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November 15thA Vision for a Church
Deep in the mountains of East Asia, villagers, faithful to Buddha, live quietly. Few people ever come to their region. It's too far and too remote. Our team is established in a city at the foot of the mountain. They have met a few isolated believers who have been praying for many years. There is no church.
As the team prayed, God led them, through a local evangelist, to reach out to the people with a 2-week, intensive English learning course. They invite the young Buddhists to come to the city. The children are eager to learn English, even though their parents are hesitant. For two full weeks our team shared the stories of Jesus Christ and the Word of God, engaging with the class on multiple levels.
Our Lord has blessed these efforts. Several young adults have chosen to follow the way of Christ! Praise God!
Justin* is one of these new believers.
A year ago, while attending an English camp, he responded to the Gospel message. He returned home where his father beat him, attempting to keep his son from interacting with anyone who encouraged his new faith. Discouraged, but hungry to learn more about Jesus, Justin came back to English camp six months later.
Please pray for Justin, and the others who have come to faith. Theirs is not an easy road. Family and friends are frightened of this new faith. They have never heard of Jesus Christ. Too often new Christ followers are estranged from their family. They suffer physical abuse and become isolated from their community.
The spiritual resistance to their faith can be daunting.
Doors to regions of East Asia are just starting to open. The English camps provide an excellent environment to begin discipling new Christ followers, so that a strong foundation of belief and faith can be laid. This, we hope, will lead to those disciples bringing the Gospel to their own community.
One day, our team gathered with new believers in prayer. As they served communion, the missionary got the profound sense that these new Christ-followers could become the leaders to the future church amongst these people. We are on the cusp of a new movement of faith in the remote mountains. The people are a unique ethnic group. They are a minority and face discrimination in their daily lives. There is no church, no Christian influence.
The work is difficult. Each step bathed in prayer and study. Pray with us that our Lord God may be praised amongst the people of East Asia. Your partnership, in prayer and in financial support, makes it possible for those called to go and preach the Gospel. Our God Reigns!
*We have used a pseudonym to protect personal identity


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Some guides by Tani on how she made her fursuits
Location: Europe (Excl. UK)
Clicks: 8792
Many different helpful tutorials on creating your own costume! From making a head to sewing your tail, and lots of other resourceful tips in between.
Location: North America
Clicks: 2484
Tail and ear creation guides
Location: UK
Clicks: 1910
Useful construction tips from Nicodemus
Location: North America
Clicks: 1485
Has some good tips on heads, handpaws and tails.
Location: Europe (Excl. UK)
Clicks: 1457

subset: commoncrawl


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Supports Construction of New International Trade Crossing
State Representative Terry Boose (R-Norwalk) today announced that the Ohio House of Representatives unanimously passed House Resolution 198, which urges support for the construction of the New International Trade Crossing bridge between the United States and Canada.
If constructed, the bridge would be built over the Detroit River to increase trade with Canada, America's largest foreign trading partner. Ohio's bilateral trade with Canada totaled $30.9 billion in 2010, and it is estimated to have supported more than 300,000 jobs in Ohio.
"I sponsored this resolution because both Ohio and Michigan need more jobs," Representative Boose said. "By opening up more lanes of traffic across the Detroit River, our states can benefit from the existing commerce, as well as the new commerce that the increased commercial traffic flow the project will bring. I'm pleased that it has the support of the Ohio House."
The most adjacent border crossings currently in use between Ohio and Canada are the Detroit Windsor Tunnel, Blue Water Bridge in Port Huron, and Ambassador Bridge in Detroit. Ambassador Bridge carries a quarter of all trade between the countries. With its aging nature, the New International Trade Crossing has become Canada's top national infrastructure project.
House Resolution 198 is companion legislation to Senate Resolution 141, which was recently passed by the Ohio Senate.


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Google has announced significant new changes to how it will monetize content on YouTube. This is coming after a series of updates the company implemented in response to repeated backlash from advertisers over the last year.
Paul Muret, VP of display, video and analytics acknowledged in a blog post on Wednesday "2017 was a difficult year, with several issues affecting our community and our advertising partners".
Here's the problems that started this whole thing – brand advertisements have been appearing on extremist, racist and other objectionable content. There are YouTube stars who are behaving badly, and they are part of the Google Preferred premium advertising program. There is alarming content that involves or targets children, and all of this stems from a lack of oversight, controls and transparency.
Muret outlined three primary changes to further address these challenges.
[Read the full article on Marketing Land]


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By Stasia DeMarco
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Feeling a little overwhelmed with all the holiday cookies and cakes? Why not take a break and celebrate with a cupcake.
At Ms. Goody Cupcake along the East Passyunk District of South Philadelphia, it's buy one get one free.
Antoinette Romeo works at Ms. Goody and says they have 12 cupcakes ranging from chocolate mint crunch to cherry cheese cake or their December special, the eggnog cupcake.
But the most popular one according to Romeo, "Everyone goes wild over Elvis. It's banana cake with fresh bananas and chocolate chips; peanut butter and butter cream with chocolate dipped bacon (on top). That is one of our biggest sellers along with Red Velvet."
In addition to cupcakes, Ms. Goddy has an array of truffles and other baked goodies.
For more information, go to msgoodycupcake.com.


