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Current Director's Corner archive
17 December 2009 - Strawman Baseline 2009 Report - ILC Cost Estimating Tool We are currently preparing the SB2009 proposal with the goals of reducing the overall cost, optimising the facilities, and improving the performance of the accelerator for the next ILC baseline. -- By Peter Garbincius
10 December 2009 - The ILC Project Advisory Committee considers proposed ILC baseline revisions In recent months the project managers have presented a "strawman" baseline (SB2009) to the broader ILC community at a workshop in Albuquerque and to the International Linear Collider Steering Committee's Project Advisory Committee (ILCSC PAC) at a review in Pohang, Korea last November. We have now received the report of the PAC review and I discuss some highlights of that review here. -- By Barry Barish
3 December 2009 - Open Sesame The Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science & Applications in the Middle East (i.e. SESAME) is a scientific collaboration of countries in the region, who have joined together to develop a major international research center. -- By Barry Barish
25 November 2009 - What drives the development of technology (...) Taking all ILC cavity tests into account, a globally-based pattern of achievement and success emerges, giving confidence that we will meet or even exceed the forward looking-goal we set for ourselves at Snowmass in 2005. -- By Marc Ross
19 November 2009 - The Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge (...) At the American Linear Collider Physics Group workshop at Albuquerque (ALCPG09), we had a very informative presentation by Stuart Henderson of Oak Ridge on "The Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) Linac: Performance and Operational Experience." -- By Barry Barish
12 November 2009 - Rethinking LHC-ILC connections The American Linear Collider Physics Group (ALCPG) workshop held in Albuquerque, New Mexico from 29 September to 3 October was one of our large ILC meetings that we hold twice a year... [P]erhaps the most important contribution was a talk given by Michael Peskin, SLAC, with the intriguing title, "Rethinking the LHC - ILC Connection." -- By Barry Barish
5 November 2009 - Report on the CLIC workshop The September ALCPG and ILC meeting in Albuquerque, US, featured a plenary talk on the Compact Linear Collider Study CLIC by Jean-Pierre Delahaye, who gave a very nice description of the CLIC status and plans. (...) Today, I share a few personal observations from the workshop. -- By Barry Barish
29 October 2009 - Accelerators everywhere - the ILC in context ...I am... [at] the "Accelerators for America's Future" meeting held in Washington, D.C. and sponsored by the US Department of Energy. The meeting is intended to raise the profile and set the strategy for the future of accelerator physics in the US. The morning's talks have been in turn illuminating, amusing, and infuriating. -- By Brian Foster
22 October 2009 - ILCSC grapples with moving the Linear Collider forward The International Linear Collider Steering Committee (ILCSC) held their bi-annual meeting dealing with issues varying from the validation of the letters of intent (LOI) for the detectors to ILC-CLIC collaboration to developing efforts on governance and siting. -- By Barry Barish
15 October 2009 - CERN prepares for LHC commissioning (...) We were very fortunate to hear a timely report from Philippe Lebrun on the status of the LHC and plans for commissioning at the American Linear Collider Physics Group workshop in Albuquerque at the end of September. -- By Barry Barish
8 October 2009 - Toshiaki Tauchi joins the GDE Executive Committee The expansion of the Global Design Effort Executive Committee (EC) is complete. Today I announce that Toshiaki Tauchi has accepted my invitation and has joined the EC. -- By Barry Barish
1 October 2009 - FALC meets in Quebec City The Funding Agencies for Large Colliders (FALC) held its fifteenth meeting at Quebec City on 13 July 2009. -- By Barry Barish
24 September 2009 - Operating and maintaining the ILC in the year 202X (...) the schedule for frequency and duration of time to repair, maintain and upgrade equipment can affect system design and R&D on component development and we need to think about these things now in order to be ready when the ILC comes online. -- By Ewan Paterson
17 September 2009 - Linear Collider Accelerator School underway in China I write this week's column as a lecturer at the fourth International Linear Collider accelerator science school that is underway at the Hotel Jixian in Huairou, located in a beautiful isolated park-like area about one hour from Beijing, China. -- By Barry Barish
10 September 2009 - A new ILC baseline and global consensus (...) We are undergoing a process we refer to as Accelerator Design and Integration, from which we expect to make a number of important changes to the baseline for the ILC. -- By Barry Barish
3 September 2009 - Keeping up with ILC technical progress Today, I want to advertise another useful resource that provides detailed ILC technical developments: the monthly Project Managers' Report -- By Barry Barish
27 August 2009 - The beauty of international collaboration I have personally been convinced during my whole professional life of the great advantages and the increasing necessity of International Collaboration. -- By Jean-Pierre Delahaye
20 August 2009 - Stimulus funds for SCRF at Fermilab (...) The announcement by the U.S. Department of Energy that it will provide $52.7M of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds to develop the Fermilab (SCRF) programme is a very welcome development. -- By Barry Barish, Bob Kephart
13 August 2009 - ALCPG09 in Albuquerque Our next (...) general meeting, organised by the American Linear Collider Physics Group (ALCPG), will be held at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico from 29 September through 2 October 2009. -- By Barry Barish
6 August 2009 - Particle Physics at Academia Sinica in Taiwan Last month, I had the opportunity to spend time at the Academia Sinica in Taiwan where I chaired a review of their Institute of Physics, which has an impressive high-energy physics programme. -- By Barry Barish
30 July 2009 - Global effort for high-gradient ILC SCRF cavities I would like to thank Barry Barish (...) for the opportunity to write his column and expand on the efforts for an area of the Main Linac and Superconducting Radiofrequency (ML-SCRF) technology and the tasks ahead of us. -- By Akira Yamamoto
23 July 2009 - Accelerator Design and Integration ... One of the most complex and difficult changes under consideration is changing from the RDR's double-tunnel to a single-tunnel configuration. A key problem to solve for a single-tunnel configuration is how to deliver the high-level radiofrequency power to the cryomodules. --By Barry Barish
16 July 2009 - Students admitted to LC accelerator school Preparations continue toward our "Fourth International Accelerator School for Linear Colliders" -- By Barry Barish
9 July 2009 - Improvements in high-gradient ILC SCRF cavities ... we plan to set an average operating gradient of 31.5 MV per metre for the 14560 cavities mounted in the 1680 cryomodules of a 500-GeV ILC. -- By Barry Barish
2 July 2009 - A picture is worth a thousand words Today, in less than 1000 words, I announce the addition of a new member of the Global Design Effort Executive Committee (EC), Jean-Pierre Delahaye of CERN. -- By Barry Barish
25 June 2009 - The other kind of particle acceleration The ILC, when built, will represent the latest in technology innovation and will be a global effort involving world-class talent. The Accelerator Design and Integration meeting held at DESY a few weeks ago is an example of the design process in action. -- By Mike Harrison
18 June 2009 - A step at a time Last week we held the first ever joint meeting of the GDE Executive Committee and the CLIC Extended Steering Committee. This meeting at CERN represented another step in bringing the CLIC and ILC efforts closer together. -- By Barry Barish
11 June 2009 - An official change of name ... A new, more descriptive name for the process we are undertaking, Accelerator Design and Integration, became official at the first working meeting towards defining a new ILC baseline held at DESY from 28 to 29 May. -- By Barry Barish
4 June 2009 - The value of being reviewed The AAP is an "inside" panel that is augmented by some outside experts and has the mandate of continually monitoring, reviewing and giving me advice on the technical aspects of our work. -- By Barry Barish
28 May 2009 - Whats in a word During the day-to-day activities of Global Design Effort Project Management, I find myself using certain nouns more frequently than others. Recently, the word review has featured prominently in our vocabulary. -- Nick Walker
21 May 2009 - Learning accelerator science Today I want to encourage young researchers interested in becoming accelerator scientists to consider applying to participate in our "Fourth International Accelerator School for Linear Colliders." -- By Barry Barish
14 May 2009 - Progress on ILC machine-detector interfaces through the detector LOI process Compared to most accelerators, the ILC will have a much more intimate and complex set of interfaces between the machine and the detectors (MDI). -- By Barry Barish
7 May 2009 - Garbincius joins GDE Executive Committee (...) The heart of the GDE organisation and central 'engine' is an Executive Committee (EC) that works very closely with me on carrying out all important policy, organisational and operational matters. Today, I am pleased to announce that Peter Garbincius of Fermilab has joined the EC. -- By Barry Barish
30 April 2009 - New cavity production facility for future industrialisation (...) One of the most important plans for the ILC project is to build a new superconducting radiofrequency (rf) cavity production facility on KEK premises, aiming to gain experiences for industrialisation and future mass-production. -- By Kaoru Yokoya
23 April 2009 - FLASH - ILC-like beam tests at DESY (...) Before we can develop our own test systems that use ILC modules, we are making a series of important tests using the FLASH free-electron laser linac at DESY. -- By Barry Barish
16 April 2009 - Gran Sasso National Laboratory survives the Italian earthquake Last week a major earthquake struck Italy about 10 kilometres from the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (Gran Sasso National Laboratory). The inhabitants of the city of L'Aquila nearby the laboratory suffered numerous injuries and loss of lives, as well as extensive damage to buildings, homes and historic structures. (...) The Gran Sasso Laboratory, the most ambitious deep underground research facility in the world, suffered no significant damage, and for that we can be thankful. -- By Barry Barish
9 April 2009 - Technological Benefits from ILC R&D We are pursuing a very ambitious R&D programme in order to develop the technologies that will be required to build the International Linear Collider. Recognising that important technological benefits are resulting from our ILC R&D programme, the Funding Agencies for Large Colliders, a group composed of representatives of national science funding agencies worldwide, commissioned a study. -- By Barry Barish
2 April 2009 - Neutrinos in Venice Last month I had the pleasure of participating in the "XIII International Workshop on Neutrino Telescopes" at the "Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti" in Venice Italy. (...) This year's meeting was especially interesting to me in how it demonstrated the relationships between accelerator and non-accelerator physics and how much closer astrophysics is becoming to particle physics. -- By Barry Barish
26 March 2009 - Renewing links with superconducting cavity manufacturers This guest Director's Corner is about our effort to open new relationships and partnerships with the (cavity manufacturing) companies, worldwide. -- By Marc Ross
19 March 2009 -Science in the Obama era "We will restore science to its rightful place," said President Barack Obama in his inauguration address. That statement has raised the hopes of the scientific community, and actions that have followed have further encouraged us to believe that we are entering a new era in the US that will have increased priority for the support of science. (...) It is worthwhile anticipating how all the changes will impact US science, high-energy physics, in particular, and finally on our efforts towards the ILC. -- By Barry Barish
12 March 2009 -The ILC damping rings and electron cloud mitigation Today's ILC Newsline is a thematic issue focusing on aspects of electron cloud mitigation for the ILC and for other future accelerators. One of the highest-priority goals of the ILC R&D programme during the Technical Design Phase is to demonstrate that the proposed mitigation techniques for the electron clouds in the damping rings will reduce the levels so that the clouds will not impact the emittance performance of the positron damping ring. --By Barry Barish
5 March 2009 - ILC RD plan updated We characterise the present period of the Global Design Effort activities as a four-year programme to prepare ourselves to be ready to propose a well conceived ILC construction project to collaborating governments by around 2012. -- By Barry Barish
26 February 2009 - Trains, planes and automobiles - the life of a regional director Although 2009 is not yet two months old, I seem to have already fitted in enough trips to fill a year - but such is the life of an ILC Director. -- By Brian Foster
19 February 2009 - TILC09 will have some special features TILC09 will be held in Tsukuba, Japan, from 17 to 21 April 2009: We will once again share a venue for the Global Design Effort meeting with an ILC physics and detector workshop. These joint meetings help bring us all together as a single community. --By Barry Barish
12 February 2009 - Involving Spain in the ILC R&D programme We had a nearly two-day meeting with the Spanish particle physics groups to explore collaborations for the ILC last month. (...) These meetings gave us a much better understanding of the capabilities and ambitions of the Spanish groups and gave them a better picture of the opportunities in ILC R&D and design work. We expect to continue these productive discussions, leading up to increased Spanish involvement in the ILC. --By Barry Barish
5 February 2009 - FALC meets in Madrid The Funding Agencies for Large Colliders (FALC) held its semi-annual meeting in Madrid, Spain on 19 January. -- By Barry Barish
29 January 2009 - ILC power I have many times been in the situation where I took an interested non-expert on a tour of SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and explained how it relates to a future project, the International Linear Collider. -- By Ewan Paterson
22 January 2009 - Training the next generation of accelerator scientists The Third International Accelerator School for Linear Colliders took place from 19 to 20 October 2008 at the Oakbrook Hills Marriott Hotel near Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. and was a continuation of the previous two international LC accelerator schools held in 2006 in Japan and 2007 in Italy. -- By Barry Barish
15 January 2009 - Plug compatibility An interesting and challenging concept that has emerged in developing the ILC's technical design is that of plug compatibility for the superconducting radio frequency accelerating systems. -- By Barry Barish
8 January 2009 - A New Year (...) I am happy to report that we are starting this year in a much more stable state and with a solid and realistic R&D plan that we believe we can accomplish. -- By Barry Barish


