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Well if you read my previous post i like to write yeah maybe im not the best writer but i make my best to do it, english itsn`t my mother language but i can manage myself,
Ok courtesy its a good topic dont you think, personally i dont you folks but i had sent i dont how many email winks and post comments in people profile that i would like to chat unfortunate my rate of success is 10% of reply just reply,
but why happend this?? maybe its because im from a far land and they see as menace BUUU!! or maybe my lines aren`t strong enough to start a chat or i dont know maybe im to ugly naa my mother says that im beatifull =P , i will never know and i will tell why, people always ignore you, its more easy to ignore something that confront it.
Every time i sent a email i always wait to see if they respond but not always happen, only one time one girl amaze me ,she was very kind and let me know that she was seeking for something close to her cool no problem but it was 1 case in 50 (im very happy that at least she take the time to tell me)
If you dont want to be bother make a good profile of yourself every profile i visit i read from top to botton no matter the picture if its say friendship, pen pal ok i admit it friendship yeah you want to see someone close but penpal come on!!! why do you want a penpal in the same city when you can see it at least one day its absurd and ilogical.
another thing i always read this words open mind, friendly, and this one make me laugh "dont like to be ignore" if you aren`t in your daily life like this dont lie about it, and if you dont like to be ignored why you do it??, be yourself yeah in this kind of site we always try fill the pages like a employed form but its truly neccesary to lie about ourselfs
Its been said that in the internet you can be anything well be yourself
reply people if its only so say "no thank you" a little of courtesy will make the world better
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text:
Ecopipo onesize pocket nappy Vintage Flowers
Ecopipo onesize pocket nappy Vintage Flowers print fits snuggly on your baby's bum with our durable hook and loop (Velcro) system.
Your Ecopipo® pocket nappy fits your baby from 7-8 lbs (3.6 kg) up to 35lbs+ (16 kg) and it has a double ultra-soft elastic gusset system to reduce leaks.
This pocket nappy has a super soft, durable and stretchy back elastic that keeps your baby's stool in, without causing red marks on her delicate skin.
Ecopipo® one size pocket nappies are made using ethically sourced, eco-friendly fabrics to provide maximum comfort for your baby and total peace of mind for you.
Every nappy has, as standard, an insert made of one-third microfibers and two-thirds organic bamboo for maximum absorbency.
The waterproof outer layer of the nappy is made of good quality PUL (Polyurethane Laminate) which is the most common fabric used in cloth nappy covers, it ii formed of a soft outer fabric that is coated with a flexible and waterproof plastic material. The nappy's inside is lined with a super soft, easy to wash microfleece that keep your baby's bottom dry and fresh while wearing her nappy.
By using Ecopipo®'s onesize, pocket nappies you can save a fortune in disposables while reducing your household waste greatly. You can find more information about all your savings and waste reduction in our blog.
For your extra peace of mind, all our Ecopipo® onesize pocket nappies have our unique 2-year extended guarantee.
We thought you would like to know that Ecopipo® onesize pocket nappies was shortlisted as finalist for the Mother & Baby Award in 2017 when we first introduced them to Europe. This is the opinion of one of the M&B Independent Testers: "When I received this product I immediately loved the colourful print, they look very cute on my daughter in comparison to disposables! The design was very unique to this brand: an actual pocket for the pads and a gusset round the legs to stop anything leaking; great for when your little ones has a poo! The pocket also means that the damp pads aren't sitting on your little ones skin. This is a birth to potty nappy and the poppers on the front allow for the size to be adjusted".

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Database contains 87891 items submitted by the player community
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Dropped by
Lord Vyemm (The Laboratory of Lord Vyemm)
Confirmed Location
This feature is available only to the registered users.
Mob that drops this item also drops
a crate containing Vyemm's head
Blackcoat Chestplate
Doomrage Breastplate
Dracomancer Vestment
Dragonrib Club
Firebrand Breastplate
Gaudralek, Sword of the Sky
Nemesis Vest
Nightchord Tunic
Onyx Adamantine Gauntlets
Silver Bracelet of Rage
Silver Sword of Rage
Sledge of Smashing
Vehement Skin III (Master)
Vyemm's Fang
a dragon scale
Fabled Awakened Effigy of Vyemm's Power
Fabled Vyemm's Mutagenic Heart
Fabled Writ of Dragon's Grit
Glowing Mutagenic Gemstone
Iceshield VI (Master)
Lesser Essence of Runes
Moderate Essence of Ice
Rising Phoenix V (Adept)
Rune: Crit Bonus
Sublime Prismatic Adornment Dislodger
Wild Ethertouched Rune Pattern
Item submitted by Adaefia on 2014-09-23 20:43:20
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Follow RFF News on your cell phone. Text follow rff to 40404 you will receive txt messages with RFF News
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
We've got video from New Zealand!:http://youtu.be/NBQ9Muic83ANot much that we can tell but there it is...
A news story fresh from the New Zealand media!http://www.guardianonline.co.nz/news/latest-news/american-amazing-race-comes-to-town/American Amazing Race comes to townThe Amazing Race has hit Mid Canterbury.Teams in the American version of television's million dollar race around the world were spotted near Methven this morning taking part in a rural themed challenge at Mount Hutt Station before heading to Terrace Downs.It's understood the teams arrived last night and may have camped at the Rakaia Gorge overnight before jet boating on the Rakaia River early this morning.Teams were last seen driving north through Windwhistle.There's a picture with the story, but it doesn't show too much. It's a car with the cameraman in the front passenger seat, the sound guy in the back seat and a man driving. You can't see the other teammate. This agrees well with what we know since I believe KiwiJay said they were headed for the Rakaia Gorge Bridge. Rapppel or bungy to the campsite?Those locations are in a fairly small radius (5-10 miles?), so it seems reasonable. It looks like an area with scenic Alp like mountains and quite a bit of farming. There are several resorts in the area.
There it is...our HoO!
Can anyone find this on BoraBora? If it is on Bali...
to RFF Phatty!TBC=To Be Continued We also haveNEL=Non-Elimination Legand our newest:KOR for Keep On Racing legs!Sometimes it is difficult to know which is which!More Questions? Try over here as well:http://forum.realityfanforum.com/index.php/topic,24737.0.html
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Taiwan beat Indonesia 2-0 in their Fed Cup Asia/Oceania Group I relegation playoff on Saturday at the National Tennis Center in Astana, Kazakhstan, to retain their place in the group.
Taiwan, who were playing without top players such as Hsieh Su-wei, Chan Yung-jan and Chang Kai-chen, struggled in Pool B, losing their matches against South Korea, Uzbekistan and China all by a 3-0 margin earlier in the week.
Taiwan finally got a much-needed victory when Yang Chia-hsien beat Tami Grende 7-6 (7/5), 6-4 in the opening singles rubber, before Chan Chin-wei battled to a 6-4, 6-7 (5/7), 6-4 victory over Lavinia Tananta.
The dead doubles rubber was not played.
Indonesia were relegated to Asia/Oceania Group II following the loss and are to be replaced by Hong Kong, who won their promotion playoff 2-1 against the Philippines.
Hong Kong's Eudice Chong defeated Anna Clarice Patrimonio of the Philippines 6-4, 6-1 in the first singles rubber, before Zhang Ling beat Marian Jade Capadocia 6-1, 6-4 to take an unassailable 2-0 lead.
In the Group I promotion playoff, Thailand defeated Uzbekistan 2-1 to advance to the World Group II playoffs in April.
In yesterday's Fed Cup action, Australia stormed into the semi-finals for the first time in 21 years with a commanding 4-0 performance spearheaded by two Samantha Stosur wins and a comprehensive doubles display.
Stosur, the world No. 16 and 2011 US Open champion, needed exactly one hour to see off 158-ranked teenager Victoria Kan in a straight sets 6-2, 6-3 win over the 18-year-old Fed Cup debutante to secure an unassailable 3-0 lead over Russia.
"I'm very, very happy. She [Kan] can do a lot of different things, she does everything nicely and when she gets older and a little bit more strong I'm sure that will all come together," Stosur said.
Ashleigh Barty and Casey Dellacqua sealed a clean sweep of the Russians with an emphatic 6-1, 6-3 doubles win over Irina Khromacheva and Valeria Solovyeva. Dellacqua said she and Barty had both had a "great week."
"We are going to play a lot together. Last year, she was only a baby, but she's 18 soon, she's becoming an adult and we're going to play a lot together and hopefully continue to improve on what we did last year," Dellacqua said.
Australia last made the Fed Cup semi-finals in 1993 and they have not beaten Russia since 1983.
They will meet either Germany or Slovakia next, with the Germans currently holding a 2-0 advantage in their tie in Bratislava.
Australia team captain Alicia Molik was delighted with the result.
"The Fed Cup is always a week to get the best out of each other. The support the players give each other has been fantastic this week and I want the girls to continue like this for the rest of the year," she said.
Australia went into yesterday's round with a commanding 2-0 lead after Dellacqua downed Irina Khromacheva, the only one of the four Russians who has competed in the world team event before, in straight sets.
Stosur then dispatched little-known 16-year-old Veronika Kudermetova — ranked 650th in the world — 6-4, 6-0.
She had been due to meet Khromacheva yesterday, but Russia reshuffled its line-up to send top-ranked Kan in against the dominant Australian. Russia, last year's losing finalists, are without their big names for the clash at the Domain Tennis Centre in Hobart, missing their top 13 players.


