UN Catalogues 'Unimaginable Horrors' Faced By Nigerians In Libya
The United Nations has released a new report, which detailed the unimaginable horrors Nigerian migrants were being subjected from the moment they entered Libya and throughout their stay in that country.
The report, released by the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), also showed the horrors of attempting to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.
Entitled: 'Desperate and Dangerous: Report on the human rights situation of migrants and refugees in Libya', it detailed the horrific conditions Nigerian migrants and refugees faced during their transit through and stay in Libya.
The findings were based on first-hand accounts gathered by UN human rights staff from Nigerian migrants in Libya, those who had returned to Nigeria, and Nigerians who managed to reach Italy.
The report covered 20-months up till August 2018, detailing a terrible litany of violations and abuses committed by a range of state officials, armed groups, smugglers and traffickers against migrants and refugees.
The accounts of the Nigerian migrants were mostly those of woes ranging from unlawful killings to gang rape, prostitution, arbitrary detention, torture and inhumane treatment, unpaid wages, slavery, human trafficking, racism and xenophobia.
Libyan law criminalises irregular entry into, stay in or exit from the country with a penalty of imprisonment pending deportation, without any consideration of individual circumstances or protection needs.
For instance, a 27-year-old man from Nigeria, who was held in captivity in Sabratah between May and October 2017, gave an account of death penalty in Libya.
He described witnessing a migrant being shot by a "drunk guard for no apparent reason", and another being shot point blank over a disagreement about a sim card.
A Nigerian woman who had returned home in December 2017, gave account of rape, forced prostitution and other sexual violence.
"To be sold and forced to have sex with Arab or African men either to pay for the journey or to extract your money is a common thing to happen to you as a woman or a girl, all over the journey from day one in the desert until you depart Libya."
A woman from Nigeria who arrived in Italy in April 2018 recounted being raped consecutively by four men, about three times a week, while held at a site in Sabha.
She described how five men would enter detainees' cells together and concurrently rape five women.
When she arrived in Libya, she was in the early stages of pregnancy and suffered a miscarriage, she believed, as a result of rape.
She claimed that when women died at the facility, guards would just shrug and remove the bodies.
Women and girls were compelled to engage in sexual acts against their will and were under the absolute power and control of their captors, the Nigerian migrants recounted.
"In particular, Nigerian women and girls appear to be vulnerable to trafficking by multinational criminal networks in their countries of origin.
"They embark on their journeys believing office work awaits them in Europe but find themselves in so-called "connection houses" ("brothels") in Libya," the report stated.
A 22-year-old Nigerian woman, who was forcibly taken to a "connection house" in Tripoli's Gergaresh neighbourhood shortly after arriving to Libya, was given a "choice" of either paying a "debt" of 24,000 Libyan dinars (then about $28,000) to her traffickers or engaging in sexual activities.
She was forced into the second option for nearly one year until the "connection house" was raided by a Tripoli-based armed group in early 2017.
She described the "connection house" as several three-bedroom flats, where an estimated 100 Nigerian women and girls aged between 15 and 22 shared rooms, using a curtain as a partition when engaged with "clients".
The women were never allowed to leave the "connection house" or to make contact with the outside world; they had to endure being raped by up to 20 men a day.
They were not given any contraception, and several consequently got pregnant and forced to pay for dangerous abortions carried out at the "connection house".
As they were not allowed to keep any money in their possession and therefore unable to make payments directly, their "debts" were increased instead.
The woman described seeing another victim bleed to death following an abortion.
A 19-year-old girl from Nigeria promised domestic work by her traffickers found herself in a "connection house, recounted her shock.
"At first, I refused to work. But if girls refused to work, they – connection house management and guards – would kill you or rape you and do anything they wanted to you.
"I had to stay there for nearly a year, until I paid my debt of 1.3 million Naira ($3,500)," she said.
Apparently due to her inability to pay a ransom, a 20-year-old Nigerian woman was forcibly transferred by smugglers/traffickers from a facility where she had spent one month to a "connection house" for one year and a half until March 2018.
She reported being beaten at the "connection house" in Sabha for initially refusing to engage in sex work.
As in "connection houses" in Tripoli, women and girls as young as 15 reportedly worked and slept at the facility, where they were locked up for the duration of their stay.
They were forced to receive several clients – up to 10 – per day under threat of beatings and other abuse. She reported suffering a miscarriage and not receiving any medical treatment.
A 23-year-old woman from Nigeria intercepted by the Libyan Coast Guard (LCG) off the coast of Zuwara in January 2017 recalled the panic caused when members of the LCG jumped onto their dinghy and shot in the air.
Some migrants and/or refugees were reportedly beaten with hoses and the back of rifles for refusing to point out the "captain" – or individual steering the boat – to the LCG.
A group of Nigerian men, detained at the Zuwara detention centre for two months following interception at sea in January 2018, described being beaten with water pipes and given electric shocks daily.
They also described detainees being locked up in the refrigerated back of a van used to transport perishable food as punishment.
A Nigerian man, who had lived and worked in Libya for 18 years, spent over one year held in the Mitiga detention centre without charge or trial after being handed over to SDF by armed men who kidnapped him in the street and collected a ransom from his wife.
In April 2017, he and dozens of other migrants were transferred from Mitiga detention centre to the DCIM detention centre at Tarik al-Sikka. He was deported in December 2017 for being in the country illegally.
He had no opportunity to explain that his residence had lapsed because he had been in detention. While held at the Mitiga detention centre, he was forced to construct and paint prison cells.
He was also beaten, held in solitary confinement for six months, slept on cardboard and rags and was denied medical treatment and family visits.
A group of 16 Nigerian women arrested during house raids in Misrata in late August 2017 recounted being beaten with sticks and water pipes and being given electric shocks at a local police station, while being called "whores".
They were then transferred to al-Jawiya Prison, apparently on accusations of prostitution and alcohol consumption.
Three women in the group suffered miscarriages in the subsequent two months, possibly due to beatings upon their arrest and medical neglect while in custody.
They were not taken to the hospital when their bleeding started. One of the women, seven-month pregnant at the time, added: "I was feeling very sick. My friends (cellmates) started banging at the door.
"They (prison administration) eventually took me downstairs to give me a drip (in the local clinic), but they refused to transfer me to the hospital. When I lost the baby, I had to flush it, together with the blood clots, down the toilet."
A Nigerian woman described to UNSMIL how "Asma boys" (as migrants refer to criminals in Libya) broke into her house, searching for money.
They beat her even though she was visibly pregnant at the time; she showed UNSMIL a scar on her arm, which she claimed she sustained when she shielded her face from an incoming knife stab.
The report said: "Countless migrants and refugees lost their lives during captivity by smugglers after being shot, tortured to death or simply left to die from starvation or medical neglect.
"Across Libya, unidentified bodies of migrants and refugees bearing gunshot wounds, torture marks and burns are frequently uncovered in rubbish bins, dry river beds, farms and the desert.''
Tens of thousands of young men and women have been returned from Libya by the Federal Government since 2017 through the Voluntary Humanitarian Returns programme of the International Organisation for Migration.
Dame Julie Okah-Donli, Director-General, National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), said no fewer than 13,000 trafficked Nigerians had been rescued by the agency by March 2018.
"Some of them came back with all sorts of conditions – some treatable, some untreatable, some with hepatitis, HIV, some with full-blown AIDS," she said, adding many of the victims have psychological problems.
"A lot of them come back mentally sick and so we have to refer them to the mental hospitals because they were traumatised, they've been beaten, raped and used," she said.


Native Peoples Law Lawyers In Colcord Oklahoma
Colcord is a small farming town in southern Delaware County, Oklahoma, United States. The community lies in the northeastern part of the state in a region known as Green Country. At the 2000 census, the population was 819.
What is native peoples law?
Answers to native peoples law issues in Oklahoma


text:
In English the letter Q has two sounds and is always followed by the letter U.
For most English words the pronunciation of the qu is actually a combination of the K and the W. But there are a few words where the qu sounds like a K without the W.
Note that the examples are in three columns. The first column provides an example of the sound when it is word initial (at the beginning of the word). The second column provides an example of the sound when it is word internal (in the middle of the word). The third column provides examples of the sound when it is word final (at the end of the word).
Click on the sample words to listen to the sound files. Pay attention to the sound of the letters in bold.
*IPA means International Phonetic Alphabet. Learn more about phonetics and the IPA.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