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Prince William and Prince Harry visited a galaxy far, far away.
The royals were able to participate in a "Star Wars" fan's dream Tuesday when they visited the set of "Star Wars: Episode VIII" where they received a tour by actress Daisy Ridley (and played with her head cast) and got a chance to meet Mark Hamill, who plays Luke Skywalker, John Boyega, as well as director Rian Johnson.
And, of course, the brothers took part in a lightsaber battle.
U.S. & World
Stories that affect your life across the U.S. and around the world.
Not only that – they got a sneak preview of the film.
Kensington Palace announced Tuesday's visit yesterday on Twitter, and explained that the princes would be celebrating "Star Wars'" "fantastic British creative talent".
"The Duke of Cambridge, President of @BAFTA, and Prince Harry will visit the @starwars film set @PinewoodStudios tomorrow," the account tweeted. "Their visit will recognise the wealth of fantastic British creative talent involved in the production of the @starwars films...The Duke and Prince Harry will visit production workshops @PinewoodStudios, meeting the specialist teams working on the @starwars films." Prior to the princes' visit, Hamill tweeted, "Meeting #Royals William &Harry! Finally- a chance to get an informed answer on whether being Leia's brother makes me a Prince. #LordLuke."
There was British talent both in front and behind the cameras in 2015's "Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens," including Ridley and Boyega, who starred as Rey and Finn in the film. J.J. Abrams also featured British locations, shooting exterior scenes on Greenham Common, in the Lake District and Scotland.
"Star Wars: Episode VIII" will be released in 2017.
LOOK: Kate Middleton and Prince William go on Safari in India

subset: commoncrawl


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San Fernando Valley West, CA
Local things for kids to do.
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Hulafrog connects suburban parents to kid-focused events and businesses in their local community. Founded in 2010, Hulafrog is part daily event calendar, part parent-rated business directory. Moms and dads use Hulafrog's local webguides to find everything from fairs and festivals to karate studios and kid friendly restaurants via websites, mobile devices and email. The company is "powered by parents," tapping the growing segment of today's workforce that is searching for family-friendly, work-from-home career alternatives. For more information visit Hulafrog.com


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HondaCare Roadside Assistance Programme
How many manufacturers care once you've driven off the forecourt?
Honda does! Your Honda is entitled to the benefits of HondaCare Roadside Assistance, which is available 24 hours a day, every day of the year. All Honda cars are covered by the same benefits throughout their warranty period, i.e. 3 years from the date of the vehicle's first registration.
With the HondaCare Roadside Assistance Programme, your car is entitled to the benefits whether you are driving or if someone else is driving your car with your permission. And even if you sell your Honda while you have HondaCare Roadside Assistance, the new owner will benefit from the remaining period of cover.
How to call HondaCare Assistance
HondaCare Home Assistance
If your car breaks down at home, we will send an appointed agent to your doorstep. If the car can't be repaired, we will take it back to our dealership to be looked at.
HondaCare Roadside Assistance
If your car breaks down at the roadside, we will get help to you wherever you are in Ireland. Where the car can't be repaired in a reasonable period of time you can use the Honda Recovery Assistance Services.
HondaCare Recovery Assistance
If we can't fix your car at the roadside, we will arrange for you and up to four passengers and your vehicle to be transported to the nearest Honda Dealer.
Even if you are towing a trailer or caravan, this can also be recovered, although there are certain weight and size restrictions.
If we can't fix your car at the roadside we may, at our discretion, choose to provide one of the following:
*Hire cars are subject to availability and to the supplier's terms and conditions.
Please note: Replacement vehicles cannot be supplied with a tow bar and therefore your caravan or trailer will, if eligible, be recovered under HondaCare Recovery Assistance with your vehicle.
HondaCare Message Service
Should the unforeseen arise, it's good to know that we can get a message to a relative or colleague to let them know what's happening, where you are and that you're safe.
To request HondaCare Roadside Assistance from within Ireland call 1850 85 85 11
HondaCare European Assistance
We also provide HondaCare European Roadside Assistance in the following countries to all Honda owners as part of their standard manufacturer warranty.
Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus (excluding Northern Cyprus), Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France (and Corsica), Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Italy (and Sicily, Sardinia and San Marino), Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland (and Liechtenstein) and the UK.
(Honda reserves the right to amend the geographical limits to cover in the event of war, civil disturbance riot or radioactive contamination)
HondaCare European Roadside Assistance can help you if your car breaks down while you are travelling to Europe. And if we can't repair it at the roadside, we will get you to the nearest Honda Dealer or approved garage. If you're towing a trailer or caravan (subject to certain restrictions) we'll transport that too. HondaCare European Roadside Assistance gives you real peace of mind, but we must make it clear that it isn't motor vehicle insurance.
HondaCare European Roadside Assistance is available for vehicle emergencies only and the period of entitlement is subject to a maximum of 90 consecutive days for any one trip. You should also make sure your own travel insurance gives you all the protection you need.
To request assistance from outside Ireland call + 353 9064 51953
Additional Travel
If your vehicle is immobilised for more than 8 hours, we may, at our discretion, choose to provide you with one of the following up to a maximum total limit of €2,000:
Hondacare Vehicle Recovery and Body Repair
Vehicle Recovery
Don't let a breakdown ruin your whole trip. We may at our discretion, arrange for the unaccompanied recovery of your vehicle if your car is immobilised for 8 hours or more to your home or to an appointed repairer in Ireland.
Vehicle Storage
And we can help you if the driver and all passengers are unable to drive following a breakdown, HondaCare Assistance, may at our discretion arrange for your vehicle to be stored before collection or repair with a max limit of €150.
Vehicle Collection
If you need to return and collect the repaired vehicle, we may, at our discretion provide travel and accommodation expenses from Ireland for one person's direct costs up to a max of €900.
Full Terms & Conditions available on request from HondaCare Roadside Assistance on + 353 9064 51953
HondaCare Approved Body Repair Centre
Sadly, in the event your Honda is involved in a collision we can't turn back the clock, but we can make sure it is repaired the way that you would want it to be.
What is a HondaCare Approved Body Repair Centre?
In simple terms, a "HondaCare Approved Body Repair Centre" is a Honda Dealership that has access to a body & paint repair facility (bodyshop) which meets the Honda standards. Even if they don't have one on site, they will have access to one.
In the event of an incident:
For more information contact our Service Manager.