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People often ask me why they should grow their own food when they can just go to the grocery store and get whatever they want. Their days are already busy enough and they don't want to waste their time growing food.
This is certainly true. It doesn't really matter where you live or what the season may be, you can go to the store and get pineapple, spinach or whatever else you can think of.
So convenience definitely is not the answer. I do have a few answers though that I give to people. They are not rooted in scientific studies or reports that were compiled over years.
These answers are simple and here they are:
We are humans. We grow food.
For hundreds and thousands of years growing food is what people did. Societies and civilizations were built around fertile land and access to water.
Sitting around and staring at a computer monitor or television, like a lot of us do, is not normal. It's something that we just started doing in the past 100 or so years.
We have lost the sense of community that goes into growing food as well. There is the planting, tending to, harvesting, preparing, sharing and eating food. These days we just skip straight to the eating part and do that on the go as well.
Nearly all of those other responsibilities, especially the growing part, is now in the hands of someone else. Someone that we don't even know or can speak to. That's a lot of trust to put into a complete stranger.
Where is our food coming from?
On average our food travels 1,500 miles from the farm to our plates. That's a pretty long distance.
So the food is harvested, often times unripe and sprayed with chemicals (more on those later) to ripen them during transit and put on the store shelf.
Usually by the time produce makes it to the store, it's already 3-4 weeks old and lost a lot of its nutrients.
Also think about the cost of transporting the food that distance. Gas and other resources are utilized as well. Overall, it's not a very sustainable practice.
What's being used to treat the food?
As mentioned above, some of the produce is sprayed in transit to either ripen the food or to preserve it.
Chemicals, toxins, synthetics and sprays are often used to treat the produce while it's growing too. It's used to feed the plant, keep off pests and to hurry along the growing process.
I don't need a study to tell me that I don't want my food to be sprayed with chemicals that I'm going to then put into my body.
These are just a few of the reasons why you should start to grow your own food. There are many others, but these are simple and to the point.
I'm not saying that you should be completely self-sufficient and grow all of your own food. That wouldn't be realistic (yet). I do believe that if you grow just one herb or veggie that it will certainly make a difference.
What are some other reasons that you should start to grow your own food?


