pays clear attention to avoiding all these natural bias in the process of communication.
Jesse - About Author:
SynapseIndia is Software Development company , has the software Developers in India and Web developers in India and provide the Affordable Web development at affordable price. Clients get complete Software Development Services with a round the clock never-ending support.
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Lansing is full of fun family field trip opportunities! As long as you're going to be in town for the weekend, we thought you might be interested in seeing what else is available for your family to do before and after the conference.
Information Network For Christian Homes – 32nd Annual Conference
Welcome to Lansing! Please find a few suggestions about how you may want to send some free time while in town for the 2014 INCH Annual Convention. We will have the restaurant reservation booth staffed in the main concourse of the Lansing Center to assist with ideas of how to spend your free time. Please visit our free mobile app, website, visitor guide or the booth onsite for more details: http://www.lansing.org/
Calendar of Events Highlights & Featured Attractions – Downtown Lansing
Lansing Lugnuts Baseball vs. Dayton Dragons
May 15, 16 & 17, 2014
Cooley Law School Stadium is directly across the street from the Lansing Center
Address: 505 E. Michigan Ave., Lansing, MI 48912
Game Time: 7:05 p.m.
Admission: Varies
Friday Promotion: Freebie Friday- Kids Eat Free – FREE Hot Dog, Chips & Sodas for all 12 & under! Enjoy Fireworks following the game!
Saturday Promotion: Enjoy Fireworks following the game!
Join us to Go Nuts downtown for a Lansing Lugnuts Baseball game! The classic American past time is alive and well in our community, so come be a part of the fun.
– See more at: http://www.lansing.org/includes/events/Lansing-Lugnuts-Baseball-vs-Dayton-Dragons/7396/
Lansing City Market Family Education Days (F.E.D.)
325 City Market Dr., Lansing, MI 48912
FREE program every Thursday for families with young kids– at 11:00am and 4:00pm!!!
May 15: Appetizing Asparagus – Come stand tall with us like stalks of Asparagus as we learn a song all about different parts of a plant.
Adjacent to the Lansing Center, the Lansing City Market provides the Greater Lansing region, and out-of-town guests, a year-round, one-of-a-kind shopping experience in a family friendly environment. Established in 1909, the Market's recent reconstruction along the Grand River has strengthened Lansing's downtown corridor by creating a welcoming home for more than 20 merchants. Currently the Market features a wide variety of goods including: local produce, fresh dairy products, artisan cheese, house-baked breads, organic meat, poultry, fresh-cut flowers, natural heath care products, photography, gluten-free items, and several hot-prepared food merchants including a full-service bar and grill.
Impression 5 Science Center
200 Museum Dr.
Lansing, MI 48933
Phone: (517) 485-8116
Special for INCH Families: Visit the Convention & Visitor's Bureau booth in the main concourse of the Lansing Center to pick up one free admission coupon- available to the first 200 families that stop by. (One per family please)
Admission: Adults: $5.00, Seniors: $4.50, Children, 1 & older: $5.00, Children, up to 1 year old: FREE
Web: www.impression5.org
Impression 5 is a hands-on learning environment that challenges visitors to experience, discover and explore! Interactive exhibits include "Bubbles," "Throwing Things," and many more. Explore the exhibits, experiment with science in a workshop and shop 'til you drop in the Science Store!
State Capitol Building
100 Capitol Ave.
Lansing, MI 48933
Phone: (517) 373-2353
Admission: FREE
Web: www.michigan.gov/miplaces
Step back into the Victorian era with a visit to Michigan's award-winning Capitol Building. Designed by Elijah E. Myers, one of the foremost architects of public buildings during the Gilded Age (1865-1914), construction of the Capitol Building took six years and contains over nine acres of hand-painted surfaces. The building was dedicated to the citizens of Michigan in 1879. Tours of the public areas and the House and Senate galleries are available every half hour.
Michigan Historical Museum
702 W. Kalamazoo St.
Lansing, MI 48909
Phone: (517) 373-3559
Admission: Adults (18+) – $6, Seniors (65+) – $4, Youth (6-17) – $2 (optional), Children up to 5 years – Free
Web: www.michigan.gov/museum
The Michigan Historical Museum surrounds visitors with Michigan history from prehistoric times through the late twentieth century. Major exhibit environments include a three-story relief map of Michigan, walk-through Upper Peninsula copper mine, one-room schoolhouse, 1920s street scene, 1957 Detroit Auto Show, and a lakes and lands diorama complete with a rustic cabin and lighthouse. Explore all 26 permanent galleries, located on four levels. Don't miss the temporary exhibit gallery on the ground floor. The museum store offers unique items that have been carefully selected to reflect Michigan's rich heritage.
Michigan Supreme Court Hall of Justice
925 W. Ottawa Street
Lansing, MI 48913
Phone: (517)373-7171
Free admission.
Open Mon.-Fri., 9 am-4 pm.
Web: http://courts.mi.gov/education/learning-center/Pages/Schedule-a-Tour.aspx
Located on the first floor of the Michigan Hall of Justice, the Michigan Supreme Court Learning Center opened its doors to the public on November 1, 2002. This 3,800 sq. ft. public education center introduces children and adults to the Michigan court system. The Learning Center is designed for elementary students to adults, and the gallery is filled with activities including an introductory video, computer programs, push-button programs and traditional wall text panels. Groups of 10 or more should call ahead for guided tours. Walk-in visitors welcome.
Potter Park Zoo
1301 S. Pennsylvania Ave.
Lansing, MI 48912
Phone: (517) 483-4222
Admission: Resident $4, Non-Resident $10, Resident Senior $3, Non-Resident Senior, $8, Children (3-12) $2, All Children under 3 FREE
Web: www.potterparkzoo.org
The beautifully landscaped 100-acre park, gardens and zoo are situated in an old oak forest along the Red Cedar River. Located in the heart of the Capital City, Potter Park Zoo exhibits more than 400 animals from around the world. A zoo for all seasons, Potter Park is open all year. The Exploration and Discovery Center for Education provides classes and hands-on learning as well as a Safari Room available to rent for parties, meetings and receptions. The park surrounds the zoo, offering picnicking, exercise area and a playground. Camel and pony rides, a petting zoo, food concessions and a unique Zoovenir Gift Shop are open seasonally.
Calendar of Events Highlights & Featured Attractions – East Lansing
East Lansing Art Festival
Saturday, May 17, 2014 & Sunday, May 18, 2014
Venue: Downtown East Lansing
Address: 410 Abbot Rd., Ste. 209, East Lansing, MI 48823
Times: 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Admission: Free
Dates: East Lansing Art Festival May 17, 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. May 18, 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. Each spring, the East Lansing Art Festival celebrates fine art and craft throughout its downtown. Over 200 juried artists from the U.S. and Canada exhibit and sell their work. Free performances, hands-ons arts activities for all ages and a food court offer big city quality with a hometown welcome. www.elartfest.com
– See more at: http://www.lansing.org/includes/events/East-Lansing-Art-Festival/7283/
Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum
556 E. Circle Dr, Rm 344
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824
Phone: (517) 353-9836
Admission: FREE
Web: www.broadmuseum.msu.edu
The Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, a new Zaha Hadid-designed contemporary art museum at MSU, is dedicated to exploring global contemporary culture and ideas through art. The museum presents groundbreaking, international contemporary art across all media, and thematic exhibitions that investigate contemporary works within a historical context.
MSU Barns – University Farms / Animal Science Dept
Animal Science Dept – Anthony Hall
474 S. Shaw Ln
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824
Phone: (517) 355-8383
Fax: (517) 353-1699
Web: www.ans.msu.edu
Visitors are welcome to visit the many farms on the south side of MSU's campus between Mount Hope and Jolly Roads. MSU is home to many animals including sheep, cows, horses, swine, cattle and chickens. Milking procedures can be observed every afternoon. MSU Barns are open Monday through Saturday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free and self-guided tours are available at each location. Allow approximately 30 minutes for each farm.