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This classic bunk bed is a great option for a shared bedroom or frequent sleepovers. The two twin beds leave more floor space for activities, and can be separated into two beds if desired. Arched and slatted headboards and footboards create a timeless look that will appeal to boys and girls of any age. For extra convenience, the included ladder can be used on either side of the bunk bed to better suit your space. Built kid tough and child safe with hardwood solids and birch veneers, parents can rest assured in durable, safe construction.
The Academy Twin over Twin Bunk Bed with Arched Ends by Legacy Classic Kids at AHFA in the area. Product availability may vary. Contact us for the most current availability on this product.
The Academy collection offers timeless designs in three classic finishes that will appeal to boys and girls of any age. Function and style are key in this versatile collection, with pieces that suit both small and large youth bedrooms or guest rooms, and bunk bed options for shared bedrooms. Classic elements like slatted beds, tapered bun feet, and framed drawer fronts give pieces their timeless allure for an elegant look that is still youthful and fun. Available in three finishes of Molasses, Cinnamon, or White, with two hardware finish options, Academy has tons of room for kids to mix and match to create a bedroom that represents their personality. Built kid tough and child safe with hardwood solids and birch veneers, as well as strong dovetail drawer construction and bolt-on rails, each durable piece was built with active kids in mind. Offering great storage and versatile designs that boys and girls of any age will love, the Academy collection was thoughtfully designed for any kid's needs.
The Academy collection is a great option if you are looking for Casual furniture in the area.
These images are representative of this group as a whole and may differ from this item.
This item has been tagged as: Youth Bedroom Furniture, Furniture for Kids, Furniture for Children, Youth Bedroom Set, Bunk Bed, Kid Bunk Bed, Metal Bunk Bed, Loft Bunk Bed, Child Bunk Bed, Twin Over Full, Bunk Bed Futon, Bunk Bed with Desk, Bunk Bed with Ladder, Bunk Bed with Stairs, Bunk Bed with Trundle, Bunk Bed with Storage, Bunk Bed with Drawers, Bunk Bed with Built in Dresser, Bunk Bed with Steps, Single Bunk Bed, Double Bunk Bed, Bed Bunk, Bunkbed, Loft Bed, Loft Bunk, Bunk Bed Twin / Full, Twin Bunk Bed, Twin/Futon Bunk Bed, Bunk Bed Twin/Full, Twin / Twin Bun Bed, Bunk Bed with Extension, Full Size Bunk Bed, Twin Size Bunk Bed.
Nothing on this page may be copied or reproduced without explicit permission.


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It makes no sense. FDA's decision this week to allow continued use of the neurotoxic pesticide lindane in children's lice shampoos has me completely stumped.
The pesticide's use in pet products were withdrawn long ago. Then agricultural uses were pulled, back in 2006. Yet FDA just re-blessed the lindane products that put children most directly at risk, shampoos applied to their heads and lotions to their bodies. These products have been banned for years in dozens of countries — including by our neighbors in Mexico — and in California since 2001. What is FDA thinking??
It's not that there's any question that lindane is harmful. It's a known neurotoxicant, carcinogen and endocrine disruptor that can harm human reproductive and immune systems.
It's in the same class of chemicals as DDT, which means it's longlasting, builds up in our bodies and can be passed to the next generation in the womb and through breastmilk. Which is why it's being banned worldwide under the international treaty that targets "persistent pollutants."
Why is the U.S. so far behind?
Here in the U.S., it seems the interests of the pharmaceutical company — which has lobbied tirelessly for its lindane products — trump the interests of our kids. Something is deeply wrong with this picture.
FDA had a chance to take lindane pharmaceutical products off the market once and for all, a few years ahead of the treaty-mandated deadline of 2014. Even though use of this antiquated product is already falling (turns out it actually doesn't work very well), that's a lot of children who would have been protected from a very dangerous pesticide.
This most recent thumbs up for lindane came in response to a legal petition filed by PAN with NRDC and other partners back in 2010, urging the agency to get with the global program, prioritize children's health, and pull lindane products now. After thinking about it for a couple of years, the agency said no.
A missed opportunity
This was an opportunity to do the right thing, and FDA missed the boat.
As a policy person at PAN, I'm deeply disappointed — and reminded of the disturbing weaknesses in the rules governing our use of and exposure to harmful pesticides. As a mother, I'm horrified, frustrated, and yes, kinda pissed off.
My colleague (and fellow mom) Mae Wu at NRDC put it well:
FDA has, once again, let down the public and failed in its mission to protect public health. In what should have been a fairly easy decision to follow the law and remove a drug from the market that is neither safe nor effective, the FDA today has instead ignored the clear science.
My message to those FDA officials? This was an absurd decision. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
the seeds from a cherimoya fruit can be crushed up and used as lice shampoo. Also, the seeds of the related plants of guanabana, soursop, custard apple, and pawpaw also work. But, be careful because if you get the juice from the seeds in your eyes then it can cause blindness. Also, there is a toxin inside the seeds that with long term exposure can cause Parkinson like lesions in the brain. Cherimoya fruit taste really good. It tastes like a banana, mango, pineapple, cantaloupe, persimmon, and a pear all mixed together.
In many countries there are so many companies whose are providing these types of Shampoo like Johnson Baby shampoo's. I also see that those companies also use so many illegal things.


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Babies do better after a scheduled Caesarean section if they're born no sooner than seven days before their due date, a new large study of U.S. births shows.
Those delivered earlier had more complications, including breathing problems, even though they were full term, the researchers reported in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine. Even just a few days made a difference, they said.
The findings offer important guidance to the growing number of women who face planned C-sections. And the study supports recommendations that elective C-sections be scheduled after 39 weeks unless tests show the infant's lungs are fully mature. Due dates are set at 40 weeks gestation and infants are full term at 37 weeks.
"Take your due date and subtract seven and any one of those seven days is fine," said one of the researchers, Dr. John Thorp, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine.
He delivered a healthy baby girl on Tuesday after persuading her mother to wait a few more days for a C-section, even though last week would have been more convenient for both mother and doctor.
"We bit the bullet and did it at the right time," said Thorp.
C-section rate is at all-time high
The rate of Caesarean sections in the United States is at an all-time high, accounting for about 31 percent of births. There are lots of reasons: older moms, multiple births, the threat of malpractice lawsuits, the preference of mothers and doctors and the risks of having a vaginal birth after a previous Caesarean. In 2006, a government panel urged women not to seek a C-section without a medical reason; surgery brings risks and babies born by Caesarean have a greater chance for respiratory problems.
In the new study, the researchers, led by Dr. Alan Tita of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, examined a C-section registry from 19 academic medical centers to see how many of the surgeries were being done before the recommended 39 weeks and if the timing made a difference in the risk of complications.
They focused on 13,258 women who had a single child at a planned Caesarean and who had previously given birth the same way. Excluded were cases where medical issues warranted an early or immediate delivery. The infants were followed until they left the hospital or for four months.
1 in 3 C-sections done before 39 weeks
More than a third of the C-sections were performed before 39 weeks, the researchers found. Those delivered at 37 weeks were twice as likely to have health problems, including breathing troubles, infections, low blood sugar or the need for intensive care. Fifteen percent of those born at 37 weeks and 11 percent born at 38 weeks had complications, compared to 8 percent of the babies delivered at 39 weeks. The only death was an infant born at 39 weeks.
The biggest difference was in breathing problems, with a fourfold increase for those born at 37 weeks compared to 39 weeks. Babies born by C-section already have a higher risk of breathing trouble than those born vaginally; labor helps clear the lungs of fluid.
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The risk of complications also increased for births after 41 weeks, but there were few births in that category, the researchers said.
Tita said the researchers didn't know the reasons behind the chosen delivery dates. They speculated that some mothers might want to deliver as soon as the fetus reaches full term, or an earlier time may have been more convenient for the mother or doctor.
Even last few days make a difference
Dr. Michael Greene, of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, noted the research showed that there's even an increased risk of complications in the last few days before the 39th week. That's something most doctors wouldn't suspect, he said.
"I generally try to wait to 39 weeks, although I confess that I'm as guilty as anybody else with a busy practice and scheduling being what it is," said Greene, who wrote an accompanying editorial in the journal. "I really hadn't thought much about it until now."
The study only looked at live births, and didn't account for the small risk of the fetus dying while waiting to reach 39 weeks, Greene said. That risk has been estimated up to 1 in 1,000, he said.
Thorp's patient in Chapel Hill, Shannon Eubanks, said she was glad that she held off a few days to reach the 39-week threshold before having her daughter, Kathleen Conley Eubanks. Her first child, 2-year-old Charlie, was born by C-section.
"It was hard to wait," said Eubanks, business manager of the political science department at the university. "I was very over being pregnant and ready to get the show on the road."
And she had another reason for wanting to deliver last week.
As an accountant, "It just killed me not to have this kid in 2008" to get the tax deduction, Eubanks said hours after delivering.
© 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