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South African Journal of Science
On-line version ISSN 1996-7489
Print version ISSN 0038-2353
S. Afr. j. sci. vol.104 n.5-6 Pretoria May./Jun. 2008
Chaotic linear systems in mathematical biology
J. Banasiak
School of Mathematical Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041, South Africa; and Instytut Matematyki Politechnik Łódzkeij, ul. Wólczańska Łódź, Poland. E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com
Chaotic phenomena occurring in the natural sciences have been a focus of interest of both theoreticians and experimentalists for over five decades. Usually associated with nonlinear systems, they can also appear in infinite dimensional linear ones; that is, governed by, for instance, infinite systems of ordinary differential equations or partial differential equations. In this paper we shall provide a survey of mathematical tools which are necessary to analyse chaotic linear systems and discuss several examples of such systems arising in mathematical biosciences, ranging from drift-diffusion processes, through mutations, to the production of blood cells. We shall also attempt to address some questions related to the relevance of the mathematical analysis to properties of real-life systems.
1. Introduction
Chaotic behaviour typically is associated with nonlinear phenomena. The original example of chaotic evolution, given in the paper of Lorentz,1 and all the subsequent results on chaotic behaviour of solutions to ordinary differential equations, refer to nonlinear systems; that is, in the equation
where '' denotes the time derivative, the function f is nonlinear (possibly acting in a multidimensional space n, in which case u = (u1,..., un)). In the Lorentz example we had n = 3, f = (f1, f2, f3) with f1(u1, u2, u3) = 10(u2 - u1), f2(u1, u2, u3) = -u1 + 28u1 - u1u3, f3(u1, u2, u3) =
In the last few decades, however, it has been observed that linear dynamical systems also can display a chaotic behaviour but for this they must be infinite dimensional. This means that the function f on the right-hand side of (1.1) must be, for instance, an infinite matrix, or a differentiation operator. That a finite dimensional linear system cannot produce chaotic behaviour should be intuitively clear: using the Jordan decomposition of a matrix we see that any finite dimensional linear dynamics is a superposition of finitely many simple ones (exponential, polynomial and trigonometric) and this cannot lead to any unexpected outcome.
First, we have to specify what is meant by a chaotic behaviour. There are several different, and not always equivalent, definitions of chaos; see ref. 2. The original idea, which appeared in Lorentz's paper,1 was that the solutions to (1.1) for large times behaved in a strange and unpredictable way. This characterization is prevalent today within physics and applied mathematics, and in modern language it is phrased as the system having a strange attractor. We shall not develop this notion further as, from the mathematical point of view, this concept is very difficult to work with, see ref. 3, and also it is not relevant to linear systems. Also, we shall not dwell on another popular approach to chaos based on the measure theory and ergodic properties of the system (see e.g. refs 4-6). Instead, we shall focus on the so-called topological definition of chaos and from many (to a certain extent equivalent) definitions we have chosen the one introduced in ref. 7.
Before stating this definition, we must make sure that we know what we are talking about. We start with an explanation of the dynamical system. First, when we are talking about a system, we mean a variable describing the state of the system. The same real (physical, biological, etc.) system may then be represented in many ways. If we are interested in, say, the evolution of the average temperature of a body, then, at each time, the state of the system will be described by a single variable, and thus the system will be one-dimensional. If we want to know the temperature of each point of the body, then for each time the state of the system is described by a function of three spatial variables; in such a case the system is infinite-dimensional because the set of all, say, continuous functions is not a finite dimensional linear space.
Hence, we describe the system by a variable taken from some set which is called the state space. Although in principle the state space may be any set, in what follows we shall require that it is at least a topological space so that the concept of neighbourhood of a point can be properly defined. However, most consideration will be carried out in a much narrower class of Banach spaces (linear spaces with a translation invariant and homogeneous metric).
A dynamical system is one whose state x ∈ X (X is the state space) changes with some parameter t (time). Two main types of dynamical systems occur in applications: those for which the time variable is discrete (like the observation times) and those for which it is continuous. Our main interest lies with continuous dynamical systems. The dynamics is usually described by a differential equation
where the operator A, which describes mechanisms driving the system, is called its generator. Precisely speaking, by a continuous dynamical system we understand a family of functions (operators) (G(t))t>0 such that for each t, G(t)x is a continuous function of x, for each x the function t → G(t)x is continuous with G(0)x = x, and for t > 0 and for x0 from a sufficiently large subset of X [called the domain of the generator A and denoted by D(A)], the function x(t) = G(t)x0 is a solution of the Cauchy problem
It is worth noting that if the solution to this problem is unique, then it has the following important property
which expresses the fact that the final state of the system can be obtained as the superposition of intermediate states. From the algebraic point of view, the above equation tells us that the dynamical system has a semigroup structure and therefore, especially in the linear case, it is called a semigroup of operators.
To define a chaotic dynamical system, we have to introduce the relevant terminology and notation. The orbit of (G(t))t>0 originating from x ∈ X is the set {G(t)x}t> 0. We say that (G(t))t> 0 is topologically transitive if for any two non-empty open sets U,V ⊂ X there is t0 > 0 such that G(t0)U ∩ V ≠ . Finally, a periodic point of (G(t))t> 0 is any point x ∈ X satisfying G(τ)x = x for some τ > 0.
Definition 1.1. Let X be a metric space.7 A dynamical system (G(t))t> 0 in X is said to be (topologically) chaotic in X if it is topologically transitive and its set of periodic points is dense in X.
Historically speaking, Devaney's definition of chaos contained one more condition: sensitive dependence on initial data (sdic), which commonly is regarded as a core property characterising chaos. However, it can be proved8 that topological transitivity and density of periodic points yield sdic.
Devaney's chaos is closely related to the property called hypercyclicity: a dynamical system (G(t))t> 0 is called hypercyclic if there is an orbit of (G(t))t> 0 which is dense in X; that is, it passes arbitrarily close to any point of X.
It turns out that hypercyclicity of a dynamical system is equivalent to its topological transitivity.9 Thus, Devaney's definition means that (G(t))t> 0 is chaotic if it has an orbit dense in X and its set of periodic points is dense.
2. Linear chaos
From now on we shall focus our attention on linear dynamical systems. A dynamical system (G(t))t> 0 is linear if for each t > 0 the operator G(t) is a linear bounded operator. In this case the generator A is also a linear, but not necessarily bounded, operator.
Even in this, in principle simpler, case proving chaoticity of a given dynamical system is not straightforward. Possibly the first systematic approach to determine whether a given linear system is chaotic was developed in ref. 10. It states (see Appendix A) that (G(t))t> 0 is chaotic if the point spectrum of its generator A contains an open set Ω in the complex plane , which intersects the imaginary line and, moreover, each set of eigenvectors corresponding to, respectively,
spans X. The last condition is usually quite difficult to check and that is why in Theorem A.2 we see a weaker requirement that there is a selection Ω ∋ λ → xλ of eigenvectors which is an analytic function, and whose range spans X. Recently, in ref. 11, the authors observed that the existence of such an analytic selection of eigenvectors in Ω alone (that is, without the assumption that its range spans X) suffices for the eigenvectors corresponding to each set to span the same space, say Xch, in which (G(t))t>0 is chaotic.
To describe such a situation in a general case, we introduce the following definition. If there exists a closed subspace Xch which is invariant under (G(t))t> 0and such that for some x ∈ Xch, then we say that (G(t))t> 0 is sub-hypercyclic. Furthermore, if (G(t))t> 0 is chaotic in Xch, then we say that (G(t))t> 0 is sub-chaotic. The subspace Xch is called, respectively, the hypercyclicity (chaoticity) subspace for (G(t))t> 0. Recently,11,12 it has been proven that for (G(t))t> 0 to be sub-hypercyclic (respectively sub-chaotic) it is enough that the set of eigenvalues of A contains a subset of the imaginary axis of non-zero measure over which the corresponding selection of eigenvectors is strongly measurable (respectively weakly continuous). Then (G(t))t> 0 is hypercyclic (respectively chaotic) in the closed span of the essential range of this selection.
It is worth noting that while sub-chaos (sub-hypercyclicity) is a weaker property than chaos (hypercyclicity), they still indicate the existence of trajectories oscillating between points of arbitrary small and arbitrary large magnitude (since Xch is a nontrivial linear space). Thus, from the point of view of, say, numerical analysis, subchaos is as bad as chaos itself.
It is equally important to distinguish cases when the dynamical system cannot be chaotic, even in a subspace. To this end, we note that, by Theorem A.4, the only subspace in which the semigroup could be chaotic is the complement of the space spanned by all eigenvectors of the adjoint to the generator A. Hence, if this complement is finite dimensional, then the semigroup cannot be subchaotic as there are no chaotic linear systems acting in finite dimensional spaces. In particular, if the adjoint of the generator has an eigenvalue, then (G(t))t> 0 cannot be chaotic in the whole space X. Indeed, then the complement of the chaoticity space Xch is nontrivial and thus Xch ≠ X.
This result allows us to rule out important classes of semigroups from being hypercyclic. For example, the dynamical system generated by the diffusion equation on a bounded domain is not chaotic, as then the resolvent is a compact operator and the point spectrum of A* cannot be empty. However, if we remove the boundedness of the domain, the situation changes diametrically.
Example10. On X = L2([0, ∞)) we consider the equation
It follows that if a, b, c > 0 and c < b2/2a < 1, then the assumptions of Theorem A.1 are satisfied and the semigroup (G(t))t> 0 solving (2.5) is chaotic. Since the adjoint of the generator is given by with the same boundary condition, we obtain from Theorem A.4 that the dynamical system generated by
is not chaotic in any subspace of L2([0, ∞)). These results can be intuitively explained by noting that the term in (2.5) describes flow towards the closed end x = 0 of the domain, whereas in (2.6) the term models flow towards the open end at x = ∞.
It is worth noting that there is a large gap between the sufficient and necessary criteria for chaos; at present any 'if and only if' result pertaining to the occurrence of chaos in general linear dynamical system seems to be far beyond our understanding of this phenomenon.
3. Birth-and-death type systems
Description of the models
Model 1. Development of drug resistance in cancer cells
A factor which can have a strong influence on the evolution of drug resistance of cancer cells is gene amplification. This process includes an increase in the number of genes responsible for coding a protein which aids either removal or metabolization of the drug. The more copies of the gene exist, the more resistant the cell, with the understanding that it can survive under higher concentrations of the drug. An increase in drug resistance by gene amplification has been observed in numerous experiments with in vivo and cultured cell populations. In addition, it has been established that tumour cells may increase the number of copies of an oncogene in response to an unfavourable environment. For further information, the reader is referred to refs 13-15, amongst others.
We consider a population of cancer cells stratified into subpopulations of cells of different types, labelled by numbers n = 0, 1, 2 . Because the biological process considered is gene amplification, cells of different types are identified as cells with different numbers of the drug resistance gene and therefore different levels of resistance. The cells belonging to 0-th subpopulation are sensitive to the drug. Due to a mutational event, the sensitive cell of type 0 can acquire a copy of the gene that makes it resistant to the agent. Likewise, the division of resistant cells can result in a change in the number of gene copies.
Empirical arguments support the hypothesis that the process described is subcritical; that is, in each cycle and at each level the probability of the decrease in the number of genes is greater than the probability of its increase. The randomness of the amplification process is modelled by a branching process.13 Since the number of gene copies can be very large, we use a model with an infinite number of cell subpopulations. As discussed in ref. 16, the infinite dimensional model provides a useful approximation of finite dimensional systems of arbitrarily high order, which are tractable only with numerical methods.
The process is characterized by two components: the conservative and the proliferative, which are described in detail below. The conservative component of the process describes the mutations of cells modelled as in a standard birth-and-death process. Here, αnΔt, for n > 0, is the chance of one mutation in the n-subpopulation shifting the mutated cell to the n + 1-subpopulation, and δnΔt, for n ∈ , is the chance of one mutation in the n-subpopulation shifting the mutated cell to the n-1-subpopulation (we assume that d0 = 0). The proliferative component is related to the assumption that the moment of death represents the moment of cell division with progeny of type n - 1, n or n + 1 and that the average life-span is given by the coefficient θn for the nth subpopulation (n > 0), described in detail below.
In practice, the same model arises in a context of microsatellite repeats.
Model 2. Microsatellite repeats
More than 95% of the human genome does not code any proteins. The non-coding DNA plays an organizational and regulatory role in the expression of genetic information. Large portions of non-coding DNA are organized in repeated sequences, which developed in different ways by amplification, transpositions or faults during replications. The shortest non-coding repeats of DNA are called microsatellites; they are repetitive sequences composed of 2-5 nucleotides and repeated 10-100 times. Formation of multiple repeats of such short units occurs most probably as a result of DNA replication errors in which slippage through the strand occurs. If not repaired, it gives rise to shortening or elongation of microsatellites with one or more repeated units. The stability of the number of repeats in a microsatellite sequence depends on the intact mismatch DNA repair and changes in the number of repeats accompany many diseases such as Huntington's disease, spinocerebellar ataxia type 1, the syndrome of fragile X chromosome or myotonic dystrophy; see e.g. refs 17-20. As mentioned above, the modelling is the same as in the case of gene amplificationdeamplification, only now the population is indexed by integers n = 0, 1, corresponding to different variants of the number of repeats in the microsatellite. The interpretation of coefficients is similar.
To derive a mathematical model in both cases, following refs 13 and 20, we adopt the following assumptions:
there exists denumerably many types of all particles, labelled with n = 0, 1, ;
the coefficients αn and δn are probabilities of mutation (in a unit time) from n to n + 1 and n - 1 type, respectively;
the life-spans of all particles are independent, identically distributed random variables with mean 1/θn ;
upon its death, each particle of type n produces a pair of progeny, which survive independently with probability βn and, for n > 1, independently of type n - 1, n + 1 or n with probabilities νn, ηn and 1 - ηn - νn, respectively;
each progeny of an 0-type particle is of type 0.
Standard balancing argument produces the system
where we denote a0 = - λ0 + b0 and an = -λn + bn + dn for n ∈ .
The coefficients λn represent the proliferating term given by λn = θn(2βn - 1), while bn and dn represent the conservative component and are given by
dn = 2βnνnθn + δn,
bn = 2βnηnθn + αn
To provide a rough idea of how the system (3.7) is derived, we note that the number of particles of type n increases due to the emergence of such particles at levels n - 1, and n + 1, represented here by the terms bn-1fn-1 and dn+1fn+1, respectively (note that the factor 2 corresponds to the fact that we are considering pairs of the progeny), and also by the production of type n progeny by type n parents, represented here by the term λnfn. On the other hand, type n particles are lost in the same way, by giving birth to type n - 1, n and n + 1 particles, and by mutations. In the coefficients dn and bn, the first terms, respectively, correspond to creation of particles of new type by birth whereas the second terms represent mutations.
Stability results. We denote by f(t) = {fn(t)}n> 0 the distribution function and by L the infinite matrix of the coefficients on the right-hand side of (3.7). The proper Banach space for the process defined by Equation (3.7) is the space l1, where the norm
of any element f in the positive cone = {f ∈ l1; f n > 0, n= 0, 1, 2 } represents the total number of cells. For the sake of completeness, we shall consider also the Banach spaces l p < p < ∞, and c0 (the space sequences converging to 0), with natural norms.
This model has been thoroughly investigated in the case of constant coefficients when the solutions can be found by Laplace transforms.13,16,18,20 In the case of no mutations, the assumption that progeny of type-0 particles are themselves of type zero decouples the first equation from the rest (in the sense that the system for n > 1 can be solved independently of the first equation):
The interest in the papers cited above was in the asymptotic behaviour of the resistant cells' population, n > 1. Assume that fn(0) = δ1n and define
It was found that
for t → ∞. Similar calculations can be done for other k. Thus, these solutions are exponentially stable provided
in addition to the subcriticality assumption d > b. Clearly, if this assumption is not satisfied, the functions f1 and fΣ grow exponentially fast with t → ∞. To the author's knowledge, the question whether constant coefficient birth-and-death type models can be chaotic in l p is still open. However, as described in Theorem 3.2, subchaos can be proved for a more general system with affine coefficient.
Variable coefficients - emergence of chaos. Constant coefficients are not always realistic. In ref. 22 the Equation (3.7) was considered under the assumption that the coefficients an, bn (for n ∈ 0), dn (for n ∈ ) are nonnegative and
(A1) for some a > 0, an = a + αn, n ∈ 0, with αn = 0,
(A2) for some d > 0 dn = d,
(A3) lim bn = 0.
To make these assumptions clearer, we note that the death-only systems with constant coefficients (bn = 0, dn = d and an = a with d > a) has been known to be chaotic for some time, see e.g. ref. 23. The results below can be interpreted as showing that the property of being chaotic persists when we consider small perturbations of such death systems with constant coefficients (including addition of a very small birth term). The exact form of the assumptions (A1)-(A3), and the constant q below, are related to the techniques of the proof.
Let p, p ∈ [1, ∞[∪{0} denote the operator, defined by the matrix L of coefficients of (3.7), in l p and c0, respectively. The operators p are bounded, hence they generate dynamical systems (Gp(t))t>0 in lp and c0, respectively.
Theorem 3.121. Let the ass umptions (A1), (A2) and (A3) be satisfied. There is q > 0 such that if |αn|< dqn+1, |b ndn-1|< d2q2n+4 and a < d, then the semigroup generated by p is chaotic in any lp, 1 < p < ∞, and in c0.
Consider the system transposed to (3.7)
and, by Theorem A.4, if (3.10) was chaotic in any subspace, then the co-dimension of the span of all eigenvectors of the operator in (3.7) in respective space would be finite. Since this is not true, we have
Corollary 3.1. Suppose that the sequences (an), (bn) and (dn) are as in Theorem 3.1.21 Then the semigroup generated by (3.10) is chaotic in no subspace of l p, 1 < p < ∞, or of c0.
Theorem 3.1 ensures the existence topological chaos for large deamplification ('death') rates and small amplification ('birth') rates, i.e. for the process which is subcritical. On the contrary, chaos will not appear in processes with small deamplification rates and possibly large amplification rates.
Let us compare our result with the stability result for the constant coefficients model. For simplicity, let dn = d, an = a, a < d and satisfy |bn|< dq2n+4; then λn = d - a + bn and the stability condition (3.9) for our model reads
This condition clearly is satisfied for large n provided assumptions (A1)-(A3) hold. This apparent contradiction can be explained by noting that the asymptotic stability result (3.9) was obtained for positive data of finite length. Even more, results contained in ref. 18 show that no chaotic behaviour is possible if the initial distribution converges to zero sufficiently fast as n → ∞. On the other hand, chaos in this model is (probably) related to the possibility of infinitely many switches between negative and positive entries in initial conditions. Though this may seem to limit relevance of the above results for real life biological systems, Proposition 3.1 offers another way of interpreting them.
The assumptions of Theorem 3.1 are often too restrictive - in most standard applications the coefficients may grow with n. This creates numerous problems starting from the generation of the semigroup through the construction of eigenvectors to their density in lp. In our analysis we adopt the following assumption.
Assumption AC. There exists N0 > 1 with
with a = -(b + d), b, d > 0, a, b, d ∈ .
Under these conditions one can prove31,32 that the maximal operator associated with the infinite matrix on the-right hand side of (3.7), denoted max, generates a semigroup. Then we have
Theorem 3.224. Suppose that 1 < p < ∞ and that Assumption AC holds with d > b and α + β + δ - (d - b)/p > 0. Then the semigroup generated by max in l p is sub-chaotic.
Also in this case it is easy to see that the stability condition (3.9) is satisfied:
for large n provided b > d and yet the semigroup displays chaotic behaviour (though possibly in a subspace). We also have the following result, which rules out chaotic behaviour.
Theorem 3.3. Suppose that Assumption AC is satisfied, p ∈ [1; + ∞), and either (i) b > d, or (ii) dm0 = 0 for some m0 > 1. Then the semigroup generated by max is not topologically chaotic.
It is worth commenting on the 'fragility' of the class of chaotic dynamical systems: according to (ii) it is enough to remove one entry of the infinite matrix L to switch from a chaotic to a non-chaotic system. The reason for this is that putting dm0 = 0 decouples the system into a finite dimensional part, which is not chaotic, while the remaining infinite dimensional part may be chaotic at most in the proper subspace of lp consisting of sequences having first m0 entries equal to zero. On the other hand, if the system generated by max is subchaotic, then putting dm0 = 0 for some m0 > 1 will not change this property. At present we do not know whether such a result is true in general; that is, whether subchaoticity of a system is preserved under finite-dimensional perturbations.
Interpretation of chaos. Let us reflect on the relevance of chaos for this particular model. In most biological applications only nonnegative solutions make sense and it is only fair to note that chaotic phenomena discussed here cannot occur for such solutions. In fact, for systems with strictly positive proliferation, the l1 norm of any positive solution to (3.7) may only grow and hence the solution cannot wander.
On the other hand, as we are dealing with linear systems we may wish to consider the differences between two physical (i.e. non-negative) solutions and such a difference certainly need not be non-negative and it may be chaotic. In fact, we have
Proposition 3.1. If (G(t))t>0 is a subchaotic semigroup, then for any є > 0 there exist x1, x2 > 0 such that ║x1 - x2║ < є and {G(t)x1) - G(t)x2)t>0 is dense in the space of chaoticity of (G(t))t>0.
In other words, the difference between two positive solutions which were arbitrarily close to each other at t = 0 may evolve in a chaotic manner.
Another way of looking at this question is discussed in the following example.
Example 3.1. Finite dimensional manifestation of chaos. Consider a pure death system with proliferation:
By Theorem 3.1 this system is always chaotic provided d > a. We can write down an explicit solution to this system
The eigenvector corresponding to eigenvalue λ is given by eλ = (µ, µ2,..., µn,...) where µ = ((λ + a)/d)n, provided |µ|<1.
Let us put a = 0.1, d = 10 and take the initial condition f0 = ℜei = ℜ(i, i2, , in, ), where i is the imaginary unit and ℜ denotes the real part of a complex number. As this corresponds to a purely imaginary eigenvalue, the solution of the full system is periodic.
For calculations, we took 100 × 100 cut-off of the solution (3.12) corresponding to the above eigenvalue and plotted the behaviour of two first coordinates for t = 10, 20, 30, 40.
We see that a perfectly periodic orbit suddenly changes its behaviour. While this is not a proof that the dynamical system described by (3.12) is chaotic (after all, a 100 ×100 cut-off of (3.12) can be extended to an infinite system in many ways, including non-chaotic ones), it could, however, be an indication that the system has a potential to develop irregular behaviour.
4. Population models for the evolution of blood cells
Regular growth. Following ref. 25, we consider a population of blood cells distinguished only by their size and describe the population by the density function n(t, s) of cells having size s in time t. The following processes take place when the time passes:
1) Each cell grows in time with velocity g(s) depending on cell size s;
2) each cell dies with a probability µ depending on size;
3) each cell divides into two daughter cells of equal size with a probability depending on size.
Moreover, we assume that there exists a maximal cell size (here normalized to 1); also there exists a minimal cell size s = α > 0 below which no division can occur. As a consequence of the last assumption, if we start with an initial population with sizes greater that α/2, the size of each cell in the population must satisfy s > α/2 and we can assume the boundary condition u(t, α/2) = 0.
These assumptions lead to the following evolution equation:
where χA is the characteristic function of the set A. We assume that the death rate µ is a positive continuous function on [α/2, 1]. The division rate should be continuous with b(s) > 0 on (α, 1) and b(s) = 0 elsewhere. Moreover, g(s) is differentiable and satisfies 0 < є < g(s) < δ on [α/2, 1] and 2g(s) > g(2s) for s ∈ [α/2, 1/2].
We consider this equation as an evolution equation in X = L1([α/2, 1], ds). One can prove that (4.13) generates a semigroup (G(t))t>0 which is uniformly continuous, compact for t > 1 - α/2, and is also irreducible. Thus, (4.13) is a model example of the so-called asynchronous exponential growth, a property well known in population theory. This property can be expressed as
for any initial condition u0, where n is the eigenvector corresponding to the dominant eigenvalue λmax; n is called the stable size distribution. In other words, irrespective of the initial condition, after a short time the distribution of cells starts evolving as a scalar multiple of a fixed vector. Hence, the evolution definitely does not display any features of a chaotic behaviour.
Abnormal cell growth. In ref. 26 the author considered the growth rate g to be g(s) = s and deviated from the set of usual assumptions by assuming that:
4. there is an immigration of new cells from a regulatory source, allowing for renewal of the cell population at a rate ν(s) depending upon cell size;
5. cells of any size may divide.
The first assumption is not difficult to accept - in many biologically significant systems within an organism, such as in the production of blood, we recognize the need for a source. Since all cellular lines are dead ends, a source such as the precursor stem cells is needed to sustain a viable population. The second assumption amounts to setting α = 0 in (4.13) and allowing cells of any size to exist. While biologically the idea of having a cell of size 0 is unrealistic, this size is taken as a limiting value to describe an abnormality in the division process, resulting in the accumulation of cells in a population of non-functional 'dwarf' cells. The presence of such dwarf cells is seen in the blood disorder alpha-thalassemia, a genetic disease associated with sickle cell anaemia. This has the effect of greatly reducing the mean corpuscle volume of red blood cells.
We begin analysis of this model by first considering a simplified equation
Though the semigroup is given explicitly by
u(t, s) = [G(t)u0] (s) = et/2u0 (se-t)
it is chaotic in the space C0([0, 1]) (of continuous functions vanishing at 0) and in the spaces Lp([0, 1]), p > 1, see refs 5, 21, 27, 28. Interestingly enough, (4.14) does not generate a chaotic semigroup in the space of all continuous functions C([0, 1]). The fact that the semigroup is chaotic in C0([0, 1]) but not in C([0, 1]) was attributed by Glenn Webb in ref. 28, p. 48 to the insufficient supply of the most primitive blood cells (with size 0) in the former case.
In this case, chaotic solutions are non-negative and thus are biologically relevant. We illustrate sensitive dependence of solutions on initial conditions by presenting exact solutions for the initial condition u0(s) = sin s, s ∈ [0, 1] and for its approximation by the Fourier series of cosines truncated after 100 terms. The comparison of these two initial conditions is given in Fig. 2.
The comparison of solutions is given in Fig. 3. We see that the solution corresponding to the exact initial condition almost immediately decays to zero, whereas the one for the approximate condition reaches the level of over 150 in just 20 time units. This can be explained by noting that, due to the concentration of characteristics of (4.14) close to s = 0, the minute difference between the exact and approximated initial condition close to the origin will be exponentially magnified as time increases.
Consider next a variant of (4.13) modified so that the additional assumptions 4 and 5 are satisfied:
in X = L1([0, 1], ds). The eigenvectors29 are given by
where y = -ln s, and they are analytic for ℜλ< η + 1 - 2β. Thus, if η + 1 - 2β > 0, then the assumptions of Theorem A.2 are satisfied and hence the dynamics generated by (4.15) is subchaotic in
Furthermore, using quite sophisticated results from complex analysis, the authors of ref. 29 showed that
Xch = X;
that is, the dynamics is chaotic in the whole space, provided β < 1/2 ln 2.
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11. Banasiak J. and Moszyński M. (2008). Hypercyclicity and chaoticity spaces of C0-semigroups. Discr. Cont. Dyn. Sys. A 20(3), 577-587. [ Links ]
12. El Mourchid S. (2006). The imaginary point spectrum and hypercyclicity. Semigroup Forum 73(2), 313-316. [ Links ]
13. Kimmel M. and Stivers D.N. (1994). Time-continuous branching walk models of unstable gene amplification. Bull. Mah. Biol. 50, 337-357. [ Links ]
14. Stark G.R. (1993). Regulation and mechanisms of mammalian gene amplification. Adv. Cancer Res. 62, 87-113. [ Links ]
15. Windle B. and Wahl G.M. (1992). Molecular dissection of mammalian gene amplification: New mechanistic insights revealed by analysis of very early events. Mutat. Res. 270, 199-224. [ Links ]
16. Kimmel M., Świerniak A. and Polański A. (1998). Infinite-dimensional model of evolution of drug resistance of cancer cells. J. Math. Syst. Estim. Control 8(1), 1-16. [ Links ]
17. Bobrowski A. and Kimmel M. (1999). Dynamics of the life history of a DNA-repeat sequence. Arch. Control Sci. 9(45), No. 1-2, 57-67. [ Links ]
18. Bobrowski A. and Kimmel M. (1999). Asymptotic behaviour of an operator exponential related to branching random walk models of DNA repeats. J. Biol. Syst. 7(1), 33-43. [ Links ]
19. Kruglyak S., Durret R.T., Schug M.D. and Aquadro Ch.F. (1998). Equilibrium distributions of microsatellite repeat length resulting from a balance between slippage events and point mutations. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 95, 10774-10778. [ Links ]
20. Świerniak A., Rzeszowska-Wolny J., Kimmel M. and Polański A. (1999). Asymptotic properties of microsatellite repeats model. In Proc. National Conference on Applications of Mathematics in Biology, Ustrzyki Gorne, 14-17 September, pp. 143-148. [ Links ]
21. Banasiak J. and Lachowicz M. (2001). Chaotic linear dynamical systems with applications. In Semigroups of Operators: Theory and applications (Rio de Janeiro), pp. 32-44. Optimization Software, New York. [ Links ]
22. Banasiak J. and Lachowicz M. (2002). Topological chaos for birth-and-death-type models with proliferation. Math. Models Methods Appl. Sci. 12(6), 755-775. [ Links ]
23. Protopopescu V. and Azmy Y.Y. (1992). Topological chaos for a class of linear models. Math. Models Methods Appl. Sci. 2(1), 79-90. [ Links ]
24. Banasiak J. , Lachowicz M. and Moszynski M. (2007). Chaotic behavior of semigroups related to the process of gene amplification-deamplification with cells' proliferation. Math. Biosci. 206(2), 200-215. [ Links ]
25. Engel K-J. and Nagel R. (1999). One-Parameter Semigroups for Linear Evolution Equations. Springer-Verlag, New York. [ Links ]
26. Howard K.E. (2001). A size structured model of cell dwarfism. Discrete Contin. Dyn. Syst. Ser. B 1(4), 471-484. [ Links ]
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Appendix: Criteria for existence of chaos
Sufficient criteria for chaos
Theorem A.1.10 Let X be a separable Banach space and let A be the generator of a semi-group (G(t))t>0 on X. Suppose that
1) the point spectrum of A, σp(A), contains an open connected set U such that Uiℜ ≠ ;
2) There exists a selection U ∋λ → xλ of eigenvectors of A that is analytic in U;
Then (G(t))t>0 is chaotic.
In many cases property 3 is the most difficult to establish. However, the following result paves a way to circumvent the problem.
Theorem A.2.30 Suppose that conditions 1 and 2 of Theorem A.1 are satisfied. Then there exists an infinite-dimensional closed subspace Y (⊆) X, which is invariant under (G(t))t>0, such that (G|Y (t))t>0 is chaotic.
This proposition justifies the definitions of sub-hypercyclic and subchaotic semigroups given in the main text. Another far-reaching generalization of Theorem A.1 is given below.
Theorem A.3.11,12 Let A be the generator of a strongly continuous semigroup (G(t))t>0 on a separable Banach space X. Assume that there is Ω := (ω1, ω2) ⊂ with µ(Ω) > 0 and a strongly measurable f : Ω → X such that Af (λ)= iλx(λ) for almost any λ ∈ Ω. Then ((G(t))t>0 is sub-hypercyclic in X with a hypercyclicity space
Here, for a function f defined on a measure space (Ω, µ) with values in a Banach space X, f(Ω)ess is the essential range of f; that is,
f(Ω)ess = {x є X; µ({s є Ω :║f (s) - x║ < є}) ≠ 0, ∀є > 0},
Corollary A.1 If there is an interval I ⊂ Ω such that f(I) ⊂ f(Ω)ess, then (G(t))t>0 is sub-chaotic (with chaoticity space possibly smaller that Xch).
Corollary A.2 Under notation of Theorem A.3, if Ω = [a, b] and λ → f(λ) is weakly continuous on Ω, then (G(t))t>0 is chaotic in Xch =
It is often suggested that a system with a sufficiently large number of periodic solutions should be chaotic. For linear systems, periodic solutions are solutions corresponding to imaginary eigenvalues, thus Theorem A.3 seems to be a step in right direction. However, one can construct a subspace of the space X = Cb() of bounded continuous functions on which the semigroup of translations
(G(t) f) (x) = f (t + x)
is a strongly continuous semigroup of isometries (and thus cannot be chaotic), while each point of the imaginary axis is an eigenvalue of its generator.11
Necessary criteria for chaos. For a set M ⊂ X define the 'orthogonal' complement of M in the adjoint space X* as
M⊥ = {f є X*; < f, x > = 0, ∀x є M}.
Then we have
Theorem A.4. Let (G(t)) t>0 be a continuous linear dynamical generated by A in a Banach space X, having an orbit dense in some subspace Xch ⊂ X. Then the adjoint A* of A and the dual dynamical system ((G*(t))t>0 have the following properties:
(i) Let 0 ≠ ø ∈ X*. If the orbit {G*(t)ø} t>0is bounded, then
(ii) If ø is an eigenvector of A*, then f ∈
In particular, if
σp (A*) ≠
then (G(t))t>0 cannot be chaotic. Indeed, in this case is nontrivial and thus Xch ≠ X. Furthermore, if the codimension of the linear span of all eigenvectors corresponding to σp(A*) is finite, then there is no subspace of X in which (G(t))t> 0 is chaotic.


