Gardens, inside out.
Aka why we dislike Lavandula
Recently we have been asked a lot about what plants will do well outside versus inside. We were interested in this question, especially when our Garden Gurus (yes, we have two garden gurus, their names are Taela and Sherman) told us that depending on the climate there is no difference! This blew our minds a little and so we decided to investigate and then to share with you, our readers. So buckle up for the ultimate fight:
Indoor Plant vs. Outdoor plant!!!!
indoor vs outdoor plantsOkay, that picture is a little silly especially since all plants are outdoor plants. They all were originally discovered and then cultivated from some plant that someone found and thought was cool (Yes, unless it's a hybrid but even then it's parents were outdoor plants). Really, the argument is more about where we live and what grows here natively, versus what can grow here with cultivation, and what can't grow here so it has to live in the house with us. So first things first:
What is a Native plant and why does it matter?
Native plants are what they sound like if you had gotten here before there was contact with the outside world and walked around the Laurel District you would have seen Oak trees, and tall reeds. The grasses would have looked very different. There would have been scrub on the hills and some pines, but not apple trees, or rose bushes. There would have been mint, but no lavender.
California Native plants
Simply put a native plant is a plant that has adapted to the particular climate and specific region that it is found growing in. How these plants spread here, and when, is a matter for Paleobotonists, and not we mere blog-writing mortals (and geologists as a lot of them have to do with plate tectonics and supercontinents). But what is important is that we know that plants native to our region will do just fine outside. The conditions that make them flourish will be easy to create as they have adapted to be here.
What is a non-native plant?
 Lavendula aka lavender
There are other types of plants that are not native but can be grown with cultivation. We mentioned lavender above as it seems to be a universal plant in this area. There is even a large lavender maze over in Santa Rosa (don't worry it wasn't near the fire). Lavender is a hardy plant that can grow in many climates, it is native however to the old world. It naturally grows from Europe to southeast India and down to mid-Africa. That is a lot of land and the widespread nature means that it has acclimatized to many different areas. It is easy to cultivate, and as long as you have a plant that is "hardened" to your area then it will also do fine if you just plop it outside. But here's the thing, Lavender will also do well inside. It does well due to its versatility. It is an unfortunate truth that our numerous micro-climates produce less hardy plants and plants like lavender have no issue invading space that can result in the crowding out of more sensitive native plants, but now we are venturing into the world of the Ecobotonist and we really need to stay on track.
What Do People usually mean by "Indoor Plant"?
When people come in and ask for an indoor plant they usually think (as we did before our gurus blew our minds) that they are looking for a:
-Spider Plant
-Rubber Plant
-Peace Lily
-String of Pearls (the hipsters know what this is)
These plants, while some might be native to a certain extent (we do have some native succulents in the Bay Area) are for the most part tropical plants that require high humidity, low nutrient soil, and specific amounts of light/dark. In other words, these plants have adapted to live in some of the hardest places to live either due to too much/not enough water/resources and if they are jungle plants a lot of competition. So when we bring these super tough plants to our balmy Mediterranean Climate with our consistent temperatures thanks to the Giant HVAC unit known as the Pacific Ocean they tend to be high maintenance.
It is not really the plant's fault, after all, we as humans are one of the best adapting species on earth and we whine when it gets just out of our comfort zone of 70 degrees to 75 degrees. So the plants which are adapted to a wildly different climate are reacting pretty much how we would if we were suddenly dropped in the artic without a coat or the desert, in a coat.
Can I grow "outdoor plants" inside?
As before stated, all plants are outdoor plants. But what we think most people mean is how, or can you grow something like a rose bush inside? The answer is you can. Like tropical plants, the key to growing a "normal" outdoor plant inside is understanding the environment that it naturally grows in. Some plants are going to need a compromise, you will need to make sure that they have full access to natural light. You will need to make sure to check soil conditions as the soil will not be renewing itself if it is in a pot and the plants will thus need to be fed.
However, almost all plants can be trained to be indoor plants. For proof take for instance the local cannabis trade. Cannabis is a plant native to Southeast Asia which has a wildly different climate from our own. However, by learning how to grow the plants hydroponically with sun lamps to simulate the Southeast Asian sun, a huge industry is booming by bringing these outdoor plants inside.
Cannabis may not be the best example however as it is, of course, a tropical plant, no matter how well it grows in the wilds of Humboldt county. But bonsai can be almost any tree and with careful cultivation can be grown in miniature in a pot. So, if you can grow a Spruce in a 10″ pot, then yes, you can bring your rosebush inside. But please not the Cannabis or lavender (we are allergic to both). (By the way, Bonsai is a really cool way to grow plants with a long storied history, read more about it here.)
Why can't I plant my Venus Fly Trap in the garden?
We know that there are carnivorous plants native to California. There are whole meadows of Pitcher plants up in the Plumas National Forest not to mention sundews that trap insects with long sticky petal-like things (that's the scientific name for them (it's not, we lied and are too lazy to look it up)). So, why can't you plant any old carnivorous plants in your garden? Well, it comes back to the whole native vs. non-native discussion. Carnivorous plants all develop in very specific conditions where there cannot be too many nutrients in the soil, thus why they have to eat insects. Simply put, your garden is in too good of condition for a carnivorous plant.
Even the California Pitcher Plant is native to the swampy areas of the mountains, with peat bogs, and freshwater that is not rejuvenated by tidal flow. It is true that in the bay area we have a lot of what might be seen as swampy land, but it isn't. We are surrounded by saltwater marshes and estuary. The combination of the salt and the high level of nutrients brought by the constant tidal ebb and flow make our area unsuitable for a plant that will die if not in an area of low nutrition.
Carnivorous plants are very sensitive, and even when kept inside in perfect conditions can die. These are plants that evolved to always live right on that thin line of life and death, and when we stress them out, they sometimes just throw in the towel. (Not literally, we don't think they own towels).
If you want a carnivorous plant, please make sure that you obtain one from a vendor that gets theirs from a local nursery where the plants would have been propagated locally (like us, we do that). That will be your best chance of growing the carnivorous plant of your dreams (unless your dreams include du-wop and Rick Moranis because yes, most plants can actually live quite well on human blood, but that's kinda weird(but we do sell bloodmeal though, because feeding plants with cows blood is less weird))
How do I know if something will do better inside or out?
This is down to a lot of factors, including what kind of care you are willing to give something, where you would be planting it? And where in our land of hundreds of micro-climates your house is. We highly recommend that to take the guesswork out of it you contact the local Master Gardeners here: or do what we do, just ask Sherman and Taela!


Click here to Skip to main content
Click here to Skip to main content
Applying visual effects to the desktop - Shoot
, 31 Jul 2003
Rate this:
Please Sign up or sign in to vote.
This article discusses how an application can apply visual effects to the desktop, by copying desktop contents, applying effects on it and then re-displaying it.
Sample Image
This article discusses how an application can apply visual effects to the desktop, by copying desktop contents, applying effects on it using GDI functions and then re-displaying it. Additionally this application also demonstrates how to play wav files using Win32 API.
Shoot comes in handy when you are frustrated with your computer and would like to literally shoot the brains out of it. This application when run, converts your mouse pointer to a gun's target finder and wherever you click, it makes a gun shot sound and burns a hole through the desktop. To close the application just hit the escape key.
Like all other windows, the desktop window also has a device context associated with it. The Win32 API GetDCEx(...) can be used to get a handle to this desktop device context. Using this handle, you can copy the desktop window contents to some device context of your application. Then using any combination of GDI operations, various visual effects can be applied to it.
Using the code
We start copying the desktop window in the constructor of the dialog class, since we need to do this before, the window for this application comes up. We first get a handle to the desktop device context and then convert it to a pointer to a CDC object. We also get the screen resolution.
int screenMaxX = GetSystemMetrics(SM_CXSCREEN);
int screenMaxY = GetSystemMetrics(SM_CYSCREEN);
Then we create a device context in memory that is compatible with the desktop device context.
m_pProcDC = new CDC;
m_pProcDC->CreateCompatibleDC (pDesktopDC);
When a memory device context is created, a 1x1 pixel sized bitmap is selected to it and hence GDI operations on it do not produce the required effect. We circumvent this by creating a bitmap of the same dimension as the desktop and selecting it to the memory device context.
m_pBMP = new CBitmap;
m_pBMP->CreateCompatibleBitmap (pDesktopDC, screenMaxX, screenMaxY);
m_pProcDC->SelectObject (m_pBMP);
The memory device context is now ready for use and we can copy the contents of the desktop device context to it.
 m_pProcDC->BitBlt(0, 0, screenMaxX, screenMaxY, pDesktopDC, 0, 0, SRCCOPY);
Once this is done you can apply any visual effect to the memory device context and then redisplay it.
However in this application we will not apply the visual effect right now. We need to create a bullet mark on the screen when the user clicks. For that we use a bitmap resource named IDB_SHOTMARK which is like a gunshot mark. To use this bitmap, we load it and select it to another device context created in memory.
m_pShotDC = new CDC;
m_pShotBmp = new CBitmap;
m_pShotBmp->LoadBitmap ( IDB_SHOTMARK );
m_pShotDC->SelectObject ( m_pShotBmp );
When we are done with copying desktop contents and loading bitmaps, we are ready to display them.
In the OnInitDialog we make the dialog cover the whole desktop, by giving it the size of the desktop and making it stay always on top using a call to SetWindowPos.
::SetWindowPos( this->GetSafeHwnd(), HWND_TOPMOST, 0, 0,
 GetSystemMetrics(SM_CXSCREEN), GetSystemMetrics(SM_CYSCREEN),
We also keep the gun's view finder cursor, which is another resource, ready, by loading it.
HINSTANCE hInstResource = AfxFindResourceHandle (MAKEINTRESOURCE(IDC_TF),
m_hCursor = ::LoadCursor(hInstResource, MAKEINTRESOURCE(IDC_TF));
In the OnPaint handler we display the desktop window by copying it from the device context in memory where we had stored it previously to the dialog's device context.
CDC *pDC = GetDC();
pDC->BitBlt (0, 0, screenMaxX, screenMaxY, m_pProcDC, 0, 0, SRCCOPY );
The only thing that is left is to show the gunshot mark and make the sound, when the user clicks. For this we handle the message WM_LBUTTONDOWN where we copy the contents of the gunshot bitmap loaded in the m_pShotDC device context to the point where the user clicked. We also play the wav file using the PlaySound function. To use this function you need to link the VC98\Lib\WINMM.LIB with your application and include the mmsystem.h header file in your application.
void CShootDlg::OnLButtonDown(UINT nFlags, CPoint point)
 // Show gunshot mark
 CDC *pDC = GetDC();
 pDC->BitBlt (point.x - 10, point.y - 10, 48, 48, m_pShotDC, 0, 0, SRCAND);
 // Play gunshot sound
 ::PlaySound((LPCTSTR)soundFile, NULL,
Points of interest
The project assumes that the winmm.lib is available as..\..\VC98\Lib\WINMM.LIB. So you need to extract the shoot sources in the MyProjects folder or change the relative path before building the application.
The application assumes that the gunshot.wav file is present in the same folder as the executable. If it does not find the wav file, the gunshot sound will not be made.
 - v1.0 - This is the initial version.
A list of licenses authors might use can be found here
About the Author
Web Developer
United States United States
Comments and Discussions
Generalcapturing the mouse cursor Pinmemberstealth kid1-Nov-04 0:54
Generalerror MFC42D.DLL Pinsusselmic30-Aug-03 12:29
GeneralRe: error MFC42D.DLL Pinmemberabhinaba31-Aug-03 9:51
GeneralRe: error MFC42D.DLL Pinsusselmic1-Sep-03 5:38
GeneralBombs out when I run it Pinmembertufwheels6-Aug-03 11:12
GeneralRe: Bombs out when I run it Pinmemberabhinaba7-Aug-03 21:11
GeneralRe: Bombs out when I run it Pinmembertufwheels23-Aug-03 10:45
GeneralRe: Bombs out when I run it PinmemberPhilippe Lhoste8-Jun-04 1:29
GeneralAnother Way PinmemberSuperEric4-Aug-03 9:45
GeneralRe: Another Way Pinmemberabhinaba4-Aug-03 18:51
GeneralLinkage error. PinmemberWREY2-Aug-03 22:50
GeneralRe: Linkage error. Pinmemberabhinaba3-Aug-03 18:09
GeneralIt's working now!! Thanks!! PinmemberWREY3-Aug-03 21:29
QuestionHow 2 Close IT?!! PinmemberSuperEric2-Aug-03 11:40
AnswerRe: How 2 Close IT?!! PinmemberJohann Gerell2-Aug-03 11:50
GeneralRe: How 2 Close IT?!! PinmemberSuperEric2-Aug-03 20:41
AnswerRe: How 2 Close IT?!! Pinmemberabhinaba3-Aug-03 17:58
GeneralRe: How 2 Close IT?!! PinmemberSuperEric4-Aug-03 9:32
| Advertise | Privacy | Terms of Use | Mobile
Web01 | 2.8.141223.1 | Last Updated 1 Aug 2003
Article Copyright 2003 by abhinaba
Everything else Copyright © CodeProject, _PHONE_
Layout: fixed | fluid