MSU Bug House
288 Farm Ln., Room 147
Natural Science Building
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824
Phone: (517) 355-4662
Web: www.ent.msu.edu or http://www.tour.msu.edu/locations/bughouse
Do your kids go crazy for creepy, crawly critters? If so come visit the Bug House, located on MSU's campus. MSU's Department of Entomology has expanded the Bug House to include programs for children of all ages. There are collections, displays, discussions and hands-on activities. Bring the whole family to enjoy the incredible world of insects. The MSU Bug House is located in rooms 146-147 of the Natural Science building. Tours are held Monday through Friday from 9 am to 5 pm, by appointment only.
MSU Dairy Store
474 S. Shaw Lane
Room 1140, South Anthony Hall
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824
Phone: (517) 355-8466
Web: www.dairystore.msu.edu/ or http://www.tour.msu.edu/locations/dairystore
The MSU Dairy Foods Complex offers an integrated food experience. Not only can you visit our famous Dairy Store for some of the best ice cream and cheese in existence, but while you are satisfying your hunger, you can take a self-guided tour of our dairy plant observation deck and learn the basics of milk, cheese and ice cream processing. The self-guided tour includes a new multimedia presentation for all ages. If you have never had MSU Dairy Store ice cream you have to get some. If you have tasted it before it is time to go back!
MSU Horticulture Gardens and 4-H Children's Gardens
A288 Plant & Soil Sciences Bldg.
1066 Bogue St.
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824
Phone: (517) 355-5191
Web: www.hrt.msu.edu/our-gardens or http://4hgarden.cowplex.com/Plan_a_Visit/Visitor/
Expose your child to the enchanting world of the 4-H Children's Garden. A special place created just for children and the young at heart, the garden features over 56 theme areas including the Pizza Garden, Peter Rabbit Herb Garden, Butterfly Garden and ABC Garden. You can also enjoy the Tree House, Creation Station, Amphitheater, Monet Bridge, and the Dance Chimes. The garden is a perfect place to learn about horticulture, as it allows hands-on exploration along with several interactive activities.
MSU Museum
409 W. Circle Dr.
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824
Phone: (517) 355-2370
Admission: FREE
Web: www.museum.msu.edu
The MSU Museum has three floors of exhibits devoted to natural and cultural history with an emphasis on the Great Lakes region. Halls of continuing exhibits are devoted to world cultures, dinosaurs, animal diversity and heritage. Special exhibits rotate quarterly. The museum store has a nice selection of books, jewelry, traditional arts and educational gifts for children. The museum also produces the Great Lakes Folk Festival in August. The MSU Museum is Michigan's first Smithsonian Institute affiliate.
MSU Abrams Planetarium
755 Science Rd.
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824
Phone: (517) 355-4676
Fax: (517) 432-3838
Web: www.pa.msu.edu/abrams
Are you fascinated by the night sky? The Abrams Planetarium, located on the MSU campus, serves as an astronomy and space science education resource center for central Michigan. The planetarium is an outreach unit of MSU's Department of Physics and Astronomy that offers a variety of shows to all age groups, from preschool through senior citizens. The planetarium houses an exhibit hall with a book and gift counter, a black light gallery of astronomical art, a hemispherical domed sky theatre, and Digistar, the world's only computer-graphics-based planetarium projector.


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Welcome to ESL Expat — a site featuring ESL jobs and resources for teaching English abroad. The primary aim of this website is to connect ESL teachers with language schools around the world.
Browse our extensive collection of ESL activities for the classroom and a database of common English idioms. Most of the activities are relatively low-prep and can be used to teach a wide range of student ages and levels.
In addition, you can read our blog which features teacher stories and articles about teaching English in different countries.
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Are you interested in teaching English abroad?
Visit our job board and apply for work in many locations. Find jobs in Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, The Middle East, Europe, Africa, and South America.
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New jobs are posted regularly so be sure to check back often for updates.
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We have collected many recommended ESL resources for expats working in foreign countries. Discover helpful websites about teacher training, lesson planning, living abroad, jobs, travel, and other educational materials.
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Wind power has expanded significantly over the past years, although reliability of wind turbine systems, especially of offshore wind turbines, has been many times unsatisfactory in the past. Wind turbine failures are equivalent to crucial financial losses. Therefore, creating and applying strategies that improve the reliability of their components is important for a successful implementation of such systems. Structural health monitoring (SHM) addresses these problems through the monitoring of parameters indicative of the state of the structure examined. Condition monitoring (CM), on the other hand, can be seen as a specialized area of the SHM community that aims at damage detection of, particularly, rotating machinery. The paper is divided into two parts: in the first part, advanced signal processing and machine learning methods are discussed for SHM and CM on wind turbine gearbox and blade damage detection examples. In the second part, an initial exploration of supervisor control and data acquisition systems data of an offshore wind farm is presented, and data-driven approaches are proposed for detecting abnormal behaviour of wind turbines. It is shown that the advanced signal processing methods discussed are effective and that it is important to adopt these SHM strategies in the wind energy sector.
1. Introduction
Offshore wind farms are remotely located and operate under challenging conditions, much worse than the onshore wind farms. Early failure of their components has been frequently observed in the past. This fact could inhibit their establishment as an attractive alternative option for power generation. It is for this reason that the development of a reliable structural health monitoring (SHM) and condition monitoring (CM) strategy is particularly necessary and why current research is focusing on this aim.
In order to perform a health monitoring strategy, one of the initial steps is to acquire the appropriate data for the purpose of damage detection. For an online approach, which is probably more appropriate when dealing with remote structures, vibration-based monitoring has been proven to be a suitable choice. It can be effective with possibly small computational costs when using suitable methods. There have been several successful SHM and CM vibration-based analysis applications in the past. Generally, one could adopt data-based approaches or physics-based approaches, both having certain advantages and drawbacks [1]. Concerning the data-based methods that will be discussed here, the major issue seems to be that for some SHM and CM scenarios only advanced signal processing techniques would be able to deliver the desirable results. This is because of the fact that in the real world most of the times the features obtained from the monitored signals are, in general, also sensitive to changes caused by environmental and operational conditions [2]. In the case of offshore wind turbines, turbulence—a term that describes the stochastic scale-invariant changes in the flow properties of the air—and, most importantly, the effects of the operational wind turbine control system could influence the vibration signals obtained. So any technique adopted, in order for it to be effective, should be able to take into account these challenging characteristics of the signals and separate them from any available damage sensitive feature. Such techniques are discussed in §2 of this paper where some application examples are also demonstrated. These applications are focused mainly on wind turbine gearbox and blade damage detection, because it has been observed that these components have the most frequent failures and can cause the highest downtime in a wind turbine. Still, there is no limitation in the application of the methods to different components.
The paper also deals with the manipulation of a different kind of data coming from wind turbines: data obtained by the supervisor control and data acquisition system (SCADA) systems installed in many wind farms nowadays. They contain measurements of various variables, such as wind speed, bearing and oil temperatures, voltage and the power produced, among others. The recordings of these systems are constant and available for every wind turbine in a farm, so they could be potentially used to monitor wind farms. Therefore, exploitation of these measurements that could lead to an effective online SHM plan seems to be an attractive opportunity. In addition, because of the availability of such data for every individual wind turbine, one could explore novel approaches in the SHM field by treating the whole farm as a population. Exploring the potential of a population-based approach to damage detection in this case could refer to adopting strategies that can determine the condition of a wind turbine according to the measurements obtained from other wind turbines in the farm. In the corresponding section of the paper, the authors present some results that seem to be promising for further exploration of whether good predictions for individual wind turbines can be performed according to the wind turbine power curves constructed for each wind turbine, using some advanced machine learning.
Briefly, the aim of this paper is to highlight some of the most appropriate latest technologies to be applied for the SHM and CM of wind turbine systems.