How to Use Pushbullet to Bridge the Gap Between All Your Devices
Pushbullet, the service that acts as a bridge between your mobile and desktop OSes, sets the gold standard for developer updates. If you haven't used it recently (or ever), this is a great time to check out all the cool stuff it can do.
The Basics: Push Anything to Any Device
How to Use Pushbullet to Bridge the Gap Between All Your Devices
Way back in the day, Google introduced a Chrome extension called Chrome to Phone that would allow you to push links from your desktop to your phone with a single click. It worked okay. Pushbullet, on the other hand, picked up where that extension left off, allowing users to push text, links, files, maps and more. Not only could you push from your desktop to the phone, but you could also push data in the reverse direction: from your phone to your computer. Or from one device to many others. Or even from your device to a friends! We'll explain how to do all of those (and much more) but first you'll need the apps or the extensions. Here are download links for various platforms:
Pushbullet also utilizes Chrome's rich notification system to show you notifications that have been mirrored from your device (more on that later) or sent from the Pushbullet app to your browser. Firefox has a similar toast notification function, though it's slightly less robust (for example, Chrome allows you to dismiss a notification on your phone from the desktop, while Firefox does not).
From any of these apps or extensions, you can send something to any of the others. Here are the basics that have been around in Pushbullet for a while:
 - Send links between devices: From your desktop, using the Chrome or Firefox extension, you can send a link to your phone or tablet with the click of a button. If you're on the page you need to send, Pushbullet will automatically fill in the title and link, so you just have to pick the device and hit push.
 - Copy files to other devices: Pushbullet can copy files from one device to another, including pictures, videos, music files, PDFs, APKs, and just about anything else that you can copy. While Dropbox is a pretty good solution for some file movement, being able to push a file directly from one device to another without a middleman can be useful.
 - Open an address in your maps app: One of the sucky things about Chrome to Phone getting abandoned is that moving a Maps location from your desktop to your phone is a little harder. If you're in Maps on the desktop, you can send a link from where you're at. You can also send an address without opening up Maps at all with the address function. Both options open directly in the Maps app on Android. iOS requires you to open the address in the Pushbullet app first, but then it will jump to your maps application.
 - Push a link to someone else's phone: While you'll have to add them as a contact in Pushbullet first, you can send pushes to a friend's phone by simply changing the target device. If you've ever had to open a messaging or email app just to share a link with someone, you can immediately see how much nicer this is.
Pushing links from one place to another is just the start, though. Pushbullet aims to be the glue that holds your devices together, filling in the gaps where typical syncing software fails.
Send and Receive Text Messages on Your Computer
How to Use Pushbullet to Bridge the Gap Between All Your Devices
As any Google Voice user could tell you, sending text messages from your desktop is way easier than tapping it out on a phone. While services like MightyText exist solely for this purpose, Pushbullet rolls it into the rest of its software suite. With the feature enabled, you can get a desktop notification when you receive an SMS, reply from the pop-up, or even initiate an SMS conversation yourself.
There are a couple downsides to this, though: for starters, iPhone users don't seem to have this functionality yet (possibly due to restrictions on iOS). And MMS and group messages don't seem to be supported at all, though the developer says he hopes to add it. Nonetheless, simple SMS is still plenty useful.
Receive and Dismiss Notifications on Your Phone or Tablet from Desktop
How to Use Pushbullet to Bridge the Gap Between All Your Devices
One of the neatest features of Pushbullet on Android is that it can mirror your notifications on your desktop. You can do this en masse or on a per app basis. The app accomplishes this by using the notification listening service (which is why it doesn't work on iOS, unfortunately). Enable notification mirroring on your Android phone or tablet and then install the Pushbullet extension on Chrome or Firefox. From then on, any notification you get will show up on your desktop. You can even dismiss them from your phone, which makes it particularly handy for managing all the notifications that build up during the day.
Of course, all of this functionality is built right in. You didn't come here for the stuff you already knew you could do, did you? Let's get to the fun stuff.
Sync Your Clipboard Across All Devices
How to Use Pushbullet to Bridge the Gap Between All Your Devices
Pushbullet already helps make it easier to copy a bit of text from one device to another with the push of a note. However, syncing your clipboard could make it even easier. So they made it happen. To turn on universal copy and paste, go into Settings on the devices you want to sync and check the box to turn it on. This option is device-specific and not account-wide, so you can enable it on just your phone and desktop if, for example, you don't want a tablet interfering.
Once the feature is turned on, you'll never actually "see" it in action, but it works behind the scenes. In our tests, there was a couple seconds of lag compared to normal cut and paste (it is traveling over the internet after all), but your clipboard contents are simply replaced with whatever the last thing you copied on any device was. A warning though: this can cause some security issues if you're using it on a shared device, so be sure that you only enable it on trusted devices. Alternatively, don't copy your passwords or credit card info to the clipboard.
Subscribe to Cool Content with Pushbullet Channels
How to Use Pushbullet to Bridge the Gap Between All Your Devices
In the first section, we talked about how you can send or receive links from someone else's phone. Well, it's not just people you know that can push stuff to your phone. Pushbullet also has its own Channels you can subscribe to that will send you updates. These are a bit like custom RSS feeds, but instead of being consolidated in a reader app, they go straight to your notification shade.
Unfortunately, at the moment, it doesn't seem that you can create your own channels. However, there are several useful ones to choose from. You can get updates on Steam deals, CyanogenMod announcements, or even certain webcomics like The Oatmeal. In the latter case, any fan can tell you that updates are irregular, so getting a notification is especially handy.
Suppose you'd like to get notifications of something not on the list, though. Well, Pushbullet can help with that, too.
Create Pushbullet Recipes with IFTTT
How to Use Pushbullet to Bridge the Gap Between All Your Devices
The IFTTT channel for Pushbullet has already been populated with hundreds of recipes that allow the service to send notifications directly to your phone, tablet, or PC when certain criteria are met. You can browse the entire channel here.
This section actually has a bit of overlap with a similar service, Pushover, which we've covered before. While both services can send notifications to your device via IFTTT, Pushbullet excels by making it easier to send thing between devices manually, as well as having Tasker integration which we'll get to next. If you're more inclined to write your own code, however, Pushover might be worth your attention. That being said, here are some examples of what you can do with Pushbullet and IFTTT.
Get Notified of Stock Prices
The stock channel on IFTTT allows you to find out if a particular stock has dropped or risen by more than a set percent, or simply to check in at the end of the trading day. Data for stock trading is provided by Yahoo! Finance.
Find Out When a Package Changes Status
If you're like me, then any time you're expecting a package, you're constantly refreshing Fedex's website like a mad man, anyway. Instead, you can have IFTTT send a notification directly to your phone any time your package changes status. For now, it seems the shipping channel can't filter out any status except "delivered" (which is the only one we care about), but it's still helpful.
Push a Voice Message to Other Devices
IFTTT allows you to call in to a dedicated number and leave a voice message for yourself (or others!). With the Pushbullet channel, you can send that voice message directly to your tablet or desktop. The notification will include an audio file of the recording that you can download to any of your devices.
Find Out When the Weather is Crappy
Okay, you probably have somewhere in the area of hundreds of apps on your phone that can retrieve the weather. However, Pushbullet and IFTTT can send weather alerts directly to your phone or desktop. You can get a daily reminder of tomorrow's forecast, receive a notification if it's going to rain tomorrow, or just get today's weather report every morning.
Get Notified


text:
BACKGROUND: Person-centered care has been widely promoted in long-term care settings. It is commonly referred to as a core concept that guides the care philosophy change in long-term care settings from a traditional medical model to a more humanistic approach to care. Current person-centered practice in long-term care settings is guided by multiple person-centered care models. However, evidence regarding the effects of person-centered practice guided by multiple models on residents' outcomes has not been well established or synthesized.
OBJECTIVES: To outline and compare the principal models and to synthesize current evidence of the effects of multiple person-centered care models on resident outcomes.
METHOD: Systematic searches were conducted using CINAHL, MEDLINE, PsychoINFO, Evidence Based Medicine Reviews, Cochrane Review databases, and ProQuest Dissertations and Theses using the following keywords (UK and US spellings) individually and in multiple combinations: person-centered care, resident-centered care, client-centered care, individualized care, patient-centered care, culture change, Eden Alternative, Wellspring, Green House, Pioneer Network, dementia, nursing home, assisted living and long-term care. The searches were limited to articles written in English and published from January 1990 to April 2013. Then a manual search of the reference lists of selected relevant articles was conducted.
RESULTS: Twenty-four studies from three countries were reviewed and compared in terms of person-centered interventions, measurement, and resident outcomes. 15 culture change studies for residents who were cognitively intact or with minor cognitive impairment and 9 studies for residents with dementia were reviewed. Across the studies, culture change models had some beneficial effects on residents' psychological wellbeing. Person-centered dementia care had significant effects on decreasing behavioral symptoms and psychotropic medication use in dementia residents in long-term care.
CONCLUSION: An agreed upon definition of person-centered care is essential for researchers and clinicians to guide person-centered care development and implementation. Rigorous study design and objective and subjective measurement use are needed for future studies, especially those guided by culture change models. The effectiveness of person-centered care on residents' bio-psycho-social outcomes like sleep, stress, and physical wellbeing need to be addressed and systematically examined with subjective and objective measures in future studies.
- Culture change
- Long-term care
- Person-centered care
ASJC Scopus subject areas


text:
A new, safe, and practical approach for using trend arrow data from a real-time continuous glucose monitoring system helps adult patients with diabetes to adjust insulin dosing to improve glucose control, according to an article published in the Journal of the Endocrine Society.1
Researchers used the newly approved Dexcom G5 Mobile CGM system (Dexcom G5, Dexcom, Inc., San Diego, California) for nonadjunctive insulin dosing to develop their approach based on a review of 4 previously published methods using trend arrow dosing to adjust insulin doses.1-5 Rather than using a measurement from a static point in time, this device's trend arrow data allows users to anticipate future glucose levels and proactively adjust their insulin dose accordingly.1
In general, upward trend arrows indicate rising glucose levels — which may require additional insulin — while downward trend arrows indicate falling glucose levels — which may require less insulin or corrective action with carbohydrate intake to prevent hypoglycemia. Using the trend arrow approach does not replace, but rather adds to, standard calculations using the insulin-to-carbohydrate ratio and correction factor to determine insulin doses.
It is important to note that using trend arrow data focuses on adjusting the insulin dose pre-meal and making corrections at least 4 hours post-meal.1 For the 4 hours following a meal, the researchers recommend using the REPLACE-BG study approach to minimize hypoand hyperglycemia.1,6 The researchers also provide recommendations for adjusting for the trend arrow data on sick days, in elderly and frail adults, when exercising or during physical activity, and environmental factors to consider.
The investigators concluded, "We believe this simplified approach reduces numeracy requirements and the number of calculations, which will help patients improve glucose control and increase glucose time in range without hypoglycemia, while promoting clinical discussion."
This publication was supported by an unrestricted educational grant from Dexcom, Inc., San Diego, California, the manufacturer of Dexcom G5 CGM.
- Aleppo G, Laffel LM, Ahmann AJ, et al. A practical approach to using trend arrows on the Dexcom G5 CGM system for the management of adults with diabetes [published online November 20, 2017]. J Endocr Soc. doi:10.1210/js.2017-00388
- Buckingham B, Xing D, Weinzimer S, et al; Diabetes Research In Children Network (DirecNet) Study Group. Use of the DirecNet Applied Treatment Algorithm (DATA) for diabetes management with a real-time continuous glucose monitor (the FreeStyle Navigator). Pediatr Diabetes. 2008;9(2):142-147.
- Scheiner G. Practical CGM: Improving Patient Outcomes Through Continuous Glucose Monitoring. 4th ed. Alexandria, VA: American Diabetes Association; 2015.
- Pettus J, Edelman SV. Recommendations for using real-time continuous glucose monitoring (rtCGM) data for insulin adjustments in type 1 diabetes. J Diabetes Sci Technol. 2017;11(1):138-147.
- Klonoff DC, Kerr D. A simplified approach using rate of change arrows to adjust insulin with real-time continuous glucose monitoring. J Diabetes Sci Technol. 2017;11(6):_PHONE_.
- Aleppo G, Ruedy KJ, Riddlesworth TD, et al; REPLACE-BG Study Group. REPLACE-BG: a randomized trial comparing continuous glucose monitoring with and without routine blood glucose monitoring in adults with well-controlled type 1 diabetes. Diabetes Care. 2017;40(4):538-545.