text:
1)We visited our uncle every summer.
2)We used to visit our uncle.
There's not really any difference; in both, the vists have finished and the time phrase in the first establishes that it was a regular habit. Without the time phrase, things would be different; with the simple past alone, we wouldn't know whether it was a single visit or repeated visits.
- For Teachers

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


text:
Understanding the relationship between romantic love versus long-term love can mean the difference between lifelong happiness and satisfaction or settling for much less. One way to explain these differences is through Robert J. Sternberg's Triangulation Theory of Love. Different stages and types of love can best be explained as a combination of three elements -- intimacy, passion and commitment -- according to Sternberg. The presence and amount of each makes all the difference.
Romantic Love and Obsession
Sternberg's Triangulation Theory describes romantic love as a combination of intimacy and passion. Intimacy is described as close, connected feelings in a relationship. It's the emotional bond that brings people together. Passion is the drive that leads to romance and physical attraction. Romantic lovers in new relationships are drawn to each other emotionally and physically. Romantic love, when new, often results in a preoccupying thoughts that makes it difficult to think about anything else. Stony Brook University researchers, Bianca P. Acevedo and Arthur Aron, found that such obsession results in greater satisfaction and happiness in the short-term.
Commitment and Security in Long-term Love
In addition to intimacy, long-term love requires commitment, which is composed of both the short-term decision to fall in love and a long-term determination to maintain that love. The success of long-term love also depends on how secure you are in the relationshipt, according to University of Denver researchers, Cindy Hazan and Philip Shaver. Secure individuals describe their relationship as happy, friendly and trusting. Supported by their partners, secure people are able to give support in return. It takes up to two years for secure attachments to form.
Long-term Love and Companionate Relationships
While all long-term love involves intimacy and commitment, for some couples, passion does not last. Love with intimacy and commitment, but without passion, is called companionate love, according to Triangulation theory. Couples in companionate relationships maintain their relationships based on mutual interests and values and are committed to one another, but the physical attraction is no longer there. While it is commonly believed that over time romantic love fades, Acevedo and Aron argue that this is not always the case.
Consummate Long-term Love
Consummate love is described by Sternberg as having all three components of intimacy, passion and commitment. While admitting it is the love that most people strive for, Sternberg states that is not easily attained and even more difficult to maintain. Acevedo and Aron concluded from their study that long-term romantic love not only is possible and exists, but when it does, it appears to enhance people's lives by providing them with marital satisfaction, mental health and overall well-being.
- Comstock Images/Stockbyte/Getty Images

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


text: rather than to symbolically mediated behavior, which evidently arose considerably earlier. The L3 mtDNA pool within Africa suggests a migration from Eastern Africa to Central Africa ∼60–35 ka, and major migrations in the immediate postglacial, again linked to climate. The largest population size increase seen in the L3 data is 3–4 ka in Central Africa, corresponding to Bantu expansions, leading diverse L3 lineages to spread into Eastern and Southern Africa in the last 3–2 ka.


text:
An incumbent is limit pricing if it produces more than its optimal quantity, so that there is not sufficient demand for a potential entrant. The lowest price that it sets is the "limit price" that excludes a profitable entry.
A numerical example (based on ) illustrates how the profits of both the incumbent and the entrant change with and without limit pricing, for various fixed costs common to both firms. Initially, in the absence of entrant, the incumbent is a monopolist and maximizes its profit (green rectangle). The entrant estimates the residual demand, optimizes its production level, and makes profit (blue rectangle), affecting the profits of the incumbent. To avoid entry, the incumbent must increase its production so that the entrant cannot make profits if it enters. In order to succeed with that, it needs to equate the slope of the residual demand with the slope of average costs. Notice that there are scale economies (decreasing average costs). Consequently, the incumbent's profit is reduced to the gray rectangle while the profits of entrant are zero. Finally, if the entrant exits due to the limit price, the incumbent makes a higher profit (yellow rectangle).


text:
Hello I need help to solve this question using excel solver in 2 hours please. Bonus if completed on time.
A Family farm owns 5 plots of land, each of 20 acres, for a total of 100 acres. The available crops are soybeans. corn and oats. The members of the farm can produce a total of 3500 work hours worth of labor towards the crops. Crop workhours net income soybean 25 175 corn 55 300 oats 20 120 A) solve the problem of finding the maximum net annual cash income using a binary linear programming model. Be sure to assign and identify all variables and each constraint. B) the family is considering reconfiguring into one plot of 100 acres. How much money should the farmers be willing to spend for each increased flexibility in crop allocation?


text:
Neufeld's attachment-based developmental approach
Dr. Neufeld's legacy is the meta theory of development he has constructed from joining the dots until a consistent picture emerged. His comprehensive model has evolved from years of synthesis and distillation. The result is an integrated developmental approach rooted in depth psychology, grounded in the developmental paradigm, saturated in attachment theory, congruent with current neurological research and honed by forty years of professional practice, parenting and personal reflection. In a world of fragmented knowledge, esoteric terminology, strategies divorced from their philosophical moorings, and a smorgasbord approach to treatment, Dr. Neufeld's approach is a breath of fresh air.
His insight model provides a refreshing alternative to the current cognitive behavioural fare, as well as to the medical 'disorder' approach. Dr. Neufeld's approach has clear and practical implications for practice and treatment, regardless of one's arena of involvement – child, adolescent, adult, marital or family.


text:
Feb 12, 2019 | 11:00 AM | Tuesday
YWCA Greater Austin
Community: South Congress
ANXIETY. This is a term we are all familiar with, but what does it really mean? How do we as parents, educators, healthcare providers, and community members recognize anxiety in children and teens? How do we know when it is actually a problem? Furthermore, how do we tre
To help address these concerns, we invite you to our presentation on Pediatric Anxiety! Together, we will explore these questions and more through a didactic presentation, small and large group discussions, and interactive exercises. We aim to help you to feel more comfortable identifying, talking about, and working with anxiety in young populations. Features of this presentation will include:
- Descriptions of the various anxiety disorders of childhood.
- Tips on how to recognize symptoms of anxiety in children and teens.
- Tips on how to determine when a child or teen is having a developmentally-appropriate response to a stressor vs when it is time to seek clinical attention.
- An overview of evidence-based treatments for pediatric anxiety.
- Case illustrations, small and large group discussions, interactive exercises, Q&A time.
*3 CEU Hours
Upcoming Events at YWCA Greater Austin
Also See other Events Listed in Austin
at Athletic Outcomes Help and healing on the spiritual path - Documentary Film Jan 20 | 11:30 AM | Sunday
at People's Pharmacy


text: This picture shows an excerpt from a high-resolution image of the area around the Eiffel Tower. For this interferogram, two images of the same scene, taken from slightly different positions, were superimposed. The resultant coloured rings are an indicator of the relative height of the depicted objects. The variation in colour across the length of the Eiffel Tower enables the precise height of the tower to be established, providing of course that you know the precise position of the satellite at the time the images were captured. These two images were taken on 16 and 27 January 2008 respectively. In the configuration shown here, a complete run through the colour spectrum equates to a height difference of 321 metres, which corresponds precisely to the height of the Eiffel Tower.