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The Donut Man is one of those places that you hear of, either through word of mouth or through the portals of television or the world wide web. It's viral, spreads immediately and quickly, because well, it's that good.
The moment you step up to the window, your heart flutters as you see the rows upon rows of strawberry stuffed donuts. These donuts are the kind of creations that people travel far and wide for. They are seasonally available, and they also offer peach donuts when the season arrives.Basically, these strawberry donuts are as close to perfection as it comes. The light yeasted donuts are stuffed to the brim with glazed, whole strawberries. You'd think that you'd die from overkill but they really took the time to figure out how many strawberries, how much sugar, and how much glaze to use so that it doesn't overwhelm you and isn't too overly sweet.
My second favorite though, has to be the Bavarian cream. I love, love, love, die for custard. If it's on the menu, I have to get it. This donut was literally stuffed with smooth Bavarian cream and then topped with some chocolate glaze... oh my goodness.
Other options, just as cute:We also tried the apple fritter, which was ginormous! It was also super hearty, filled with large chunks of apple and raisins. Although this was good, I don't think anything can quite compare to Bob's apple fritters.


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It occurs to me that I cannot keep posting large posts of the pieces in my collection. So I've decided to create gallery pages which I can regularly update. If you like the stuff I made and want to see more, keep checking my Collection pages & enjoy.
More KATsKILL samplesCraft, Photography
Found some pictures of stuff I've made. These weren't sold. Some of them were made for my mum, the rest were gifts or kept in my own collection. These were attempts at new designs and feature different materials and techniques, like stitching.
KATsKILL samplesCraft, Photography
I've been wanting to put up pics of some jewellery I managed to sell last year. These all feature the paper beads I've been making for a while combined with other materials such as wire, wooden beads, seed and plastic beads, plastic crystal beads, and nylon thread. One is even made using guitar string.
I sold all of these for the prices marked so made a little bit of extra money that week. I even got a few extra orders for certain designs so I sold a few more of those. The best thing about this exercise was trying new designs and finding new ways to use the materials I had on hand.
Shiny and newCraft, Photography
A lot has happened since my last post… way back before Christmas last year. In short, I've finished up my year's internship in Samoa and have returned home for an extended break because there was a very real need to spend quality time with my family while making sure the rest of the plan is falling into place.
There is much to say about my time in Samoa, so I'll keep that for a separate post.
Paper beads in actionCraft
Since that package arrived in July, I've been having another go at making beads. I have to admit the roller does make it easier because it gives you that extra little bit of room you need to do such a repetitive motion comfortably. But what's really got me going is that glaze. I'm sure there have been glazes and glazes since the invention of papier mâché, but I have this glaze. And it is good.
So good that I was moved to make a set of earrings almost immediately my first batch was dry.
Ya, sure! Why not?!
So here it is. Finally. It's not like it took all this time to actually fix the frame or anything. Just took me this long to get it on the site. Please excuse the disgraceful negligence heretofore exhibited and let's not speak of it again.
Package arrived!Craft, Tangent
I had a wonderful kaicolo moment today when the very first (physical) thing I have ever bought online arrived in the mail. It was really awesome for some reason. I was giddy as a schoolgirl. Couldn't stop grinning. Had to open it up and use the stuff straight away!
Since starting to make paper beads a while back, I've been wondering if I was doing it right. Also, I wanted this glaze stuff so I didn't have to varnish my beads (coz its a total pain in the ass). But the glaze wasn't worth buying on its own when I had to consider shipping so I searched for what else I could package with it to make it worthwhile.


text: We would like to offer our sincerest gratitude to The Clothes Less Traveled for granting us $30,000 in support of our general operations! On behalf of our children, their families, the staff, and the Board of Directors, we thank the Clothes Less Traveled for their loyal and faithful support of our mission, and we commend them for the generous support they provide to so many worthy non-profit organizations in our community. Thank you, Clothes Less Traveled!


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According to WWD, the fragrance Truth of Dare by Madonna will be a Macy's exclusive in the U.S., hitting shelves on March 26, 2012. The scent, as it turns out, was inspired by the star's mother:
"She always smelled like gardenias and tuberose, an intoxicating mixture [that was] feminine and mysterious. I wanted to re-create this scent, but with something fresh and new about it as well. Something honest and yet daring -- hence the name Truth or Dare."We had always heard that Madonna loved classic Piguet fragrance Fracas (a lush, creamy tuberose perfume) exactly because it was her mother's scent (Actually in the mid-90s when the Piguet line was re-issued almost everyone in the media it seemed fwas coming forth claiming Fracas was their mothers', grandmother's, avourite nanny's etc. scent, but I digress). The Madonna perfume reportedly includes fragrance notes of gardenia, tuberose, lily, neroli, amber, and musk. The scent will be encased in a white bottle embazoned with a gold M with a cross through it, and topped off with a round gold cap.


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Osram Opto Semiconductors is taking part in this project together with ASM AMICRA and Fraunhofer IISB with the aim to push μLED-based high-resolution visualization solutions into automotive interior applications. μLED technology can produce extremely high luminance in a wide dynamic range, and imaging devices based on direct emitting μLED pixels are considered a disruptive development in the visualization market, with the potential to sideline technologies such as LCD or OLED.
Over the next two and a half years, the SmartVIZ research project aims to provide the basis for future transparent, high-resolution, direct-emitting visualization solutions using μLED technologies.
The envisioned work packages will focus on three key technologies. First, the design of efficient μLED light sources, second, their handling on sub-component level and third, the final assembly. Red, green and blue μLED structures will perform as efficient high luminance image pixels. Implementation of such concepts and applications requires in-depth studies of the underlying physical principles that are in-part entirely different than today's macro LED chips.
The project will also conduct research addressing the component integration of μLEDs using a novel approach for transparent and flexible image encoders. Transparent substrates based on indium gallium zinc oxide thin-film transistors (IGZO TFTs) will be the researchers' focus for controlling the individual pixels. This approach allows for quasi-transparent surfaces, which can be filled with content only if the μLEDs are switched to active.