What is Minimum Production Speed, and why is it necessary?
Minimum Production Speed is the minimum speed at which the machine is considered to be running in production operation; for most machines it should be set to 1 unit rate of production. This parameter is defined to provide some customers with a method to represent actual machine status for specific machines in a way that […]
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text:
What do you think?There's an equivocation on 4. 'music'. You want it to mean music as such, and also this particular piece of music which is a percussion piece.
Sorry for the confusion. My latest example was not meant to be merged with the previous examples. It was meant to stand alone. What I mean is, #4 'music' can simply be thought of as 'that which the composer wrote'. #1 is now 'percussion' or 'percussion section' (rhythm section), not percussion piece. So, just as anything found in the Bible is "of the Bible" or 'Biblical', anything found in the music is "of the music" or 'musical'. In this case, the composer included percussion in the piece s/he composed, and even if the percussion section consisted of pots and pans being hit with sticks, they are a part of this music and must be considered 'musical'. So the author (me) is not being equivocal, but instead just states how the percussion (even if the composer wrote for pots and pans in the parts) is musical even though the composer didn't write a melodic line for the percussion, in the same way the original author's point was that the doctrine was Biblical, even if the author(s) of the Bible didn't write the formula in a single statement.
The 4. 'Bible' must be the ultimate determiner of what is 2. 'Biblical doctrine'.
However, 4. 'this piece of music' cannot be the ultimate determiner of what is 2. 'musical'.
The #4 'Bible' is the determiner of what is 'Biblical'. Are you sure that #4 'Music' cannot be the determiner of what is 'musical'? I would think even dynamic markings, tempo markings, and even articulations which the composer indicated in the music, can be considered as being "of the music" and therefore, musical.
I don't think you'll ever write a strictly parallel analogy, because the concepts involved in the original are different and possibly unique.
Student or Learner


Quick Answer: Where Is Barak Found In The Bible?
What does Barak mean in the Bible?
Barak, also spelled Baraq, is a given name of Semitic origin.
As a Hebrew name, from the root B-R-Q (Hebrew: ב-ר-ק; Arabic: ب-ر-ق), it means "lightning" and it appears in the Hebrew Bible as the name of an Ancient Israelite general Barak (ברק Bārāq)..
What can we learn from Deborah?
Deborah in the Bible doesn't question God's voice or wonder what others will say or think she simply has the faith to do what God tells her. Whether people follow or not is not her concern. Her only concern is doing what the Lord has called her to, and not letting anything get in the way of that.
What is the meaning of Deborah in the Bible?
Deborah (Hebrew: דְבוֹרָה) is a feminine given name derived from דבורה D'vorah, a Hebrew word meaning "bee". Deborah was a heroine and prophetess in the Old Testament Book of Judges. … The name is Déborah in French, Débora in Portuguese and Spanish, and Debora in Italian and Czech.
Who is the first prophetess in the Bible?
MiriamMiriam was the first prophetess in the Bible. In Exodus 15:20, she is described as 'Miriam the prophetess', the first instance of this title being…
Where is Barack mentioned in the Bible?
Accomplishments of Barak in the Bible Barak is mentioned in the Hebrews 11 Hall of Faith.
Where did Barak attack the Canaanites?
SiseraDeborah and Barak fought the Canaanites under Sisera, which had a deadly force of 900 chariots, unbeatable in open terrain.
How many I Am's in the Bible?
There are seven or eight "I am" statements in John's Gospel – depending on how you count them.
Where in the Bible is the story of Deborah and Barak?
Deborah told Barak that God commanded him to lead an attack against the forces of Jabin king of Canaan and his military commander Sisera (Judges 4:6–7); the entire narrative is recounted in chapter 4. Judges chapter 5 gives the same story in poetic form.
What does Barack mean in Hebrew?
Barack Origin and Meaning The name Barack is a boy's name of Arabic, Hebrew, Swahili origin meaning "thunderbolt, lightning; or blessing".
What's the meaning of Barack?
Barack, also spelled Barak or Baraq, is a given name of Arabic origin. From the Semitic root B-R-K, it means "blessed" and is most commonly used in its feminine form Baraka(h).
What does the word blessing mean in the Bible?
a favor or gift bestowed by God, thereby bringing happiness. the invoking of God's favor upon a person: The son was denied his father's blessing.
What does the name Jay mean in Hebrew?
Boy name origins & meanings Hebrew : Supplanter, substitute; the patron saint of Spain. Old French : Jay bird.
What is Barak praise?
In barak we offer humble and submissive praise. We recognize Him as our Lord and kneel before Him. We bless God with our willing submission. Barak also reminds us of the primary Hebrew word for worship, shachah, which means to bow. … Give to God the blessing of a willing heart.
Why is Barak mentioned in Hebrews 11?
This, I submit, is why Barak was remembered in the great hall of faith. He was meek and gave glory to God when it would have been natural to want to seek his own fame as a result of a great military victory.
What does Elon mean in Hebrew?
Elon (אֵילוֹן in Hebrew), is a masculine first name, or Jewish surname, which means "tree" or "oak tree" in the Hebrew language. Variants of the name include Alon, Eilan, Eilon, Elan, Ilan and Ilon.
Who was Barak to Deborah?
Deborah summoned Barak, the son of Abinoam, from his home at Kedesh in Naphtali, and ordered him, in the name of YHWH, to take ten thousand men to Mount Tabor. He agreed to on condition that Deborah should go with him.
What judges are listed in Hebrews 11?
The Book of Judges mentions eleven leaders who are said to "judge" Israel: Othniel, Shamgar, Deborah, Gideon, Tola, Jair, Jephthah, Ibzan, Elon, Abdon, and Samson.
Who was Heber in the Bible?
Heber the Kenite (חבר הקיני) was, according to the Book of Judges in the Bible, a descendant of Reuel the Midianite, the father-in-law of Moses. He had separated himself and his wife Jael from the other Kenites and pitched their tent in the plain of Zaanaim, which is near Kedesh in the tribal territory of Naphtali.


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The Italian American Table
United States - 21 Feb 14
Looking at the historic Italian American community of East Harlem in the 1920s and 30s, University of Gastronomic Sciences professor Simone Cinotto recreates the bustling world of Italian life in New York City and demonstrates how food was at the center of the lives of immigrants in his new book, The Italian American Table: Food, Family, and Community in New York City.
From generational conflicts resolved around the family table to a vibrant food-based economy of ethnic producers, importers, and restaurateurs, food was essential to the creation of an Italian American identity. Italian American foods offered not only sustenance but also powerful narratives of community and difference, tradition and innovation as immigrants made their way through a city divided by class conflict, ethnic hostility, and racialized inequalities.
Drawing on a vast array of resources including fascinating, rarely explored primary documents and fresh approaches in the study of consumer culture, Cinotto argues that Italian immigrants created a distinctive culture of food as a symbolic response to the needs of immigrant life, from the struggle for personal and group identity to the pursuit of social and economic power. For generations of Neapolitan, Sicilian, and Calabrese immigrants in New York, Italian American cuisine was much more than a remnant of the home country; Cinotto shows, in vibrant detail, how the Italian American table we now celebrate emerged as the outcome of years of selective incorporations of cultural fragments, resources, and meanings available to the immigrant community. Adding a transnational dimension to the study of Italian American foodways, Cinotto recasts Italian American food culture as an American "invention" resonant with traces of tradition and shows how generations of creative, ambitious improvisers in tenement kitchens and behind restaurant stoves cooked, ate, and shared the foods that helped them make their way into American culture.
"Full of rich analysis and insights, this first book-length scholarly study of Italian immigrant foodways in the United States offers an explanation for why and how food became so closely attached to the creation of Italian American ethnic identities. A convincing and significant contribution."--Donna Gabaccia, author of We Are What We Eat: Ethnic Food and the Making of Americans
"With rich descriptive detail that is fascinating and engagingly presented, The Italian American Table advances our understanding not only of Italians' migration experiences but of immigrants in general. Simone Cinotto uncovers a treasure trove of data from various historical sources and weaves it together into a clear and compelling narrative."--Carole M. Counihan, author of Around the Tuscan Table: Food, Family, and Gender in Twentieth-Century Florence
Simone Cinotto teaches history at the University of Gastronomic Sciences, Pollenzo, Italy, where he is the director of the Master's Program in Food Culture and Communications: Food, Place, and Identity. He is the author of Soft Soil, Black Grapes: The Birth of Italian Winemaking in California.
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text:
The antidiabetic drug metformin is not prescribed for patients with reduced kidney function because the risk of adverse effects has been regarded as unacceptably high. A study at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, has found that the risks have been substantially overrated. As a result, many more patients with diabetes may be able to enjoy the benefits of the medication.
Type 2 diabetes, a very common condition, is increasingly prevalent around the world. Keeping diabetes under control and preventing complications requires not only lifestyle changes, but drug therapy to reduce blood glucose levels.
Among the most effective and frequently prescribed antidiabetics is metformin, which has been shown in a number of studies to lower the risk of death from cardiovascular disease. Because the drug has been considered causing an increased risk of developing a rare but life-threatening adverse effect known as lactic acidosis, it is not prescribed for patients with reduced kidney function.
Researchers at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg and Uppsala University have conducted a study involving 51,700 patients with type 2 diabetes from the Swedish national diabetes register and found that the risks are exaggerated.
The Gothenburg study shows that metformin is more effective than other glucose lowering drugs when it comes to reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease, serious infection and death in patients with normal kidney function, but also in patients with mild kidney impairment.
"Furthermore, patients with mild to moderate kidney impairment do not run an elevated risk of adverse effects from metformin,"says Nils Ekström, a researcher at Sahlgrenska Academy. "Thus, the drug can be prescribed for many more patients with diabetes than is currently the case."
According to Nils Ekström, a number of other countries already recommend metformin for patients with mild kidney impairment. "It is important to keep in mind that the results are for patients with mild to moderate kidney impairment," he says. "Metformin still cannot be recommended for patients with severe kidney impairment and should be prescribed with great caution for those patients. During periods of acute illness with dehydration, metformin should never be used"
BMJ Open published the article, "Effectiveness and Safety of Metformin in 51,675 Patients with Type 2 Diabetes and Different Levels of Renal Function: a Cohort Study from the Swedish National Diabetes Register" in July.
Nils Ekström, Medical Doctor, Department of Medicine, Sahlgrenska University Hospital
Phone +46 70 289 01 21
Soffia Gudbjörnsdottir, Associate professor and Senior Physician, National Diabetes Register and Department of Medicine, Sahlgrenska University Hospital
Phone +46 707 777 32
Björn Eliasson, Adjunct Professor and Senior Physician, Department of Medicine, Sahlgrenska University Hospital
Phone +46 70 604 23 80
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