text:
present work has therefore been broadened to include aspects of ionospheric radio propagation which were Cited by: If we assume that the transverse radio waves propagate parallel to Bo, the Equation of Motion for electrons trapped in this ionospheric plasma is given by.
m d 2 x/dt 2 - e/c Bo X dx/dt = -e E e-iwt, where the influence of the B field of the transverse wave has been neglected compared to the static induction Bo and the electron charge is given.


text:
What makes it worst was the fact that anyone New Englander with two working neurons should have heard of the 1942 Cocoanut Grove fire in Boston, especially a club owner and local fire inspectors. The Cocoanut Grove is internationally infamous and is even more applicable to the Brazil fire. Maybe twenty years ago the owners and officials in Brazil could be excused for not considering the lessons of a fire on another continent 50 years prior, but with worldwide news coverage and the internet and the immediate international notoriety of the Station fire and others there is none today. Sadly, the Boston Historical Society's account of the Cocoanut Grove seems to have called it,
The lessons of the Cocoanut Grove are with us every day. Exits blocked or locked, smoking and use of matches, overcrowding, flammable materials within buildings and a lack of sprinklers and smoke detectors. Hardly a person in Boston or New England during the 1940's could be found who did not have a friend or relative who wasn't at the Grove that night, or had planned to go, or had left before the fire started, or wasn't affected by this tragedy. The question then and now is: "Can this happen again"? The answer is yes, it can and will happen again.


GenCart is an automated script and needs very little manual setup to get it up and running. Follow this step-by-step installation guide to run the entire script on your localhost
Prerequisites for Installation :
We have to set up specific plugins and softwares for the localhost(local machine) to run a secure web script. NOTE: The installation process of these plugins will differ with each OS, hence follow the site instructions from the given link.
 1. Here is the link to download XAMPP for your system
Localhost installation Procedure
STEP 1:Download the GenCart package. (The package listed with this Installation procedure)
STEP 2: Launch the XAMPP control panel from the system and start APACHE and MySQL as the below screenshot
STEP 3: Open a web browser (We suggest using Google Chrome) and type in the URL "localhost/XAMPP" and press enter to navigate to XAMPP web panel as given in the below screenshot
STEP 4: Look through the left pane for the option 'phpMyAdmin' and click on it to open the phpMyAdmin Panel
STEP 5: Click on the "Databases" tab, enter a desired database name(Remember this database name) in the "create database" field and click on create database to create an empty database as shown in the screenshot
STEP 6:Click on the "Import" tab and click on "choose file" button. Now, locate the ".sql" database file inside the DB folder from the downloaded package and import it into the empty database.
STEP 7: Copy the entire script folder and paste it inside this directory "C:/xampp/htdocs
STEP 8: Open the database.php file at "C:/xampp/htdocs/gencart/app/config/" and find the following piece of code in the attached screenshot and replace the default info in the screenshot with the following code.
Change the following detials
Host => "Give database host name"
Database => "Give database name "
Username => " Give database username "
Password => "Give database password"
STEP 9: Give 777 permission to following folders
Sudo chmod -R 777 app/storage
Sudo chmod – R 777 uploads
Once you complete all the above steps. You are good to go.
Now you can use gencart by opening up "http://localhost/gencart" in your browser.
Leave a Reply


text:
Everything you need to understand or teach Sonnet XXIX by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Barrett Browning's first statement ("I think of thee!") is, in part, the subject of the poem, for the entire sonnet attempts to imitate, through its imagery and sound, the dynamics of her mind dwelling on Browning, her fond yet absent lover. (Though readers customarily use the term "speaker" to note the difference between a poet and the voice behind his or her work, in the case of "Sonnet XXIX" one can speak of Barrett Browning as the speaker, since the poems are deliberate and undisguised addresses to her husband.) Barrett Browning compares her thoughts of Browning to "wild vines" that "twine and bud" about a tree here, the "tree" is Browning. Like vines, Barrett Browning's thoughts of Browning grow more profuse with the passing of time; eventually, they grow to such length and density (as they "Put out broad leaves") that they cover the tree that gives them a place... View more of the Sonnet XXIX Summary


1. Forum
 2. >
 3. Topic: Duolingo
 4. >
 5. pronunciation - words said di…
pronunciation - words said differently depending on usage
The word "live" can be pronounced one way as in "We live in the red house" or an other way as in "The band played live. I notice in the section "Lugares - I know spanish - I want to learn english" the pronunciation is the "wrong" one.
Not sure how many languages have this same dilemma or how easy it is for the computer generated voice to be fixed.
June 16, 2013
You should report this using the "report a problem" button on the page where it occurs.
Working across all 6 languages, I find this is mostly an issue in the learning English section and a little bit in the learning German section. Common English ones are those like 'wind, record, live' and also the way the speaker pronounces 'fertig' in German always puts my knickers in a knot ;-)
I have reported these many times, but have not noticed any change. Duolingo seems to be very prompt when one reports a translation issue, but when one reports a vocal issue, it doesn't seem to change. Maybe it is just a harder thing to fix the vocals.


Posted in Blog, Commercial Litigation, Employment Law by
By Joseph G. Ballstaedt
[email protected]
Owning a business is a rewarding and challenging experience. Perhaps one of the most challenging responsibilities for business owners is hiring quality employees and—when necessary—knowing when and how to fire employees. This article briefly discusses 7 tips that will help you avoid legal and other issues when you let an employee go.
 1. Clearly Define Work Expectations at the Outset
If you decide that terminating an employee is necessary, the fired employee should not be surprised—or should at least know that being fired based on established expectations was a real possibility. To establish proper work and performance standards, clear training at the outset is important, and progressive disciplinary measures are also crucial. All employers, big and small, should keep detailed records of the training and disciplinary process to avoid claims of improper conduct, as discussed in more depth below.
 1. Fire for a Legal Reason
Employees in Utah can fire at-will employees for almost any reason, such as arriving 5 minutes late to work, performing tasks poorly, or acting abrasively to other employees. An employer generally doesn't even need a basis at all to fire an at-will employee. Any reason is fine—so long as it isn't an illegal reason.
One illegal reason is firing based on a protected class. Protected classes in Utah include race, color, sex, national origin, and gender identity—qualities or traits that all people have—as well as other traits such as religious affiliation, being pregnant, being over the age of 40, or having a disability. Federal laws are similar. Avoid any appearance of firing an employee for a reason associated with a protected class.
There are other prohibited reasons for firing an employee, such as firing in retaliation against an employee who reports an employer's violation of law or firing an employee who takes time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act. And perhaps it goes without saying that an employer cannot fire an employee for refusing to engage in an illegal act.
 1. Be Consistent with Discipline and Firing
Be consistent on how you handle employee issues, whether large or small. For example, if you allow one person to arrive late without any consequence but then you fire or discipline another for being late, this may create a potential discrimination claim. Every person in Utah fits into a protected class (explained above). The mere fact of being male, female, or asserting no sexual orientation makes you a member of a protected class. So, each person has some trait or quality that an employer cannot use as motivation for any adverse action, like discipline, demotion, or discharge.
Even if an adverse action is not based on a protected class, it may give an appearance of discrimination. For instance, if all males regularly arrive 20 minutes late without consequence, but all females are punished for the same behavior, the employer has created an appearance of violating laws against discrimination. Even if the employer wasn't motivated by gender, it has acted dangerously under the law.
 1. Fire Based on Facts and for Business Reasons
Although you can generally fire at-will employees for any reason (so long as it isn't an illegal reason, as discussed above), you should avoid firing based on hunches, emotions, or other subjective motivations. It is best to fire based on facts and for business reasons. If there is no clear, explainable basis for firing, suspicions and emotions can create allegations and issues that employers want to avoid. The more emotional the firing events are, the more likely the reason for firing is questioned and scrutinized legally.
It is generally best to explain these reasons to the employee in a short, professional, in-person meeting, as discussed later.
 1. Pay the Employee Everything Owed
When you fire an employee, it is usually wise to pay the employee every cent that he or she has earned—or arguably earned. If timecards aren't clear for whatever reason, err on the side of overcompensating. If you are tempted to deduct wages for damages the employee caused to company property, think twice. If the employee fails to return employee property, you probably don't want to deduct the costs from the final paycheck.
Employees are generally entitled to their pay, and after being fired, an employee is more inclined to retaliate against an employer who hasn't paid everything. For instance, such a disgruntled employee is more likely to file a lawsuit or initiate an investigation by the Utah Labor Commission. Dealing with a lawsuit or investigation, even if you prevail, likely isn't worth the headache and associated costs.
 1. Document the Actual Firing Process in Writing
When you fire an employee, you should carefully document in writing the firing process, in addition to documenting prior disciplinary action and issues that occurred leading up to the actual firing. The reasons the employee is fired should be well documented in company records. Such a written record will help protect you from claims that the termination was based on an improper, illegal reason—a reason you did not state or intend and a reason that did not exist (such as reasons based on gender, age, disability, etc.).
If you have a contemporaneous record that explains the reason for the firing, it will be good evidence later—perhaps months down the road—to counter an employee's claims that you fired him or her for an illegal reason. Your statements after the claim is brought will not carry as much weight as statements and records you created at the time of the firing. Good records help combat "he said she said" situations.
 1. Implement a Plan for the Firing Process—And Follow It
Implement a plan setting forth procedures for all employees you fire. The experience of being let go will be very memorable for each employee. You'll want it to go as smoothly as possible. Most employees respect—or at least deserve—an in-person conversation explaining in brief and professional terms the reason for the firing. Emails, texts, or telephone conversations are not favored. Keep the conversation short, and be very clear that the firing is final. Rip the Band-Aid off.
Set up procedures that allow you to recover all company property from the employee. Don't allow the employee to keep company documents, equipment, etc.
Also, implement procedures that make the firing less visible to the rest of the company, which helps make the process less public and emotional. It may be respectful to allow the employee to immediately leave work, with the ability to gather his or her belongings on a later date. Or you can offer to send the employee's belongings to his or her house.
It may be wise to ask the employee to immediately leave work, without further mingling with the other company employees or spending the day working (or crying) at his or her desk. After being fired, an employee likely won't contribute to the work environment and may do or say something harmful. For this reason, it is probably wise not to allow the employee continued access to the company property and information after being fired.
It is often appropriate to have another person present when an employee is fired. This additional witness can help combat false claims of how the firing process occurred and what was said or done.
Help with Employment Issues
If you have issues with an employee, are considering firing an employee, or have general employment law questions, give me a call. I am happy to help. I offer a free consultation. My direct dial is _PHONE_, and you can e-mail me at [email protected].
Joseph G. Ballstaedt
[email protected]
This author hasn't yet written their biography.
Still we are proud contributed 85 great entries.