2. Condition monitoring and structural health monitoring approaches for wind turbines
In the Introduction, a major problem when trying to perform online SHM and CM for data-based methods was mentioned: the influence of the varying conditions under which the wind turbines operate. This means simply that one should account for the non-stationarity that is not related to damage of the signals analysed, but this is definitely not a simple task. Vibration data coming from wind turbine blades and gearboxes while in operation should be influenced by the varying load and environmental conditions. Despite the fact that there has been significant research of damage detection methods for such components, most of the studies are mainly performed in the laboratory environment [3]. Basic signal processing techniques in this case might prove sufficient to solve the damage detection problem, although, in general, this would not be true in real-world damage detection scenarios.
Some of the most simple time-domain methods that have been used for condition monitoring are time-invariant analysis methods, based on the estimation of statistical parameters. This is a group of methods that uses univariate features. The principle of these methods is often to simply use the overall vibration level to describe the general condition of the machine. Estimates used in this case are peak amplitude, peak-to-peak value, root mean square value of the signal, crest factor and statistical moments such as variance, skewness and kurtosis [4,5]. More advanced techniques use multivariate statistics for damage detection or damage prognosis, and therefore do not belong to the category of time-domain methods [6–8].
Another technique, applied specifically to gear vibration signals, is based on the envelope estimation of the signals analysed. In these studies, amplitude and phase demodulation techniques are used to detect fatigue cracks in gears from the estimated envelope and instantaneous phase [9,10]. Most commonly in this case, the Hilbert transform (HT) is used in order to extract the instantaneous amplitude and phase of the vibration signal from the analytic signal (phase unwrapping). In addition, for the diagnostics of rolling element bearings, it has been shown that the analysis of the envelope signals is recommended, because the analysis of the raw signals does not always give enough information [11].
The ideas of time-series analysis have also been applied in condition monitoring. Useful features, in this case, can be generated if one identifies a good time-series model for the CM system examined when it is undamaged. High variance of the error signal (residual) between the model outputs and measured outputs shows that the system is damaged, because the model failed to make good predictions [12]. This approach is sometimes known as the time domain averaging method [13].
Other classic signal processing approaches can be grouped into what is known as transformed domain methods. These consist of the application of the Fourier analysis or cepstrum analysis in order to estimate the spectrum or cepstrum of the signals. The spectrum/cepstrum of the damaged gearbox is compared with its spectrum/cepstrum under the normal (undamaged) condition, and appropriate filtering can also be applied in order to isolate frequency bands believed to be associated with specific kinds of faults. Envelope analysis can also be performed in the transformed domain, in order to enhance the features examined. An example of the application of these methods is given in references [14,15]. Alternatively, the use of parametric models, such as the autoregressive (AR) or the autoregressive with exogenous inputs (ARX) models that can be used to estimate frequency domain features using the harmonic probing algorithm [16] can also be applied [17].
All the above methods, which most of the time use Fourier analysis, are considered to be classic signal processing techniques. But, because the Fourier transform (FT) does not explicitly reflect a signal's time-varying nature because it requires integration all over time and usually the vibration signals being analysed change over time, the FT and as a consequence the classic frequency domain approach for signal processing of non-stationary signals is generally inadequate. Because of this issue, most of the previously described methods might probably fail to detect damage if used on online measurements coming from a wind turbine. An alternative category of methods that could be used in this case are the time-frequency or time-scale analysis methods. These methods are more appropriate for damage detection in real-life scenarios because they can demonstrate the time-varying nature of the signals analysed. The simplest time-frequency method is the short-time Fourier transform (STFT). Comparing the signal being analysed with elementary functions that are localized in the time and frequency domains is the basic idea behind the method. The wavelet transform (WT) is another well-known time-scale method, having the same concept as the STFT. The major difference between the two methods is in the different basis/elementary functions chosen during the process that lead to different signal representations. Because of that, wavelets give better localization properties at high frequencies and are useful for detecting local events in the signals. Wavelet analysis is probably the most popular technique; a review of condition monitoring applications is found in reference [18]. In terms of an online implementation, the application of time-scale methods is less costly than a fast Fourier transform (FFT). In fact, the discrete wavelet transform can be carried out in O(N) operations compared with O(N logN) for the FFT. Some examples of WT applications in condition monitoring are given in [19–23].
Other common time-frequency methods are Cohen class time-frequency distributions such as the Wigner–Ville (WVD) and the Choi–Williams (CWD) distributions. The energy distribution in the joint time-frequency domain, such as the WVD, is very complicated as the underlying transforms are nonlinear. Condition monitoring applications of the WVD can be found in references [24–27].
Relatively recently, the empirical mode decomposition (EMD) method has also been proposed [28] as a filter bank method that can be applied for time-frequency analysis in combination with an AM–FM demodulation method such as the HT. This technique decomposes the signal into a number of meaningful signal components, representing simple oscillatory modes matched to the specific data. This is one of the basic advantages of the EMD when compared with other time-frequency methods. It has been applied since then in various condition monitoring applications [29–32].
At this point, an example of a time-frequency analysis of real wind turbine gearbox datasets is presented briefly. Owing to the limited space, only the major steps will be explained, but more details concerning this application can be found in [33]. The experimental gearbox vibration data analysed in this study come from an NEG Micon NM 1000/60 wind turbine in Germany. The measurements were taken by members of the company EC Grupa, a Polish engineering company that maintains the wind turbine system from which the gearbox vibration datasets were obtained.
The gearbox examined in this case consists of three gear stages: one planetary gear stage and two spur gear stages. The measurements come from a single accelerometer and were captured at a sampling frequency of 25 000 Hz. Acceleration signals from this gearbox were obtained at three different dates: 31 October 2009, 11 February 2010 and 4 April 2010. The gearbox was already known to have damage described to be at an initial state on 31 October 2009, but this dataset can still be used as a reference and could be useful in order to explore whether any damage-sensitive features change according to the development of the damage. The damage was ascribed to a damaged tooth at the second parallel gear stage.
The EMD method was applied to the datasets, resulting in the creation of several intrinsic mode functions (IMFs; oscillatory functions/signal components) for each case. Then, using the HT method, the instantaneous amplitude and instantaneous frequency for each IMF was obtained, resulting in the time-frequency representation of the three different datasets shown in figure 1. Knowing that each IMF represents specific frequencies of the signal, and taking into account the meshing frequencies and their harmonics of the gears, one can expect that damage sensitive features should appear around the meshing frequencies and/or their harmonics of the damaged gear stage. The results agree with this concept, because the second IMF of the Hilbert spectra shown in figure 1 which is related to the previously discussed frequency bands, contains the desirable features. This is shown better in figure 2: the power diagrams of the second IMF are drawn individually for each case. One can observe that damage can be seen as an increase in the power of the specific IMF each time that the damaged gear tooth engages during the gear rotation.
An alternative approach that could be adopted in order to deal with the issue of non-stationarity when performing damage detection has been proposed in [2,34] for performing SHM of bridges. Co-integration analysis, a technique taken from econometrics, has been successfully applied for the purpose of removing environmental and operational trends in the vibration signals. The mathematics of the process are rather complex, but the main concepts of the method are summarized in the following: co-integration is a property of some non-stationary multivariate time series; an n-dimensional time series is co-integrated if some linear combination of the component variables is stationary. The combination is called a co-integrating relation, and the coefficients form a co-integrating vector. The analysis approach is largely based on the Johansen procedure, which is able to find the co-integrating vector that will result in the most stationary combination of the variables. Although the technique has not been yet applied on actual wind turbine data, an initial study describing how the method can be used for condition monitoring of wind turbine gearboxes was demonstrated in [33]. In this research, the results were promising for a successful application of the method in the wind turbine CM and SHM field.
What has been explained so far mostly summarizes feature extraction approaches, and mostly gearbox applications have been discussed. In the following, the focus is on blades applications with a pattern recognition perspective. In addition, the important matter of the sensor technologies used for blades is also discussed.