oreilly.comSafari Books Online.Conferences.
A Day in the Life of Dave the Dollar
by Breckin Loggins
Few things about GnuCash are as hard to understand--or as important to master--as the double-entry accounting method. If you took accounting in college, GnuCash's way of managing your money probably induces heart-palpitating flashbacks of debits, credits, and mean old accounting profs. If you didn't take an accounting class, you may be completely lost, because the way GnuCash does things is the same way professional accountants do it. Used correctly, the double-entry method reveals where every cent of your money comes from and where every cent of it goes. Fortunately, it takes very little to master the basics of the GnuCash way. Once you do master them, the increased flexibility and power with which you can manage your cash flow will pay enormous dividends.
In this article, I assume that you know the mechanics of GnuCash. In other words, you've figured out how to create accounts and you may have entered a transaction or two. If you don't know how to do that, I recommend the built-in GnuCash tutorial. This article does address, however, the typical response after you've figured out all the mechanics: "Now what?"
First, if you think you're going to spend the rest of this article (re)learning debits and credits, let me spare you the horror: because of GnuCash's default settings, I won't spend another word talking about them. Instead, I'll talk about accounts, and what happens in a typical day in the life of a one-dollar bill named Dave.
What Is Money, Anyway?
I'll spare you the technical definition about money being an agreement between two or more parties and blah, blah, blah. For our purposes, think of the lowly dollar bill sitting in your wallet right now as a member of a nomadic tribe. What do nomadic tribes do? They go somewhere; they stay awhile; and then, when the time is right, they head off to someplace else. That's what money does.
From your perspective, that dollar bill in your pocket is a little nomad who came from somewhere, stays in your pocket for a little while, and then grows restless and decides to move on. Figuring out where this little guy came from, how long he'll stay in your pocket, and where he eventually goes next is the key to success in managing your money. Not coincidentally, it's also GnuCash's main job.
A Day in the Life of Dave the Dollar
Our little nomadic one-dollar bill--we'll call him Dave the Dollar--has quite a complex life. That's OK; GnuCash can keep track of where he is (as well as thousands of others just like him).
Remember that Dave is nomadic, like all of his cousins. The double-entry accounting method is the best way to track the guy's movements. The main entity in GnuCash is the account. That's where GnuCash keeps Dave's records.
Meeting Dave
First, where did Dave come from? Suppose you picked up Dave in a (lousy) tip at the restaurant where you work. Dave came from the customer who gave you the tip. You don't really care which particular customer he came from; all you care about is that he came from the restaurant, like most of your other Dave look-alikes. With that in mind, we have an idea for a source account: Restaurant.
You can set up an account in GnuCash called Restaurant, which will be the source of all the little Daves that come from the restaurant. From here, you can keep it simple or get a little more complex. This is where GnuCash's nested accounts come in handy. For example, you typically receive both tips and hourly wages from the restaurant, so you could set up the Restaurant account, and then a Tips account and a Wages account under Restaurant. That way, you could tell at a glance whether Dave came from a tip or from your lofty $2.19 per hour. For now, just set up an income account called Restaurant. It isn't difficult; the important thing is to select the account as an Income account (versus, say, an Asset account or a Liability account).
Dave Stays for a While
Dave may have found you in the restaurant, but he didn't stay there; he wound up in your pocket. Similarly, Dave won't stay in the Restaurant account for very long. Technically, he won't stay there at all. Instead you'll immediately move him to his destination (your pocket). Now, just like you don't care which customer Dave came from, you also don't care which pocket he's in or even that he's in your pocket. He may be on the top of your dresser; it doesn't matter, as long as he's in your possession. Now create an asset account called Cash, because the destination for Dave and his friends is the cash you have in your possession (all of it, no matter where it is physically).
We have a source and a destination for Dave. All we need now is a way to document the journey that Dave took from the restaurant to your stash o' cash. The way to document this journey is with a transaction.
A transaction in GnuCash is a recording of where Dave came from and where he went. How do you create this transaction? You create it inside one of these accounts. Which account doesn't really matter for now, but just to be consistent, create it in the Cash account. Double-click on the account named Cash in the GnuCash accounts window. What will appear is a register (or ledger)--simply a listing of all the transactions that involve this account.
Right now the ledger is empty, because you haven't created a transaction yet. Thankfully, GnuCash makes this pretty easy. Click once on the first empty line under the field titles. If you click under the Date field, a blinking cursor will appear to let you know you can type there. To create the transaction, enter information field by field. (The Tab key is the easiest way to move between fields. Use Shift-Tab to move backward.) After you have finished a transaction, Tab repeatedly until your cursor advances to the row below, or press Enter, whichever strikes your fancy.
Click on the Date field and enter today's date. When you look back on the history of Dave's life, you'll want to know what day you acquired the little guy. GnuCash is pretty smart about this, so the quickest way to enter the date is to type in the month and the day separated by a forward slash (10/24, for example). When you Tab off the date field, GnuCash will enter the current year automatically. Great time-saver, huh?
The next field you encounter is Num. This is usually useful for checks, so ignore it for now. After the Num field is Description. This is just what it sounds like; enter some text that describes the transaction, perhaps Lousy Tip.
The next field is important. The Transfer field lets you specify Dave's source or destination account. Remember that you're currently in the Cash account, and you want Dave to move from the Restaurant account to here. Type Restaurant in this field. Actually, you won't have to type that much, because GnuCash auto-completes fields for you. How convenient.
Next is the Reconciliation field. Skip that for now.
Here comes the important part. If you've set up Cash as an asset account, the next two fields will be Receive and Spend. Obviously, you're receiving Dave from the restaurant, so enter 1.00 in the Receive column. Once you've done that, press Enter. The cursor will move to the next line, and the Balance field will show 1.00. You've now entered your first transaction with the double-entry method!
Here's Dave, sitting in the Cash account. You can look at the Restaurant account and see that Dave has been transferred to the Cash account. In prehistoric times, accountants had to enter the transaction in both ledgers manually, but GnuCash does it for you. Aren't computers wonderful!
Dave Moves On
Dave's now sitting in your account, but for how long? That, my friend, is your decision. You see, Dave is a curious nomad. He comes into your possession by means (somewhat) beyond your control, but once he's there, you control him. Dave may be a nomad, but he's your nomad. He'll stay in your possession until you tell him to go somewhere else.
A little later in the day, you're walking home from work, and you're hungry. Dave is antsy; he's running around so fast he's starting to burn a hole in your pocket. Sensing that you can kill two birds with one stone, you decide to take care of Dave by inserting him into a vending machine. Once Dave is in there, he cools off a little bit. In his gratitude, he orders the vending machine to give you some M&M's.
What happened? You're a little less hungry, but more importantly, Dave is no longer in your possession. How do you record this little event in Dave's life?
It's GnuCash to the rescue again! Just like with the customers in the restaurant and all the places you could have put Dave while you had him, you don't really care too much about where he goes, just as long as he did his job and gave you something in return. (That is, after all, what money's all about.)
Create a new account that will be Dave