text:
Washoe Tribe of Nevada & California
Atlantic Richfield Corp. has purchased 480 acres in the Sierra Nevada for the tribe, part of settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency over pollution from the abandoned Leviathan sulfur mine in California's rural Alpine County. It resolves ARCO's liability for failing to prevent ponds of acid mine drainage from spilling over and contaminating the Carson River watershed in 1998, the EPA said. The $750,000 property, north of Stampede Reservoir in Sierra County, Calif., is surrounded by the Tahoe and Toiyabe national forests. Though the Washoes will hold title, a Nature Conservancy easement ensures its protection in the future. The tribe plans to operate a summer educational program on the property to teach Washoe children about their culture. "The Washoes have been tremendous advocates for the conservation and restoration of their ancestral lands in the eastern Sierra,'' said Keith Takata, director of the EPA's Superfund division in San Francisco. Pollution killed off aquatic life, including the threatened Lahontan cutthroat trout, in Leviathan and Bryant creeks that meander through Indian trust lands before reaching the river. Crews treat drainage in holding ponds by adding lime. ARCO and the University of Nevada, Reno are working on methods to treat acid mine drainage at the site, inaccessible in the winter, year round.


text: We used microwave plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (MPECVD) to carbonize an electrospun polyacrylonitrile (PAN) precursor to form carbon fibers. Scanning electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy were used to characterize the fibers at different evolution stages. It was found that MPECVD-carbonized PAN fibers do not exhibit any significant change in the fiber diameter, whilst conventionally carbonized PAN fibers show a 33% reduction in the fiber diameter. An additional coating of carbon nanowalls (CNWs) was formed on the surface of the carbonized PAN fibers during the MPECVD process without the assistance of any metallic catalysts. The result presented here may have a potential to develop a novel, economical, and straightforward approach towards the mass production of carbon fibrous materials containing CNWs.


Definition of Institutionalization:
 1. The state of being placed or kept in a residential institution.
 2. The action of establishing something as a convention or norm in an organization or culture.
 3. Process which translates an organizations code of conduct, mission, policies, vision, and strategic plans into action guidelines applicable to the daily activities of its officers and other employees. It aims at integrating fundamental values and objectives into the organizations culture and structure.
How to use Institutionalization in a sentence?
 1. People with a history of long-term institutionalization.
 2. They remain committed to the institutionalization of democracy.
 3. The institutionalization of the memorandum was part of the large scale shift in the cultural values that were newly adopted by the firm.
 4. We were looking into institutionalization and if it would be a good choice to put my brother in a place where people would help him.
 5. Sometimes you need to make a strong message so that everyone will follow the INSTITUTIONALIZATION that you are trying to keep in tact.
Meaning of Institutionalization & Institutionalization Definition


Legal Word of the Day: Contemporaneous
Executive Summary
What is this word, contemporaneous?
In layman's terms it means recording information as it happens. A note recorded immediately after the event is a note recorded contemporaneously. A note recorded days, weeks, months, or years later is not.
How does this fit into my construction business?
Every day in your business you are building something and every day could be the day that you lose money, or do something wrong, and it becomes necessary to pursue another party for time or money, or worse, someone is coming after you for their lost time or money. Having evidence to support your position is critical.
Why is it important, and how do I use it?
It's important because it increases the quality of your evidence. Just like an excavator operator, they're not all the same. Some dig 500 feet a day of pipe, some dig 200 feet a day. But, they're both called operators. Same with evidence, the quality can make all the difference.
Those close to the matter in the field are keeping notes: on paper, on a tablet, via a phone camera, by email, and by text. All of this is good, and necessary; however, you having a picture taken the day that the general contractor didn't have the excavation dewatered for you, is much more powerful than a year later in deposition when the general contractor says that "we always had the subcontractor's work areas dewatered and ready to go". You had a picture of the excavation the day it wasn't dewatered – he didn't. You win.
My Story
Sometimes I've seen the word current in, say, the application of a "current schedule" to assess true delay impact. Use of the word current here is synonymous to contemporaneous. But, heck, let's face it, contemporaneous makes you sound a lot smarter than that other guy, and might loosen him up to getting out his checkbook since he thinks you've already talked with your attorney!
I recently spoke at a conference jointly with a partner of the construction law firm that has represented me for a couple decades. Although I've heard the word contemporaneous before, it never really resonated and stuck with me like it did during her use of the term. Now I pass it around all the time. Just like today, thanks for reading!
Work safe!


text:
The research group "Anthropology of the Night" brings together researchers from multiple disciplines with the aim of contributing to the construction of the "night" as an anthropological object of study. The night, a physical phenomenon of varying duration according to geographical position and time of year, is an object of diverse cultural perceptions and representations. These representations involve different constructions of time, space, beings, and their agency, which, up until now, have been under-studied as entities in of themselves, limited to a perspective framing them only as complementary to daytime knowledge and activities.
This research area touches upon all objects and processes typically studied by anthropology (the body and its techniques, the notion of person, material culture, economic exchanges, beliefs and representations of the supernatural world, conceptions of space and time).
The concept of "nocturnality" brings together the elements that a society devises and adopts to define what constitutes "its" night, both in conjunction with physical time and beyond the period that extends from sunset to sunrise. The spaces, times, and notions that define nocturnality in a given society embody a certain number of characters, objects, feelings, changes in affects, behaviours, and discourses, which manifest themselves particularly at certain ritual occasions, either "by night" or "out of the night" and can even become permanently embedded in the daytime. This is how sleep and the fragmentation of the constitutive elements of the person, dreams, appearances, activities requiring darkness, silence, clandestinity, etc. configure the nocturnality of a population into a common representation, expanding and building upon the physical night.
Projet SOMNOPRO, Fondation des maladies rares (2015-2017), avec l'hôpital de l'Hôtel Dieu (Paris)
Collectif de recherche Renoir (Toulouse)
Projet CANDELA (Lille)
History Departments, Nanterre et Lyon 2, around the project :« La construction de la nocturnité dans et par les rituels : anthropologie et histoire »
Chercheurs de Bruxelles, UNAM Mexico, Quito...
Events and Publications
Collection « Anthropologie de la nuit » at the Ethnology Society


text:
Just the other day I was chatting with a coworker about riding the train – she lives in Mount Vernon and mentioned occasionally riding the "red line" into the city. I had to chuckle a little bit – it is usually the uninitiated newbies that refer to the Metro-North lines by their colors. The color of each line, however, is deeply ingrained in all of us. From the signage on the platforms to the printed timetables, we all pretty much know that the Hudson Line is green, the Harlem blue, and the New Haven red. But where did these colors come from, and how long have they represented each line?
Most obvious is the New Haven Line. The New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, of which today's New Haven Line was once a part, long used red for printing and locomotive paint schemes. Although not part of the core Metro-North lines on the east of the Hudson River, I've always thought that the selection of orange to represent the Port Jervis line was a little bit clever – much of the line runs through Orange County. I'm not sure how the Harlem became blue, and the Hudson became green (you'd think it is backwards – blue seems more appropriate for the line that runs along the Hudson River), the two colors have been established long before Metro-North ever came into being. Their first usage on timetables dates back to around 1965.
Blue ink on white paper eventually became the standard for Harlem timetables, though there were a few times over the years where the rules were totally broken. One of the most odd was an early timetable printed by Metro-North in 1983 – in maroon ink. I have no idea why anyone would have thought to print a Harlem Line timetable in maroon – my only assumption is that it was to catch people's attention as it highlighted the electrification project underway north of White Plains.
Most amusingly, you'll note a little mark on the bottom right that reads "Form 112." Form 112 was the number assigned to Upper Harlem timetables since the New York Central days, which at that time meant service from Pawling to Chatham (or in the early 1900′s, North Adams, Massachusetts). It is a little bit odd to see that form number used for service north of White Plains. Calling stations like Valhalla, or Mount Kisco the Upper Harlem seems like blasphemy to me.
Today you won't find form numbers on any of Metro-North's timetables. Their inclusion in the early timetables almost seems like an in-joke amongst the old railroaders working for this new company. You won't see "Upper Harlem" timetables either – the entire line is usually printed in a single timetable, making this particular timetable rare.
Below is the rest of the timetable, which is a bit interesting to see… especially the listing of the fares when Metro-North took over from Conrail in 1983.


text: Gravure is a printing method in which an image is applied to a printing substrate by use of a metal plate mounted on a cylinder. Unlike other processes, gravure uses a depressed or sunken surface for the desired image. The image to be reproduced is etched into the metal plate, sometimes with the use of a laser. The metal plate is bathed in ink during the process and then wiped clean before application to the substrate. While gravure printing can produce high-quality results rapidly, the costs are significantly higher than other printing methods, including flexography or various forms of digital printing.


text:
Gets the collection of controls contained within the control.
Assembly: System.Windows.Forms (in System.Windows.Forms.dll)
A Control can act as a parent to a collection of controls. For example, when several controls are added to a Form, each of the controls is a member of the Control.ControlCollection assigned to the property of the form, which is derived from the Control class.
When adding several controls to a parent control, it is recommended that you call the SuspendLayout method before initializing the controls to be added. After adding the controls to the parent control, call the ResumeLayout method. Doing so will increase the performance of applications with many controls.
Use the property to iterate through all controls of a form, including nested controls. Use the GetNextControl method to retrieve the previous or next child control in the tab order. Use the ActiveControl property to get or set the active control of a container control.
The following code example removes a Control from the Control.ControlCollection of the derived class Panel if it is a member of the collection. The example requires that you have created a Panel, a Button, and at least one RadioButton control on a Form. The RadioButton control(s) are added to the Panel control, and the Panel control added to the Form. When the button is clicked, the radio button named removeButton is removed from the Control.ControlCollection.