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Main navigation
German development cooperation in the forestry sector
Acai nursery in Acre, Brazil: a state government initiative to assist reforestationCopyright© Kate Evans/CIFOR, via flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
The Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) is currently working with 45 partner countries to protect forests. Here, Germany is pursuing two overarching development-policy goals: reducing poverty, and preserving the forests' capacity to maintain ecological balance.
For projects designed essentially for the REDD mechanism (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation), Germany's bilateral pledges up to 2014 amounted to 121.5 million euros. The BMZ is also currently supporting 197 projects worth a total of over 1.5 billion whose main objective is the protection and sustainable management of forests.
Under the International Climate Initiative of the Federal Environment Ministry, Germany has spent some 126 million euros on forest and biodiversity protection since 2008.
At the special UN Climate Summit held in New York in September 2014, the German government pledged fresh funding to protect tropical forests. Germany declared itself willing to help finance forest protection programmes in up to 20 developing countries, provided that these verifiably avoid deforestation and reduce emissions.
At the UN Climate Change Conference in Lima in December 2014, Germany pledged a further 160 million euros for international forest protection measures.
The GNU Initiative (GNU = Germany, Norway and the United Kingdom) is especially important. It underlines the political will of the three largest donor countries in the forestry sector to make an even stronger commitment to forest protection for climate change mitigation.
At the UN Climate Summit in New York in 2014 the initiative was launched as the centrepiece for implementing the New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF). The NYDF is an ambitious voluntary commitment by the public and private sectors to halt deforestation, reduce emissions from the land use sector and create substantial economic incentives for the achievement of these goals.
At the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris in December 2015 the GNU partners affirmed their will to make available between 2015 and 2020 a total of five billion US dollars to protect and restore tropical forests, and to significantly increase their share of results-based REDD+ funding. Alongside the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) and the BioCarbon Fund, Germany's REDD Early Movers (REM) programme is a key instrument for delivering the GNU funds.
To find out more about German development cooperation's other strategies and packages of measures in the forestry sector, please click on these links:
More information
- Forests and climate | BMZ activities for climate change mitigation through international forest policynew window, PDF 2.5 MB 09/2019 | pdf | 2.5 MB | 2 P.
- The world needs forests | Germany's forest action plan for sustainable developmentnew window, PDF 2.8 MB, accessible 03/2017 | pdf | 2.8 MB | 44 P. | accessible
- REDD+: Protecting forests and climate for sustainable developmentnew window, PDF 3 MB, accessible 11/2015 | pdf | 3 MB | 32 P. | accessible
Climate change – Time to act
Climate policy in the context of the 2030 Agendanew window, PDF 5.4 MB, accessible 10/2016 | pdf | 5.4 MB | 48 P. | accessible
Climate action in practice
The contribution of German development policynew window, PDF 2.6 MB, accessible 04/2015 | pdf | 2.6 MB | 32 P. | accessible
See also
- The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
- Issues: Poverty
- Issues: Biodiversity
- Issues: Soils
- Issues: Protecting the climate
- International treaties to protect forests
- BMZ animation film "REDD: Quite simply explained"
External Link
- BMZ Forest Quiz - external link, new window - Visit website


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Fiat May Stumble, But Maserati Has Its Foot To The Floor – Forbes
Investors aren't convinced that Fiat Chrysler Automobile's (FCA) long-term plan is viable, but its Maserati upmarket sports car subsidiary looks set fair to sell lots more cars and make some serious money.
Maserati CEO Harald Wester recently confirmed that the storied Italian company was on track to hit the global sales targets of 50,000 vehicles in 2015 and 75,000 in 2018. Sales reached only 15,400 in 2013. The targets include the current models – the Gran Turismo, Quattroporte and Ghibli, and later the new Levante SUV and Alfieri two seater coupe and cabriolet.
Macquarie Research analyst Jens Schattner is not a cheerleader for Fiat Chrysler, but is impressed by Maserati.
"Maserati will become a major earnings contributor over the period 2013-16 and as such represents an important source of additional earnings to partially offset the incredibly fast deterioration of Fiat's profitability in Latin America," Schnattner said.
Schattner said Maserati delivered 8,041 cars in 2014's first quarter compared with 1,304 in the same period of 2013.
"Maserati seems to be well on the way to deliver on its ambitious medium-term targets," Schattner said.
Schattner said this means revenues will boom to more than six billion euros ($8.2 billion) by 2018, up from 1.7 billion ($2.3 billion) in 2013, with an EBIT (earnings before interest and tax) of well above 2013's 10.3 per cent. He expects trading profit of 420 million euros ($570 million) this year – a 12.5 per cent margin, rising to 732 million euros ($995 million) in 2016 (14.0 per cent).
Meanwhile operating profit for Fiat in Latin America will dive to 168 million euros ($229 million) this year (2.0 per cent), revive a bit to 218 million euros ($297 million) in 2016 (2.5 per cent) compared with 2012's 1.1 billion euros ($1.5 billion) (9.5 per cent) and 619 million euros ($840 million) (6.2 per cent) million in 2013, Schattner said.
International Strategy and Investment, commenting after news that Fiat Chrysler planned to raise as much as $5.4 billion by issuing new bonds by the end of 2015 and sell shares to U.S. investors where the company will be listed, said Fiat Chrysler is the most indebted car manufacturer.
ISI estimates FCA gross debt at more than $40 billion and pointed out that a reduction in this cost would add greatly to profit margins. ISI estimated that with average financing costs of 6.8 per cent last year, this cost the company about $2.6 billion.
Macquarie's Schattner said Fiat has lagged behind its competitors in Europe with R&D spending, using only 3.6 per cent of revenues over the last eight years compared with a sector average of 5.1 per cent. Fiat will have to spend more on R&D to catch up, while amortization levels will increase substantially too.
"Both trends will likely put meaningful pressure on Fiat Chrysler Automobiles' margins until 2018," Schnatter said. He also cut his forecast for FCA trading profit this year to just above the bottom end of the company's guidance of 3.6 billion euros ($4.9 billion) to 4.0 billion euros ($5.4 billion).