text:
The River Cole is about 25 miles long. It rises on the lower slopes
of Forehill, one of the south-western ramparts of the Birmingham
Plateau, and enters the Blythe just south of its confluence with
the Tame. The name is pre-Saxon and means 'hazel'. The Cole is an
intriguing stream, much affected by post-glacial events. Its south-flowing
upper reaches were once a tributary of the Blythe, captured when
the faster-flowing Cole cut back to Hob Hill.
The contrast between the relatively straight course to Stechford
and the aimless meandering therefrom is explained by the river's
having been diverted from a confluence with the Tame probably near
Castle Bromwich : an ice-sheet or moraine overlying Hodge Hill and
Shard End obliged the Cole to wander eastward into the Blythe valley.
It is notably lacking in tributaries south of Titterford : the largest,
the Chinn Brook, may have been the original source stream.
Due to lack of replenishing brooks, the quick floods to which the
Cole has always been subject subside as quickly as they rise. This
is because of the impermeable clay across which it flows : the former
dense oak forest cover retained heavy rain, releasing it gradually
but the drained meadows of the modern landscape shed water as fast
as they receive it.
The first documentary record of the river is in the Yardley Charter
of AD 972, where it is 'colle'. More recently various stretches
have been known as Inkford, Mere (boundary), Low, Greet, and Hay
Mill Brook. South of Birmingham it is the county bound : Solihull
Lodge was a C13th 'lodgment' in Kings Norton and Worcestershire
west of the river. From Sparkbrook northward it forms Yardley's
border with Bordesley, Little and Castle Bromwiches. There are 12
watermill sites beside the Cole and 8 or 9 on side-streams.
Today the valley is seen to have three major divisions : the upper
rural, the central suburban and industrial, and the lower rural
again. Within Birmingham the central reach can be conveniently sub-divided
into Cole Valley South, from the boundary at Solihull Lodge / Shirley
to Greet Playing Field, The Ackers, from Greet to Hay Mills, and
Cole Valley North. This article is concerned with the first only.
The attractions of the two-mile walk in the Cole Valley South include
wild birds and many varieties of plant and tree : natural and artificial
watercourses, evidence of past and present water action : fords
and old bridges : three millponds, a large fishpond, and a unique
wetland area : sites of farms and mills : old and new roads, housing
estates : and a visit to the only surviving watermill in the city.
Except for The Ackers, a communications and former industrial zone,
the Cole Valley within Birmingham is a green strip bordered by suburbs.
That it is we owe to the determination of Yardley R. D. C. and its
successor since 1912 the City Council, that the Cole should not
suffer the fate of the Rea - confined in a deep artificial channel
and walled away from view.
While their imaginative plan is still not fully implemented, the
river banks are devoted to allotments, sports fields, recreation
grounds and parks, with some waste land.
The building of a footbridge at Greet will open a continuous walk
to Stechford, and with but a short detour from there to Kingshurst.
In the south we can walk in the green from Slade Lane to Stratford
Road, whence allotments bar the way to Warwick Road.
Our walk beings at the gravel ford on Slade Lane, now concrete-paved
and spanned by a girder bridge. Just south of the ford a channel
leaves the river and is culverted under the lane : this is the headrace
to Titterford Mill, which we follow to the millpool. The'slade'
is the Cole's boggy valley, whose black silt is churned by motorbikes
and trucks. On the right bank illicit dumping disfigures an interesting
wasteland of secondary growth and winding paths.
At Scribers Lane the early C19th bridge survives, much patched.
Wear on the ford has caused it to spread for thirty yards along
the lane. Excess water from the race here returns to the river down
a sluiceway. The lane is a worn holloway up the east slope. Leisure
Gardens and meadows used for horse-training parallel the river and
the 7 1/2 acre pool, now a park amenity, which formerly provided
6 h.p. to Titterford Mill.
Beyond the meadows is the embankment of the North Warwickshire
Railway line, built by the G. W. R. in 1906-7 : a cattle-creep bridge
which gave access for the stock of Oaklands Farm to the riverside
has been removed. 'Primrose Brook' is culverted beneath the bank
and enters the Cole opposite the pool. On the west of Priory Road
is the council housing estate of 1927, which covers part of Yardley
Wood Common. A vestige thereof remains open as churchyard, schools'
playing field, pastures, and sports ground.
Titterford Watermill was in existence by 1779 : four years later
it was advertised as 'a new water corn mill, two water wheels, four
pairs of stones, dressing mill, and a new wire mach (mesh?), with
garners of upwards of 2,000 bags of wheat. Also a bakehouse and
implements, and about three acres of meadow'.
The large capital outlay on buildings, machinery, and major waterworks
was justified because of the growing demand for flour in Birmingham
and the lack of spare waterpower there. The complex of buildings
stood at what is now the foot of Trittiford Road. (There are many
variants of the name for the river crossing.) Water went from the
great pool in a deep cutting to a small pond beside the three surviving
horse-chestnut trees, which also was fed by a long leat from Chinn
Brook. Map. Cole Valley - South (B)
After turning the wheels water ran down a tail-race which was well
below river level : Chinn Brook had to be diverted far into the
Dingle, flowing at a lesser gradient than the river, until it could
join the Cole at the same level. Near the great incised meander
in the Dingle the Cole has broken into the brook, and the difference
in levels can be seen.
About mid-C19th a steam engine and house were installed at the
mill, adding 20 hp to its power which was thereafter used to roll
steel for pen-nibs. A fire in the early 1920's necessitated demolition
of the mill, but the attached dairy farm survived a few years longer.
The millpool and its environs, the Dingle, and the Chinn valley,
all were opened to the public more than sixty years ago.
Titterford wain bridge is early C19th. The ford alongside has long
since disappeared under silt deposits. Earthen ramps for the new
bridge by which Highfield Road will sweep across the river and up
the hill to Christ Church have been waiting for 46 years, but progress
is expected in '86.
There is plentiful evidence of water action in the Dingle. An advancing
curve which was encroaching on the gravel path has been infilled,
but farther north the incised meander will probably cut into the
bank no more as much of the flow has been diverted into the tailrace
referred to above.
The remains of many former loops, some of them still lined with
willows, may be seen along the valley : just above the weir the
outline of a pool is defined. Between the two entrances from the
Cole Valley Road (part of a riverside highway made in the Twenties
from Highfield Road to Greet) are former hedge lines, and ridges
and furrows made for drainage : in dry weather the ridges go brown
while the hollows remain green.
Foxes use the valley as a route into the suburbs, geese fly between
the millpool and tributary lakes, and a variety of birds may be
recorded at all seasons.
The weir at 'the Whorl-hole' is modern, serving only to keep up
the water level as an amenity. Its predecessor was higher and retained
a pond which fed the head-race of Sarehole Mill. This half-mile
channel, four yards wide, was cut in 1768, to provide a better supply
than that of Coldbath Brook. Its brick inlet, formerly closable
by a plank sluice-gate, is in poor repair but recognisable. In flood
the race used to hold water, which returned to the river at Four
Arches Bridge, but it has been breached at several points and partly
infilled. Small brick arches still cross its line.
Four Arches Bridge was first recorded in 1822 : it formerly linked
Webb and Old Brook Lanes. The wain ford alongside and the side approached
have disappeared. When


text:
This National Land Cover Database Evaluation Visualization and Analysis (NLCD EVA) tool provides user-friendly access to national and state land cover and land cover change information developed through the Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics (MRLC) Consortium. NLCD EVA eliminates the need for desktop geographic information system software, or advanced technical expertise, by processing NLCD data for the user and providing easy access to that distilled information. As well as displaying land cover information the tool also summarizes general land change trends as well as providing users with the option to specify and explore specific land change classes of interest (e.g., forest to urban).
- Help users of all abilities to visually analyze and explore NLCD land cover data
- Allow users to query specific types of land cover changes between 2001 and 2006
- Generate national and state summary reports and data tables of land cover changes to enhance communication and advance understanding of land changes and trends


text:
New Genotype Form
alpha-1-genotype-tool results comments
*The Spanish Society of Pulmonology and Thoracic Surgery Guidelines recommend an annual evaluation of liver function (includes an analysis of ALT, AST, bilirubin, albumin and coagulation tests).
†The Journal of the COPD Foundation Clinical Practice Guidelines recommend annual monitoring of individuals with AAT deficiency (includes an analysis of ALT, AST, GST, bilirubin, albumin, INR, platelet and liver ultrasound); the recommendation is strong with a low quality of evidence.
‡The American Thoracic Society/European Respiratory Society Joint Statement recommends regular physical examinations that include liver function tests and ultrasound examination; in individuals with decompensated cirrhosis periodic CT imaging.
§Strength of the evidence and grading of recommendations: Grade 2B means the strength of the recommendation is weak, with desirable effects closely balanced with undesirable effects2 with the quality of evidence based on randomised trials with limitations including inconsistent results or major methodological weaknesses (B). Grade 2C means the strength of the recommendation is weak, with desirable effects closely balanced with undesirable effects2 with the quality of evidence based on observational studies and generalisations from randomised trials in one group of patients applied to another.
AAT: alpha1 antitrypsin; ALT: alanine transaminase; AST: aspartate aminotransferase; COPD: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; CT: computed tomography; FEV1: forced expiratory volume in 1 second; GST: glutathione S-transferase; INR: international normalised ratio.


text:
A town in Grand isle county was founded by Ira Allen in the year 1781. Located on a peninsula extending into Lake Champlain has a population of about 1,952.
It was basically grown around an European settlement with some french connection. With a non-island location, some of the nearby places includes Elim Point, Point Roberts etc.
The demographic consists of a population density of over 66 people per sq. mile. As usual the majority are whites, with around 97% white, 0.15% Asian, 1.95% Native Americans and many more.
A major part of the population is engaged in various types of primary activities, like agriculture and other smaller service industries. Per capita income of the people is around the figure of $16,285. Though there are no significant historical places but the breathtaking natural beauty is sure to garner envy.


text:
Many older people are discovering the benefits of using computers and the Internet.
Older people and the Internet
Older people may not have used the Internet much at work or home, but they may have seen their family or friends get real value and fun out of being online. Some really useful things for older people include:
catching up with news and information
keeping in touch with families and friends
learning new skills and subjects
even helping their grandchildren with homework research
Googling is good for the ageing brain
There is interesting research to suggest that using the Internet and Google searching is good for you, see research on the benefit of computer use by older people*.
In May each year, Hampshire runs introduction to the Internet sessions across the County, in many Libraries, Schools and Community Centres.
Useful information for older people
* Hampshire County Council is not responsible for the content of external websites.
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text:
Seminar Talk: Toward Combining Causal Inference and Databases for Interpretable Data Science
Sudeepa Roy: Associate Professor, Computer Science, Duke University
ABSTRACT: Causal inference - estimating the effect of a treatment on an outcome - is critical for sound data analysis. It provides a means to estimate the impact of a certain intervention to the world that correlation, association, or model-based prediction analysis cannot provide. As a result, causal inference is indispensable in health, public policy, and other domains. In this talk, I will discuss how traditional database research can help causal inference research in AI and statistics, and vice versa. First, I will discuss an interpretable and scalable "matching" framework for causal inference that has comparable estimation accuracies as black box machine learning methods and uses efficient SQL query evaluations. Next, I will discuss extending standard causal inference to relational data, and using causal inference for explaining SQL query answers. I will conclude with an overview of our ongoing and future work for actionable and interpretable methods for different stages in the data analysis pipeline.
BIO: Sudeepa Roy is an Associate Professor in Computer Science at Duke University. She works broadly in data management and data science, which includes causal inference and explanations for big data, debugging queries, data repair, query optimization, data provenance, and uncertain data. Before joining Duke in 2015, she did a postdoc at the University of Washington, and obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. She is a recipient of the VLDB Early Career Research Contributions Award, an NSF CAREER Award, and a Google Ph.D. fellowship in structured data. She is a co-director of the Almost Matching Exactly (AME) lab for interpretable causal inference at Duke (_URL_