Wind turbine blades are susceptible to multiple modes of failure. Moreover, owing to the varying operating conditions observed in wind turbines and discussed earlier, a damage detection scheme is rather challenging. Another major issue is the appropriate choice of sensing technologies of the blades that could be applied in order to achieve a reliable online SHM system.
Some of the related research studies use either passive or active sensing technologies in the context of wind turbine blade SHM [35]. The difference between the two sensing approaches is that in passive sensing techniques there is no external/artificial excitation as is the case in active sensing techniques. In [36,37], an overview of sensor diagnostics for active sensing SHM systems by using piezoelectric transducers is given. In addition, an investigation of the optimal demarcation date that is essential for the proper normalization of active sensing data during their collection is presented.
Despite the fact that many SHM techniques and sensing technologies have been discussed in the literature for damage detection in blades, there has not been much progress on robust, online applications of these techniques in the SHM of in-service wind turbine systems. Some of the methods that have been applied in references [35,38–44] include vibration monitoring-based methods (accelerometers, piezo or microelectromechanical systems (MEMSs), strain (strain gauge or fibre optic cables), ultrasonic waves which are popular with composite structures (piezoelectric transducer), smart paint (piezoelectric or fluorescent particles), acoustic emissions (usually barrel sensors), impedance techniques (piezoelectric transducer), laser vibrometry (scanning laser Doppler), impedance tomography (carbon nanotube), thermography (infrared cameras), laser ultrasound (laser devices), nanosensors (electronic nanoparticles) and buckling health monitoring (piezoelectric transducer). In addition, wireless systems seem to be a good solution in the case that structures are remotely placed such as wind turbines. The main disadvantage of wireless sensors for SHM is the high demands for power supply of the sensors. This disadvantage is the reason for an increased interest in data telemetry with energy harvesting [45,46].
Recently, a series of research studies around an experimental test of a 9 m wind turbine rotor blade (figure 3) that was dynamically loaded in a fatigue test until reaching catastrophic failure was conducted. The blade experiment was performed in the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and National Wind Technology Centre. Because of limited space, the experiment is not described in this paper. The reader is referred to [3,47,48]. Generally, an active sensing system (LASER sensing system) was used, and two different sensor arrays were implemented called the INNER and OUTER sensor arrays; they consisted of six and seven sensors, respectively, and an actuator was used in each of them. The main motivation of the experiment was to implement a variety of different sensor techniques and find capable features that, using advanced machine learning tools, could detect damage at early stages before visual abnormalities were presented.
The approaches to be discussed fall into the category of pattern recognition that deals with the problem of deciding whether the features taken either from raw or analysed signals have arisen from a damaged or undamaged structure. Supervised learning approaches to pattern recognition include Bayesian classification methods, nearest-neighbour search, artificial neural network classifiers [49] and more recently support vector machines [50]. Unsupervised learning approaches have perhaps received less attention [1]; an example can be found in reference [51] where one-class support vector machines were used. In practice, however, it is not easy to apply supervised learning techniques owing to the lack of training data required for the models corresponding to damaged systems, which is why unsupervised learning/novelty detection approaches might probably be of more use for SHM or CM.
One of the aforementioned studies related to the experiment shown in figure 3 is given in reference [3], where a group of machine learning techniques for the monitoring of turbine blades by using vibration data and specifically high-frequency response function measurements (FRFs) was presented. The algorithms were optimized to an extent that could offer a fast and satisfactory online monitoring. In order to obtain features which are sensitive to damage, a dimensionality reduction of the FRF data was performed using probabilistic principal component analysis. Then, for the purposes of novelty detection (unsupervised learning), a trained five-layer auto-associative neural network was used to model the normal condition. An additional approach adopted in that paper was the use of a radial basis network (RBF) that was implemented in terms of auto-association. In practice, the advantage of the second approach adopted was that RBF networks when compared with multi-layer perceptrons do not usually need a full and challenging nonlinear optimization of all the parameters. Finally, a distance measure for novelty detection was calculated by feeding the two different network algorithms with testing data.
Apart from the vibration-based analysis in this case, other kinds of data that were obtained by this experiment were also analysed for damage detection purposes, although not necessarily appropriate for online strategies. In [52], there is a further investigation of post-processing of the data, by using digital image correlation snapshots taken along the length of the blade via a stitching technique. This allows observations of the shape and curvature of the entire blade and demonstrates that the technique can be scaled for utility-scale wind turbine blades.
3. An exploration of supervisor control and data acquisition system data of an offshore windfarm for condition and health monitoring
The use of SCADA data for monitoring has been shown in several studies, such as in [53–56], and in most cases it aims at the development of a complete and automatic strategy for the monitoring of the whole turbine or wind farm, although subcomponents (e.g. bearings, generator) may also be individually assessed. Among the various approaches, power curve monitoring has been popular and successful. Wind turbines have been designed by manufacturers to have a direct relationship between wind speed and the power produced, and as they require a minimum speed to produce the nominal power, but limit the power generated from higher wind speeds, the power curve usually resembles a sigmoidal function. A critical analysis of the methods for modelling the power curve can be found in [57], but, in general, researchers have exploited the deviation from a reference curve to perform SHM on turbines. The use of machine learning approaches for the estimation of power generation can be seen as far back as in [58,59], with more recent works appearing as well [60,61]. In [62], a steady-state model of a whole wind farm with neural networks was shown to have fair results if the data used were pre-processed, whereas in reference [63], three operational curves, power, rotor and pitch, were used for reference in order to produce control charts for the monitoring of wind turbines.
In the following, a primary exploration of SCADA data, found in reference [64], is going to be presented. It can be seen as a first step towards implementing a population-based approach for SHM in wind farms. The concept behind what we refer to as a population-based approach is that assuming a homogeneous population, we have the possibility of modelling one structure and using it for diagnosis on all similar structures. Any damage state data (which are always rare) becomes relevant to the whole population. The datasets used describe the fully operational Lillgrund wind farm that is situated in the sea area between Denmark and Sweden, consisting of 48 wind turbines of rated power of 2.3 MW [65] and is shown in figure 4. The wind turbines are Siemens SWT-2.3-93, characterized by a rotor diameter of 92.6 m and a hub height of 65 m, giving a rated power of 2.3 MW. The maximum rated power is reached when wind speeds take values of 12 m s−1 (rated wind speed). The spacing between the turbines in the specific wind farm is significantly closer than most conventional farms, and this unique element is generally expected to affect their performance. This wind farm architecture was done deliberately for analysing the effects and the interactions of each wind turbine within such close spacing.
Data mining and machine learning are promising approaches for modelling wind energy aspects such as power prediction or wind load forecasting. The complete study presented in this section can be found in [64]. Artificial neural networks and Gaussian processes were used to build a reference power curve (wind speed versus power produced) for each of the 48 turbines existing in the farm. Then, each reference model was used to predict the power produced in the rest of the turbines available, thus creating a confusion matrix of the regression model errors (MSEs) for all combinations. For the neural networks, multi-layer perceptrons were used. In addition, the reference power curve is a healthy power curve, i.e. built only using data corresponding to time instances with a status code equal to '0' ('no error' in the turbines). The results showed that nearly all models were very robust with sensibly low MSE errors.
The available data used in this study correspond to a full year of operation. All the SCADA extracts consist of 10 min averages, with the maximum, mean, minimum and standard deviation of the 10 min intervals being recorded and available. The actual sampling frequency is less than 10 min.
In figures 5a and 6a, the confusion matrix created from the neural networks and the Gaussian processes testing sets is shown. Each axis of the confusion matrix shown corresponds to one up to 48 turbines, where on the y-axis is the number of the trained turbine and on the x-axis the number of the tested turbine. In general, an MSE error below 5 is considered a good fit and below 1 excellent. The results appear to be very good with the worst results being for turbines 3 and 4. These are the turbines that have the highest MSE error. According to Papatheou et al. [64], these errors are high owing to stops (emergency or manual) of these specific turbines for the majority of instances when the high error is observed. In terms of the comparison between neural networks and Gaussian processes, it appears that the results presented in the paper are very similar to the networks performing with a slightly lower MSE error. It should be noted that the Gaussian processes were trained with about one-third of the data that the neural networks were provided, but the testing sets are everywhere the same.