text:
What the Google Generation Doesn't Know or
Get off of my Lawn!
How has Google affected research skills? Are library patrons getting the facts? Are the facts they are getting 'real'? Do they know how to find information or what questions to ask? How is the technological immediacy of information balanced against quality? Do rolling stones still gather no moss? Many opinions were offered on these subjects and more when Kevin O'Kelly of the Somerville Public Library asked Publib members:"is ignorance of the skills of the pre-Internet age limiting their (high school students) ability to function in the Internet age? "
To which the Publib Chorus responds:
Thy cnt spl. Vowels are a thing of the past. Seriously, they can't spell. They can't find things, sometimes even on Google because even Google can't make heads or tails of what they are trying to say. ~ Dusty Gres – Ohoopee Regional Library System (editor: SMS language avoids vowels)
I was assisting a middle-schooler with her homework when I noticed she had written that the two official languages of Canada were English and Sumerian. I pointed out her mistake, but even if she had turned the homework in and gotten it wrong she would probably still have discovered that Yahoo Answers isn't the best resource. And I don't know about others in my generation, but I rarely find myself' following the shiny blue hyper-links all over the place in some sort of internet-induced ADD rapture (unless it's Wikipedia, in which case all bets are off – that site is an easy time-suck). ~ Theresa McNutt – Red Oak Library
The truly disturbing thing is that back in the day, patrons who couldn't use the book resources got no information and came to us for help. Now they will actually get something with their poorly constructed search strategies and they'll be happy about it. It's hard to educate someone who thinks they know what they're doing. ~ emilie smart – East Baton Rouge Parish Library
. . .Often they finally do come to me, and the only thing left to do is to employ the backhoe method to help them. I ask 'what piece of information do you need to have when you leave that you don't have now?' … They are entirely too trusting. They will believe anything if a search engine produces it. They need to have that talk about not all is gold that glisters and not every search engine is righteous in its presentations. They don't know the difference between a site that is there to sell something and one that is there to provide information. … They are willing to show others–including librarians–how to manipulate the technology in exchange for being shown how to manipulate information. Together, we have possibilities. ~ Kathleen Stipek – Alachua County Library District
As a member of "generation Google" I respectfully disagree. It's a vast generalization to say that an entire generation (or all young people, etc.) don't know how to search online, use an index in a book, or any number of other assumptions. Some younger people don't know how to do these things; that's for certain. But neither do some adults. It's unfair to say that, just because I grew up using computers and the Internet, I don't know how to use a library in the traditional sense; or that I don't know how to correctly and successfully search for
information online. ~ Amanda Dias – Rodman Public Library
I find that just as many middle aged and older adults have basic book finding and research questions as younger ones. ~ Jesse Ephraim – Roanoke Public Library
I have found that fewer young people have an understanding and appreciation of the Dewey Decimal system. As we migrate to eBooks and other things digital, I also think about children reading about this strange system (Dewey) that was used to arrange an old technology (books) a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…. Which leaves me to wonder if Dewey will ever have a place in a completely digital world? … are the same basic skill(s) needed to find, use and evaluate information changing?
How would our ancient predecessors have handled a change in information technology? It would be interesting to consider how the Roman era librarians of Alexandria would have handled the change from housing half a million papyrus scrolls to a lesser number of paper books. What changes in society and technology would have effected them? (And we all know how the changes in society, politics and history of their times influenced the end result of the Great Library of Alexandria.) ~ Dana L. Brumbelow – Alachua County Library District
… many people of ALL ages now just turn to Google and don't go any further when looking for information. For me it's really a question of reminding people that unlike the web, a book doesn't just suddenly disappear, the way a website will if the internet connection is severed. ~ Teresa Eckford
Pretty much anything off the Internet, regardless of source, if it sounds remotely plausible, will satisfy many questioners. Certainly no one wants to wait the few minutes for a librarian to find the correct information in an actual reference book – just take whatever Wikipedia offers. And it seems that many teachers, having grown up with the same attitudes, don't have the sense to demand authoritative sources. Or, perhaps, even to be aware that they exist.
I asked the teachers to bring classes in to see what the problem was. The teacher would ask, "Where would you find information on XYZ?" A room full of shrugged shoulders and vacant stares.I responded, "Really? Where is the first place you would look for the information?" Miraculously hands would go up and they suddenly remembered they would use the index to the encyclopedia and then locate the volumes indicated. They would explain about the different Dewey classifications and using the OPAC. ~ Paula Laurita – Athens-Limestone Public Library
"Yellow journalism" goes back to the beginning of journalism! So do highly-regarded books that contained errors, slanted viewpoints, careful omission of important facts, etc.No matter what the medium, "logical fallacies" will always be common. Politics in general relies heavily on them, as do many other factors in life. Critical thinking can be taught, but the emotional and social variables that undermine the process can never be fully overcome.
. . . There are some simple ways to improve Google searches dramatically – when I have trouble finding things via Google, it's usually because the information simply isn't online, or it's so obscure that it takes a lot of extra work (which is true of old style print searching, as well). Though indexes are more precise, they are inherently much more limited. ~ Jesse Ephraim – Roanoke Public Library
The Pew Research Center [somewhere] discovered that, really, under-twenty-somethings aren't really all that net-savvy. They found it a misconception that next-genners can fix a computer in their sleep. Stroll through any public library's teen area and watch them actually try to find info by Googling – it's laughable, sad even. I'm not sure Google gets enough credit in terms of info. organization. Its services just get a bad rep because of its users. ~ Michael Schofield
What really gets to me about these kids-these-days-and-their-darn-computer-boxes discussions is the knee-jerk assumption that a different skill set is an inferior skill set. Lately I've enjoyed pointing people to Socrates' Phaedrus, written around 370 B.C., in which he rails against the new technology of the printed word and its deleterious effect on the mental habits of future generations. David Malki, author of Wondermark, has a really good blog post about it here: http://bit.ly/fnDHxu
I assume that a listserv full of librarians isn't going to side with Plato in condemning the written word, but he's not entirely wrong. A dialogue with a knowledgeable person can be much more illuminating that reading a book written by that same person. Plato's error is his failure to see that the written word has its own strengths to offset the ways in which it is inferior to the spoken word and his refusal to seek out and exploit those strengths rather than lamenting those inferiorities.
Computers have produced a cultural upheaval to rival that wrought by writing and we're well the point of no return. We'll better serve ourselves and our patrons by looking to fuse our competencies with those of the Googleites than by grousing about what the kids don't know. ~ Andrew Fuerste-Henry – Carnegie-Stout Public Library
. . . this ability to synthesize information into thoughts (especially written thoughts) that young people seem increasingly to be missing. I'm not sure if it has to do with how, or where they are getting their information; whether the inability to use an index or to structure a good online search is part of the problem. But I do know it's a very real problem. I see it all the time, both at work and when I serve as a judge for local debate tournaments. ~ Tom Cooper – Webster Groves Public Library
I think this is probably the most significant point to be made on this topic, and gets to the heart of the matter. How to help patrons who don't know they need help? ~ Mark Hudson East Baton Rouge Parish Library
And teachers and the Internet and their assignments for children…. I can't figure out if it's Google-era teachers or old, seasoned veterans who apparently give assignments and say, broadly, "You need information from a book, from a magazine article, and something from the Internet." Period. I used to think it was older teachers who really were backward and knew nothing of the Internet, but thought it was something that everyone was "doing," so his/her students should "do" the Internet for an assignment, too. But I'm not so sure. Then again, having had experience as a parent, I'm not always sure if kids who say, "The teacher said I need something from the Internet," and then volunteer no further info, despite the best reference interview I can muster, are telling the truth. Maybe the teacher gave precise directions and exact websites to try. (That does happen, in about 10% of the cases, or some ridiculously low percentage like that there one.) Maybe the teacher spoke intelligently and well about How to Find Good, Accurate Information on the Internet. Or not. Or has never been in the public library. Or perhaps has.
And then there are all the official documents sent home for parental signatures at the beginning of the year, baddly ritten with pore grammer an speling an runonsentencez, and who produced *those*, I wonder. Google-ites, or Troglodytes? (Amorites, Hittites, Jebusites, Hivites–oops, now I'm getting carried away with names from the Bible, and am risking political incorrectness in public. Or on publib. Stop me now!) ~ John Richmond – Alpha Park Public Library
A brief summation of the Google Generation thread, with abject apologies to the Rolling Stones. 🙂 ~ Tongue firmly in cheek, ~ Sarah Howison – New Richmond Branch Library
(You! Kids!) Get off of My Lawn
They live on the Internet and they can't read an analog clock
And they eat junky foods till you can hear all their arteries clog.
They trust Google way too much, and they don't know how to use an index
They cite Wikis in their papers and good lord, I don't know what's next!
We say You! (You!) Kids! (Kids!)
Get off of my lawn!
You! (You!) Kids! (Kids!)
Get off of my lawn!
You! (You!) Kids! (Kids!)
Get off of my lawn!
Keep off the grass 'cause you're not allowed
On my lawn!
Their phones are ringing Bieber in the library all of the time
They answer them out loud, ignoring all the posted "no cell phone" signs.
You say "Hang it up, kiddo, or I'll have to ask you to depart."
And they act as though you've stabbed them all the way down into the heart.
We say You! (You!) Kids! (Kids!)
Get off of my lawn!
You! (You!) Kids! (Kids!)
Get off of my lawn!
You! (You!) Kids! (Kids!)
Get off of my lawn!
Keep off the grass 'cause you're not allowed
On my lawn!
They barely use a vowel, they communicate only in text-speak
And for all the sense it makes to us, they might as well be sending Greek.
We snoop around the stacks and assume that all their acts are obscene
No wonder they seem to think librarians are all kind of mean!
We say You! (You!) Kids! (Kids!)
Get off of my lawn!
You! (You!) Kids! (Kids!)
Get off of my lawn!
You! (You!) Kids! (Kids!)
Get off of my lawn!
Keep off the grass 'cause you're not allowed
On my lawn! ~ Sarah Howison – New Richmond Branch Library
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text:
Energy market fall creates window of opportunity
Market consensus today is of a grossly-oversupplied market, exacerbated by a Saudi regime intent on inflicting damage on geopolitical rivals. In this view of the world, markets will remain oversupplied until substantial amounts of current production are forced offline, a process that could take more than 12 months. Our view is different, and here we outline the key reasons why we differ from consensus.
"The window for closing underweight positions will be short, and crude prices will be substantially higher than they are today come the end of 2015."
We expect physical crude markets will be on the turn by mid-year. They will be on the turn as demand strength will be coming through in response to lower prices. We are likely to have irrefutable evidence of a substantial supply response in both the North American shale plays and the North Sea conventional volumes by mid-year. The balances in the energy market explored in our full analysis will look very different by June. Between now and the end of June, peak weakness in physical crude markets is likely in mid-Q2 as inventory piles up in floating storage facilities. So, when will equity markets move from extreme bearishness to something less manically depressed? Our best guess is soon.
Equity investors are waiting for signs of demand strength or supply weakness, and the default position today is "big oil has yet to cut, so there is no supply response". We expect that to change, and change in a big way, with the upcoming fourth quarter results. Capex reductions will be savage. Anyone arguing for no supply response after the Q4 updates is not listening or does not understand what is going on in boardrooms across the industry.
Of course there are risks to adding exposure to the energy sector here and we would be amiss if we ignored those risks. There are three key risks at this point in our mind. Firstly, oil demand may come up short of expectations if we have an emerging market crisis. Secondly, there is the risk that the Saudis genuinely want a price war and decide to increase production, as opposed to the current strategy of simply talking markets down. And thirdly, if US volumes prove more resilient than we expect despite savage capex cuts then that would point to prolonged weakness in oil prices.
We go into more detail in our full analysis found at the link below, but the long and the short of our argument is that we believe the window for closing underweight positions will be short, and crude prices will be substantially higher than they are today come the end of 2015.
Please find the full analysis below.
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text:
When should I use 101?
You should call 101 to report crime and other concerns that do not require an emergency response. For example, if:
- Your car has been stolen
- Your property has been damaged
- You suspect drug use or dealing in your neighbourhood
Or to:
- Give the police information about crime in your area
- Speak to the police about a general enquiry
You should always call 999 when it is an emergency, such as when a crime is in progress, someone suspected of a crime is nearby, when there is danger to life or when violence is being used or threatened.
What about nuisance or environmental issues?
You should continue to contact your local council about general issues in your area like:
- Dog fouling
- Abandoned vehicles
- Dumping and fly tipping
- Vandalism of public property
For information about how to contact your local council please visit www.gov.uk/find-your-local-council.
Where is 101 available?
101 is only available if you are calling from within England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland.
If you need to contact a police force whilst you are abroad, please check the website of the force you wish to contact. Please see the complete list of force websites for links. Please note that some forces may not advertise local numbers that can be called from abroad and that where such numbers are made available, they may not be staffed 24/7.
How much does it cost to call 101?
Calls to 101 (from both landlines and mobile networks) cost 15 pence per call, no matter what time of day you call, or how long you are on the phone.
The 15p cost of the call goes to the telephony providers to cover the cost of carrying the calls. The police receive no money from calls to 101.
Who will answer my 101 call?
When you call 101, the system will determine your location and connect you to the police force covering that area. You will hear a recorded message announcing the police force you are being connected to. The recorded message will then give you a choice of which force to be connected to.
Calls to 101 are answered by police officers and staff in the control room of the local police force. This ensures that staff with local knowledge can answer and deal with the calls and respond appropriately.
I am deaf, hard of hearing or speech impaired, can I use 101?
Yes, you can textphone 18001 101.
What if English is not my first language?
Your local police have access to professional interpreters so they can arrange to translate your call if you have difficulty speaking English.
What should I do if the 101 number is blocked on the phone at my workplace / college / business premises?
Please contact the person who administers your phone system to request that access is opened to the 101 number. In the meantime, please check the website of the force you wish to contact. Please see the complete list of force websites for links. Please note that some forces may not advertise local numbers that can be called from abroad and that where such numbers are made available, they may not be staffed 24/7.