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$X_1$ and $X_2$ are independent random variables. $X_1$ and $Y = X_1 + X_2$ have $\chi^2$ distributions with $r_1$ and $r$ degrees of freedom and $r_1 < r$.
How would I show that $X_2$ has a $\chi^2$ distribution with $r - r_1$ degrees of freedom?
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Since $X_1$ and $X_2$ are independent, the characteristic function of $Y$ is the product of the characteristic functions of $X_1$ and $X_2$, the characteristic function of a $\chi^2$ distribution with $r$ degrees of freedom is $(1-2ik)^{-r/2}$ ($k$ is theFourier variable). Thus the characteristic function of $X_2$ is $(1-2ik)^{-(r-r_1)/2}$
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In waking life red is often associated with danger or as a warning symbol. It is also the color of love, duly trotted out every Valentine's Day. In the realm of dreams, the color red has differing connotations depending on the context.
 1. 1
 2. 2
 Note the meaning of red in dreams. Red can stand for anger, danger, passion, love and fertility. Red is clearly associated with emotions in dreams and its appearance, especially if it is vivid in your mind upon waking, carries great portent. Red is also energizing and it may be a call to you to take some of your energy and put it to good cause to see through a beloved project, activity or wish.
 3. 3
 Assess the meaning of red in your dream. You will need to draw on the context of the dream to assess which emotions are being targeted by the dream, for example, whether anger or love are the predominant emotions through the dream. Red may also be an indicator of fertility, revealing the ripeness and readiness of a womb.
 4. 4
 Match the object in the dream with the color for a complete interpretation. Are you dreaming a volcano that is spewing forth? In which case, you may be expressing anger and irritation that is being suppressed in your waking life. If you see a bride in a red dress, you may be dreaming of love, good fortune, and fertility. If you dream of a red sports car, it may be that you are wishing for an injection of energy in your life to get you moving through a stagnant period in life.
 5. 5
 Think about how likely an interpretation is, judging on your life at the time. For example, if you think it means fertility and you are menopausal, you are probably wrong.
 - Red can still serve as the color of warning. Use the rest of your dream to draw on for context but if there is a predominance of red and you are left with an impression on waking that something is very wrong and needs adjusting quickly, red is likely to have served as a warning sign, like the ubiquitous "Stop!".
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text: This small head of a queen is thought to have been created in the early part of the reign of the Macedonian Greek Ptolemies and is believed to depict Arsinoe II (278–270 B.C.), sister/wife of Ptolemy II, one of a line of religiously and politically important Ptolemaic queens.Arsinoe II is shown in a style that is closely related to that of Dynasty 30, the last of the traditional Egyptian pharaonic dynasties. Indeed, the early Ptolemies made great efforts to show themselves as the inheritors of the pharaohs who had preceded them. At the same time, other motivations led to the creation of other types of royal images. Strongly Hellenistic images (2002.66), relate these rulers to the other Hellenistic kingdoms ruled by Alexander's successors around the Mediterranean. Other images depict the Ptolemaic rulers with mixed Egyptian and Hellenistic or particularly Ptolemaic elements (20.2.21).


text:
What do we want to know with HESTIA?
Child protection has become an important aspect of child welfare policy in most European countries. Its heightened importance is the result of a growing recognition of children's rights, rising expectations about standards of parental care and responsibility, and growing concern about the social exclusions of vulnerable and disadvantaged children. However, although many families are drawn into the child protection system there has been very little comparative research on this aspect of European welfare states.
Therefore our main research question is the following: How does child protection policy and practice vary between Western European countries and what is the impact of these variations on children and families?
To answer this key question, Hestia will also address the following questions:


text:
Maintenance of Highway Edge drains
Robert H. Baumgardner
PDF Version (1.2 mb)
Maintenance is required to keep pavement subsurface drainage open so that the pavement structure will drain. Just about all State highway agencies (SHA's) that have constructed subsurface drainage systems recognize that maintenance is a problem. Vegetative growth around the pipe outlets, rodent's nests, mowing clippings, and sediment collecting on rodent screens at headwall are common maintenance problems. Some outlets have been so plugged that water has gushed from the pipes when they were unplugged.
The purpose of this paper is to identify maintenance problems with edgedrains and document FHWA attempts at stressing the importance of maintenance to SHA's. A description of the various maintenance problems encountered by SHA's follows.
An example of vegetative material removed from an edgedrain is shown in Photo No. 1, while an edgedrain pipe blocked by a rodent's nest is shown in Photo No. 2.
Photo No. 1 Vegetative Material Removed from an Edgedrain System
Photo No. 2 Rodent's Nest
Crushed pipe are shown in Photo No. 3 and 4. Most likely these pipe were crushed during construction.
Photo No. 3 Crushed Pipe
Photo No. 4 Crushed Pipe
Often outlets cannot be found because they are hidden by vegetative growth. Photo No. 5 shows a typical hidden and crushed outlet. Note that there is no headwall.
Photo No. 5 Hidden Outlet Pipe
It is obvious that if maintenance personnel can not find the outlets, no maintenance can be performed. SHA's that use concrete headwalls, reference markers, signs on fences, reflector disks in the shoulder, or painted arrows on the shoulders have better success in providing maintenance. It is also important that maintenance activities not block or damage the pipe outlet. A simple arrow painted on the edge of the shoulder, as shown in Photo No. 6, is a good reference marker for maintenance personnel.
Photo No. 6 Painted Arrow as a Reference Marker
One of the purposes of a headwall is to eliminate erosion at the pipe outlet. Unfortunately, excessive erosion at an edgedrain outlet is shown below in Photo No. 7.
Photo No. 7 Excessive Erosion at the Outlet Pipe
Larger headwalls, as shown in Figure No.8 have the following advantages:
- Easier for maintenance personnel to locate
- Roadside vegetation located farther away from the outlet pipe.
- Reduce erosion
- Prevents crushing of the outlet pipe.
Photo No. 8 Large Outlet Pipe Headwall
Video inspection of edgedrains has two important benefits for SHA's:
Quality assurance for new construction
Identify maintenance problems
Photo No. 9 shows a section of edgedrain that has collapsed. This problem was identified by video inspection.
Photo No. 9 Crushed Edgedrain Pipe
In Photo No. 10, the video inspection camera is approaching the main line longitudinal edgedrain. It will be difficult for the camera to make this turn from the outlet pipe to the edgedrain. It will also be difficult for any cleaning equipment to make the turn. This is why FHWA recommends large radius pipe or a combination of bends to make the turn.
Photo No. 10 Ninety Degree Tee
If flexible corrugated plastic pipe has been used as an edgedrain, the pipe will not be perfectly straight since the pipe has a tendency to coil during the laying process. Any low points in the edgedrain provide an opportunity for sediment to build up. Periodic flushing of the edgedrain may be necessary to remove sediment build up.
Flushing or jet rodding the system is important in the maintenance scheme. It is important that the pipe have proper bends to facilitate this operation. The edgedrain pipe system should be designed with maintenance in mind. These operations should be done on a routine schedule.
A pipe flushing unit is shown in Photo No. 11. The water jets point towards the rear of the unit so that the jetting action helps to propel the unit through the pipe.
Photo No. 11 Pipe Flushing Unit
Edgedrain outlets and pipe systems should be inspected at least once a year to determine their condition. Use of video equipment to inspect the edgedrain pipe is recommended. Flushing of the pipe system should be performed as necessary.
Maintenance personnel should mow around the outlet pipes at least twice a year. It is important to perform the mowing on a periodic basis to keep vegetative build up to a minimum. Roadside ditches should also be mowed and kept clean of debris.
The need for maintenance was first expressed in Technical Paper No. 90-01 "Subsurface Pavement Drainage:"
"Maintenance is critical to the continued success of any longitudinal edgedrain system. Inadequate maintenance is an universal problem. The combination of vegetative growth, debris, and fines discharging from the edgedrains will eventually plug the outlet pipe."
This theme has been expressed in the following FHWA drainage efforts:
Final Report, Experimental Project No. 12, "Effectiveness of Highway Edgedrains"
Participant Notebook, Demonstration Project No. 87, "Drainable Pavement Systems"
Final Report, "Video Inspection of Highway Edgedrain Systems"
Reference Manual, NHI Course No. 131026A, "Pavement Subsurface Drainage Design"
Reference Manual, Drainage Construction Workshops, "Construction of Pavement Subsurface Drainage Systems"
FHWA's guidance in all of these efforts is the same: if a SHA is unwilling to make the necessary maintenance commitment, subsurface drainage systems should not be provided.
Demonstration Project No. 87 (Demo 87) "Drainable Pavement Systems"
Section 15.0 Maintenance of Demo 87 stresses the need for maintenance. The most important statement in this section follows:
"If an SHA is unwilling to make a maintenance commitment, permeable bases should not be used since the pavement section will become flooded. This increases the rate of pavement damage."
NHI Course 131026A, "Pavement Subsurface Drainage Design"
Chapter 10, Maintenance, of the Reference Manual for the NHI Course No. 131026A, "Pavement Subsurface Drainage," provides an extensive discussion of maintenance problems. The manual lists the following problems for longitudinal edgedrains:
"For permeable bases with longitudinal edgedrains:
Crushed or punctured outlets that are left unattended for long periods of time.
Outlet drains that are clogged with debris, mice nests, mowing clippings, vegetation, and sediment.
Edgedrains (both pipe drains and fin drains) that are filled with sediment, especially at sags and slopes of less than 1 percent.
Missing rodent screens at the outlets
Missing outlet markers.
Erosion around outlet headwalls.
Shallow ditches that have inadequate slopes and that are clogged with vegetation."
Below is a list of problems associated with daylighted permeable bases:
"For daylighted permeable bases:
Excessive vegetative growth over the daylighted portion.
Deposition of roadside debris.
Silting of the daylighted openings."
The Reference Manual makes the following salient recommendations:
"It was concluded that maintenance is not an option but a necessity.
"It was recommended that maintenance be made an integral part of the subsurface drainage policy of any given agency."
Two relatively recent NCHRP Synthesis provide excellent discussions on the need for maintenance.
NCHRP Synthesis 239 "Pavement Subsurface Drainage Systems"
NCHRP Synthesis 239, "Pavement Subsurface Drainage Systems" is an up date of the previous Synthesis 96 with the same title.
One of the main contributions that this synthesis makes is the use of the team approach. The synthesis stresses the need for coordination and cooperation between planners, designers, construction personnel and maintenance people. While this concept is certainly not new, subsurface drainage is certainly an area where the team approach has merit.
The cost effectiveness of drainage systems is recognized by the following conclusions:
"Pavement subsurface drainage is a major factor in extending the life of a pavement."
"Although performance indicators to quantify the benefits of pavement subsurface drainage systems have not been established, use of a permeable base with a free-draining outlet system generally has demonstrated the best performance of all subsurface drainage strategies."
"The cost of pavement drainage system is high in terms of materials, construction, and maintenance, but the extended pavement life anticipated appears to make these systems cost-effective."
The need for maintenance is recognized by the following conclusions:
"A plugged subsurface drainage system may be worse than having no drainage system at all because the pavement system becomes permanently saturated."
"Maintenance efforts vary between good and nonexistent within and among states."
"Long-term maintenance is essential for obtaining the anticipated benefits of pavement subsurface drainage systems."
NCHRP Synthesis 285 "Maintenance of Highway Edgedrains
The new NCHRP Synthesis 285, "Maintenance of Highway Edgedrains," provides a very insightful look into the problems associated with edgedrain maintenance. This synthesis is an extension of Synthesis 239 in which the need for maintenance was stressed. The conclusions listed below are extremely important since they hit at the heart of the problem.
In the area of pavement performance and benefits, the synthesis draws the following conclusions:
"The cost of maintenance is far outweighed by the anticipated design life of the road that comes with edgedrains that perform."
"There is a significant cost in terms of poor performing pavements to agencies that use edgedrains and do not have an effective preventive maintenance program."
"Long term maintenance is essential to obtain the anticipated benefits of drainable pavement systems."
The merits of pavement subsurface drainage are recognized by the following conclusion