Figures 5b and 6b simply show the average MSE errors contained in the confusion matrices shown in figures 5a and 6a. The generally very low MSE errors show that the power curves have the potential of being used as a feature for the monitoring of the whole farm, as they were shown to be generally robust to the individual differences that the turbines inevitably present (location, different sensors, different generators, etc.). So, it can be seen how well the power produced in each turbine is predicted by the rest of the trained curves (corresponding to the rest of the turbines). Such analysis is a necessary first step in establishing novelty detection between individual machines.
4. Conclusion
This paper discusses some of the latest advances in the SHM and CM of wind turbines. In order to achieve an effective damage detection strategy, the use of different kinds of data is needed, depending on the approach. Data-driven vibration-based analysis methods seem to be able to provide such solutions, although difficulties exist related to the operational conditions of wind turbine systems. In this case, the resulting non-stationarity should be taken into account and it is only more sophisticated signal processing approaches such as time-frequency analysis, or co-integration that could successfully perform the feature extraction part of a complete SHM or CM procedure. For certain wind turbine components, such as the blades, the choice of an applicable and reliable sensing system is of great importance, and for this reason, some of the existing technologies were presented. Finally, pattern recognition and machine learning approaches can not only be useful for the feature discrimination part of the SHM procedure, but also for the manipulation of SCADA data. The potential behind the last concept was demonstrated in the previous section of this paper, where it was shown on actual wind farm data that a population-based approach towards wind turbine SHM might be a successful choice.
The support of the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) through grant reference nos. EP/J016942/1 and EP/K003836/2 is greatly acknowledged. The authors also acknowledge EC Grupa and Prof. Wieslaw Staszewski and Dr Tomasz Barszcz for providing the wind turbine gearbox data and their help in the condition monitoring research of this paper. The authors would like to thank C. R. Farrar, K. Farinholt, S. G. Taylor from LANL, USA, M. Choi from the Chonbuk National University, Korea, and G. Park from Chonnam National University, Korea, and LANL, USA, for their support and guidance on the study of the blades experimental research.
One contribution of 17 to a theme issue 'New perspectives in offshore wind energy'.
© 2015 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.


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DJ ANM Canvases Collection 23
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text:
The Motion Picture Annual: Covering Films of 1989: 1990
first edition
IL: Cinebooks, 1990. Good. First edition. Good in wrappers, a paperback. In depth reviews of 331 films, complete cast and credits, oscars, and other major awards, people to watch, obituaries. Clean pages. Corners slightly flared. Spine slightly lighter. Please Note: This book has been transferred to Between the Covers from another database and might not be described to our usual standards. Please inquire for more detailed condition information. (Inventory #: 156963)


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Okay so.. I have been texting this guy for over a month now after meeting him through a mutual friend. He lives a few hours away so we haven't had a chance to actually hang out. Our text messages have been good, a lot of flirting and some teasing back and forth. He finally came into town a few days ago and I texted him knowing he was down and he never replied so I just left it thinking what a jerk he is. I ended up going out that night and saw him, he came up to me and I called him out for not replying to my text and he apologized. Long story short we ended up crashing in the same room that night at a friends house, nothing happened, just making out and such. The night was good and in the morning I hugged him goodbye. I'm hesitant to text him since the last time he did, he never replied. I'm waiting for him to say something but he hasn't. I'm not sure what to doo!
Most Helpful Guy
i mean, why do you even (like to) get involved with someone living 3h away?
i don't get it.00|00|0
well, I don't. but he may be moving back possibly. and I'm not looking for anything serious at the moment anyways.


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Measurements (Outside of Basket) - 91cm L x 43.5cm W x 16cm H
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text: Dazzling 'Lost And Found' Diamond Nina P. West, Artfact.com 04.04.07, 12:01 AM ET The sale of a diamond ring at a Midwest auction house was remarkable not so much for its price but for the unusual circumstances surrounding its sale. The 3.75-carat sparkler was discovered in an abandoned safe deposit box and was sold to a private buyer on eBay. In todays electronic age, more and more traditional brick and mortar auction houses, like Apple Tree Auction Center in Ohio, are tapping into a global market by using eBay Live Auctions (via Artfact). Bidding started at a mere $8,500. The final selling price of $37,375 was a bargain considering the overall quality, cut and color. Auctioning off the contents of unclaimed safe deposit boxes is a big business in the U.S., producing an estimated 23 billion in sales over the years. Thousands of safe deposit boxes are declared abandoned each year and by law, banks may sell their contents after unsuccessful attempts to find the rightful owners. If a safe deposit box owner does not receive a bill or chooses to ignore it, in time, an auction house will be called in to review the contents. Artfact Analysis: One wonders why someone would leave an $85,000 diamond ring left behind. Apparently, it happens all the time. Usually its a case of people who died without letting heirs know about the existence of the property. Sometimes the safe deposit boxes are simply forgotten and the owners move away. Occasionally bank mergers are to blame, where records are lost in a corporate shuffle. On the positive side, the proceeds from the sales are stashed away in state unclaimed money funds to earn interest. In some states, the interest adds up enough to provide critical funding for education and other state programs. Should the rightful owner of the property ever appear, they would receive the sale proceeds. It appears 2007 will be a great year to sell a diamond ring at auction. Prices for rare jewels have never been higher with Christies and Sothebys announcing a 15% to 20% increase in diamond sales in 2006. At the very top of the market, Christies sold a clear, flawless 50.53 carat diamond ring to an Asian buyer for $4.22 million.


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Download VM3 Green Icon Set apk 2.01 free for Android smartphone
Posted by Jake Jenkins in Personalization | Feb. 9, 2014 | 1 Comments
Apk file size: 9.5 MB
This is an icon set for multiple launchers, you must have one of these launchers in order for it to work
- *Apex Launcher
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- *Go Launcher Ex
These icons will not work with Next Launcher, I am looking into adding support but have not currently added it.
This set has close to 500 green disc icons. After many years of trying to come up with unique and catchy names for icon sets and themes, I have given up. The new naming convention for icon sets is VM(The number of the set design-(Color of the icon set).
Jake Jenkins part of our Personalization and have average installs from 5 to 10. Last Update Feb. 9, 2014. Google play rating is 100.0. Current verison is 2.01. Actual size 9.5 MB.
Similar applications
1 Comments
Samantha B.
Wow I'm impressed! I don't like yellows normally but this is pretty. I love the style. I have almost every color. Lol. The rim adds to it. & Believe me, it looks much better on phone. I'm glad I tried them. It's a keeper. Lol


text: I just got a 2500$ medical bill today "This claim is not payable because our records show your health plan coverage ended before you received these services. Your claim will not be considered unless your employer shows that your coverage was in effect at the time services were rendered. You are responsible for this amount." i was only covered until the end of 09.. and now im not? anyone have any idea how i fix this mess? i'm still an offical employee as a part timer. i never had any problems before with my insurance and covering my bills.