text:
Romulo Yanes
Chicken wings also work well here. Use 3 pounds, and skip the rice flour and cornstarch coating.
- Yield
- Makes 4 to 6 servings
- 1/2 cup Sriracha
- 1/2 cup unseasoned rice vinegar
- 1/4 cup mirin (sweet Japanese rice wine)
- 1/4 cup red currant or strawberry jelly
- 12 large chicken drumsticks
- Kosher salt
- 1 cup rice flour
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- Ingredient info: Sriracha, mirin, and rice flour can be found at many supermarkets and at Asian markets.
- Bring Sriracha, rice vinegar, mirin, and jelly to a boil in a small heavy saucepan over high heat. Reduce heat to medium; simmer, adjusting heat if necessary, until mixture is thick and reduced to 3/4 cup, about 10 minutes. DO AHEAD: Can be made 1 week ahead. Cover; chill. Rewarm before using.
- Place drumsticks in a large bowl and season generously with salt. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour. Preheat oven to 450°F. Whisk rice flour and cornstarch in a medium bowl. Place a wire rack on a rimmed baking sheet. Using a paper towel, pat drumsticks dry. Dredge in rice flour mixture, shaking off excess. Arrange on prepared rack.
- Roast drumsticks, turning frequently, until skin is browned and crisp, 50-60 minutes. DO AHEAD: Can be made 1 day ahead. Let cool, cover, and chill. Rewarm in a 450°F oven for 10-15 minutes before continuing.
- Combine hot drumsticks and 1/4 cup sauce in a large bowl; toss to coat. Return drumsticks to rack and roast, turning once, until skin is crisp and sauce is beginning to brown, 8-9 minutes. Brush with additional sauce and serve remaining sauce alongside.


text:
I like a bit of technology with my beauty so I was pretty interested to try out some products from the Per-fekt beauty range!
Per-fekt beauty is a innovative beauty range that has added benefits, like being free of wax, talc and mineral oil (where applicable!).
I tried out two of their bestsellers, Skin Perfection Gel & Cheek Perfection Gel.
The skin perfecter is an unusual skin enhancing product that is an alternative to foundation, primer and colour corrector. It has a gel-mousse texture which has a sort of silicone-y feel to it but it doesn't bunch up on the skin.
Here are the shades:
It goes from translucent to decadent for darker skintones, although, it's a very sheer product so I reckon you could be a bit off and still be ok. Think tinted moisturiser type coverage.
The packaging is cute:
Here are the products! I got the skin perfection gel in Radiant, and Blushed in the cheek gel. They say:
This multitasking formula glides on effortlessly to instantly per-fekt and enhance the appearance of the cheeks. Smart Color Technology™ assures a perfect color match for any and every skin tone. Niacin (Vitamin B3) helps to increase circulation, and antioxidants Caffeine, Vitamins A and E protect from free radical damage.
Here is each product – you can see they have a really thick texture but they blend out easily to a light, dewy look (think Armani Face Fabric quite texture).
This product is very interesting indeed – I prefer a medium coverage product, but to be honest, I think this did a great job at calming down the redness in my skin and adding a really nice glow. On the other hand, I think it struggled with any major blemishes and concealer was a must.
The cheek gel is nice also, blending away to create a natural dewy glow. Both products feel light on the skin too.
On me:
The shade I was sent I think matched really well and yes, I'd definitely incorporate this into my skincare routine, for day time looks and for good skin days.
On the downside I felt it didn't last all day (the skin perfection gel and the blush) and because of the lovely finish I didn't want to powder over it so it wasn't set properly in the first place.
My skin is dry with an oily t-zone, this product coped fine. I wouldn't recommend it for overly oily skin or for skin that requires a lot of coverage.
The Skin Perfection Gel is £49.50 and the Cheek Perfection Gel is £25. Buy it from House of Fraser.