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Grounds for Good
A recent initiative we have launched is our Grounds for Good programme, where we remove any waste from sites that can be organically composted – mainly used tea and coffee grouts, paper towels used when cleaning the machines, and paper cups.
Paper cups are an enormous improvement over plastic in terms of drink quality but currently they are not recyclable today. However, they are fully compostable, which is in fact vastly more energy efficient and doesn't create recycled second-grade product with little if any commercial value or use.
This organic and paper waste is stored in specially designed and sealed containers and then delivered to the award-winning composting site by our vehicles on a regular basis.
The benefits of this scheme are immense – it reduces our commercial waste volumes by a third, generates additional income and employment at a local level for a deserving project, eliminates 'waste' miles, and creates rich compost that is given free back to local residents to grow windowsill plants and flowerbeds as well as various voluntary and educational projects.
The alternative is that the same 'waste' is collected and transported via a commercial waste collection service to our local incinerator, where it is processed and stored, with the remaining fly ash going to landfill. Most London boroughs pay over £90 per resident per year to have waste disposed of this way – our local borough of Walthamstow spends around £18 million per year on waste collection and disposal.


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WASHINGTON — House Republicans muscled through a stopgap bill Friday that would fund the government only if all spending for President Obama's health care law is eliminated. Senate Democrats and President Obama quickly made it clear they had no intention of going along, putting the government on a course toward a shutdown unless one side relents.
The 230-to-189 party-line vote in a bitterly divided House set in motion a fiscal confrontation with significant implications — politically and economically — but with an uncertain ending. Without a resolution, large parts of the government could shut down Oct. 1, and a first-ever default on federal debt could follow weeks later.
Each side predicted that the other would be held responsible, but determined House Republicans knew they were taking a risk even as leaders of the party's establishment warned about the threat of destructive political consequences.
Mr. Obama called House Speaker John A. Boehner on Friday evening but only to reiterate that he would not negotiate with him on raising the federal debt limit and said it was Congress's constitutional obligation to pay the nation's bills. Both sides described the call as brief and fruitless.
Senate Democratic leaders prepared to answer the House's move with a vote in the coming days — possibly on the eve of government funding expiring — to strip the health care provision from the spending bill and send it back to the House with little time for Republicans to change it. Mr. Boehner would then face a decision on how to respond.
After the House vote, Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the No. 2 House Republican, called out by name Democratic senators running for re-election in Republican states, daring them to stand by the health care law.
"We're in this fight and we want the Senate to join us," Mr. Cantor said at a Republican rally celebrating passage of the spending bill.
Visiting Missouri, Mr. Obama struck back at Republicans a few hours after the vote.
"They're focused on politics," Mr. Obama told autoworkers at a Ford plant in Liberty. "They're focused on trying to mess with me; they're not focused on you."
In a searing criticism of those threatening to refuse to raise the debt ceiling next month, causing the United States to default on its debts, Mr. Obama called the potential action "profoundly destructive." If it happens, he said, "America becomes a deadbeat."
The events left Washington staring at the first government shutdown since 1996. Lawmakers brushed up on the lessons of the five days of November 1995, when 800,000 federal workers were sent home, and the 21-day partial shutdown from that December to January, when half the government closed.
Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the White House budget director, told executive branch officials to begin preparing by updating their contingency plans and determining what would go offline.
The relevant laws have provisions to ensure a shutdown is "orderly," and to protect "the safety of human life or the protection of property," she wrote to agencies. But otherwise, much of the government that is paid for through the Congressional appropriations process would close shop. Soldiers would report for duty, but would not be paid. National parks and monuments would shut down, with any tourists told to vacate within 48 hours. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers would go on unpaid furloughs.
That said, many government functions would continue because of how they are paid for or because they are deemed vital. Air traffic controllers, border security officials and other public safety officers would remain at work. Social Security checks would continue to go out. Medicare would keep paying doctors and hospitals, though its claims processing systems might be disrupted. The self-financed Postal Service would remain operating as well.
Officials from both parties involved in past shutdowns warned that House Republicans stand to come out on the losing end.
Michael Horowitz, who was general counsel for President Ronald Reagan's budget office during a brief government shutdown, said the White House would have broad latitude to decide which workers were considered essential, which agencies to close entirely and how chaotic the closings would be.
In a twist, President Obama could easily declare the workings of the Affordable Care Act essential to life and property, keeping open the one effort Republicans are targeting while shutting down other parts of the government they support.
"For Congress to ask for a shutdown when the opposite political party is in charge of the White House is my definition of insanity," Mr. Horowitz said.
Both sides dug in for battle. Senate Democrats released a letter from Kathleen Sebelius, the health and human services secretary, saying the House bill would raise the costs of preventive health care and prescription drugs for millions of older Americans while cutting off insurance for children across the country.
House Republicans insisted Friday that the Senate would acquiesce to their demands at least to delay significant parts of the health care law.
"The American people will have a chance to influence their senators, and this is a great time for the American people to get engaged and let their voices be heard," said Representative Tom Graves, Republican of Georgia, who led the push to link further government financing to ending the health care law.
Even as the House pushed through its spending bill, House Republican leaders met behind closed doors with their rank and file Friday to lay out the next step in the budget battle — a bill that would raise the government's statutory borrowing limit for a year, delay implementation of the health care law over that year, and push a grab-bag of Republican initiatives, from binding instructions to overhaul the tax code to mandatory construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
All of the measures tied to the debt-ceiling increase have passed the Republican-controlled House before, only to be ignored by the Senate. But until now, said Representative John Fleming, Republican of Louisiana, "we haven't applied it to a must-pass piece of legislation."
A government shutdown would be unsightly and could harm the economy, directly through the furloughs of government workers and indirectly by undermining confidence in the nation's governance. But Democrats, economists and some Republicans warn that a debt default would likely be worse, shaking the world's faith in Treasury debt, widely seen as the safest investment possible, and roiling the global economy.
Holding the federal funding bill hostage "is bad enough, but the debt ceiling is cataclysmic," said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York.
The House-passed spending bill would keep the government operating at the current funding level, which reflects the automatic across-the-board spending cuts that took effect in March. It would also block spending on the health care law, days before the uninsured begin signing up to purchase private insurance policies through state exchanges.
Mr. Obama has already issued a veto threat on the bill, but it will never reach his desk. Even Senate Republican supporters say it cannot make it through the Democratic-controlled Senate. Senate leaders are likely to wait as long as they can to send a clean spending plan back to the House.
Mr. Boehner would then face a choice: put a spending bill on the floor, unencumbered by other policy measures, and allow it to pass primarily with Democratic votes, or attach some other Republican measure and return it to the Senate with the shutdown clock ticking.
Senior Republicans say Mr. Boehner will likely choose the latter course, possibly attaching a provision to delay tax penalties on uninsured Americans who decline to purchase insurance through the Affordable Care Act.