text:
Yikes, oh well then.
Thanks for the update Carbar.
Originally Posted by carbar
Yikes, oh well then.
Thanks for the update Carbar.
Originally Posted by carbar
Carbar,Originally Posted by carbar
I've been trying to follow Raisman's work for a while now (I've got a brachial plexus injury) and would be very interested to read that email. If you still have it, could you forward it my way please? Many thanks, I appreciate the post.
Hey everyone,
I will double check when I'm in late this month but my spinal unit and consultants colleagues collaborate with Raisman/UCL and I'd be bold enough to say that the email authors are very wrong here
That would be great Cherrylips, and I pray you're right!!!Originally Posted by Cherrylips
I've had a hole in my gut all this afternoon, since I read this about Prof Raisman. Would love to know what exactly is going on with his work. Trials were supposed start around February of this year and then got bumped to autumn.
If it's because they need guinea pigs, look over here... oink oink oink!!!
It is certainly possible that there is an 'official' line that gets given out, and an 'unofficial' one.Originally Posted by Cherrylips
The email I received was not from a researcher, but from the person who heads fundraising for Raisman's research. I don't know exactly how things work, but I would have thought that if trials were anticipated he would be in the frontline raising the necessary funds.
These were his words on the subject of trials:
"I think you may have been somewhat misinformed about our work under
Professor Raisman. We have no plans for a clinical trial on spinal
cord injury and do not consider that there is yet sufficient
information to justify one. This has always been our (declared)
position. We may carry out a pilot safety study on olfactory
ensheathing cells in fresh brachial plexus injuries next year, though
this is dependent on our accumulating sufficient data on these cells
before we start. This preparatory study is to test the safety of
these cells and procedures."
Will leave it to you Cherrylips to dig deeper!
Last edited by carbar; 08-03-2006 at 05:13 AM.
Thank you for your interest in the development of our products and technologies. Based on the convincing results of our pre-clinical studies (animal model) of Cordaneurin® we are very close now to enter clinical trials in human.
Due to safety considerations only acute injuries can currently be tested within these first studies. Acute means up to 72 hours respectively 3 days post injury.
Last year fortunately we were able to attract investors securing the financing of these studies. The market launch is estimated to be in 2008.
In a second future clinical project named CordaChron® we want to modify our drug to be suitable also for chronically injured persons. This year we will start with the pre-clinical development of CordaChron®, clinical studies in human will start in 2007 at the earliest.
We would like to recommend all chronically injured patients to safe or achieve a good general condition of the palsied muscles through rehabilitation procedures, possibly functional electro stimulation and / or passive (if possible active) exercises in close collaboration with your doctor. This would be a great advantage with respect to the use of our CordaChron® in future therapies.
Thanks for the post, it answers my question...
I had never read that Raisman was preparing trials on SCI, even though the Brachial Plexus Injury re-implantation trials that he is involved with does deal with the Spinal Cord (coaxing axons out of it and into grafted/re-implanted peripheral nerves).
I'm very curious as to the actual dates for this trial?
Originally Posted by carbar
On the subject of OECs, what does anyone know about the supposed trials taking place later this year at a clinic in Wroclaw, Poland? I tried writing to Dr Tabakov early in July but haven't heard anything back.
Schmecky,Originally Posted by Schmeky
you may remember that I made an overview of the trials some months ago (see http://www.carecure.org/forum/attach...3&d=1144058660
i collected some update info in the meantime and pasted it into my previous report but need to make it readable; i will also need to add up any new info that might be given by all of you in this thread; will post the doc soonest under this thread;
Regarding Raisman, yes, it was clear already that the trials are not on SCI but that SCI might be a next step in case of good results of the first trials;
It might be good to put it as a 'sticky' and to allow people to change the document and update whenever they have new info; We'll see;
Is there a website that I can find details about Dr. Young's SCI trial in China? Can Americans particapate in it? If yes, is there a registration process in place?
If you reply to this post, please email me as well.