text:
The International Search Summit Afternoon Sessions included a great Case Study from Motoko Hunt for Adobe in Asia Pacific Markets, Challenges in the Middle East with Lee Mancini from Sekari, Yandex announce new features, and Don DePalma from the Common Sense Advisory discuss tools for Globalized websites and content.
Adobe: SEO In Asia Case Study – Motoko Hunt – Adobe
- Adobe is shifting from agency model to inhouse SEO.
- Manage all brands and markets in house.
- Now there are 8 people on global SEOteam.
- Have 30+ domains and sub domains 150+ products and services in over 90 countries.
- Organised Adobe Search Team
- Adobe put Organic and Paid Search under the one team so they can exchange the data, learn from one another.
- One benefit of bringing search functionality in house is that:
- they have a better communications with stakeholders, product teams, web teams
- they all have their goals and targets
- they share it with us. We then combine with our strategies.
Be Strategic
- Be customer- focused through competitive and audience analysis
- Focus on BU priorities
- Engage closes stakeholders in regular training.
When companies use the agency model, they audit your site and give you list of actions to do. The SEO person then has to pass this to the content writing team, web design team and so on. This is really creating the image that SEO is creating additional work for me. That is why people reject or do not want to pay attention to SEO.
Integrated and Data Driven
- Begin with the end in mind on key business metrics
- Be involved from beginning in full project life cycle
- Align Search best practices with All Content marketing goals
Based on this… Put SEO Early and Often
- Provide the SEO data and recommendations throughout the product and web life cycle
- Align the metrics and segmentation used for reports with other BU
- Product Development/Marketing
- IT/Web Strategy/ Web Design
- Content Writing/Localisation
- Reporting
- Plan ahead to stay credible
- Capitalize on market opportunities of global + non-brand keyword optimization
- Make sure you share the data with the team – because you changed the website, this is what has happened.
1. In- country keyword research
2. Each keyword mapped to preferred landing page
3. Content localized using keywords (content, video, images, links)
4. Reviewed by Editorial and SEO and added to Sitemaps
5. Localized and optimized content goes live
In Adobe they are lucky, they have offices in each country they do the SEO work.
SEO Engagement Model
Center of Excellence
- Uniform KPIs and Tools – what to measure and why?
- Education – eg best practice, guidelines, training, data sharing
- Governance – common standard, policies and methodologies, uniformed technique, approach and method
- Mentoring and Support
Prioritize Projects Using Agile Marketing
- Scrum Methodology
- Prioritized team projects (200+)
- Twice weekly "stand up" meetings
Adapatable, Collaborative, Accountable, Organized & Measurable
Keywords/PLPs Sharing
- Share all this with the marketing team, PPC team, the social media team
- It is important to share the keywords with social team
- Share resources, this helps with internal linking
Search and Social
- Once a company starts sharing the keywords with the social team
- they started to optimise the content and the conversions increased.
Tools for Each Process
Adobe use a number of tools for each element of the SEO process.
- Centralize and standardize the metrics, best practices and process
- Localize for local keyword demand, local search trend, local market goals and – local calendar
- Back up the SEO recommendations with data
- Communicate with local stakeholders and Bus
The Challenges of The Middle East – Lee Mancini – Sekari
Getting it Right in Russia – Preston Carey – Yandex
- In 2012 Russia became the largest internet audience in Europe.
- Low penetration – high upside. Only 51% penetrated
- Russian Ad market Is booming. It is growing at 25% a year. And online adspend is also growing.
Where does this money go? (insert photo)
- In terms of all the different channels, paid search is growing the most, 63% a year.
- Yandex is getting half of total online spend.
- Google has 26% market share
- Yandex 30% market share
- Mail.ru and Rambler are two local providers.
- Mail.ru mail but rambler switch search provider depending on who is paying them most money
- Russian is the 4th largest spoken language in the world
Yandex Overview
- Yandex is #1 search leader – 60.5%
- Yandex is the number 1 internet destination in Russia, 44% of Russina users' home page
- Leading online advertising platform
- Largest Russian internet business (went public 2011)
- Yandex is the largest map provider in Moscow
- Update the maps every week due to new construction
- Yandex's reaches far beyond search (insert photo)
- Yandex takes the 5th place in the world ranking of search engines
- Yandex is also in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus
- Turkey – first international market
- Turkish market is the fast growing and sizeable
- Yandex's offers maps and map based services
This growth is because of the continuous focus on innovation. Yandex is the Gateway to the Russian Internet.
SEO for Yandex
- Organic engine rewritten and launched as MatrixNet in November 2009
- Most of the old advice doesn't apply anymore
- Machine learning based, Archetypal sites chosen as targets by Assessors
- Makes advising on SEO v hard, Yandex don't even know what the weights are
- There is no formal customer support team for SEOs
- There is a very good webmaster tools (available in English)
- There are also general written guidelines to how to get included in the index
New, maps and services
- Mobile versions on all services
- Yandex are fully capturing the mobile audience in their Maps service
- Yandex is focused on Maps and is on the iOS6 – new iPhone 5 or upload iOS6
- When search in Russia, then Yandex maps on the iPhone will load
- Yandex Market – launched the Apparel clothing and shopping.
- They have it round music and cars as well
This morning, Yandex Browser was launched. It is launched on the chromium technology. Yandex have partnership with Opera and also Kaspersky – went live today !!!
Want to try Yandex?
- Contact the international bus dev team
- Free translation, training and initial setup
- Local optimization and campaign feedback
- Dedicated English speaking Account Manager in Moscow
- Web based reporting, budgeting etc all available in English
SEO Tools for a Globalized Website – Don DePalma – Common Sense Advisory
- We know languages – traditional translation and localization teams
- We know marketing – Marketing, social engagement, customer care, business intelligence.
- Localisation maturity, helping these internal groups break down the walls to other organisations.
What have the SEO teams been doing?
They have been:
- Doing what you have head about all day today
- Developing machine readable keywords and keyphrases for their domestic marketing
- Using specialized tols
What have the translation teams been up to:
They have been:
- Working on top level domains in the target market, sometimes with local IP addresses
- Translating the websites that live at those addresses
- Coordinating that translation activity with branding, marketing campaign, product literation
- They are also helping develop the customer experience.
The important thing about this slide, not just talking about getting sometone to the site, getting them further through the customer experience level (CEL)
- Language only for marketing and customer care.
- To reach 80% of the world's total online population, you need at least 12 languages.
Marketing and translation team sometimes have conflicting goals
Translation's goal
- consistency within and among various websites, owner's manuals, and customer care to ensure findability, accuracy of results, and easy update of all related materials
- Business requirements demand that trnalsators use the same translation memory
Marketing goal
- Get people to the site or product
- Stick to brand identity, marketing message, campaign etc
Assess the value of what the translation teams offer
Linguistic assets
- language skills
- Translation memory
- Style guides
- Terminology databases and glossaries
- Transcreation awareness
Vendor management – they know who's won
- Focus on just-in-case translation
- Work on high0volume throughput
- Emphasis on absolute quality rather than accessibility and searchability
Review the tools that translation teams
Vendor Management
Translation memory tool
- Translated works done before, this is source and suggested content.
How translation memory works
- TM uses a one to one pairing of source and target
- If there are multiple matches, a translator or algorithm must select the best match
Why translation memory fails for keyword matches
One to one correspondences don't work for SEO because:
- the source (original) Language may contain a dozen relevant keywords and phrases
- Benefit – TM is starting point for identifying cross
How terminology databases work
- Terminologist populate and mange term bases
- Their job is to identify, categorize, manage and propagate the consistent use of terms
- Most terminology software allows for one to many relationships (v important feature)
- Terms can be annotated and special cases like SEO can be described in detail (eg hreflang)
There are pros and cons of terminology management
How machine translation works – or doesn't
– Rules based (morphological and lexical) or statistical
– Options:
- Raw multi tenant MT a la Google and Bing Translator
- Trained layered tenant MY a la Bing with APO
- Commercial solutions both in the cloud and on premises, trained to company lexicon, style guide and other assets.
- Many translation professionals still look askance at MT
- If its not trained, those professionals will be proved right
- But ….. MT may be better than no translation
How to address these two camps
1) Develop a creative brief
- Its function – help SEO sepcialists and tranlsaition teams understand and reflect campaign goals in their work
- Involve the locales (language and country)
2) Develop a style guide for every locale
- Address SEO in a chapter or dedicated subsection
3) Research and build up SEO linguistic assets
Document the keywords in the creative briefs, style guides and terminology system
4) Work closely with the translation department
5) Tweak translaton memory and term bases
Translation teams bring a lot of locale expertise to the table to SEO but it must be managed correctly by the in house marketing team.
Search in Asia: Tips for Success – Michael Bonflis – Webcertain US
- 538 million Chinese (35% growth since last year)
- 2% in Urban East Coastal Areas
- 800 million mobile users
- Baidu has 78.5% market share.
Preparation: Translating your site into Chinese
- Mandarin – China and Taiwan
- Cantonese – Macao and HK and Guangdon/Canton provinces
HK and Taiwan use Yahoo
Written Chinese
- Simplified chinese came out 50 years ago
- Before it was very complicated to write Chinese
- PinYin (taking from characters to western)
- Use numbers to avoid confusion – 4399.com
- Chinese sites have lots of links, cause cant type things, do not know what looking for
Domains in China
- PinYin URLs preferred
- Brand.cn
- Chinese character Limit URL (20 characters)
- Registering Domains – hard to register this on your own
- Hosting domains in China, big deal. China has a big firewall, stops data getting out. Also connectivity as a whole. Access is difficult
- Getting hosting in China, v hard. – need 3 primary certificates for domains, hosting and online advertising and China.
Tips on Baidu's paid search
- KW research available through Phoenix Nest account
- There is a KW research tool that Baidu provides. Best thing to do is hire expert in that market.
- Ad title – character limits
- Ad copy limits
- Baidu also has site links
- Match keywords and ads to landing pages – keep relevance
- Website and lading pages should be tested
Organic Search
- Title tag is most important
- Meta description has algorithmic value
- No non relevant keywords allowed
- Use lots of links on home page
- Content rich – 700 words +
- No duplicate content (use robot text)
- No flash/java script
- Backlinks: quantity and quality
- Baidu has its own webmaster tools, it is all in Chinese
- Sitemap submission tool
- Crawl pressure test
- Robot tools
- Dead link report
- Page optimization analyser
Social media signals are also a big deal. Weibo is Chinese version of Twitter and is being incorporated in search results.
Ecommerce in China: Toaboa
- Owned by Alibaba More c2c focuses
- Like eBay – more stores than auctioneers
- 400million plus registered users
Alipay and Union pay for payment systems in China
Naver – Organic search marketing
- Planning for NAver
- Naver Agency relationship
- Domain names and hosting
- Paid search marketing
- Korean and English only language
- 3 types ad
- Naver only has keyword groups, no campaigns, keyword type only broad type
Key to Naver is mastering content
- Naver café/ naver blogs
- User generated topics and blogs
- Naver IN (knowledge Q&A)