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|Dendrocerus scutellaris Trietsch & Mikó, 2018
in Trietsch, Mikó, Notton & Deans, 2018.
DOI: 10.3897/BDJ.6.e22676
A new species, Dendrocerus scutellaris Trietsch & Mikó (Hymenoptera: Megaspilidae), is described here from male and female specimens captured in Costa Rica. This species is the only known ceraphronoid wasp with a straight mandibular surface and raised dorsal projections on the scutellum, called the mesoscutellar comb. It is hypothesised that the function of the mesoscutellar comb is to aid the emergence of the adult from the host, especially since the mandibles lack a pointed surface to tear open the pupal case. The authors also provide phenotypic data in a semantic form to facilitate data integration and accessibility across taxa and provide an updated phenotype bank of morphological characters for megaspilid taxonomic treatments. In updating this phenotype bank, the authors continue to make taxonomic data accessible to future systematic efforts focusing on Ceraphronoidea.
New information
A new species, Dendrocerus scutellaris (Hymenoptera: Megaspilidae) Trietsch & Mikó, is described from both male and female specimens captured in Costa Rica.
Keywords: Ceraphronoidea, morphology, systematics, taxonomy, eclosion
|Figure 1. Dendrocerus scutellaris habitus, with arrows pointing to the mesoscutellar comb.
A. Male holotype (NHMUK010812028). B. Female paratype (NHMUK010812044). C. Dorso-lateral view of the mesoscutellar comb (female paratype NHMUK010812045).
Dendrocerus scutellaris Trietsch & Mikó, sp. n.
Diagnosis: Dendrocerus scutellaris belongs to the Dendrocerus halidayi species group (Dessart 1995, Dessart 1999), based on the branched male flagellomeres, bifid anteromedian projection of the metanoto-propodeo-metapectal complex and the presence of parossiculal projections with 3 parossiculal setae. This species is distinguished from all other ceraphronoid species by the presence of the mesoscutellar comb, an anatomical cluster that is composed of a row of spines medially on the mesoscutellar-axillar complex. This species is also unique amongst Ceraphronoidea in that the distal edge of mandible is flat and not pointed.
Etymology: This species is named for the presence of the mesoscutellar comb, which is unique to this species and is not found in any other known ceraphronoid species.
Distribution: This species is only known from Costa Rica.
Carolyn Trietsch, István Mikó, David G. Notton and Andrew R. Deans. 2018. Unique Extrication Structure in A New Megaspilid, Dendrocerus scutellaris Trietsch & Mikó (Hymenoptera: Megaspilidae). Biodiversity Data Journal. 6: e22676 DOI: 10.3897/BDJ.6.e22676
New parasitoid wasp likely uses unique saw-like spines to break out of i... http://bit.ly/2rVmEAN via @Pensoft @EurekAlert