text:
Santiago de Cuba City
Santiago de Cuba is the second more important city of Cuba. Located in the east part of the island, it was the last of the first seven villages, founded in 1515 by the Spanish conqueror Diego Velazquez de Cuéllar.
Santiago de Cuba is hot, hilly and exhausting but at the same time seductively languid. Built on a sequence of hills overlooking a large bay with the Sierra Maestra in the background, it is certainly one of Cuba's most picturesque cities. Its colourful streets sweep up and down steep hills, making walking through the city, although pleasant, a little tiring if done in long stretches.
Santiago has a singular vibrancy. It's very plentiful the mulatto people, a mix of Spanish, French from Haiti and huge numbers of Africans, which they are persistently friendly.
Santiago de Cuba is considered to be the most Caribbean of cities in Cuba and is the traditional site of two important popular festivities: the Carnivals and the Fiesta del Fuego, or Feast of Fire.
It has plenty to offer for sightseers, blessed as it is with a host of interesting museums, buildings and places (Moncada Headquarters, Emilio Bacardi Museum, The Cathedral "Nuestra Señora de la Asunción", Morro Castle, La Maison, Enramadas Street ...)
figures like a perfect formula for the lovers of the tourism in combination with a well conserved nature. This well-known park has a lot of attractiveness where you can find the famous stone zoo inside the well-known Valley of the Prehistory, the Museum of Car, the Aquarium and the Green Grassy Area of the Sculptures.
The Sanctuary of the Virgin of the Charity of the El Cobre, patron saint of the island, is a well-known and much frequented place where every year thousands people go in search of the hope to try make come true their dreams.
In the surroundings of the city, La Gran Piedra - registered as the biggest stone of the world in the record Guinness book - it is erected majestic and imposing, with its near 70 thousand tons located about a thousand 220 meters over the sea level.
The capital city has an unmistakable mark of a splendid bay, surrounded by mountains, watched by the Morro or San Pedro de la Roca castle, declared this last one by UNESCO in 1997 as a World Heritage Site.
This city has the necessary infrastructure to become a major site of tourism of events and congresses. And its mountains and maritime surroundings render it appropriate, too, for the enjoinment of nature tourism and tourism of adventure as well, for nautical activities, cruising, and health tourism.