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Find news about suicide and suicide prevention in North America.
| DGDispatch - Youth Suicide and Depression in Canada: Presented at CPA - http://www.docguide.com/news/content.nsf/news/852571020057CCF685257226005A9986
Reports that "while the rate of suicide among adolescents is declining in developed countries, it remains static in Canada, according to research presented in a poster here at the 56th Annual Conference of the Canadian Psychiatric Association (CPA)." - [Read more]
| Dublin jail death believed to be a suicide - http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/15174530.htm
Read this report published by the The Mercury News. - [Read more]
| E&P - Breaking the Press Blackout: Suicide Rates Up Among Iraq Soldiers - http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003523967
Reports "suicides among U.S. Army soldiers in Iraq doubled last year over the previous year, U.S. Army medical experts have now announced. " - [Read more]
| East Bay Publishing - 'Out of Darkness' Walk Sheds Light on Suicide Prevention - http://www.ebpublishing.com/*ws4d-db-query-Show.ws4d?*ws4d-db-query-Show***IFN-BFF-203203210208208206-1422***-Database***-***sltimes(directory)***.ws4d?sltimes/health_record(W).html
The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) brings its national Out of the Darkness Overnight Walk to San Francisco for the first time on July 22 and 23. The 18-mile fundraising walk benefits AFSP. - [Read more]
| El Diario - Más recursos para prevenir suicidios - http://www.eldiariony.com/noticias/detail.aspx?section=25&id=1577033&desc=Editorial
Un estudio municipal en el 2005 indicó que entre las jóvenes, las adolescentes hispanas tienen el mayor nivel de lo que se denomina tristeza persistente. Esta persistencia se ha convertido en uno de los más altos niveles de intentos de suicidio. - [Read more]
| El Diario - More resources for suicide prevention - http://www.eldiariony.com/noticias/detail.aspx?section=25&desc=Editorial&id=1577014
Reports "a city survey in 2005 showed that among girls, Hispanics teenagers have the highest prevalence of what is called persistent sadness. That prevalence has translated into high rates of suicide attempts." Read for details. - [Read more]
| Events planned to raise awareness during National Suicide Prevention Week - http://waldo.villagesoup.com/community/story.cfm?storyID=77850
Reports "in recognition of National Suicide Prevention Week, Sept. 10-16 and World Suicide Prevention Day on Sept. 10, several events are being planned to enhance public awareness in Maine about suicide risk factors and prevention." - [Read more]
| Expanding mental health programs vital to lowering suicide rates on campuses - http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_4418419
Reports that "in a 2005 survey conducted by the American College Health Association, more than half of the nation's 17.6 million college students reported being so depressed that they could not function; and 1 in 10 students- 1,760,000 - reported they had - [Read more]
| Former prison counselor kills kin with ax, commits suicide - http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/northern_california/15454177.htm
Report a former youth prison counselor fatally hacked his mother and 2-year-old nephew with an ax before apparently committing suicide by stepping into traffic on Interstate 5. - [Read more]
| Gazette, The - High suicide rate linked to Quiet Revolution - http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=13660d06-de2d-416c-b1b1-d0f968ea6a84&k=59659
Reports "suicide is the primary cause of death among Quebec men under age 40 and accounts for a third of deaths among 15- to 19-year-olds." - [Read more]
| GiveMeaning - Suicide Prevention - http://www.givemeaning.com/donate/n-ggprofile.aspx?gg=144&user_id=3304
Learn about this drive to fund the printing and distribution of 5000 brochures about suicide prevention. - [Read more]
| InsideBayArea.com - Bill calls for effort against suicide - http://origin.insidebayarea.com/dailyreview/localnews/ci_5192150
Reports "the state would launch a major, coordinated effort to prevent suicides — such as those occurring with greater frequency as people leap off the Golden Gate Bridge — under a bill introduced Wednesday by a Bay Area lawmaker." - [Read more]
| IOL - US blacks, whites attempt suicide equally - http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=117&art_id=qw1162369982874B243
Reports that "according to a survey of more than 5 100 blacks completed three years ago, 4,1 percent of African-Americans, or roughly 1,5-million blacks, would attempt suicide in their lifetimes, a rate comparable to that found in the general population." - [Read more]
| Jamaica Gleaner - Suicide prevention needed in JCF training' - http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20061203/lead/lead5.html
Reports "Dr. George Leverage, psychiatrist in the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) medical unit, has suggested that suicide prevention should be included in the curriculum taught at the police training school." - [Read more]
| KATC - Suicide Prevention Week Planned - http://www.katc.com/Global/story.asp?S=5361318
Reports that each year, thirty thousand people commit suicide. For one Acadiana woman, enough is enough. She's planning a suicide prevention week for the state of Louisiana. Browse for details. - [Read more]
| KCPW - Domestic Violence and Suicide Linked - http://www.kcpw.org/article/2235
Reports "a link between suicide and domestic violence is emerging in Utah. The Dept. of Health has begun collecting data on suicides in which the surrounding circumstances involved violence or a threat of violence between intimate partners or in the home. - [Read more]
| KCRG - Senators Push Veteran Suicide Prevention Bill - http://www.kcrg.com/news/local/5519981.html
Reports "Chuck Grassley and Tom Harkin introduced a bill that would force changes in the Department of Veterans Affairs. Those changes include training employees to notice risk factors for suicide, and developing a support program for veterans." - [Read more]
| KFYR TV - Combatting Suicide on American Indian Reservations - http://www.kfyrtv.com/News_Stories.asp?news=3909
Reports "North Dakota teens and young adults historically have higher rates of suicide. Another population dealing with elevated rates of suicide are American Indians." - [Read more]
| Knox News - Boomers lead in suicide rates - http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/national/article/0,1406,KNS_350_5301961,00.html
Reports "suicide among baby boomers has run ahead of the national rate at every stage of their lives, and experts are worried that suicide among the elderly, already high, may double in the next 20 years." - [Read more]
| Marinij.com - Media suicide coverage debated - http://www.marinij.com/marin/ci_5055823
Reports " that there appears to be a growing consensus among mental health experts that as long as it is done responsibly, media reporting of suicides will probably not spur more and might even prevent some - although there remains a significant and stron - [Read more]
| marinij.com - Suicide prevention office is busiest after holidays with stressed-out people - http://marinij.com/marin/ci_4960665
Suicide prevention hotline finds that "days and weeks after the holidays that the hotline gets more calls, perhaps because of the variety of stresses created by the holidays." - [Read more]
| Medpage Today - Teen Suicide Spike Linked to SSRI Black Box - http://www.medpagetoday.com/Pediatrics/GeneralPediatrics/tb/5005
Reports "teen and childhood suicides rose sharply in 2004, for the first time in more than 10 years, and some are linking this to a reduced use of antidepressants that year because of black box label warnings mandated by the FDA." - [Read more]
| Mercury News - Documentary provokes thoughts on suicide - http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/15862114.htm
Mary F. Pols offers a review of Eric Steel's documentary "The Bridge." See her comments about this controversial film. - [Read more]
| Mercury News, The - CHP officer dies in apparent suicide - http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/15032166.htm
A 20-year veteran of the California Highway Patrol was found dead in a South San Francisco field on Wednesday morning, the victim of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to Lt. Mike Brosnan with the South San Francisco Police Department. - [Read more]
| mlive.com - Suicide prevention training planned - http://www.mlive.com/news/muchronicle/index.ssf?/base/news-10/1168877733127250.xml&coll=8
Reprts "the Muskegon County Suicide Prevention Coalition (in Michigan) recently completed a plan the group hopes will reduce the number of suicides in the county." - [Read more]
| Navy Newstand - Navy Focuses on Suicide Prevention, Awareness - http://www.news.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=26720
Reports "the Navy is focusing its efforts to educate its Sailors about programs available to them during Suicide Prevention Month. " - [Read more]
| Navy Newstand - New Navy Program Encourages Sailors to - http://www.news.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=26794
Reports that "suicide is ranked as the 11th leading cause of death nationwide. For the past 10 years, it has also been the second or third leading cause of death among active duty Sailors." Learn about a new Navy suicide prevention program. - [Read more]
| NEPA News - Report: Waters' suicide tied to brain damage - http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17731720&BRD=2212&PAG=461&dept_id=465816&rfi=6
Reports "rain damage caused on the football field ultimately led to the suicide of former NFL defensive back Andre Waters, according to a forensic pathologist who studied Waters' brain tissue." - [Read more]
| Norman schools win suicide prevention award - http://www.normantranscript.com/localnews/local_story_242004743
Tony Pennington of The Norman Transcript reports that "suicide is the second leading cause of death among 10- to 24-year-olds in Oklahoma. There are many factors that push the state's youth to the brink where they feel there are no other options." - [Read more]
| Ohio State - Research: Friendships Play Key Role in Suicidal Thoughts of Girls, but not Boys - http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/suicfrnd.htm
Reports "relationships with friends play a significant role in whether teenage girls think about suicide, but have little impact on suicidal thoughts among boys, according to a new nationwide study." - [Read more]


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I've lined of some great guest posts for the next several weeks to give me a chance to rest during the last week of my pregnancy and when the baby is born. Today's post is written by Celeste Longacre – author, mother and master of sustainable living. I know you'll enjoy this recipe for Fruit Kvass as much as I do! (Photos are my own).