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Smoking, it has been estimated that nearly 4 lakhs death every year due to smoking which causes cancer. There are also other reasons that should know why you have to quit smoking,
1. It increases the risks of erectile dysfunction, since erection depends on blood flow, nicotine constricts the blood vessels and affects it flow.
2. It kills your teeth health and turns into brown by reducing the blood flow in peridontal tissues.
3. Smoking makes your breast sagging and changes it skin color.
4. It also responsible for wrinkles and dark circles in face and skin under your eyes.
5. For women, it increases the infertility.
6. It increases the cancer cell growth and fatal risks.
Here are some natural tips that helps you to quit smoking,
1. Set an attitude - that should stop smoking gradually and manage your stress due to this attitudes.
2. Try to reduce the number of cigar you have every day gradually, if you can't stop it abruptly.
3. You can also go for cigratte substitutes which gives you better results. Cigrattes substitues are available in this link http://store.quitsmoking.com/lower-risk/cigarette-substitutes.html
4. Drink orange and grape juice regularly, this will lower your appetite for cigar.
5. Have a drink of mixture of two tablespoons of baking soda in a glass of water with every meal.
6. Eat more oats and more ginger in your diet, this will reduce your cravings for cigar.
7. Vitamins such as C, E and A helps to reduce the side effects when you are trying to quit smoking.
8. Avoid being passive smoking and stay off.


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Carol RichardsonAssociate Broker
Phone: (267) 566-5676
Regional Sales Center: (267) 350-5555
Want to be notified when properties meeting your criteria come onto the market?SIGN UP or SIGN IN
Selling your property is a big move. Literally. See how I simplify this process.LET'S GET MOVING
Thinking of Selling? Contact me to schedule a true market evaluation.Launch Estimator
Learn how my expertise will help you with the purchase or sell your property.Personal Introduction


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- 1 jalapeño, halved lengthwise
- 3/4 cup tequila blanco
- 2 cups 3/4' cubes seedles watermelon
- 6 tablespoons fresh lime juice
- 6 tablespoons Simple Syrup
- 1/4 cup mezcal or gold tequila
Recipe Preparation
Scrape stems, seeds, and veins from jalapeño into a small jar (reserve green flesh for another use). Add tequila; cover and let infuse for 15 minutes. Set a strainer over a small bowl. Pour tequila through strainer and discard solids.
Place watermelon cubes in a large pitcher. Using a muddler or potato masher, coarsely crush watermelon. Stir in lime juice, Simple Syrup, mezcal, and jalapeño tequila. Stir in 2 cups ice. Cover and refrigerate until chilled, about 2 hours.
Fill Old Fashioned glasses with ice. Divide cocktail among glasses and serve.


text:
Forensic is not for everyone, and not many students can handle this course. You have to memorize a lot of information before you can even understand anything, and you can't afford to be sensitive. Your only concern has to be the patient and how you can help him; nothing else matters. Considering all this, it's easy to understand why creating a dissertation on this subject is a real challenge. The first step that you have to take is to choose a good subject. Here is how to do this:
2020 © ProspectFineArtscom. All rights reserved. | Now you know all the secrets on dissertation writing