text:
Nailbiter Lyrics
Every time I turn my head
They all vanish but I sense their breath
Well God knows if these people are real?
-And I'm falling keep on falling
All cheap shots make me blinded by fear
I´ve quit speaking no one ever hears
This world was never meant for me
-And I'm crawling always crawling
A little each day –takes this fear inside of me-Nail by Nail
A piece from reality
By all the morbid faces I see
They never rest and never..
Nail By Nail -Take this fear inside of me
So close but out of reach
It never rest´s and never sleeps
Never rest and never…
Dark clouds seem to block out the sun
One thousand roads but nowhere to run
All these voices keep screaming to me
Can you hear them do you hear them?
In my mind I'm never alone
This small cell is a crowded room
Hey doc is this solitude?
Can you seem them do you see them?


text:
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text:
Cash grants under a federal programme included in last February's stimulus package provide wind project owners and developers of wind projects with an investment tax credit (ITC) offsetting 30% of installed capital cost. The grants are available to both commercial and community wind projects but are particularly valuable for the latter. Before the global meltdown, wind developers frequently partnered with deep-pocketed companies that wanted to take advantage of production tax credits (PTCs) to reduce big tax burdens by $0.021/kWh for energy produced during the first half of a wind project's life. The arrangement fuelled the voracious US commercial market for years, while leaving most would-be community developers in the lurch. But the ITC removes the need for such partnerships, because wind developers no longer need to find a partner with a large tax bill, opening new doors to community wind.
A recent report from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) highlights enthusiasm for the programme. It says the grants provide benefits worth considerably more than the PTC to most community wind projects and encourage outside investors. The government promises cash payment within 60 days of connection to the electricity grid and developers are allowed to declare the money to lenders ahead of construction to secure loans, giving them a better shot at financing.
One drawback is that the application process cannot be altered midway if estimated costs spike. And the programme, which ends in 2012, contains a clause requiring construction to begin this year. "But there's very little not to like about it," says Mark Bolinger, the report's author, who expects the construction deadline to be removed anyway. Because stipulations for the new incentives were decided only midway through last year, officials say it is too early to quantify how many projects will benefit.
Green with envy
In the northern state of Minnesota, home to 469MW of community wind power - more than a third of the total citizen-owned capacity of 1.4GW for all 50 states combined - green entrepreneurs are looking north of the border with envy. Though the Canadian province of Ontario has only 1MW of community wind power, last year it passed green energy legislation favouring citizen-owned renewables as part of an initiative to eliminate reliance on coal by 2014. Key to the Canadian legislation, and the envy among US neighbours, is a feed-in tariff providing 20-year power purchase agreements (PPAs) worth C$0.145/kWh (US$0.136/kWh) for community-based projects - one Canadian penny more than the commercial rate. Armed with these payments and the promise of interconnection, Canadian community developers in a difficult economy become the apple of lenders' eyes. By mid-December, more than 8GW of new renewable energy projects, commercial and community, had applied for government mandated power purchase price contracts in Ontario.
"Ontario did a great job," says Lisa Daniels, founder and executive director of Windustry, a Minnesota-based non-profit organisation that advocates community wind. "They flipped their whole energy system on its head and it really goes to the heart of the problem."
Pockets of progress
Communities in the US do not want to be left behind. A group of publicly owned utilities in Washington state was recently able to harness the PTC to connect a 200MW wind project, securing 20 years of power at well below market prices while planning a 100MW second phase. In Colorado, state legislation allows utilities striving to meet renewables standards to count community wind megawatts at 1.5 times a projects' actual output. In Oregon, the controversial Business Energy Tax Credit has doled out millions of largely unchecked dollars to wind but is undergoing legislative revision to tighten up the process by which successful applicants are chosen.
Feed-in tariffs are providing incentives to local ownership in Maine and Vermont. Vermont has a 2.2MW project limit. State legislators will revisit their per-kilowatt-hour rate at two-year intervals to reflect changing power prices and there is hope the rate will be raised. Maine's tariff, aimed at community wind but still lacking specifics, has a 51% local project ownership structure. It limits developments at 10MW, considerable for a state totalling roughly 100MW last year. Sue Jones, president of Community Energy Partners, which helped get the law passed, is optimistic. "Now that it's in place, I think it's going to really jump-start community wind projects," she says. In December, the 4.5MW Fox Islands project on the island of Vinalhaven, Maine, went online. Widely considered the largest community development in the eastern US, the three GE turbines produce enough electricity to supply Vinalhaven's population, which swells from 1800 to 3000 when seasonal dwellers arrive, plus a smaller sister island.
Islanders' power bills were significantly reduced and copycat projects nearby are likely, says George Baker, CEO of Fox Islands Wind. "When people look out their windows, see these wind turbines and flip on the light switch, they feel the connection," adds Baker. "If you do a project and the community actually gets to control and benefit from things, people love turbines in their backyard."
In 2005, Minnesota passed the pioneering community-based energy development (C-bed) law requiring utilities to award contracts to generation plant operators with at least 51% in-state project ownership and setting a higher rate for the power during the first ten years. In 2007, Nebraska followed suit with a law requiring 33% home-grown ownership. There have been results. By end-2011, Minnesota-based utility Xcel expects to have 300 of its 500MW goal of C-bed community projects connected, while all 153MW in Nebraska are already considered C-bed.
But C-bed is not without problems. Nebraska Farmers Union President John Hansen, who spearheaded the Nebraska legislation, says the spirit of the law has changed. "The qualified owners are corporate executives who live in Nebraska, but they're corporate executives from Omaha, not rural folks," he says. "We also know that two-thirds of the profits from some projects are going to leave the state."
In Minnesota, transmission has reached capacity and even small projects are difficult to connect, says Mike Bull, senior resource analyst for Xcel. He points to a study concluding the problem is unlikely to be solved even by those projects located close to their electricity customers. "We have to build transmission," Bull says. Even tiny projects come with their own risks. "If you lose a single turbine out of a two-turbine wind farm, you've lost half of your revenues and you can't carry your debt," Bull says.
Unclear definition
Other problems persist. Interconnection queues are difficult to navigate and transmission shortage is a dilemma. Economic stagnation has reduced electricity demand, making it easier for utilities to reach renewables targets without offering large numbers of PPAs to projects.
Meantime, the definition of community wind is itself unclear. Some say the term refers to projects 51% owned by state citizens. Others apply it simply to projects where local landowners get significantly more than a simple lease payment for hosting turbines. "If you can't really explain to a congressman what you're talking about, it's hard to convince him to actually pass policy that's good for your sector," says Hansen.
Indeed, Dan Juhl, a pioneer of community wind from Minnesota, believes a federally mandated purchase power price regime and national renewables standard are unlikely. "Utilities have too much political horsepower in this country," he says. Obstacles notwithstanding, community wind is hitting its stride. That bodes well for community wind projects seeking not only the acceptance of local regulators but the nation as a whole.


text:
Regular price
Rs. 280.00
Rs. 190.00
100% Handmade crochet doilies used to make beautiful dreamcatchers. It can also be used beautifully for dressing up your serving tray and table.
Size: 5.5 Inches
Colour: Golden Yellow
Quantity Per Packet: 1 Unit
Thread: Mercerized Cotton
Dimensions may vary slightly due to its nature of the handmade process.
Sold Out


text:
You MUST be logged in and Verify Tax Exempt Status before completing your purchase. Once logged in, you may verify your status and continue shopping.
"Staying Safe on the Internet" is a prevention education program designed to help educators present a very important topic, internet safety. This program is geared towards students and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. After extensive research on internet safety, it was clear that there is a lack of information on the topic regarding individuals with intellectual disabilities. "Staying Safe on the Internet" helps to address the issues that may face this population.
Program includes: Information about Transitions; Full Teacher's Guide; Curriculum; Principles for Safety Program; Promotional Program Brochure; Video/DVD; 3-Part Script; Guide for Safe Internet Use for Students; Guide for Parents and Caregivers.