Gil Kalai Sep 26 '11 at 12:10
OK, I'll have a look at it and see if the method can be applied to the stronger statement. – Pascal Maillard Sep 26 '11 at 12:59
show 1 more comment
Midway Problem (a reformulation only)
This is not an Answer. Start with a 2n x2n grid graph. all edges length one, all even pairs linked.
The "both even" numbered vertices are "the original graph". Add (x odd, y even) vertices half the time. Add (x even, y odd) vertices the time. The (odd, odd) vertices are always out. Seems a decent starting point. Point Midway is now (n+1, 0), and in the graph half of the time.
The two questions may then be:
Strongest question, as n grows: Show with probability approaching one that the set of all shortest paths between (0,0) and (2n,0) almost never contains Midway.
Weaker question, as n grows: Show with probability approaching one that there is a shortest path
between (0,0) and (2n,0) that does not contain Midway.
They may even have different answers, unless the shortest path has "uniqueness" properties. So again, this is not an answer.
But, the fractions are gone, and the edge lengths are all one!
Apologies for the initial typo. Is this variation more accessible?
The Far Corner variant of Midway, with an exclusion somewhere, may be easier for purists; but again, I do not know the answer (Nor even close). Propertys of shortest path sets from (0,0) to (2n,2n) may shed light on the axial case. Some small variety of forbidden minor, behaving as Midway, may be worthy of considering. I would try constant sized cycles.
share|improve this answer
That's an interesting variation of the problem that might be easier. When you say add (x odd y even) hald the time do you mean with probability 1/2? I suppose also the (x even y odd) vertices are also added half the time. that's interesting. – Gil Kalai Jan 31 '10 at 16:52
add comment
Your Answer


48. Blood Quantum
People should be classified as native belonging to a certain tribe, race, ethnic group, clan, etc., if they meet the requirement that they have at least a 1/4 blood quantum measurement. If there is a tie, such as 1/4 part x and 1/4 part y, then culture and lifestyle adoption, especially while as a young person under the age of 20, should be the deciding factor. However, even if a person is 1/4 part x, 1/4 part y and 1/2 part z, that person would have the right to choose among any of the three possibilities for their identity.
Leave a Reply


I unfortunately dropped my aunt's phone in water. I didn't tried anything yet (I'm afraid of a short circuit). Is there a quick and cheap way to completely dry out the internals of this mobile phone so it will not fail when I turn it on?
Phone: Samsung metro duos
enter image description here
Condition: Dropped in 2 ft of water for about 2 minutes.
In case the phone fell into water there is a high risk of short circuits due to the electrical conductivity of water. This does not only cause damage to the parts but can also lead to an overheating of the battery. Over a longer period of time the power supplied from the battery to the circuits causes a reaction resulting in corrosion of the circuits (remember electrolysis experiments in school, two nails in glass of water, wired to a battery?) and failure. Therefore the first action we should take is to
Immediately remove the battery
Do not try to operate the device. It will make things worse for sure.
Remove all water
After having removed the battery we have to get rid of all the water in the device.
 1. Remove all parts (SIM card, memory cards, headsets)
 2. Open the case and dismantle as many parts as you can
 3. Remove gross water drops with a dry towel or handkerchief.
 4. Patiently let the device dry at room temperature for several days (time needed depends much on the environmental humidity where you live).
Tips for taking a phone apart:
 - try to remember, or take pictures, to be able to get them back together again. You may need to use a fine screw driver for this.
 - Keep the screws in a safe place and note down where they go - modern phones use many different lengths and widths of screw. Draw a basic picture of the phone on paper and place the screws in the same place on the picture as you remove them
 - Consider putting screws gently back into the same holes they came out of, after you have removed the part they were securing, if the phone will be in bits for a while
 - Follow a YouTube video tutorial of how to take you particular phone apart. Search for "iphone 6 tear down" or "dismantle galaxy s8" for more
 - remember that a YouTube video might be done on a phone that has been taken apart before, and might have been put back together wrong. Many videos of the iPhone 6 teardown, for example, have the screen ribbon cables in the wrong order. Your phone's presentation should override the video. Also bear in mind that popping the screen off a phone gets easier the more times it's done so the video may look like the screen just falls off when it actually needs a good pull. Watch a few
Remove salt or sugar
In case it fell into salt water, soup or beverage we have to remove salt or sugar too to avoid later corrosion or short circuits. This can be done by immersing all parts except the battery in a bath of distilled water.
Accelerate the drying process
There are several ways to accelerate the drying process. Use any but do not use the sun, an oven or a hair dryer - the heat may damage your device.
 1. Put all parts in an air tight bag with a water absorbing substance for some days (at least 2). This could be rice or silica gel bags (which come in the packages of many electronic devices) but do not use salt because of its corrosive potential.
 2. Immerse all parts (except the battery) in isopropyl alcohol. This will solve all remaining water and it then evaporates much faster than water alone. There is a small risk however to damage non-alcohol resistant glued parts by this.
 3. Professionals use a vacuum chamber for rapid water removal but we mortals may have no access to that.
What if the device still does not work?
Well, then you should know that you are not alone. Only a fraction of phones will survive from being drowned. Unfortunately due to moisture detectors within the devices your warranty will be void in any case.
Sadly from newer devices the battery can no longer be removed. Therefore the chances for rescue are much smaller. In many cases though, the battery will have a connector cable that can be unplugged. You'll have to open the phone up and look for it. Again a video tutorial found via a search like "change iPhone 6 battery" will provide the minimal set of steps needed to disconnect the battery
 - 1
 Rice is the key answer here... saved me a couple of times before. – Danny Beckett May 28 '15 at 21:41
 - 3
 "Open the case and dismantle as many parts as you can but try to remember to be able to get them back together again." When disassembling something that I'm not immediately confident about, I normally take a few pictures at various stages. Especially for something like this, where I wouldn't be putting it back together for days. – TIO Begs May 29 '15 at 15:11
There are reports of being electrocuted by a phone, but I don't know the viability of this idea. Below is what I have done on multiple occasions:
 - Turn off the phone and take the battery out. Put the phone in a bowl of rice after drying all the water you can off. Leave the phone off for a day or 2.
Note: If the phone is damaged, I.e. won't turn on, buckling somehow, etc. You may have to take it to the phone shop to see if they can do anything. There are waterproof cases to help avoid this. A plastic sand which bag makes a lovely waterproof case for cheap. As well, I have never heard of the recovery of a phone that has been underwater that long. Asking them what parts are damaged could be a great place to start, maybe you can replace them yourself.
 - Some sources say that rice does not work, but putting a rag over a vacuum cleaner and sibling the water out can help. Use rice as a extra precaution.
 - Never use hair dryers and never lie to the phone store about there being water in the phone. They can tell by indicators and the heat dan harm the phone.
 - 1
 Being electrocuted by a phone, sounds like a myth... The phone can short circuit, yes, but I highly doubt it being able to electrocute anything. – holroy May 21 '15 at 14:24
 - The voltage of a cellphone battery is unable to hurt anyone (unless you put it on your tongue, which is quite harmless). The amperage isn't enough to be noticeable either. Not to say you can't turn it into something dangerous, but they aren't in cellphone circuitry. – Mast Jun 9 '15 at 3:41
 - With regards to the rice suggestion, it should be uncooked rice or any other foodstuff to which you add water to cook as it was draw the moisture out of the phone. For this to work effectively, seal the phone into a food container tightly packed with uncooked rice and leave someone warm (such as a window sill in direct sunlight). Obviously you want to discard the rice afterwards. – Steve Matthews Jul 24 '15 at 8:27
 - Regarding the electrocution part, I've repaired (or attempted to repair) hundreds of phones that have been liquid damaged, the only risk I came across was a short circuit in the camera flash, which burnt a lovely perfect square into my finger. I've never had any shocks thankfully. Rice does work, but be sure to wrap the phone in a thin layer of tissue (or other porous material) or similar so you don't get grains stuck in gaps, if possible silica gel is much more effective. I got a tonne of it from a local clothes store (it was shipped with their orders). – Pudd Jul 24 '15 at 13:16
 - Electrocution is an unlikely risk, UNLESS the phone includes a "real" camera flash of some sort. There are other risks from a compromised battery, though - if that can be afforded, buy a new battery after getting the phone working, and dispose of the old one safely. – rackandboneman Dec 13 '18 at 14:22
Take all the cases, backs, SIM cards, SD cards, and anything else off. Then fill a bag with uncooked rice and bury the phone in the rice. The rice will remove the moisture from the phone.
I feel like my answer is already here, BUT if you dropped the phone in salt water then your best bet to avoid corrosion is to actually soak the phone in isopropyl alcohol, while off of course, for a while. Remove and soak in clean alcohol, repeat a few times to make sure the salt is all gone, then just leave the phone to dry for a couple of days to make absolutely sure it is dry before turning on again.
Beware that phones and water don't mix and you likely need a new one, but this method can go a long way in preventing corrosion after the phone is dry.
To dry out a phone after its been wet, do not put out in the sun to dry it out.
Take it apart and put the pieces in uncooked rice. Worked for me and the rice should absorb the moisture. You might need to replace battery.
Remove the batteries and dip your phone in the sack of rice grains for a day. I read that it absorbs all the moisture. You can google it for more clarifications.
 - Hello,