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Fighter pilots and team-sports players have more in common than a uniform, a taste for danger and a thirst for victory. Both can be trained to perform better by using brain-training software developed in Israel.
Basketball and hockey players, from professionals to pee-wees, are getting significant results from IntelliGym products made by Applied Cognitive Engineering (ACE), headquartered in Hod Hasharon.
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Just recently, the US men's national under-18 hockey team — the first adopter of the Hockey IntelliGym three years ago — defeated Sweden 7-0 to win an unprecedented fourth consecutive world championship. And out of 30 National Hockey League draft picks in 2011, 16 had trained with IntelliGym.
It all started with military applications devised by cognitive psychology and engineering expert Daniel Gopher, a professor at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. When his video-game-like training methods were used in the 1980s and 1990s by the Israeli Air Force and the US Army Aviation Center, pilot performance in the air improved by 30 percent.
Decisions under pressure
How did ACE go from the airfield to the playing field?
"We found a lot of similarities between jet flying and competitive sports," says CEO Danny Dankner. "We realized we had the technology to improve performance of people in information-condensed environments with a lot of data coming in, and where fast decisions need to be made under duress."
Following extensive research and development led by Gopher and two of his former students, ACE introduced the Basketball IntelliGym in 2006. NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) Division 1 teams snapped it up, and Hall-of-Famer and former NBA coach Hubie Brown was so impressed that he joined ACE's advisory board.
"In the game of basketball it is not about who runs faster or jumps higher, but about who makes better decisions and fewer mistakes," Brown said in a testimonial. "This is the first time I see a training tool that can actually improve game intelligence skills of basketball players. The Basketball IntelliGym is revolutionary."
IntelliGym looks and feels like a video game, but it's a lot more sophisticated. Each session starts by presenting a plan for the 30-minute cognitive workout to help athletes "think" the game. Among the target skills are game awareness, reading and reacting to constantly changing situations, peripheral vision and the ability to anticipate a play before it develops. The program adjusts the skill level to individual players, and generates analyses and reports.
"In order to develop a basketball cognitive training tool, our researchers mapped the brain skills that are required for top performance in the game of basketball," according to company literature.
"These include (among others) reading plays, positioning, decision making, team work, and execution under pressure. Together, they constitute what is usually referred to as game intelligence. With this map in hand, the researchers designed a system that simulates the exact same skill set.
"Although the players are merely performing with a keyboard in front of a monitor, if you screen the trainees' minds during this brain workout, you'll find that the skills (or the 'brain muscles') that are working are exactly those that are required during a real basketball game."
Encouraged by the results of its first product for basketball teams, ACE followed with a consumer basketball version and then rolled out Hockey IntelliGym, whose results were presented at the 2012 International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) International Youth Coaching Symposium in May.
Soccer and football to follow
There's no reason to limit the downloadable game to basketball and hockey, Dankner tells ISRAEL21c.
"We are now negotiating with potential partners in the US, Europe and South America to enter the two major sports of soccer and American football," he says. "Both are very interesting for us, because we believe we could contribute substantially to performance."
The program, available through monthly subscription or with a license purchase, also appears to protect trainees against sports injuries.
"Many of the injuries in hockey, like in football, are caused by unanticipated hits, and when players are trained to be more aware of their surroundings they can avoid those hits," Dankner explains. "We've been training national teams, and their medical records show a drop of nearly 25% in injuries, particularly concussions, for those teams that have gone through our training program."
ACE is even looking beyond sports altogether. "Another direction we're looking into is a solution for children diagnosed with attention deficit issues," says Dankner. "We have good evidence that cognitive training can help, and we want to develop a training environment for them."
ACE manages its US sales out of an office in New Jersey.


Response-Based Analysis of Floating Offshore Structures in Persian Gulf
 1. Lookup NU author(s)
 2. Said Mazaheri
 3. Professor Atilla Incecik
Author(s)Mazaheri S, Incecik A
Publication type Conference Proceedings (inc. Abstract)
Conference NameICOPMAS 2000: 4th International Conference on Coast, Ports, and Marine Structures
Conference LocationBandar Abbass, Iran
Year of Conference2000
Date21-24 November 2000
The number of FOS especially FPSOs, because of their attractive role in deep water offshore oil reservoirs during the last 20 years has been increased rapidly and it is expected until the nd of this decade this trend will continue and more than 120 FPSOs will be added to the existing population of FPSOs around the world [2].In this regard, In the Persian Gulf, following the opening up of offshore fields for rehabilitation, under the Petroleum Ministry's "buyback" terms, some needs for FOS will be expected for use in the non-marginal fields [1]. As a FOS must be stable in different sea states during its life time, extreme hydrodynamic loads predictions could play an important role in designing of each part of FOS as well as in designing the mooring systems. A more rational approach for selecting more accurate extreme hydrodynamic loads and seakeeping analysis of FOS by considering non-co-linear waves, winds and currents, and taking into account the joint occurrence probability of those hydrodynamic events has been explained in this paper.