Decades ago I became convinced that, if I wanted to have a healthy body, I needed to put the right kind of fuel in it – real food. Further study led me to learn that growing most of my own vegetables ensures higher quality produce than anything that I could buy. So, with my husband, Bob's, help, I created a vast garden. I learned to can and freeze veggies and Bob built me a lovely root cellar to store the beets, carrots and potatoes throughout the winter.
Later, I learned that the very important skill of fermenting food! Keeping my digestive system happy meant incorporating fermented food in to my diet. For tens of thousands of years, our ancestors preserved their foods by fermenting them. Our gut biomes developed with the help of many microbes that only come available to us through this process. Some of the sauerkraut, kimchii and pickles that are available through grocery stores are fermented, but they are also usually expensive. The probiotics that are created by this process are available through pharmaceuticals, but they tend to be pricey, too.
What if we could make our own ferments, rich in probiotics, easily and for pennies?
Well, we can! I have been making a drink called fruit kvass for about five years now. This drink provides not only lots of probiotics, but also digestive enzymes that help break down the food that we eat into its proper components. Since I began introducing probiotics in to my diet on a regular basis, I haven't been sick once.
Learn more about the how to ferment and the benefits of fermented food HERE!
How to Make Fruit Kvass
What You'll Need
- 1/2 gallon jar with a tight fitting lid – buy here
- 2 cups of fresh or frozen fruit, vegetables and dried fruit. – 1 cup fresh or frozen fruit (melons, apples, oranges, berries etc) PLUS 1 cup of either more fruit, or vegetables (carrots, beets, cucumber etc.) or dried fruit (raisin, apricots, cranberries etc.)
- 1/4 tsp of quality, non-iodized salt (sea salt or Himalayan Pink) – like this
- 1/4-1/2 cup of whey (optional) – learn how to make whey here
Place a cup of fruit (most fruits will work), in to a 1/2 gallon jar. If the fruit is large, like oranges and apples, cut it into smaller, one-inch sized, pieces. If it has a tough-ish skin that cannot be peeled, like blueberries or grapes, mash them a little before putting them into the jar because you want to liquid to penetrate.
Add an additioanl ½ cup of fruit, dried fruit or vegetables. You can really use almost any vegetables, too, but again, if it is large, cut it up into smaller pieces (do not grate).
Add ¼ teaspoon of good quality salt (sea salt or Himalayan pink).
If you have some homemade whey handy, or you'd like to incorporate additional probiotics, measure ½ cup into the jar. This step is not absolutely necessary—the kvass can be made without it—but will add additional beneficial microbes if you do.
Fill the jar with pure water (no fluoride or chlorine) leaving about two inches of head space or air at the top.
Cover tightly, shake vigorously and place on a kitchen counter covered with a towel.
Shake several times a day and let the gases out by loosening the lid briefly once a day (or add an airlock like this one!)
If you have a warm kitchen, after two days, the kvass will be ready to strain. A cooler kitchen may require three days or more (leaving it to ferment in the oven with just the light on also creates a perfectly warm environment). You will know that it's ready once little bubbles have started to form.
When ready, strain out the fruit and place the liquid in the refrigerator.
If you suffer from constipation, it might be a good idea to eat the fruit for the fibre, otherwise, it can be composted.
To Drink
Add a tablespoon or two to each glass of water that you drink during the day. If you are not used to ferments, start slow; perhaps one tablespoon a day. As your body gets used to it, you can drink as much as you want. The kvass will not only give you lots of probiotics, but the digestive enzymes, vitamins and minerals will help the body absorb the water as well as the nutrients in the food that you eat during the day!
A larger variety of fruits and vegetables means more variety in probiotics.
If you make a pumpkin pie or cook some winter squash, save the skin and seeds for a kvass. After a while, you will find that you have some favorites.
Add fresh organic turmeric when it is available – turmeric is anti-inflammatory and does wonders for the body.
Look for tiny bubbles around the top when the kvass is done. It should taste like the essence of whatever fruits or vegetables you used with a slight effervescence. It won't be sweet as the micro-organisms eat the sugars. When you add it to a glass of water, you are given merely a hint of a crisp flavour. Very refreshing.
If, for some reason, your kvass looks, smells or tastes bad, don't drink it.
Try adding the fermented fruit to a smoothie for a boost of probiotics!
For your convenience, here is a video on How to Make Fruit Kvass!
Celeste Longacre lives sustainably with her husband, Bob, in a hand-made octagonal home with additions. She is a mother of three, is passionate about growing and fermenting food, and is also the author of "Celeste's Garden Delights," which discusses living a sustainable lifestyle. You can visit her web site for more information.


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If you are a grad student majoring in Politics or PR, you will need to write a dissertation paper. It is the most difficult assignment that you will have to face on your way to a degree, but if you will endure it, a lot of great opportunities will open in front of you. Professional Dissertation Writers agree that PR dissertation writing is a difficult task and decided to provide some assistance.
Professional Dissertation Writers Provide Information On Efficiency Of Negative PR
One of the first things you should do prior to writing you PR dissertation is to choose a topic for it. Professional Dissertation Writers think that Efficiency Of Negative PR will make for a great topic due to the fact that most of the attention has been devoted to positive PR and its efficiency. According to some individuals, either positive or negative PR is better than no PR at all and that is partially true, because even if something bad or discriminating has been published about a certain individual, he or she gets PR and more people will know and remember of him or her. In your PR dissertation you can try modeling different situations and see whether negative PR is actually good or bad. Besides that, you can try coming up with the ways of turning negative PR into positive.
Why Turn To Professional Dissertation Writers To Produce A PR Dissertation For You
Professional Dissertation Writers think that if you will dig deep enough and will take your time, you will be able to come up with some great theory about negative PR and its significance. However, pay very close attention to PR dissertation writing and proofread it carefully. Also, if you need some assistance, don't hesitate to contact Professional Dissertation Writers and ask for help.


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The Caregiver's Voice seeks nominations for
TCV's first Caregiver of the Month in 2011.
The Caregiver's Voice recognizes caregivers–the silent heroes who provide comfort and care for our loved ones.
Millions of caregivers worldwide provide quality care for loved ones, but their faces are unseen and their work goes unrecognized.
Barbara Gaughen-Muller is The Caregiver's Voice final Caregiver of the Month in 2010.
Are you ready to start the New Year recognizing your favorite caregiver? S/he could be YOU!
Caregivers are HEROES.
It's time we recognize YOU…
- for a job well done.
- to remind us of what constitutes quality care.
- to inspire us to go on.
- to raise awareness of how caregivers provide comfort and care for loved ones.
Nominations are open to family caregivers AND professionals.
Nominations will close midnight Pacific Time on December 20th (Monday) for TCV's Caregiver of the Month of January, 2011.
Family, friends, and professionals are urged to nominate the caregiver you believe should be recognized next Month. Self nominations are also welcome.
Click on Nominate TCV's Caregiver of the Month.