How to turn data into decisions
Your readers often decide what to do because of what feels right, not just what adds up.
How to turn data into decisions
Finance professionals are skilled at assessing, evaluating, and measuring. But it's often the things we can't quantify that determine our success in helping people make decisions and take action.
In a previous article, I introduced the idea of communicating with a human touch. That article describes how clear, persuasive writing helps financial professionals provide value by turning information into knowledge.
Knowledge embodies qualities like perceptions, benefits, insight, trust, and confidence. Those characteristics are hard to define and difficult to measure. Yet, they significantly influence the decisions your readers make.
Clear writing gives your data and recommendations balance by adding those unquantifiable qualities to the facts and conclusions you provide.
Here are three ways to add the unquantifiable to your writing.
Use words with intention. You have a nearly infinite assortment of words available to you. By words, I mean all of the shapes and images you use to communicate — words, numbers, charts, graphs, photos, emojis, and illustrations — and most of them are free!
Keep in mind, it's likely your reader will define words differently from the way you do, and vague statements result in vague responses. So choose your words with purpose to support your message.
If you want to encourage your reader to make a specific decision by a specific date, use specific words. Asking your CEO to review your financial forecast at the earliest convenience is vague. It hides the action you expect, blurs your sense of urgency, and muddles your message.
Instead, clearly define the action you expect, and give your reader a specific time, date, reason, and even method for giving you the response you want.
So, you might write something like:
Thanks for your time meeting with me yesterday. I attached the revised Q3 financial forecast based on our discussion. Please take a look at the revenue updates we talked about on pages 4-6.
If you approve as is, just reply with your OK. Or, if you have changes, please note them in red, and email them to me by noon Thursday, 24 January.
I'll have the final printed copies ready for the board meeting Friday morning.
By using words with intention you make it easier for your readers to understand your expectations. Your readers know they can rely on you to be clear and specific in your communication.
And the more you do that, the more you create a bond built on confidence and trust.
Develop a distinct and consistent style. It's a strong position for you when your readers learn to expect and rely on a distinct point of view, outlook, and perspective from you. Achieving that takes more than presenting detailed facts, and insightful conclusions.
You also want to develop a style and tone that helps make your writing more accessible and your ideas more salient.
One way you can develop your own writing style is by getting inspiration from others. I encourage you to read from a writer's perspective. That means pay attention to writing you like and examine why you like it.
What kinds of words does the writer use? How does the writer transition from one idea to the next? How does the writer keep you engaged, interested, and wanting to know more?
Use that inspiration to add the same kinds of techniques to your own writing. I'm not suggesting you plagiarise, but rather, learn from others whose writing you admire.
Also, keep an eye on writing you don't like. You may find yourself sitting on a plane glancing through an article on a topic that interests you. But the article is uninspiring. In this case, examine why you don't like it. Is it full of meaningless jargon and clichés? Does the writer make vague references with no connections or relevance? Are the ideas out of order, and the logic difficult to follow?
If you look closely at what you read, and pay attention to what keeps you engaged — and what doesn't — you'll get ideas you can use to shape your own writing style.
Once you develop a clear and distinctive voice, your writing will become more of a conversation between two people, rather than merely a list of facts. Creating that distinct and consistent style will help your readers feel they know you, and can trust you.
Think like a salesperson. Although you're not out hawking your organisation's products and services, you are fundamentally a salesperson. We all are.
Here's a basic definition of sales: I give you something. You give me something. We're both happy. And what is the most treasured asset you ask people to give you every day?
Their time.
In exchange, you must give your readers something of equal or greater value. Your readers will assess the value you give them in large part by how you present information to help transform disparate data into clear, decision-making criteria. So they can focus less on trying to understand the information, and concentrate more on how the information will influence their decisions.
Think of it as the user experience — in the same way car companies spend millions on television ads to help you feel what it's like to sit behind the wheel and drive. Or a computer company uses animation and bold graphics to give you the experience of holding and typing on their newest ultra-thin laptop. Great advertising is great storytelling.
You can use clear writing to tell a story about how your reader will follow, process, understand, and use the information you provide. And all great stories have three primary parts — a beginning, a middle, and an end.
Your beginning is context — show your reader why you are writing and what you want the reader to learn. The middle is where you describe how you sourced your data and arrived at your conclusions. The end is when you show your reader how and why the facts are related, how they affect decisions, the benefits the outcome will achieve, and the decision you recommend.
This gives your readers the guidance they need, and positions you as a reliable resource — one they can turn to and trust for insight, perspective, and advice.
By presenting your ideas with the reader's perspective in mind, and transforming information into insight, you add empathy to your writing. And that lets your readers feel you understand their perspectives and the challenges they face.
So, as you plan your next memorandum to the executive team about last quarter's most active revenue sectors and your recommendations for fiscal-year planning, consider using these three ideas to determine how you want your audience to feel, not just what you want them to know.
John Sturtevant provides communication skills workshops for organisations around the world and is based in the US. To comment on this article or to suggest an idea for another article, contact Drew Adamek, an FM magazine senior editor, at


Indore is a medium-sized Indian city (2 million inhabitants) in the Indian state of Madhyar Pradesh. Endearing city, like all cities in India.
We visited this city during the trip to Ujjain to attend the Kumbh Mela in 2016. From a tourist point of view I doubt that I can choose this locality for my holidays even if it has undeniable architectural treasures like the Lal Bagh Palace, the Rajwada palace or the small temple temple Jain Shri Neminath Digambar Mandir.
This city is the capital of the state Madhya Pradesh, it has an airport which greatly facilitates travel from Mumbai to Ujjain.
The Rajwad Palace, also named Holkar Palace, is one of the beautiful attractions of the city of Indore. The construction is around 200 years old,and the structure mixes Mughol, French and Marathi elements. The Marathi Empire developed around the end of the 16th century in northern India, succeeding the Mughals, and disappearing with the British conquest.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the wealthy merchant and industrialist Sir Seth Hukumchand built two white stone palaces in Indore, the Shish Mahal and the Kanch Ka Mandir. It is the interior of these palaces that is most remarkable (but we were unable to take photos there) because it is completely covered with glass panels and mosaics (including the floors, columns, walls and ceilings).
about the place, Indore:
Indore is the largest city in Mahya Pradesh with more than 2 million inhabitants. Indore is 190 kilometers from the infamous Bhopal.
Indore was created in the 16th century and was an important trading center between the Plateau Deccan Plateau (largely covering the states of Telangana, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh) and Delhi.
The city is named after the Indreshwar Mahadev Temple seduced to the god Indra.
 (Inde) - North Indian Folk Music - Kajri, Odeon (3 C064-17859)
 (Inde) - Inédit 2 - Kawwali Chant Soufi - Man Kountou Mawala Ali Mawla, Inédit (MCM 002)
 (Inde) - Rajasthan vol 1. Musiciens professionnels populaires. - Musique Martiale avec Timbales et Hautbois, Ocora (OCR 81)
 - Zakir Hussain; Shivakumar Sharma (Inde) - Hundred strings of santoor - Raga Mishra Khamaj 2, Chhanda Dhara (SNDC 7786), Own collection
Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India


text:
The surviving remains of Buckland Abbey which are situated between the village of Buckland Monachorum and the hamlet of Milton Combe. The monument includes the upstanding and buried remains of an abbey of the Cistercian Order. The abbey was founded in 1278 by Amicia, Countess of Devon and was colonised by monks from Quarr Abbey in the Isle of Wight, and dedicated to St Benedict. Following its dissolution in 1539 the abbey and home farm were sold in 1541 to the Grenville family. By 1576 Sir Richard Grenville had completed the conversion of the church into an Elizabethan mansion. In 1581 the property was sold to Sir Francis Drake and remained with that family until 1946. In 1949 the house was given to the National Trust and is now principally in use as a museum.
The abbey conforms to the traditional monastic plan in which a church and three ranges of buildings are grouped around the cloister, with ancillary buildings further from the nucleus. The visible remains exist as a number of adapted structures, consisting of substantial parts of the abbey church incorporated into a later mansion, part of the cloister, a barn, a farm building (guesthouse), part of the abbot's lodgings incorporated into a later structure, part of the precinct wall, and two main areas of earthworks. The buried remains are extensive and include the claustral ranges, graveyard, a gatehouse, buildings forming the home farm, and the water management system. For the details of the separate components of the abbey site please see the individual records.