text:
Over the last several years I've been trying to figure out how to reconfigure my house so that I still have some privacy, but am also able to serve the needs of guests who come to stay in the wagon stations or camp out in the wash on the west side of A-Z West. Eventually, when I have a little more cash, the long term plan is to pipe water down to the parcel and build a kitchen and showers down there – but in the meantime I've been working on an outdoor kitchen next to the house so that people can use whenever they want. TK Smith, fabricator extroidinare, came up with this deluxe design for my kitchen. I had wanted horizontal redwood siding, but was worried about wood not holding up on the south side of the house, which gets blasted with sun. TK came up with the horizontal metal design – that will eventually rust to match the rest of my house. two weeks ago while I was traveling back east he put the final touches on the kitchen – amazing!
Outdoor Kitchen
One Comment On "Outdoor Kitchen"
It looks fantastic! And the fire ring is spectacular.
TK continues to blow me away with everything he builds. I keep trying to figure out how to build a grill for our patio as nice as the one he fabricated. Hopeless endeavor. He's just too good.
Leave a Reply


text: VanderCook is a great school! The fact that we learned everything, (instrumental, choral, orchestral, general music, etc.) has prepared me so much for my first teaching job. I am the general music teacher at Bright Elementary and Sunman Elementary in Indiana. Even though my students are young, the same concepts and ideas we learned at VanderCook apply to them. Their level of understanding may be different but the information is still the same. VanderCook did a great job of preparing us with the essential information and teaching us how to share it with all different age levels. I credit much of my success to VanderCook. I learned to be a teacher. I learned about myself. And, I was always reminded why I went into music. The professors are amazing and the staff is wonderful. VanderCook will always be a home for me and I am so grateful I had the opportunity to be a part of its great community.


text:
Mike Adams
Natural News
April 2, 2013
I'd like to share a lesson in economics today, and I call it the "Production, Coercion and Theft" lesson.
There are only three ways to accumulate money and wealth in world (other than stumbling across a hidden treasure and actually finding money, that is):
#1) Production: Offer something of value in exchange for money voluntarily traded by recipients
#2) Coercion: Confiscate money (or stores of value) by claiming authority over those who earn it
#3) Theft: Steal money (or stores of value) from those who already have it
Every person in society today acquires money in these three ways (with "gifting" being a fourth way that's in a separate category because it's passive, not active). The office worker, the entrepreneur, the laborer, the weekend burglar and even the professional politician all acquire money in one of these three primary ways.
Production means offering something of value to another party who is willing to trade you dollars for it. It can include both goods and services. A 9-5 office worker, for example, offers the value of their time and effort, and in exchange they are compensated at an agreed upon pay rate.
Production can also mean adding value to physical goods. We do this at the Natural News Store by sourcing organic superfoods from around the world and packaging them in pouches and cans for retail in the USA. This is a classic example of value-added production.
Out of the three methods of money accumulation covered here, production is the only one that adds abundance to the economy. The other two methods reduce wealth and ultimately promote poverty.
Coercion means forcing someone to give you money. This is the default method of all government bodies, from your local property tax collector to the federal IRS. Coercion means extracting money from someone in a non-mutually-agreed (i.e. "non-voluntary") way.
A mugging is money extraction via coercion. Ironically, it is almost identical to taxation: There is a threat of force stated or implied, followed by a request for a certain amount of money: "Give me your wallet" or "Pay $12,453.24." Your compliance results in the source of the coercion taking your money then moving on to their next victim. Non-compliance results in you either being shot, stabbed, arrested at gunpoint or stripped of other possessions you may own.
Theft is different from coercion in that there is no interaction at all between two parties. Theft is when someone breaks into your house and steals your flat screen TV when you're not even there. Or it's when someone breaks into your online bank account and transfers all your money to an offshore crime haven in Nigeria.
Theft is what recently happened in Cyprus, where banksters stole 40% or more of private account balances, later stealing 60% or more of many business accounts. It wasn't coercion because there was no threat of force, nor any compliance on your part. You simply wake up one morning and find that your bank account, your truck, your wallet or your laptop computers is missing. That's theft… and that's how the global banking system fundamentally functions.
Another advanced kind of theft is committed by the Federal Reserve. By printing new money, it steals the value of all the money you currently hold. This is called "currency theft" but a full discussion of it is beyond the scope of this lesson. For now, let's stick to simple theft and coercion.
The illusion of compliance
Governments typically shy away from engaging in outright theft. Why? Because they hope to create the illusion of voluntary compliance. By coercing you into giving up your money "voluntarily," they avoid the appearance if outright stealing money or property from you. You "agreed" to pay your taxes, didn't you?
In certain cases, of course, the government does engage in outright theft. This is called "eminent domain" and it means the government simply claims ownership of something you own (usually some land or a building), then decides how much money to pay you for it. The government claims the right to steal from you for "the common good," implying that the benefit of some is more important than protecting the private property rights of all.
Theft is also carried out through misrepresentation and fraud. If a used car salesman sells you a 2005 Chevy pickup with "only 25,000 miles" on it, but it turns out they hacked the odometer and the vehicle actually has 300,000 miles on it, that's misrepresentation and fraud.
This is very common in the food industry where "extra virgin olive oil" often turns out to be cut with GMO canola oil. Or where "tuna fish" actually isn't from tuna. In the health supplements market, misrepresentation and fraud is also common among heavily-hyped "miracle" supplements that claim impossible results. Acai weight loss pills are a good example.
Misrepresentation and fraud is how virtually the entire system on Wall Street operates, by the way. It's all a numbers game where investment houses sell stocks short while telling their customers to buy. The ratings are faked, the customers buy the stock, the investment brokers sell it short and wait for the stock to tumble from its artificial high, after which they rake in the profits.
Why governments prefer coercion to theft
By and large, governments far prefer coercion to theft. The IRS, for example, continues to insist that paying federal tax is a "voluntary" act. "Compliance is voluntary," they admit. But this brand of volunteerism comes with the heavy hand of coercion. A typical warning letter from the IRS threatens the recipient with losing all his property and spending years in jail if they refuse to comply.
So yes, paying the IRS is "voluntary" as long as you don't mind the consequences: Years in prison and the forfeiting of everything you own. That's classic coercion.
By the same token, a Chicago mafia goon could walk into a popular night club in 1929 and say, "You's gonna volunteer to pay us 20% of your profits, okay?" (Say that in your head with a cartoonish mob accent for better effect.) Followed by: "It would be a real shame to see a nice joint like this burn to ashes, y'know?"
This is not unlike the offer made by the IRS. Pay us 50% (or more) of your income, or lose your freedom.
Obamacare is implemented entirely by coercion. The gambit is this: Buy Obamacare health insurance, or we'll just conficate money right out of your paycheck. That has very little difference from the mafia's offer of "pay us 20% or we burn this place down." In both cases, it's a threat and a demand for compliance. That's coercion.
Coercion and theft are signs of a crumbling society
When society is healthy, production is the dominant method of wealth creation. But when society begins to fall into criminality, corruption and government gone bad, coercion and theft become the dominant methods for diverting wealth from those who have earned it into the hands of those who are receiving it.
All agents and employees of the government are, by definition, beneficiaries of coercion. Their salaries are paid entirely by the government's confiscation of wealth from private sector workers and businesses, all of whom comply solely because they are threatened with imprisonment if they fail to do so.
The ratio between production and coercion is a very good indicator of the level of freedom in any given nation. When tax rates are low, production is high because people have more incentive to start businesses, hire more people and produce more products or services. Wealth is primarily created by productivity
But when tax rates are high — more coercion — production plummets because the rewards for starting a business and hiring workers are diminished. The focus of the economy becomes government growth accompanied by increasing coercion / confiscation of private wealth.
When societies approach collapse, coercion shifts to outright theft: Stealing money right out of your bank account, for example, like we recently witnessed in Cyprus. Government also routinely target pension funds and even private retirement accounts, attempting to keep itself afloat by any means necessary.
In summary, the fall of society can be understood through these key transitions:
Abundant society = Freedom and liberty = Production and wealth creation
…then Production becomes Coercion
Coercion society = High taxes, growth of government = Wealth confiscation
…then Coercion becomes Theft
Theft society = Looting of private bank accounts, government seizure of industry = Wealth destruction
…Theft leads to Collapse
The EU has entered the stage of "coercion becoming theft." The collapse is near.
Readers always ask me for "sources" when I write original articles, so I'll answer this question up front: What is my source for this analysis? There is no specific source. These ideas are self-evident. I did not read them in any particular book or website, nor learn them in a course of some kind.
In a general sense, of course, these ideas are derivatives of libertarian / Austrian economics: Mises.org, Murray Rothbard, Lew Rockwell, Henry Hazlitt and others.
Click here to read "Economics in One Lesson" (PDF) and gain an understanding of economics vastly exceeding that of Ben Bernanke.
See the article just published on Mises.org which just happens to coincide with my own article here. It's entitled, Taxation is Robbery, Part 1.
If you really want to understand how the world works, read these websites:
www.TrendsResearch.com (Gerald Celente)
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