text:
\n
 Satellites picked up 'pings' from Malaysia jet, sources say<\/div>
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 WASHINGTON\/PARIS - Communications satellites picked up faint electronic pulses from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 after it went missing on Saturday, but the signals gave no information about where the stray jet was heading and little else about its fate, two sources close to the investigation said on Thursday.<\/span><\/div>
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 But the "pings" indicated that the aircraft's maintenance troubleshooting systems were switched on and ready to communicate with satellites, showing the aircraft, with 239 people on board, was at least capable of communicating after it lost touch with Malaysian air traffic controllers.<\/div>
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 The system transmits such pings about once an hour, according to the sources, who said five or six were heard. However, the pings alone are not proof that the plane was in the air or on the ground, the sources said.<\/div>
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 While the troubleshooting systems were functioning, no data links were opened, the sources said, because the companies involved had not subscribed to that level of service from the satellite operator.<\/div>
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 Boeing Co, which made the missing 777 airliner, and Rolls-Royce, which supplied its Trent engines, declined to comment.<\/div>
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 Earlier Malaysian officials denied reports that the aircraft had continued to send technical data and said there was no evidence that it flew for hours after losing contact with air traffic controllers early Saturday after taking off from Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing.<\/div>
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 The Wall Street Journal had reported that U.S. aviation investigators and national security officials believed the Boeing 777 flew for a total of five hours, based on data automatically downloaded and sent to the ground from its engines as part of a standard monitoring program.<\/div>
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 Sources familiar with the investigation reiterated that neither Boeing nor Rolls-Royce had received any engine maintenance data from the jet after the point at which its pilots last made contact.<\/div>
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 There is still no evidence that demonstrates the plane's disappearance five days ago was related to foul play, U.S. security sources stressed, though the officials said they still have not ruled out the possibility of terrorism.<\/div>
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 ACARS MESSAGING<\/div>
 <\/div>
 Modern aircraft can communicate with airline operations bases and sometimes with the headquarters of its manufacturers automatically to send maintenance alerts known as ACARS messages. It was this system that sent out the hourly pings, apparently over several hours, the sources said.<\/div>
 <\/div>
 But Malaysia Airlines had not signed up for an expanded service that is based on the system and can send information such as updated flight plans and position reports, people familiar with the matter told Reuters this week, .<\/div>
 <\/div>
 In the past such data was sent via radio links, but in recent years, airlines have begun using satellites to transmit the information more reliably.<\/div>
 <\/div>
 Oliver McGee, a former senior U.S. Transportation Department official and professor of mechanical engineering at Howard University in Washington, said the pings by themselves would not necessarily help locate the plane. Data about the engine's fuel burn, weight and other aspects of its performance is needed to help determine how far the airplane had traveled, he said.<\/div>
 <\/div>
 "It depends on the data coming from the engines," McGee said. "If you have no reliable source of what information you are reading, you can not get the range, air speed or time traveled."<\/div>
 <\/div>
 He cautioned that the aircraft could continue to generate the signals, even if it had crashed, depending on any damage to the aircraft and its engines.<\/div>
 <\/div>
 Mark Rosenker, a former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said the aircraft would continue generating the signals even if it was on the ground, unless the system had shut down.<\/div>
 <\/div>
 Honeywell International Inc makes the components that go into the ACARS system on Boeing 777s, but a different service provider sets them up to communicate with the airlines, said one industry source familiar with the system.<\/div>
 <\/div>
 Each airline determines how it wants the system to work and under what circumstances, said the source, noting that some carriers receive messages when the plane is using auxiliary power, while others want updates only when the aircraft's engines are running.  — Reuters<\/a><\/strong><\/div>


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Photonic Test & Measurement
Keysight offers a wide-range of innovative test and measurement solutions to accelerate the progress of next-generation intelligent optical networks. Keysight's mission in the optical market is to shorten time-to-market and reduce cost-of-test for customers in R&D and manufacturing, as well as enable new technologies which include innovative optical components, network elements & systems, and all-optical fiber networks.
Download the Lightwave Catalog
Optical Component Test Products
Optical Component Test Products
- Optical software solutions
- Tunable lasers
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- Dispersion analysis
Analog Modulation and Frequency-dependent Measurements
Analog Modulation and Frequency-dependent Measurements
- Lightwave component analyzers
- Electro-optical Converters
- Optical Spectral Analysis
Digital Modulation, Time & Error Measurements
Digital Modulation, Time & Error Measurements
- Communications analyzers
- Eye/mask analysis
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Coherent Transmission Test Instruments
Coherent Transmission Test Instruments
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- Instruments for testing up to 1 Tb/s
Optical Transceiver Test Solutions
Optical Transceiver Test Solutions
Exhaustive performance and compliance test solutions for 100G and 400G Datacom
Lightwave & Photonic Measurement Products [Discontinued]
Support information and resources for discontinued lightwave test equipment
Training & Events
Accuracy matters: Calibration Options for Lab Standards Webcast
Advancements in Non-Destructive Testing of Composite Materials Webcast
Troubleshooting Coherent Optical Communication Systems Webcast


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PureDWTS Media Tidbits From The Kirstie Alley And Maks Chmerkovskiy Camp
Just a few things to report from the Maks and Kirstie Camp. First of all, congratulations to Kirstie Alley. She's landed a role in an upcoming new TV Land sitcom called "Giant Baby". According to the Washington Post, Kirstie will play a "high-mainenance broadway star". This sounds good. I'll definitely be checking this out.
In the new sitcom, Alley will play a high-maintenance Broadway star who's in for a shock when her 26-year-old son — the one she gave up for adoption – shows up at her doorstep after his adoptive mother dies. A series pickup on the new project is "cast contingent" TV Land said Thursday – the casting that's still in question is that of her "son," described in the news release as "nerdy and schlubby." Surely this role won't be hard to fill — Hollywood's loaded with schlubby guys, who are all the rage these days. You can't throw a brick in Hollywood without hitting some schlubby guy on his way to an audition or a meeting with his agent. In fact, the hard thing these days is to find a non-schlub to cast in a show.
Also, in news headlines today is Kirstie's support for Lady Gaga and the scrutiny surrounding Lady Gaga's weight gain. Kirstie said "weight expectations for celebrities are not normal and constantly perpetuate an unhealthy, unattainable standard for girls and women around the globe."
"It's Hollywood that is obsessed with weight," she said. "I think everyone should try to be healthy. Lean is better than not lean, but I think we send a horrible message to the world, especially to girls."
Right on, Kirstie! You can read more at Access Hollywood.
In other news in the Kirstie Maks camp, Peta and Maks attended the Beverly Hills Lifestyle Magazine Fall 2012 Launch Party last night. You can view some great photos of them at Getty Images. So cute!!


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Installation package for Polar USB drivers
To install drivers for your Polar IR Interface for USB port, download the following Polar USB.exe to the installation folder of Polar Precision Performance SW/ProTrainer 5 on your local hard disk drive and run the support_files/za/422573EF004315414225740C0049F659/PolarUSB.exe.
Polar Precision Performance SW default installation folder is C:\Program Files\Polar\Polar Precision Performance.
ProTrainer 5 default installation folder is C:\Program Files\Polar\Polar ProTrainer.
Version: 1.0
Date: October 11th 2001
Size: 207 Kb
If you are not able to download the PolarUSB.exe file, please download the following zip file instead. Use for example WinZip program to extract the zip file to above mentioned folder and run the PolarUSB.exe file.
Size: 197 Kb
Download Notes
If you are using Polar IR Interface for USB port you must run the PolarUSB.exe before plugging in the USB connector for the first time. The IR Interface cannot be connected to the PC during the installation. The PolarUSB.exe is executed during the installation, when installing the Polar Precision Performance SW version 3.02.007 onwards/ ProTrainer 5.
To check software version, go to software Help → About.


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Brick Township High School Merchandise
Find merchandise and apparel such as BTHS t-shirts, BTHS sweaters and other products below. You can customize apparel to include a graduation year, name or even jersey number. View our categories of merchandise below:
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Brick Township HS Coaches, Teams and Administrators can place group orders and receive bulk discounts! Get bulk quotes for Brick Township High merchandise when customizing your order.