text:
will silently replace the module (and anything imported from it) with an object of type
errorbehaves in the same way as
skipbut is not quite as silent – it will flag the import as an error, like this:
main.py:1: note: Import of'mycode.bar' ignored main.py:1: note: (Using --follow-imports=error, module not passed on command line)
If you are starting a new codebase and plan on using type hints from
the start, we recommend you use either
(the default) or
--follow-imports=error. Either option will help
make sure you are not skipping checking any part of your codebase by
If you are planning on adding type hints to a large, existing code base,
we recommend you start by trying to make your entire codebase (including
files that do not use type hints) pass under
This is usually not too difficult to do: mypy is designed to report as
few error messages as possible when it is looking at unannotated code.
If doing this is intractable, we recommend passing mypy just the files
you want to type check and use
--follow-imports=silent. Even if
mypy is unable to perfectly type check a file, it can still glean some
useful information by parsing it (for example, understanding what methods
a given object has). See Using mypy with an existing codebase for more recommendations.
We do not recommend using
skip unless you know what you are doing:
while this option can be quite powerful, it can also cause many
Mapping file paths to modules¶
One of the main ways you can tell mypy what files to type check is by providing mypy the paths to those files. For example:
$ mypy file_1.py foo/file_2.py file_3.pyi some/directory
This section describes how exactly mypy maps the provided paths to modules to type check.
- Files ending in
.py(and stub files ending in
.pyi) are checked as Python modules.
- Files not ending in
.pyiare assumed to be Python scripts and checked as such.
- Directories representing Python packages (i.e. containing a
__init__.py[i]file) are checked as Python packages; all submodules and subpackages will be checked (subpackages must themselves have a
- Directories that don't represent Python packages (i.e. not directly
__init__.py[i]file) are checked as follows:
*.py[i]files contained directly therein are checked as toplevel Python modules;
- All packages contained directly therein (i.e. immediate
subdirectories with an
__init__.py[i]file) are checked as toplevel Python packages.
One more thing about checking modules and packages: if the directory
containing a module or package specified on the command line has an
__init__.py[i] file, mypy assigns these an absolute module name by
crawling up the path until no
__init__.py[i] file is found.
For example, suppose we run the command
mypy foo/bar/baz.py where
foo/bar/__init__.py exists but
foo/__init__.py does not. Then
the module name assumed is
bar.baz and the directory
added to mypy's module search path.
On the other hand, if
foo/bar/__init__.py did not exist,
would be added to the module search path instead, and the module name
assumed is just
If a script (a file not ending in
.py[i]) is processed, the module
name assumed is
__main__ (matching the behavior of the
Python interpreter), unless
--scripts-are-modules is passed.
How imports are found¶
When mypy encounters an
import statement or receives module
names from the command line via the
flags, mypy tries to find the module on the file system similar
to the way Python finds it. However, there are some differences.
First, mypy has its own search path. This is computed from the following items:
MYPYPATHenvironment variable (a colon-separated list of directories).
mypy_pathconfig file option.
- The directories containing the sources given on the command line (see below).
- The installed packages marked as safe for type checking (see PEP 561 support)
- The relevant directories of the typeshed repo.
For sources given on the command line, the path is adjusted by crawling
up from the given file or package to the nearest directory that does not
__init__.pyi file. If the given path
is relative, it will only crawl as far as the current working directory.
Second, mypy searches for stub files in addition to regular Python files
The rules for searching for a module
foo are as follows:
- The search looks in each of the directories in the search path (see above) until a match is found.
- If a package named
foois found (i.e. a directory
__init__.pyifile) that's a match.
- If a stub file named
foo.pyiis found, that's a match.
- If a Python module named
foo.pyis found, that's a match.
These matches are tried in order, so that if multiple matches are found in the same directory on the search path (e.g. a package and a Python file, or a stub file and a Python file) the first one in the above list wins.
In particular, if a Python file and a stub file are both present in the same directory on the search path, only the stub file is used. (However, if the files are in different directories, the one found in the earlier directory is used.)


TxStyle · Textile Documentation
The Textile Markup Reference for Textpattern
Paragraphs are separated by a blank line.
Input (editable)
More about: Paragraphs
1) Above example's output is identical to explicitly identifying a paragraph with p.
p. A paragraph.
p. And a paragraph with
a line break.
2) Paragraphs are separated by blank lines. Each paragraph of text is transformed into a XHTML ... paragraph block. Line breaks within paragraphs are transformed into XHTML line breaks as is also shown in the example box above.
A paragraph with
a line break.
3) But a line beginning with a space will be left untouched, and not wrapped in ... tags:
This is a normal paragraph.
With a continuation line.
 But no paragraph tags here.
4) Paragraphs can be aligned left, right, centered, or justified:
p<. Aligned left paragraph (default).
p>. Aligned right paragraph.
p=. Centered paragraph.
p<>. Justified paragraph.
5) Indentation can be specified by one or more parentheses for every 1em to the right or left.
p(. Left indent 1em.
p((. Left indent 2em.
p(((. Left indent 3em.
Paste code into the box above.
Further reading: Paragraphs
PHP Textile v3.5.5
Donate Textile


Can my asylum case ever be cancelled?
Yes. Unless you have obtained a "green card" or lawful permanent resident status, you could lose your asylum status as well as the derivative asylum status given to your spouse and children if:
 1. The U.S. government has evidence that there was fraud in your asylum application.
 2. There has been a "fundamental change" in your country so that the reason you were afraid to return is no longer present.
 3. You have been convicted of a crime that meets the definition of "aggravated felony."
 4. There exists another country which will accept you for asylum or you have obtained a new nationality.
 5. You have returned to your home country or you have used your country's protection. For example, traveling on your home country's passport or renewing it.
Asylum is not a right to remain permanently in the U.S. and for this reason it is important to apply for a "green card" or lawful permanent resident status as soon as you are eligible. If you are facing termination of your asylum status, is important to consult with an immigration attorney.
What is a "frivolous" asylum application?
People often want to know "what does it mean when USCIS says an asylum application was frivolous?"
Under the federal regulations, asylum seekers can get in trouble if they file a "knowingly frivolous" application. Knowingly frivolous means that one or more important claim in the application is false. It could also mean claims of asylum where there was positively no credible fear of persecution back home.
The bar on frivolous applications was put into place because people had been submitting completely false asylum applications. There are many reported cases of people claiming to have done heroic things in their home country in the hopes of never being sent back and, upon investigation, the claims were found to be false.
One such case involved a man named Biao Yang in China. Mr. Yang arrived in Chicago one day and immediately told officials that he had fled China because "family planning authorities" were out to kill him because he had (1) impregnated his girlfriend, (2) scuffled with an abortionist sent to kill his unborn child and (3) escaped China. The immigration judge, after several hours of testimony and cross-examination, decided that Mr. Yang had lied. His asylum case was denied.
In situations like this, if the immigration judge or the Board of Immigration Appeals concludes that you had fabricated portions of your asylum claim, very serious consequences then occur. Specifically, you can be barred from ever seeking any immigration benefit in any form in the U.S. A very serious consequence indeed.
This is another reason why you must be thorough, complete and totally honest when filing for asylum. Having your case denied would not be the worst outcome if you are found to have filed a frivolous application.
Hope this helps you understand this important concept.
Is the asylum interview supposed to be an adversarial interrogation?
Federal regulations require that an asylum interview not be adversarial. That means that the officer is not supposed to be battling with, nor antagonizing, the person being interviwed.
Several good reasons exist for this approach. First, the interview is the first and best opportunity for the asylum seeker to make their case. If they are intimidated or yelled at by the asylum officer, they will not be able to thoroughly present their case.
If the asylum officer makes a mistake and denies a case that should have been approved, very real world consequences may arise – the person may be deported to a place where he or she would be killed. They could also be placed in removal proceedings which is not a pleasant experience.
The purpose of the interview is two-fold: (a) gather information and (b) disseminate information. The asylum officer has the affirmative duty to "elicit all relevant and useful information bearing on the applicant's eligibility" for asylum. This means more than simply asking questions – it means having a dialogue without any pre-conceived notions of what the outcome should be.
The asylum officer should also disseminate or provide information regarding the process. Asylum is an intimidating and complicated set of procedures. One role the officer has is to make sure the person going through the process has a good understanding of what is happening.
Unlike in deportation court, there is no one at the immigration interview arguing that the alien should be deported or that asylum should be granted. There is no formal cross-examination and the officer is "not an advocate for either side; rather the asylum officer is a neutral decision-maker."
We hope this information helps you understand what an asylum interview is supposed to be like. If you have questions or concerns regarding an updcoming asylum case or filing, please be sure to call as at _PHONE_.
How long do I have to file my asylum application with USCIS?
Most people who come to our office to talk about asylum are unaware of the strict filing deadlines that govern asylum cases. Since 1998, the rule at USCIS has been that an applicant for asylum must file within one year of his or her arrival into the U.S.
The one-year period is calculated from the date of the last arrival. The day of arrival does not count – the first day is the day after the last arrival. The filing date is the date that USCIS receives the I-589 asylum application.
It is your burden to show that you met the one-year deadline. You have to establish timely filing by "clear and convincing" evidence. You do this through testimony and through documentary proof of your last arrival.
If the asylum office has concerns about whether or not you filed within one year, you will still have your asylum interview. However, your affirmative application for asylum (which is really your best chance for asylum), will be denied.
Your case will be sent to the immigration court, where you will face deportation, but may raise asylum as a defense to being sent overseas.
One exception for this rule is if there are "changed circumstances which materially affect his or her eligibility for asylum, or extraordinary circumstances relating to the delay in filing."
Here are some examples of "changed circumstances":
 - changed conditions in the applicant's country of nationality
 - changes in applicable U.S. law
 - changes in the applicant's personal circumstances, such as recent political activisim, religious conversion, etc.
 - the ending of the applicant's relationship to the principal applicant in a prior asylum application.
The only other exception to the deadline is for "extraordinary circumstances," which are events or factors in the applicant's life which cause them to miss the filing deadline. To prove this exception, the asylum applicant must:
 - show the extraordinary circumstance;
 - establish that the extraordinary circumstance caused the delay in filing;
 - not have intentionally created the extraordinary circumstance, through action or inaction, for the purpose of causing the delay; and,
 - must have filed within a "reasonable" period given the circumstances that related to the failure to timely file.
Extraordinary circumstances usually involve serious injury, death of a loved one or other similar situations.
We hope this helps you understand the one-year deadline and the narrow exceptions that apply. If you have any questions, please give us a call at _PHONE_.
Committed to your success in the asylum process.
What does USCIS mean when they talk about "persecution" of people applying for asylum?
People often call our office to talk about asylum. But they are not sure what the government considers to be "persecution" when figuring out whether or not someone would be persecuted if they returned home.
In asylum cases, persecution means harm or suffering inflicted upon an individual in order to punish the individual for possessing a belief or characteristic that the person causing the harm or suffering does not like.
The intent of the person inflicting the harm is not relevant. The true question for the immigration officer is whether or not the harm rises to a serious enough level to equal persecution.
Persecution can mean more than physical harm or the threat of physical harm if it rises to a serious enough level. Non-physical harm includes deliberately denying someone's liberty, food, housing, employment or other essentials of life.
Various courts have defined persecution as well. One federal court in Chicago defined it as "infliction of suffering or harm for political, religious or other reasons that [the U.S.] does not recognize as legitimate."
In order for actions to rise to the level of persecution, they must rise above the level of mere harassment. Another federal court explained that for conduct to be persecution, it must "rise above unpleasantness, harassment and even basic suffering."
There is no requirement that an individual suffer "serious injuries" for them to have suffered persecution. At the same time, the existence or absence of physical injuries is a factor to be considered.
This discussion demonstrates just how important it is to frame your asylum application in the best way possible. If you have any questions or need assistance with your own asylum application, please feel free to give us a call at _PHONE_.
Can I travel while my asylum case is pending?
Sometimes asylum cases take a very long time to process. The initial interview may be a year or more away. Asylum applicants sometimes get ansy about remaining in the U.S. for so long and ask us whether it would be okay for them to leave the country.
If you have an asylum case pending and are thinking about leaving the U.S., you need to think about a few things.
USCIS does not explicitly prohibit asylum applicants from leaving the U.S. while their application is pending. However