Come Prepared to Rent the Right Pump
Pumps are a commonly rented item. In many cases, renting one is a simple matter of determining the right type of pump and the correct size. In other situations, however, it takes a deeper understanding of the science of pumping. Is it a small dewatering job at a construction site for a few hours or days, or is it a large sewer bypass requiring continuous pumping for weeks? The level of complexity dictates the type of pumping system required.
It's important to come to a rental center armed with as much information about the particular dewatering project as possible. Thomas Aldridge, Jr., Griffin Dewatering, suggests starting with the basics: what is the application, how much water is being moved, where is it being moved to and where is it being moved from?
"Based on some of these pieces of information, a rental employee can guide the customer to the range of pumps that may suit their needs," he says. "The application narrows the pump family, while the volume and pumping locations identify the performance range."
The rental employee also needs to know the elevation from the water's location to where it will be discharged, and how far away the discharge point is, says Pete Snow at Xylem. This will determine how much head needs to be overcome.
"Equipment rental centers need detailed, accurate information about flow, lift and pressure required by the application," says Kirsten Petersen Stroud, Thompson Pump. "Without detailed information and a knowledgeable staff, a customer could end up with a pump that either cannot do the job or cannot do it efficiently."
Pumping Fundamentals
According to Mike Grant, Tsurumi America, the most commonly rented portable pumps are 2-in. electric (up to 82 gpm), 2-in. engine-driven centrifugal (up to 137 gpm) and 3-in. engine-driven trash (up to 360 gpm).
Small dewatering jobs can be handled by gasoline-powered wet priming pumps with suction and discharge sizes of 2 to 3 in. in diameter. These pumps can run for several hours on a tank of gas and will move up to 250 gpm. The system design usually includes 20 to 30 ft. of suction hose and 100 to 200 ft. of lay flat discharge hose. Large dewatering or sewer bypass jobs, on the other hand, can involve a 24-hour pumping operation and flows up to 4,000 gpm and more.
"Basically, the key factors for a pumping job are flow rate, head, suction lift and solids handling," says Aldridge. "If any one of these is not properly identified as a requirement and used to select the pump, the equipment won't meet the expectations.
"One of the most misunderstood factors is that the connection size determines how the pump will perform. In reality, not all 6-in. pumps are 6-in. pumps," he continues. "By using the key factors mentioned and reviewing the pump performance curve, the renter can select the best equipment. The hardest part of pump selection is to determine the friction or resistance to the flow that can be caused by the piping or hose used. There are simplified charts that help to determine this. The critical thing is to be able to visualize the system and know the materials that are being used in the system."
Snow agrees, noting the two primary factors in every application are gravity and friction. "Gravity depends on the vertical lift needed, and friction on the distance the water must travel and the pipe diameter," he says. "More than specific formulas or calculations, one should consider the restraints of the job. The velocity in a pipe, and its friction resistance, will determine the amount of flow that can be reasonably achieved."
A good guideline for centrifugal pumps is a maximum velocity of 12 ft. per second. From there, practical flows in a given diameter of hose can be estimated (see Table 1).
"A pump must create enough discharge head to overcome elevation at a jobsite," Snow explains. "How well the pump performs is determined by the physical conditions of each application. Therefore, no two applications will be the same. A pump that worked great on one site might not be ideal for another."
Following are short explanations of some of the scientific concepts involved in any pumping job:
Flow: The amount of liquid (usually measured in gallons per minute) dictates the size of the pump and hose. Flow is the horizontal axis on a pump performance chart.
Static head: This refers to the vertical elevation difference from the water surface to the pump suction and from the pump discharge to the end of the hose or pipe. The more head, or elevation difference, the stronger the pump required to overcome gravity resistance when moving water.
Distance: This is the space between the pump and the discharge point. This contributes to the amount of friction resistance encountered when water travels through the hose or pipe. Static head (or gravity resistance) and distance (or friction resistance) are combined to determine the total amount of resistance the pump will see during the application. This is referred to as total dynamic head and is the vertical axis on a pump performance curve.
Each pump is rated as capable of achieving a certain amount of flow and overcoming a certain amount of resistance. Ideally, the pump system will be designed so that the pump operates in the middle area of flow and head, known as the "sweet spot" of the curve.
The Science Behind Pumping Fluid
While a bit academic, some of the principles governing the behavior of water can help in understanding a pump's capabilities.
To start with, atmospheric pressure on Earth at sea level is 14.7 psi (1 bar, or 1 barometric unit). The pressure becomes lower as altitude increases and higher in areas lower than sea level. With (distilled) water weighing 8.33 lbs. per gallon, atmospheric pressure will force that water to rise 33.9 ft. in a cylinder at sea level if all the air in the cylinder is evacuated. Likewise, mercury (Hg) weighs 112 lbs. per gallon and atmospheric pressure will force it to rise to 29.9 in. in a cylinder at sea level if all the air is removed.
Need a translation? Pumps often have an Hg rating and what this means, for example, is 1-in. Hg equals the ability to move 1.13 ft. of water (basic rule of thumb is 1 in. = 1 ft.). Therefore, a 20-in. Hg rating means the pump will lift approximately 20 ft. of water.
Pumps are designed to do two things: move liquid in and move it out. This is achieved by creating a difference in pressure between the suction and discharge sides of the pump. The pump must create low pressure on the suction side of the system. The combination of low pressure in the pump and atmospheric pressure results in positive suction head. Conversely, the pump must create high pressure on the discharge side of the system. This results in water being thrown out of the pump in the case of centrifugal models, or being pushed out in the case of positive displacement pumps.
Checklist for Renting a Pump
As your pumping application and pumping needs become more complex, it pays to take advantage of available expertise in this area. Some rental centers will have individuals specifically trained in hydraulics and pump technology who can guide you to the appropriate dewatering solution.
Following is a checklist to go over before renting a pump for a basic dewatering job:


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A bottle with ethanol vapor is touched with a spark, which blows the cork off the bottle. This simulates how a car's combustion engine works.
This is the same way a spark plug works. The spark ignites the fuel in the chamber and causes an explosion, which increases the pressure in the bottle and blows off the cork.
The ethanol vapor explosion demonstrates that things expand when they get hot. However, instead of just being heated, the ethanol actually burns. Ethanol is a kind of alcohol made from plants. When something burns, it changes from one chemical to another. When ethanol burns, it mixes with oxygen in the air to make water vapor and carbon dioxide.
A little bit of ethanol is put inside a bottle and then the top is sealed with a cork. Two screws are in the sides of the bottle so that there points almost touch. The bottle must first be shaken so the ethanol evaporates and mixes thoroughly with the oxygen inside. This makes it burn faster. To ignite the engine, we need some energy, which we get from a high voltage sparker. (See the section on Tesla Coils for how the sparker works.) Eventually, a spark jumps between the points of the screws inside the bottle. The spark ignites the ethanol, which burns very quickly. As it burns, it changes to the hot gases carbon dioxide and water vapor. The heat of the burning makes them expand, causing an explosion. This blows the cork off the bottle.
You may know that cars run on ethanol instead of gasoline. A car engine works the same way as the exploding bottle. Gasoline or ethanol comes into the engine and mixes with oxygen. A spark from the spark plug lights the mixture causing an explosion. This forces the piston out, like the cork in the bottle. The pistons are attached to the wheels, which turn to make the car go. The explosion in the bottle is like a one cylinder car engine.


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Bayards Hill Primary School
Key Stage Two (lower)
Staff in our Lower KS2 Phase are:
Miss Cook Y4 teacher -Phase Leader Miss Seymour-Jackson TA
Miss Armstrong Y4 teacher-NQT Mrs Aktar TA
Mrs Reading Y3 teacher - Music Lead Miss North TA
Mr Brown Y3 teacher NQT Mrs White
Years 3 and 4 are the start of our children's preparation for Y6. It is important therefore that we secure the basic skills learned in KS1. The curriculum becomes more varied in KS2 and in Years 3 and 4 we enjoy swimming, whole class instrument lessons and Modern Foreign Language lessons.
Please familiarise yourself with the curriculum for Years 3 and 4 by clicking the links.


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The ecologically-oriented landscape architect (LA) can be a critical link between the sound scientific understanding of ecological processes and a biddable and constructible ecological restoration project. Along with restoration planting and irrigation design, the LA, when working closely with the scientific community, can offer much broader expertise than a team that does not include a spatial planner/designer. An LA's experience in site-specific analysis and problem solving through a design methodology is a natural complement to ecologists' insights into biological opportunities and constraints. Working collaboratively, the LA and the ecologist can develop biological design criteria to create feasible restoration approaches and design solutions that provide significant biological functions and values.
As design concepts are developed, the landscape architect can graphically communicate conceptual ideas so they can be readily understood by scientists and other members of the project team, as well as by regulatory agencies, clients, funding entities, stakeholders, and community groups. In addition, a landscape architect's training in public presentation and group facilitation can be an asset when generating input from a broad audience or in building consensus around an idea or design.
Continuing to collaborate with the biological experts, the landscape architect can create the construction documents required to build a project that responds to the ecological potential of a site. An example of this would be the Kobold Creek Reconstruction project in Contra Costa County, California. At this site biologists and LAs working for H. T. Harvey & Associates collaborated to transform an eroded, debris-filled ravine into a natural creek channel with boulder and log weirs, pools, and riparian habitat. The ecological goals of the project were primarily provided by the biologists, the design criteria (how to achieve the ecological goals) required collaboration between the biologists and LAs, and the construction drawings were developed by the LAs (with oversight by the biologists).
photo courtesy H.T. Harvey & Associates
Bank clean up along Kobold Creek
photo courtesy H.T. Harvey & Associates
Condition of plantings and stream corridor one year after construction
A primary goal of this project is to provide habitat for the endangered California red-legged frog (Rana aurora draytonii
—a federally-listed species). Specific in-stream features to provide frog habitat were dictated by the biologists. Landscape architects then worked with a hydrologist to develop construction plans and specifications that would guide the landscape contractor in bidding and implementing those specific habitat features as well as riparian revegetation of the creek banks.
For this and other ecological restoration projects, once the conceptual design is finalized, the landscape architect converts design concepts into construction plans and details, specifications, and estimates. These construction documents are prepared in a standard format used by project engineers and contractors. Whether creating large-scale grading plans, detailing smaller scale restoration features (e.g. breeding habitats, wildlife exclusion barriers, fish passage features, etc.), or tackling any number of highly specialized design problems, LAs provide an important connection in translating scientific concepts into projects that are easily understood and properly built by contractors.
The proper translation of the conceptual design into the final construction documents is a critical component of any restoration project. The LA, working collaboratively with scientists, can successfully convey important biological design factors into a successfully installed and properly functioning restoration site—while also addressing aesthetic and other cultural values. Joe Howard ASLA, Senior Landscape Architect at the ecological consulting firm H. T. Harvey & Associates, is co-chair of the Reclamation & Restoration PPN. He can be reached at _EMAIL_. Lee R. Skabelund, ASLA, of Kansas State University, serves as oo-chair of the Reclamation & Restoration PPN.


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United States and Belize Work Jointly to Protect the Cultural Heritage of Belize
The Department of State is pleased to announce the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the United States and the Government of Belize regarding protection of Belize's cultural heritage, effective February 27, 2013 for a period of five years. This MOU demonstrates a commitment by both governments to staunch the pillage and illicit trafficking of Belize's archaeological heritage of African, indigenous Maya, Spanish, and British influences.
The Government of Belize requested this agreement under Article 9 of the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. The Convention offers a framework of cooperation among State Parties to reduce the further pillage of intact archaeological sites and ethnological objects.
With this MOU, the United States now has agreements with Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua in Central America, promoting a regional approach to combating pillage and trafficking of cultural property. The Designated List of restricted types of objects, published by Customs and Border Patrol, and information about the Agreement can be found here.
To learn more about the U.S. Department of State's efforts in cultural preservation, please visit the Cultural Heritage Center.