text:
Progress and Poverty
by Stephen Cox | Posted December 26, 2013
I remember R.W. Bradford, founder of this journal, testing a new keyboard by typing out, "Good news — the depression is over, and the banks are filling with money." Anyone else would have written, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." But Bill liked news, and when he could find it, good news.
So I want to begin with some good news. The year now ending witnessed significant reductions in the rates of certain linguistic crimes. And since "law enforcement agencies" (a.k.a. cops) always take credit for any accidental lowering of a crime rate, this column gladly takes credit for these reductions. Congratulations, Word Watch.
After years of pointing out that "begging the question" doesn't mean what you might too hastily assume it means (the prompting of an inquiry) — that it means, instead, a species of logical fallacy (arguing in a circle, using a proposition to prove itself) — I am happy to find that many public speakers now realize where the trap door is hidden, and do their best to avoid it. The people on Fox News practically break their necks getting to the other side. They used to put "that begs the question" in every other sentence, and always in the wrong way. No more. Now, just when you see that they're dying to say it, there's a pause, a deep breath, and a slow rephrasing: "That . . . uh . . . poses the question"; "That . . . leads to the question"; "That . . . makes me want to ask you . . ." Somebody obviously told them to read Liberty.
After years of hammering away at the ridiculous idea that President Obama is a great, or even a good, writer and speaker (a hammering that could be heard as recently as last month's Word Watch), I am gratified by some faint signs that conservatives don't always feel obliged to begin their denunciations of an Obama utterance by saying, "Despite his soaring rhetoric," or "The president's actions are not as inspiring as his words." They should be saying, "Despite his bathetic attempts at rhetoric" and "not as insipid as his words," but that may come later, when pundits learn the existence of "bathetic" and "insipid" — in short, when they read Word Watch more often.
The great producers, the great fecund sows, of deformed prose are politics and bureaucracy, and that queen of all sows, political bureaucracy.
And after years of insisting that celebrity is not the same as significance, or even fame, I find curious indications that Word Watch may be exerting some influence on the crude but candid (i.e., free) media. I refer, for instance, to the reader comments that appeared on TMZ, following the death of Paul Walker. Walker was an action film star. He liked fast cars. On November 30, he was killed in a speeding car that went out of control and hit a light pole. It was a horrible accident, and the reader comments on TMZ were appropriately sympathetic. But they were more. They were self-dramatizing in a way that has become predictable after every death of anyone who might conceivably be regarded as a public figure. Hundreds of readers proclaimed themselves devastated with grief on behalf of Walker, his family, and his friends — people with whom these readers had no acquaintance whatever. Finally, someone had had enough. "Sorry," he wrote, "RIP, our prayers are with the family, etc.....who is he?"
It's a good thing that TMZ, like Word Watch, exists in cyberspace, or there would have been mob violence. But somebody had to point out that heartfelt feelings are often nothing but words.
Celebrity is fleeting, and even authentic feelings pass away, but some things never leave us. Word Watch can't do anything about them. For God's sake, even the second George Bush is back. He is daily proclaimed "more popular than President Obama." When you think of it, this isn't saying much. But now he is being cited as a film authority — and in the most gruesomely authoritative way. In late November, ads appeared for a movie called The Book Thief, and these ads said, "The critics are raving . . . . And President George Bush raves, 'It's a truly wonderful movie.'" He certainly put a lot of energy into that one. Not only wonderful but truly wonderful. But what truly conveys the feeling of the perpetual, the eternal, the Egyptian pyramidal, is that word "raves." Raves. The expression has screamed at me from every film ad I have ever had to sit through. The critics are raving. Even a former president is raving. And as always, the New York Times raves. They've all gone crazy together.
Well, let them. We're used to it. But must we get used to the steady seep of ignorance into the foundations and concrete basements of our language? I know you have your own examples; here are three of mine:
1. The effort to make "which" a universal connective: "I bought a new place in Vista Hills, which I didn't realize the taxes were so high."
2. The loss or mangling of strong verbs, and the creation of dumb replacements for them. It's bad enough to hear that "the suspect spit," not spat, "at the arresting officer"; but must we hear "spitted at him"? And why can't people realize that the past tense of "fit" is "fitted," but the past tense of "shit" is "shat"?
3. The growing movement to ignore the rules about comparatives and superlatives, whenever their use requires a split second of thought. Example: a journalist on Greta van Susteren's show, commenting (December 10) on the latest Quinnipiac poll about Obama: "It's on healthcare that people are ranking him the most low." Most low? The superlative of "low" is "lowest." Is that too hard? Yes, if you can't figure out what to do when an adjective gets two words away from its noun.
"Most low" exemplifies a general problem — people's increasingly evident inability to keep track of their sentences. Leland Yeager, a friend and expert advisor of this column, has collected many instances of the problem, including offerings by such respectable journals as The Economist and the Wall Street Journal. Try these exhibits from the Yeager museum of unnatural history:
"A key benefit to [sic] offshore wind power is the lower rate of wind turbulence at sea vs. on land" (WSJ, June 19, 2008). As Yeager suggests, why not just write, "A key advantage of offshore wind power is less wind turbulence at sea than on land"? But here is early documentation of an illiteracy that continues to spread: the use of "versus" ("vs.") to mean "than." What next — "My kid is smarter vs. your kid"?
Commentators "take great pride in emphasising how much more sophisticated civilization was in Japan in the 11th century compared with Europe at that time" (Economist, Dec. 20, 2008). It doesn't take much to compete with the medieval West. But what exactly is being "compared" — "the 11th century" and "Europe"? No, it's supposed to be . . . let's see . . . it must be levels of sophistication in Japanese and European civilizations in the 11th century. Commentators apparently like to emphasize the idea that in the 11th century Japan was more sophisticated than Europe.
That's one way of reforming the sentence, and you can easily think of many others — none of which occurred to the writer. But there are sentences that just make you want to give up and head for the bar. If you have any interest in economics, you've seen too many sentences like this one, which Yeager recovered from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review (Sept.-Oct. 2008):
But the embedded leverage in these products meant that end-investors were often buying assets with much greater risk characteristics compared with the underlying pool of mortgages, credit card debts, or loans than they might suppose.
Do scholarly journals still have editors?
Still, the great producers, the great fecund sows, of deformed prose are politics and bureaucracy, and that queen of all sows, political bureaucracy: always ignorant, always talking, always striving to influence, always striving, simultaneously, to obscure the truth. The Obamacare fiasco has born teeming litter after teeming litter of repulsive words. Any example will do, but let's look at a little missive by the irrepressible Julie Bataille, director of communications, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (November 22, 2013). Remember, as you read, that she is a director of communications.