The Internal Organization of Banks and the Transmission of Lending Shocks across Borders
Projekt Start:06/2013
Kategorie: Financial Intermediation, Systemic Risk Lab
Finanziert von:LOEWE
Topic & Objectives
The links between parents and subsidiaries within international bank conglomerates lead to a reduction of information asymmetries and provide liquidity sources in cases when outside funding is scarce or unavailable. However, they can also be channels for the transmission of shocks both across a country's regions and internationally. So far, there is little knowledge of how the internal organization of these financial conglomerates is connected with their cross-border lending decisions. A major obstacle for such an analysis is the lack of information about the degree to which a parent bank affects the decisions of its foreign subsidiaries. Few studies have used confidential information about the activities of the internal capital markets in banking conglomerates, but such information is usually either not available to the general scientific community, or available only for a small number of countries, such as the U.S., which makes the results difficult to apply elsewhere.
In SAFE Working Paper No. 174, we introduce a novel approach to measure bank integration, based on the language in the financial reports of global banks. The Power Index that we introduce reflects the prevalence of a language of power, authority and control, which is identified by the management literature as an indication of a tighter integration within a global corporation.
In SAFE Working Paper No. 175, we analyze the transmission channels of negative shocks from parent banks to their foreign subsidiaries and try to find an explanation of why a negative shock transmission occurs in certain cases and not in others. In our analysis, we recognize that not only the negative shocks are important as such, but also is their type, because banks use different approaches to address different types of shocks. We use this observation to identify whether solvency and wholesale shocks to parent banks are systematically related to a reduction subsidiary lending.
SAFE Working Paper No. 174
Key Findings
 - A more authoritative culture within a global banking conglomerate is crucially determined by the social (de-)centralization of the home country of the parent: more ethnically dispersed societies nurture less centralized corporate banking structures. Linguistically decentralized societies, on the other hand, produce more centralized corporate structures, which may be explained by the need for clearly stated rules and orders in a multilingual environment.
 - Bank integration, as measured by the Power Index, plays a major role in the transmission of negative shocks across borders: If a solvency shock hits a parent, its subsidiaries reduce lending more if the banking conglomerate is more integrated. Wholesale shocks do not appear to be transmitted through this channel.
 - Past experience with solvency shocks reduces the integration between parents and subsidiaries.
Policy Implications
Our study has important policy implications and adds to our understanding of the transmission of negative shocks across borders and how it is affected by corporate and country culture. Our findings suggest that in analyzing and forecasting the impact of external shocks on a country's economy, host country supervisors and regulators should take into account the social and cultural structure in the home country of their foreign-owned banks.
SAFE Working Paper No. 175
Key Findings
 - Solvency shocks to parents generally have larger effect on subsidiary lending than wholesale shocks. Transmission of wholesale shock does occur and it affects foreign subsidiaries of parent banks that rely heavily on wholesale funding.
 - Further, the transmission of wholesale shocks depends on the relative importance of the subsidiary within the parent business strategy: subsidiaries in markets that are traditionally used as a funding source by the parent tend to be affected by solvency shocks, while subsidiaries that provide investment income appear to be protected by the parent. Cetorelli and Goldberg (2012b) find this effect for U.S. banks hit by liquidity shocks and call it a "locational pecking order". We find evidence for this phenomenon on a global scale.
 - Liquidity regulation tends to exacerbate the effect of wholesale shocks on foreign subsidiaries.
 - The subdued effects of both types of shocks for undercapitalized banks and banks that rely on wholesale funding are primarily due to parents using their capital and liquidity buffers.
 - Solvency shocks have higher impact on big subsidiary banks with low growth opportunities in mature markets, which further reinforces the "locational pecking order" hypothesis, as the latter markets may be used as sources of funding for investments in high-growth developing markets.
Policy Implications
These results have important theoretical and policy implications and add to our understanding of the transmission of solvency and wholesale shocks across borders. As we find that shocks to parents have strong impact on subsidiaries abroad, and that parents try to address shocks by depleting their own capital and liquidity buffers first, we deduce that the current focus of banking regulation on requiring banks to hold sufficient buffers might be effective in reducing cross-border contagion. However, the liquidity rules currently in place globally aggravate the transmission of shocks across borders and further efforts are needed to find a more effective global regulatory framework.
Zugehörige Working Papers
175Reint Gropp, Deyan RadevInternational Banking Conglomerates and the Transmission of Lending Shocks Across Borders2017 Financial Intermediation, Systemic Risk Lab Commercial banks, global banks, wholesale shocks, solvency shocks, transmission, internal capital markets
174Reint Gropp, Deyan RadevSocial Centralization, Bank Integration and the Transmission of Lending Shocks2017 Financial Intermediation, Systemic Risk Lab Global banks, social centralization, bank integration, shocks, transmission


text:
Quiz: Holiday myths debunked
You chose fact: Correct!
Fact: American mistletoe (Phoradendron spp.), the iconic holiday plant under which couples like to stop, also has an exaggerated degree of toxicity. Rumors of its toxic nature are largely due to confusion with its cousin, European mistletoe (Viscum spp.).
Threat to pets: The toxic agents of most significance are glycoprotein lectins, which may inhibit protein synthesis and result in cell death.
Signs: Ingestion of American mistletoe leaves or berries may cause lethargy, vomiting, and, less frequently, diarrhea. In rare cases hypotension (low blood pressure) may occur.
Treatment: Most cases can be managed at home. In some cases, general supportive care such as anti-emetics, gastroprotectants, and rehydration may be necessary. Should clinical signs such as hypotension occur, monitoring of blood pressure and heart rate are warranted.
Prognosis: Excellent in the majority of ingestions.


text:
Fusel alcohols, also sometimes called fusel oils, or potato oil in Europe, are a mixture of several alcohols (chiefly amyl alcohol) produced as a by-product of alcoholic fermentation. The word Fusel is German for "bad liquor".
Hazardous alcohols
- Methanol (methyl alcohol) itself, while poisonous (LD50 5628 mg/kg, oral, rat), has a much weaker sedative effect than ethanol.
- Isopropanol (isopropyl alcohol) is oxidized to form acetone by alcohol dehydrogenase in the liver but have occasionally been abused by alcoholics, leading to a range of adverse health effects.
Alcohol faults
- Mannitol, a wine fault
Aroma alcohols
Excessive concentrations of some alcohols other than ethanol may cause off-flavors, sometimes described as "spicy", "hot", or "solvent-like". Some beverages, such as rum, whisky (especially Bourbon), incompletely rectified vodka (e.g. Siwucha), and traditional ales and ciders, are expected to have relatively high concentrations of non-hazardous alcohols as part of their flavor profile. However, in other beverages, such as Korn, vodka, and lagers, the presence of other alcohols than ethanol is considered a fault.
The compounds involved are chiefly:
- 2-methyl-1-butanol - sometimes called "active" amyl alcohol
- isoamyl alcohol - also known as isopentyl alcohol
- isobutyl alcohol - one of the least toxic of the butanols.
- n-propyl alcohol
Formation and removal
- at higher temperatures
- at lower pH
- when yeast activity is limited by low nitrogen content
During distillation, fusel alcohols are concentrated in the feints or "tails" at the end of the distillation run. They have an oily consistency, which is noticeable to the distiller, hence the other name "fusel oil". If desired, these heavier alcohols can be almost completely separated in a reflux still. Freeze distillation, on the other hand, does not remove fusel alcohols.
Health effects
There is a popular belief that fusel alcohol contributes to hangover symptoms. However, these effects are under scientific debate. A Japanese study in 2003 concluded, "The fusel oil in whiskey had no effect on the ethanol-induced emetic response" in Suncus murinus. Additionally, consumption of fusel oils with ethanol suppressed subjects' subsequent taste aversion to alcohol, which suggested subjects' hangover symptoms were lessened.
See also
- Hazelwood, Lucie A.; Daran, Jean-Marc; van Maris, Antonius J. A.; Pronk, Jack T.; Dickinson, J. Richard (2008). "The Ehrlich pathway for fusel alcohol production: a century of research on Saccharomyces cerevisiae metabolism". Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 74 (8): 2259–66. doi:10.1128/AEM.02625-07. PMC _PHONE_. PMID _PHONE_..
- Wiernikowski, A, Piekoszewski, W, Krzyzanowska-Kierepka, E, Gomułka, E (1997). "Acute oral poisoning with isopropyl alcohol in alcoholics". Przeglad lekarski 54 (6): 459–63. PMID _PHONE_.
- Mańkowski, W, Klimaszyk, D, Krupiński, B (2000). "How to differentiate acute isopropanol poisoning from ethanol intoxication? -- a case report". Przeglad lekarski 57 (10): 588–90. PMID _PHONE_.
- Aroma of Beer, Wine and Distilled Alcoholic Beverages
- MERCK INDEX 10th Ed. 1983
- Hori H, Fujii W, Hatanaka Y, Suwa Y. (Aug 27, 2003). "Effects of fusel oil on animal hangover models.". Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 27 (8 Suppl): 37S–41S. doi:10.1097/01.ALC._PHONE_.49740.48. PMID _PHONE_.