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Last year I briefly considered jumping aboard the Elf on the Shelf craze. At first it seemed like a fun tradition that the kids would love. But the more I read about it, the more I realized that I didn't particularly care for the basic premise: the Elf sits on a shelf watching the kids during the month of December and reports back to Santa if they are good or bad. In reviews that I read, parents said that it really helped improve their children's behavior.
That's great and I am not criticizing anyone who loves Elf on a Shelf, but I have been challenging myself lately to think long-term instead of short-term when it comes to my parenting style. Would I prefer the immediate gratification of being able to say "Stop that [unpleasant behavior] or the Elf will tell Santa and you won't get any presents!" or would I rather model and encourage thoughtful, caring behaviors in my children, keeping in mind that my ultimate goal is not kids who behave perfectly short-term when a reward is dangled in front of them, but instead future adults who are kind, self-motivated, and look for ways to help others.
Okay, off my soapbox now!
Once again, this year the desire for a fun Christmas countdown tradition was in the back of my mind. So when one of my Facebook friends posted a link to 75 Ideas for a Simpler, Greener, more Intentional Christmas, #9 caught my eye. And a couple of days later, when my friend Brandy posted a link to a beautiful advent calender on her Gems of the Soil etsy shop, an idea was born.
So now, I am excited to announce the Kirkpatricks' First Annual Christmas Countdown!
I purchased one of Brandy's hand-made advent calenders for my family. This picture is from Brandy's etsy listing. Our personal advent calender will have crimson stitching and our last name will be embroidered across the top. I will post pictures soon!
|photo courtesy of Brandy Lewis
Each day, there will be a slip of paper in that day's pouch for my kids to pull out and have me read to them. On the paper will be a Christmas-themed activity for us to do together. Some days it will be something simple like drinking hot cocoa and reading Christmas books or driving around looking at Christmas lights, and other days it will be a little more ambitious like the Christmas party we are hosting for our preschool-aged friends and their moms in a couple of weeks. Several of the activities will be service-oriented, and many I hope will help me teach my kids the true meaning of Christmas.
I am very excited to do this with my kids, and I invite you to follow our little Christmas Countdown journey with us as I blog about our activities every day in the month of December. Ambitious? Yes. Worth it? I believe so!
If you would like to follow along, bookmark this post. As I blog about each day's activity, I will add the link below:
Day 1 - Christmas Tree Hunt
Day 2 - Christmas Veggie Tales, kettle corn, and Sandy clean-up
Day 3 - Christmastime in New York City
Day 4 - Our First Gingerbread House
Day 5 - Christmas Stroll
Day 6 - Decorating the Tree and Candid Mom Confessions
Day 7 - Giving to Others
Day 8 -Giving to Others Part 2
Day 9 - Making Snowflakes
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12
Day 13
Day 14
Day 15
Day 16
Day 17
Day 18
Day 19
Day 20
Day 21
Day 22
Day 23
Day 24
What are your favorite holiday traditions?


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Students can take a virtual expedition with their teachers who will help them engage in science in an Australian and global context and act as science role models.
Since the program was launched in 2003, Earthwatch Australia has engaged around 100 teachers and thousands of students from across the country in expeditions to places ranging from the Australian Outback to Brazil's Pantanal.
TeachLive places teachers on Earthwatch research expeditions where they teach in real time back to their classrooms via the web.
The interactive nature of the program offers an excellent opportunity for teachers to improve their web-based teaching skills, learn current scientific research techniques, work alongside other teachers, and learn more about the unique environments of the world.
Teachers are required to develop lesson plans that aim to enhance the teaching of conservation research and science through the national curriculum. Teachers interact with their students via a live web forum, post daily highlights and photos, and communicate directly with their classrooms in real time via a range of videoconferencing tools.
Since the program was launched in 2003, Earthwatch Australia has engaged around 100 teachers and thousands of students.
TeachLive offers students a great introduction to how innovative technologies can be used to motivate students. Their experience of what is involved in scientific research increases their curiosity and their enthusiasm for science.
TeachLive shows students areas of Australia and the rest of the world they may have never seen before, gives them a new perspective on scientific research, and exposes them to positive career opportunities by providing them with new and varied personal and professional role models.
Learn scientific research techniques, work alongside fellow teachers, and learn about the unique environments of the world.
Funding for TeachLive opportunities is currently provided by two Earthwatch partners:
TeachLive gives students a new perspective on scientific research, and exposes them to positive career opportunities.
For more information, please


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Discover here more job vacancies on academics – the leading job market for science and research. In order to receive information about suitable job vacancies regularly by email, you can register with us free of charge at any time.
With our job newsletter, you will receive suitable job ads as well as interesting content matching your search profile  on a weekly basis.
Welcome to DESY! DESY is one of the world's leading accelerator centres. Researchers use the large-scale facilities at DESY to explore the microcosm in all its variety.


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Strange And Fascinating Lyrics
Walking past a waiting grave, burial today. Shadows cast a golden grey, preparations made. So calm, yet violent winds they play. Such a darkness on a bright Sunday. Am I awake? It feels strange, yet fascinating like everything is gonna be okay. I feel so alive, but in this place I can't help but thinking that I'll end up here someday. Onto Contemplations Way. Ever long across the street unscathed. Elevator take me high. 14 stories, 2nd door he lies. I found his body breathless, I found the place obscene. I tried to look away, as I tried to flee the scene. A picture staring back at me, left me wondering.


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The popular astronomy magazine Sky & Telescope (of which I am a proud subscriber) recently posted a public poll at http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/skyblog/newsblog/Curiosity....
The question concerns the name of the three-mile-high mountain inside Gale Crater on Mars. For those who missed it, that's the crater in which the roving Mars Science Lab "Curiosity" recently landed in exhilarating and memorable fashion.
The International Astronomical Union, the widely-recognized governing body for this sort of thing, requires that extraterrestrial mountains over a certain size be given names from Greek mythology. Hence the name Aeolis Mons, the etymology and history of which you can read about at the link above.
However, scientists affiliated with the MSL/Curiosity program have taken to calling the feature "Mount Sharp" in honor of a recently-deceased geologist named Robert Sharp whom many of the scientists knew and respected.
S&T's poll asks people to vote for which of these two names they prefer. The poll will likely not influence the mountain's ultimate designation, but I thought the question might be of interest to my fellow atheists and space geeks.
I would imagine that some atheists, possibly even a majority, wouldn't mind seeing a real scientist honored instead of an imaginary location from Greek myth. I, however, voted for Aeolis Mons. I think consistency is important, and for hundreds of years astronomers have drawn names from classical mythology. Dead religions don't rankle my objectivist, rationalist sentiments the way that living religions do, and in fact I rather enjoy premodern mythology from a literary perspective. "Mount Sharp" would be a fine informal name for the mountain in Gale Crater, but I'm not ready to cast aside longstanding IAU policies just yet.
How did you vote?
Views: 175
Why couldn't be both..? Many things have an official name and a non-official name. Show horses and show dogs are prime examples. Even the Sun has two names.. Officially it's SOL.. the unofficial common name is the Sun,. So I have no problem with the official name being Aeolis Mons and it being nicknamed Mount Sharp by the Curiosity Crew. :)
I agree. I suspect that's how it will play out.


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2007 Leading Edge Award Recipients
Four ASTC member organizations and two science center professionals received Roy L. Shafer Leading Edge Awards on October 13 at the 2007 ASTC Annual Conference Banquet in Los Angeles, California.
Leading Edge Award for Business Practice (large institution)
Awarded to EdVenture Children's Museum in Columbia, South Carolina, for its Afterschool Initiative. Comprising four distinct programs—Club EdVenture, Enrichment Field Studies, Future Leaders, and Science Jam—the initiative has not only boosted annual attendance with 15,000 additional youth participants, but also become a significant net revenue source, with annual income exceeding $200,000. The initiative meets critical community needs, serves diverse audiences, and has positioned EdVenture as a leader in after-school issues.
Leading Edge Award for Visitor Experience (small institution)
Awarded to the Clore Garden of Science in Rehovot, Israel, for its EcoSphere, a geodesic glass structure in which visitors can physically experience and explore environmental phenomena through hands-on experiments. With its terrestrial and aquatic plants, pools with small fish and fresh water crabs, and six workstations, the EcoSphere is an ideal venue for understanding the interdependence of biological systems.
Leading Edge Award for Visitor Experience (large institution)
Awarded to MIDE, Museo Interactivo de Economía in Mexico City, Mexico, and the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI), in Portland.
MIDE, Museo Interactivo de Economía, accepted its award for pioneering an interactive museum in which economics, science, history, architecture, and art meet. MIDE opened in July 2006 in a restored 18th-century convent. Its exhibitions foster dialogue and invite visitors to discover not only basic economic concepts but also complex social issues, such as poverty, development, and environmental sustainability. MIDE's Market Simulator, created with ASTC-member Magian Design Studio, won the American Association of Museums' 2007 Gold Muse Award for Interpretive Interactive Installations.
OMSI received its award for partnering with libraries to provide underserved rural communities with access to high-quality science education through the NASA-funded STARS (Science, Technology, and Rural Students) project. By integrating in-person and distance-learning technologies, STARS has been able to offer workshops to more than 240 teachers, librarians, and administrators in 18 counties. The program has also brought OMSI's Discovery Dome portable planetarium to nearly 50 communities and made telescopes and global positioning units available for check-out at 47 public libraries.
Leading Edge Award for Leadership in the Field — Award for New Leadership
Bestowed upon an individual who joined the field after January 2004. Awarded to George Sparks, president and chief executive officer at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science (DMNS) since November 2004. With staff, Sparks has created a new vision for DMNS, immersing the institution in community partnerships, working to attract and retain a diverse workforce, and making the museum more attractive and accessible. During his short tenure, he has increased the DMNS budget for training and professional development by 300 percent.
Leading Edge Award for Leadership in the Field — Award for Experienced Leadership
Bestowed upon an individual who joined the field before January 2004. Awarded to Jane Werner, executive director of the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh since 1999. Werner led the museum through a $28 million capital campaign that culminated in the grand reopening of an expanded, LEED-certified, award-winning facility in 2004. But the change was more than just architectural. She also took the opportunity to invite local child-focused groups to move into the new building. By linking educational and cultural organizations throughout Pittsburgh, Werner has made the children's museum a "go-to" place for advice on community partnerships and created a model of institutional citizenship from which all museums can benefit.