"Today," she begins, "Jeff Zients [the wizard that Obama appointed to clean up the mess he had made of the merry old land of Oz] offered an update on our efforts to improve HealthCare.gov; data on key metrics on site performance, the progress made this week and the view looking forward."
Already you know you're in trouble. You know that Bataille has no intention of rushing forward with any facts. If she did, she would say up front what's wrong with the site, instead of tucking "site performance" into a box called "metrics," tucking that box into one called "data," and tucking that one into an "update" that was "offered" by somebody else. How about just giving us the data? We know that an update on "progress" assumes that progress has been made — but that's the topic of debate, isn't it? Could Bataille be begging the question? Clearly, she is a very bad writer. She's going to give us nothing but happy talk, and the happy talk will consist of slick-sounding clichés, such as the progressive "view looking forward." Turning worse into worst, she will mangle those clichés. To her, a "view" looks.
As for "real-time management decision making," does that mean that some management decision making is performed in unreal time?
"In late October," she continues, "we appointed QSSI as the general contractor to deploy their expertise in technology and program management to lead this project forward."
So. Since late October, when the nation, as distinguished from Ms. Bataille, realized that Obamacare was a hideous disaster, something called QSSI has been leading the project forward. (There's that word again.) But how is that leading accomplished? What's been happening? Oh, it's all very technical. Let's just say that the company (singular), here regarded as they (plural), deploy their expertise. Expertise, one gathers, is like an army. Division 1: Attack that defective code! Division 2: You're in reserve; wait behind the hill. Division 3: Lift the siege of Fort Obama!
"The team from QSSI continues to work with people from CMS [can't have enough acronyms] and other contractors around the clock [can't have enough clichés, either] to troubleshoot the system, prioritize fixes, and provide real-time management decision making."
So you can "troubleshoot" a "system," can you? I suppose, then, you can "troubleshoot" almost anything. "Hey, honey, I just wanta troubleshoot ya." OK. But I draw the line at prioritizing fixes. It just sounds so gruesome. As for "real-time management decision making," does that mean that some management decision making is performed in unreal time? Maybe that's what went wrong with Obama . . .
We haven't reached the end of Bataille's memo — that's a very long way off — but we have reached the climax, which she has cleverly deployed in the middle. And this is it:
"Thanks to this team effort, we have made measurable progress."
Measurable progress.Let's consider how such phrases might work in real time.
Automobile passenger: "Hey, what's the speed limit, anyway? Seems like we're going awful slow."
Automobile driver: "No, we are making measurable progress.
Airline seat holder: "How long before we get to Cleveland?"
Airline attendant: "We are making measurable progress, sir."
Employer: "When do you expect to get that project done?"
Employee: "I am making measurable progress."
Employer: "You're fired."
Bataille's communication, horrible as it seems, is a fair sample of the words oozing out of Washington. If you're like me, you've often wondered: do people who write this kind of prose actually think the way they write? Are they just prowling across their keyboard, trying to find enough words to bamboozle everybody else, or does it all come spontaneously and sincerely to them? When their car breaks down, do they look for expertise that can be deployed? When the guy from Triple A arrives, do they reflect that measurable progress is now being made? Which alternative is more terrible to contemplate — that kind of cunning or that kind of sincerity?
Stephen Cox is editor of Liberty, and a professor of literature at the University of California San Diego. His recent books include The Big House: Image and Reality of the American Prison and American Christianity: The Continuing Revolution. Newly published is Culture and Liberty, a selection of works by Isabel Paterson.
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Compare Ms Bataille's comments to the language of the 27th congress of CPSU ( or any public speech in formerly communist countries for that matter):
The Party's policy in the field of science is designed to create favourable conditions for dynamic progress in all areas of knowledge; concentrate personnel, and material and financial resources in the more promising areas of research called upon to accelerate the accomplishment of planned economic and social tasks and society's cultural advancement; and ensure a reliable defence capability of the country.
Dialectical materialistic methods have been and remain the chief, tried-and-tested basis for progress in the natural sciences and social studies. They should be creatively further developed and skillfully applied in research and in social practice.
Soviet science is called upon to take leading positions in the princple areas of scientific and technological progress and to provide effective and timely solutions to current and long-term production, social and economic problems. It is important to ensure priorty development of fundamental, exploratory research and ensure prompt implementation of scientific ideas in the national economy and other fields of endeavour. The organisational and economic forms of the integration of science and production and of directing scientific and technological prcgress should be continuously updated; the scale of topical applied research and experimental design projects and their efficiency should be increaed. It is essential to strengthen the interaction of scientific work collectives at research institutions, higher educational establishments and in production.
Social science workers should focus their attention on studying and thoroughly analysing the experience of world development and the building of the new society in the USSR and other socialist countries, the dialectics of productive forces and relations of production and of the material and cultural spheres under socialism, the general laws governing the formation of the communist system and the ways and means of ensuring gradual movement towards its highest stage. An urgent task facing social sciences at the present stage is to provide the scientific analysis of the objective contradictions in socialist sociey, work out sound recommendations on how to overcome them, and make reliable economic and social forecasts.
The processes under way in the communist, working-class and national liberation movements, as well as in capitalist society should be studied most thoroughly. The course of world development confronts mankind with quite a few questions of global importance. Science should furnish correct answers to these questions. Combatting bourgeois ideology, revisionism and dogmatism has been and remains an important task of the social sciences.
The Party supports bold exploration, competition of ideas and trends in science, and fruiful discussion. Scholastic discourses and passive recording of facts which do not provide scope for daring conclusions of a general theoretical nature are alien to science, as are time-serving and loss of touch with reality. The complex and multifaceted problems of today call for a broader integration of the social, natural and technical sciences. Forms or organisation of science that provide for an interdisciplinary study of pressing problems, necessary mobility of scientific personnel and a flexible structure of scientific centres as well as effectiveness of research and development must be introduced on a greater scale. It is vital to enhance their role in the elaboration and fulfilment of plans for economic and social development. An indispensable condition for scientific progress is a constant influx of fresh forces, in particular from the sphere of production, efficient use of the creative potentialities of scientists, and active support of their work according to their actual contribution to solving theoretical and applied problems.
Thu, 2013-12-26 05:10
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