Brenda Avadian, MA


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How to Flash Chinese ROM for Lenovo A7-30 tablet (A3300HV)
The missus recently returned from a study trip to China and brought back a Lenovo A7-30 tablet (A3300HV). Although not a high powered as products from Samsung or Apple, it had a certain appeal to it. Unfortunately, it had a Chinese firmware (ROM) which did not support Google.
In this post, I will show you can flash the Chinese firmware and replace it with a European version that supports Google and all her products.
Firstly, you need to download the firmware. Now, I've searched high and low on the internet and this is the only place, 4rek.com, I could find it. The archived file from this Russian site contains the firmware, drivers and flash-tool needed to change the firmware. It is approximately 800MB.
Once you've got the file, extract it to your desktop.
Now, before going any further I must ask you to make a backup of your files and firmware, just in case something goes wrong.
Flashing is easy. However, I'm not going put a step by step instruction as there are a number of videos online that can take you through that process. Now, this video is not exactly for the Lenovo A7-30 tablet (A3300HV model) but the procedure is the same.
Once you've finished flashing the firmware, you need to update it again. This can be done by going to your tablet's Settings and tapping on About tablet, then tapping on System update.
Disclaimer: The author will not be held accountable for any damages to your tablet device as a result of this flashing.


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Daily Living
End Times
Ted Haggard Charges
If the charges against Ted Haggard turn out to be true, how should the Christian community respond to leaders like this?
Join Our
Christian Friendship
and Take The
Sin & Repentance Quiz
Alan on 11/3/06
Helpful Blog Vote (7)
Jack, Joseph was falsely accused. Apples to Oranges!!
However one may want to research Ted's ministry and teaching. He got himself into the ungodly teaching of false signs and wonders etc... I believe he opened himself right up to a demonic stronghold in and over him.
Jack, when we become saved, we are acually set free from the powers of sin. We don't actuall go after NEW kinds of sin we hadn't indulged in before...Drugs...sexual perversion. So exactly WHERE did this ungodly relationship begin...before his salvation...and he kept his life a secret???
There's an old saying....if your going to play with a rattle snake, it will bite you....if you lie around with dirty dogs, you will get feas.
on 11/8/08
Ministers are people.
People are sinners.
Is it so surprising when sinners sin?
Christians should respond to this man in exactly they same way they want others to respond to them should their sins be found out--or even accused. (Think of Joseph and Mrs. Potiphar.)
on 11/7/08
He should step down and not get behind a pulpit again if he struggles in this area of his life.
on 11/20/07
I live in a neighboring state. Many churches would travel to T.Haggard's church for meetings. My church prayer partner would not go, discerned something was very wrong for a long time, wouldn't even watch him on television. Just the day before the fall, 'partner' said something very wrong there. Heard news in the morning. 'Church' needs discernment, it is a gift from God.
Sheep blindly following can be eaten in the process.
on 11/7/06
The words of the Propeht Samuel come down the portals of time: "by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme" (2 Samuel 12:14). The issue regarding Ted Haggard is not what may happen to the "religious right" or what may come upon evanjellycalism (deliberate spelling), but that the name of the Holy God of Heaven has been blasphemed.
on 11/6/06
He who is without sin cast the first stone. We should forgive him and pray for his restoration. However, I think the world (unbelievers) will want to see him punished. Judgement begins in the house of God, and the world is right behind it. I forgive the man and will be praying for him to be restored and filled with Jesus's love and compassion and to know what's right and what's wrong to do while on a pulpit like he was.
on 11/6/06
I think that Christians should respond to Pastor Ted with forgiveness, but only after he confesss and ask for forgiveness. I don't find his denials credible. He says he paid a male prostitute for a "massage" and bought meth but didn't use it. I know we are not to judge him, but it is said "by their fruits ye shall know them." Repentence must precede forgiveness.
on 11/6/06
Triggerman, free agency God gave them? I'm not sure I understand. Not all of us personally attack or judge gay people.
on 11/5/06
Forbidden fruit creates many jams.
on 11/5/06
1 Corinthians 1:18
For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
on 11/5/06
If anything good can come out of this kind of situation, wherever the whole truth is, maybe it could be that any Christian leader, National or local, will be sure that when people look at them they do not see smug superiority, but see meekness, and compassion.
on 11/4/06
So if that is the standard for making comments about people that are human, why is it okay for we christians to deny gays the free agency god gave them and why do we then attack them personally and judge them?
on 11/4/06
There may well be people on these blogs who are even now choosing the rocks they intend to throw when given the chance, but think about these two things?
1. Consider who is it who made the accusation? Is he the kind of person you'd tend to believe?
2. How does one DISPROVE such charges?
Knowing what crystal meth does, I don't understand how Haggard was tempted to try it, but I'm not tempted by recreational drugs, anyway. The FACT is he claims he did not use them, even when purchased.
on 11/4/06
Copyright© 2017 ChristiaNet®. All Rights Reserved.


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bheegi palkein »
Bheegi Palkein Review: Episode 15 to 18
Bheegi Palkein is our guilty pleasure as we return week after week in anticipation of the destruction of the tallest ' samaj ki deewar' that separates Hasan and Mehrbano. However, in many ways theRead More »
Bheegi Palkein Review Episode 9-14
Before you complain about the reviews being piled together like a bundle of ironed clothes from the dhobi, I have a very solid reason. The pace of this drama is such that in sixRead More »
Bheegi Palkein Review Episodes 4-8
Hello hello fellow bheegi palkein watchers! My reviews have been delayed I know – life got in the way as it does , when drama watching and writing takes a back seat to everythingRead More »
Bheegi Palkein Episode 3
Sorry my review is late but without further ado, let's dissect episode 3 of Bheegi Palkein. I was so much happier with this episode. Why you ask? Well was this episode not a great improvement overRead More »
Bheegi Palkein Episode 2 Review
I wonder if after the pitfalls of the first episode the only way to go was up. I certainly thought that this episode was better than last week's introductory episode. The episode opened withRead More »
Bheegi Palkein Episode 1 Review
Maybe Diyaredil has raised the bar for us all, but the opening sequence of this drama felt a bit ' unnecessarily filmi'. A mad shower of rain and some mindless conversation later, the twoRead More »


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"I can't tell you how discouraging it is," Young said. "I've lost count of the number of resumes that I've sent out. In the last year and a half, I must have gone to fifty interviews. It's always the same story. For some reason, my qualifications just don't fit. Even before Japan's earthquake and the nuclear crisis, everyone was cutting back here. Now it's gotten worse."
Married with a newborn daughter, Young, an American, would like to stay in Japan.
"I'll keep hunting for the time being," he said. "But I have a feeling that sooner or later, I'll have to throw in the towel and start looking in Europe or North America."
Young is lucky. He has international mobility, something Japanese employees of foreign and Japanese brokerages don't have. Major domestic securities firms as well as overseas brokerages with operations in Japan are all cutting back because of dropping profitability due to the worldwide constriction of the stock and bond markets. The waning investment activity has resulted in foreign firms shrugging off the high yen and seeking easier markets, forcing security companies across the board to cut employment.
Mitsubishi YFJ Morgan Stanley Securities will let go of about 20% of its employees in October as "early retirement." This follows a similar cutback in February of this year. This means that somewhere between 1,200 and 1,300 employees will leave the company.
Mizuho, Merrill Lynch and UBS AG are also all cutting back.
"We've noticed a recent increase in the number of candidates from these firms who have placed their resumes on some of the job boards that recruiting firms use," said Joe Peters, a Tokyo-based recruiter and managing director of an executive search firm.
Some firms have also begun to close down branch offices. Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley, which by May of 2010 had already reduced its number of branches from 103 to 75, is looking to close another 5 to 10 locations.
At the same time, Japanese and foreign firms continue to move Asian area operations out of Japan to locations with greater growth potential. Although Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has frequently warned that Japan's industry risks hollowing out as more and more Japanese manufacturers move overseas, Japan's position as the financial leader of Asia appears increasingly threatened as both Japanese and foreign brokerage firms seek greener pastures in other Asian countries.