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Monday, September 17, 2012
2 comments:
Hi Patty: Just got home and read your new blog entry. Talk about a challenge!! So proud of you and glad you're back in home port.
With love and admiration,
Judi Hilton
- September 17, 2012 at 4:29 PM
Dear Pat
Welcome home to you and Yoko and Pat. It sounds as though you three women were quite a team!! We are so happy that you have broken another record with another successful swim. We are so anxious to hear every detail of your journey and your swim. We are so proud of you Pat and so happy for you.
BC Friends
- September 17, 2012 at 10:47 PM
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)


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Error E82 is displayed when you use your Xbox 360 console
You see the following error and message on your Xbox 360 console:
System Error: Contact Xbox Customer Support
Error E82
This means there could be a problem with the console.
- Original Xbox 360 console
- Xbox 360 S console
Try using our Flashing Lights Solution. Choose one flashing light as the problem and follow the steps in the solution.
- Disconnect and then reconnect all accessories. See Check the connections for your Xbox 360 accessories.
- Remove the hard drive. If you need instructions on how to do this, see Add or remove an Xbox 360 Hard Drive.
- Remove any USB flash drives.
If these steps don't resolve the problem, you'll need to request a repair. Learn how to request a repair.
Repair or warranty questions? See Xbox 360 repair: Frequently asked questions.
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Duke began tattooing in 1993 under the guidance of Steve Williamson of Art Freak Tattoo in Providence, RI. and has worked in various tattoo shops in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York and New Zealand.
In addition to tattooing, Duke works in a variety of mediums and his work is exhibited in several museums internationally including the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Museum. He is represented in New York by Magnan Projects. For more info, visit www.dukeriley.info
Bookings: firstname.lastname@example.com
Instagram: @dukerileystudio


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Microsoft handed out nearly $60 million in stock grants to eight executives on the same day it filed papers with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announcing that the board had authorized special incentives to keep senior management from jumping ship.
The awards, which ranged between 47,000 and nearly 600,000 shares, held a paper value of between $1.6 million and $19.9 million as of Friday's closing price.
The executives who received the stock grants were Kevin Turner, COO; Brad Smith, chief counsel; Eric Rudder, who heads the company's advanced strategy and research group; Tami Reller, marketing chief; Amy Hood, the firm's CFO; Lisa Brummel, its top human resources executive; Frank Brod, chief accounting officer; and Tony Bates, who now leads business development and evangelism at the Redmond, Wash. company.
Turner scored the largest grant of almost 600,000 shares, worth $19.9 million as of Friday, while Smith and Bates received the second- and third-largest awards of 464,000 and 225,000 shares, valued at $15.5 million and $7.5 million, respectively.
All eight executives received the stock grants on Sept. 19, the day that Microsoft's SEC filing said the board of directors had approved special retention stock grants. The new award plan took effect the same day.
The special awards are intended to ensure "continuity of key leaders during the transition to a new chief executive officer" and preserve the company's "competitive position by enhancing retention of key executives with critical skills of strategic importance," Microsoft's filing read.
Microsoft's current CEO, Steve Ballmer, announced last month that he would retire before Sept. 2014, after the technology giant selects a new chief executive.
The documents detailing the awards and the retention plan were made public by the SEC on Sept. 23.
It wasn't clear from the SEC filings -- either the announcement of the retention awards or the individual grants to Johnson, Smith, Bates and the others -- whether the newest stock grants were part of the move to hold onto the executives or simply standard awards given to its top tier.
But the grants fit the retention requirements in that their vesting periods exceeded the 30-month minimum: All the awards will vest over either a three- or four-year span. And the same-day retention bonus filing and the awards themselves was a good clue that, at the very least, some of the stock grants stemmed from the new rules.
Like all such retention incentives, the Microsoft shares will vest only if the executive remains with the company.
Last Friday, Microsoft added another plan aimed at dealing with the upheaval as the company seeks a replacement for Ballmer and completes its massive reorganization.
The latest filing, submitted and published Sept. 26, outlined new severance payouts and associated requirements for top-level leaders who are laid off as the company reshuffles groups and personnel, and searches for a new CEO. It will also block the executives from taking jobs in other companies if they are let go.
The new policies are "an additional measure to help ensure continuity of key leaders by providing ... a severance benefit if they are terminated without cause," the filing stated.
Executives let go will receive severance equal to their annual base salary, as well as a prorated payment of their expected cash bonus. The stock grants set to vest in the next 12 months will also vest on a pro rata basis.
The severance benefits -- which were detailed in a separate document filed with the SEC -- come with some strings: The executive must sign an agreement promising not to disparage Microsoft and would be barred from working for competing companies for 12 months.
Some of the plan's provisions and caveats were reminiscent of the deal struck earlier this year between Microsoft and Steven Sinofsky, the former head of the Windows division who was reportedly pushed out the door in Nov. 2012 after clashing with Ballmer once too often. Both Microsoft and Sinofsky cast his exit as a mutual decision, however.
Under that agreement, which was made public in July, Sinofsky was to receive stock worth approximately $14.3 million at the time.
The retention and severance moves may be a signal that the Microsoft board anticipates additional management turbulence driven by the restructuring, a protracted search for a CEO or the possibility that said CEO would be allowed to reverse some or all of the initiatives that Ballmer has instituted, including the reorganization and the pivot to a "devices-and-services" strategy.
On one hand, the directors are trying to insure that current executives stick with the company, while on the other creating a mechanism that will prevent them from working for rivals if they are discarded.
Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at @gkeizer, or subscribe to Gregg's RSS feed . His email address is firstname.lastname@example.com.
Read more about it industry in Computerworld's IT Industry Topic Center.


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So, I've been researching last night, after the hit success with the angry wolf tutorial. Tonight's tut will be based on yet another canine, but this time it's man's best friend, a German Shepherd. If you'd please, you could possibly change the appearance of the snarling dog into a Pitbull. Draw the ears less fluffed and more angular to have a Pitbull face. Be sure that sketching loosely and light is highly advsised. You get much more accuracy by drawing sketchy and more confidentlly as you draw. Later down the road of success, inking and coloring your drawings would only challenge your skills. A great artist is one who practices and improves themselves. Anyways, I must move onto my other lessons. This one should replenish your temporary needs for more snarling dog heads. Thanks so much for viewing this tutorial, and let me know how you did in the long run! Peace out and have fun!
DragoArt members upload artwork and drawing tutorials! They are also allowed to leave comments on tutorials, profiles, etc. Many more features, as well; it's way better than just being a boring guest! Register Now!


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Executives! Are you fed up with a lack of qualified job leads?
Please welcome iXCD-Match to the recruiting arena!
iXCD-Match is not a job board! We work directly with the nation's top Recruiters and Hiring Managers to source the best talent to the best opportunities!
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WE HAVE THE PERFECT JOB. Are YOU the right candidate?
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Who wouldn't like to have the perfect candidate handed to them on a silver platter? That's exactly what we do! You can find resumes and great candidates everywhere. But unlike job sites with hit and miss opportunities, we don't share candidates. We can markedly increase the chance of matching star players to the jobs they were born to do and as fast as possible!
When you post your resume on job boards you are subjecting yourself to receiving unqualified job leads, and unsolicited emails and phone calls from recruiters who know nothing about you and are most likely just taking a chance that they might get a callback and be able to place you. More often than not, it leads absolutely nowhere. Our clients agree not to post their resumes on job boards but retain the option to apply directly to an employer.
Our client assessment provides employers with what they need to make an informed decision about you before you are subjected to further inquiries or before they even make contact with you! You receive only serious offers from serious employers. Next step... interviews with informed Hiring Managers who are already confident in you and your abilities.
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Our background includes a long history of close working relationships with global recruiters and HR professionals. We've written an enormous number of resumes since 1997 and the majority of our business comes from referrals all over the country. We are about establishing relationships. Our clients depend on us for their livelihoods and futures and we care! We have a relationship with them that makes a difference and causes them to engage with opportunity.
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It is our ambition to build firm, mutually beneficial relationships with our clients.
We are eager to serve in a complete project life cycle from resume concept and construction through job delivery and support.


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Perfect grilled food requires essential barbeque equipment. Sure you can use the bamboo skewers and dispose of them when you are through but I love these skewers because they come with this amazing rack that holds six 17 inch skewers about 1 inch above the grate for even cooking. The rack also prevents the food from sticking to the grill without sacrificing the grilled taste.
Kabob Skewers with Grilling Rack available at www.surlatable.com $25
While you are buying stainless steel skewers pick up some adorable knotted bamboo mini skewers for satays, fruit kebabs, fish appetizers, and much more. These are a staple in my pantry!
Knotted bamboo skewer, available at www.surlatable.com $6


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Mall name:
771 South 30th Street, Heath, Ohio - OH 43056
Phone number to Indian Mound Mall mall
740 522 6620
Hours (mall)
Monday - Saturday 10:00 am - 9:00 pm, Sunday Noon - 6:00 pm.
Driving directions
Other stores in Indian Mound Mall:
Looking for another location of Payless ShoeSource store?
Go to Payless ShoeSource store locator to see all Payless ShoeSource stores


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News and notes from around the world of sports video gaming:
• In the picture above, the 2011 Heisman Trophy winner Robert Griffin III, widely expected to be taken second when the NFL Draft kicks off in 90 minutes, enjoys a game of Halo 4 at a Microsoft-sponsored VIP event in New York yesterday.
• Operation Sports has noticed that Madden NFL 13 is offering a bunch of pre-order bonus content tied to the game's "Connected Careers" mode that no one can or will talk about yet. From GameStop, a preorder gets you Barry Sanders and John Madden himself to use in the game's career mode. Preordering through Amazon gets you Joe Gibbs and Lawrence Taylor, adversaries from the knock-down drag-out NFC East of the 1980s. [Operation Sports]
• Madden NFL 13 will have a new broadcast team and presentation. You can get a look at Jim Nantz and Phil Simms in the booth, plus the game's new replay angles, developed in consultation with NFL Films, thanks to Pasta Padre's compilation of video highlights from the recent webcast of new features.