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What Does Loan Shark Mean?
Welcome, curious reader! Have you ever heard the phrase "loan shark" and wondered what it actually means? You're not alone. In this article, we will explore the definition of loan sharks, their role in the financial world, and why it's important to understand this term in today's society. Let's dive in and learn more about this intriguing concept.
What is a Loan Shark?
A loan shark is someone or a company that provides loans at exorbitant interest rates and frequently employs illegal or exploitative tactics to collect payments. They often prey on individuals in dire need of money and who have limited options for obtaining traditional forms of credit. Loan sharks can be hazardous and can lead borrowers into a never-ending cycle of debt.
To avoid being a victim of loan sharks, it is crucial to seek out legitimate and regulated lenders, consider alternative sources of credit, and manage finances responsibly. Remember, there are always better options available when seeking financial assistance.
How Does a Loan Shark Operate?
Loan sharks prey on individuals who are in dire need of money. Here is an overview of the steps typically taken by a loan shark:
- Identification: Loan sharks target vulnerable individuals who require quick cash.
- Offer: They provide loans with exorbitant interest rates and unreasonable repayment terms.
- Intimidation: Loan sharks use fear and intimidation to ensure timely repayment.
- Illegal Practices: They often operate outside of the law, using threats, violence, or blackmail.
- Debt Trap: Loan sharks ensnare borrowers in a never-ending cycle of debt, making it nearly impossible to break free.
Fact: Loan sharks are notorious for charging interest rates as high as 700% or more, resulting in borrowers paying back significantly more than they initially borrowed.
What Are the Risks of Borrowing from a Loan Shark?
Borrowing from a loan shark can be a tempting solution for those in need of quick cash, but it comes with a high price. In this section, we will discuss the various risks that come with borrowing from a loan shark. From exorbitant interest rates to threats of violence, we will explore how these illegal lenders can put borrowers in dangerous and vulnerable situations. Additionally, we will touch on the potential risks of identity theft and involvement in illegal activities.
1. High Interest Rates
Loan sharks are notorious for charging exorbitant interest rates, leading to financial exploitation and trapping borrowers in a cycle of debt. To protect yourself from falling victim to these high interest rates, follow these steps:
- Research and compare lenders: Look for reputable financial institutions and compare their interest rates and terms.
- Check for legal license: Ensure that the lender is licensed and authorized to provide loans.
- Read and understand the contract: Carefully review all terms, including the interest rate, repayment schedule, and any additional fees.
- Seek help from financial institutions: Consult with banks or credit unions that offer affordable loan options.
By taking these steps, you can avoid the pitfalls of borrowing from loan sharks and secure loans with fair and reasonable interest rates.
2. Threats and Violence
Loan sharks use threats and violence to intimidate borrowers who are unable to meet their demands. To protect yourself from these dangers, follow these steps:
- Remain calm and composed.
- Avoid confrontations or arguments.
- Keep a record of any threats or acts of violence, including the dates and times.
- Inform trusted friends and family members about the situation.
- Contact your local authorities and provide them with all relevant information.
- Seek legal assistance to understand your rights and options.
- Consider reaching out to organizations that specialize in helping victims of loan sharks.
- Create a safety plan, which may involve changing locks or relocating.
- Focus on rebuilding your financial stability and avoiding borrowing from predatory lenders in the future.
Remember, your safety and well-being should always be your top priority, and there are resources available to support you in dealing with threats and violence from loan sharks.
3. Identity Theft
Identity theft is a significant concern when dealing with loan sharks. These predatory lenders often request personal information, such as social security numbers, bank account details, or copies of identification cards. This puts borrowers at risk of becoming victims of fraudulent activities, such as opening new accounts, obtaining loans, or committing other crimes in their name.
To safeguard yourself from identity theft, it is best to avoid borrowing from loan sharks altogether. Instead, opt for reputable lenders that follow legal procedures and prioritize data security. If you suspect identity theft, seek legal assistance, report to the authorities, and consider financial counseling for guidance. Stay vigilant and protect your personal information.
4. Illegal Activities
Loan sharks engage in various illegal activities that can have severe consequences for borrowers. Here are some of the illegal activities associated with loan sharks:
- Extortion: Loan sharks often use threats and violence to intimidate borrowers into paying back their loans.
- Illegal Interest Rates: Loan sharks charge exorbitantly high interest rates, often well above legal limits.
- Unlicensed Lending: Many loan sharks operate without the necessary licenses or permits.
- Money Laundering: Loan sharks may use the proceeds from their illegal activities to hide illicit funds.
- Fraudulent Practices: Loan sharks may engage in identity theft or other fraudulent practices to exploit borrowers.
It is crucial to recognize the signs of a loan shark and take steps to avoid them. If you have already borrowed from a loan shark, seek legal help, report the illegal activities to authorities, and consider seeking financial counseling.
What Are the Signs of a Loan Shark?
When seeking a loan, it is important to be aware of the signs of a loan shark. These illegal and often predatory lenders can be difficult to spot, but knowing what to look for can protect you from falling into their trap. In this section, we will discuss the key signs to watch out for when dealing with a potential loan shark. From lacking a legal license to not providing a clear repayment plan, each of these indicators should raise red flags and prompt you to take caution.
1. No Legal License
Loan sharks are unlawful lenders who operate without a valid license. To protect yourself from their exploitative practices, consider taking the following steps:
- Research and compare lenders: Look for reputable and licensed lenders in your area.
- Check for a legal license: Verify the lender's license through local regulatory authorities.
- Read and understand the contract: Carefully review all terms and conditions before signing any agreement.
- Seek help from financial institutions: Consult with banks or credit unions for alternative lending options.
Remember, borrowing from a loan shark can have severe consequences. It is crucial to be diligent and cautious when seeking financial assistance.
2. No Written Agreement
When dealing with loan sharks, one of the alarming signs is the absence of a written agreement. To protect yourself from falling into their trap, follow these steps:
- Request a written contract clearly stating the terms and conditions of the loan.
- Review the agreement thoroughly, paying attention to interest rates, repayment terms, and any additional fees.
- Ensure both parties sign and date the contract.
- Keep a copy of the agreement for your records.
History tells us of individuals who suffered greatly due to the lack of a written agreement. For example, in the early 1900s, many immigrants in New York City borrowed money from loan sharks without any written documentation. This resulted in exploitation and financial ruin for countless families.
3. No Credit Checks
Loan sharks are notorious for their predatory lending practices, and one of the red flags to look out for is their lack of credit checks. This can lead to serious financial consequences for borrowers. To avoid falling victim to loan sharks who do not conduct proper credit assessments, follow these steps:
- Research and compare legitimate lenders who perform thorough credit checks.
- Verify that the lender has a valid license to operate.
- Read and understand the loan agreement thoroughly before signing.
- Seek assistance from reputable financial institutions or organizations for alternative loan options.
By taking these precautions, you can protect yourself from the risks associated with borrowing from loan sharks who do not conduct credit checks.
4. No Clear Repayment Plan
Loan sharks often operate without providing a clear repayment plan, which can put borrowers at a severe disadvantage. Without a transparent and comprehensive plan, borrowers may struggle to understand the terms and conditions of their loan, leading to confusion and potential exploitation. Additionally, the lack of a repayment plan can make it challenging for borrowers to effectively budget and manage their finances.
To avoid falling victim to loan sharks, it is crucial to seek out lenders who offer clear and detailed repayment plans. By carefully reviewing loan agreements and ensuring that repayment terms are clearly outlined, borrowers can protect themselves from predatory lending practices. Remember, having knowledge is powerful when it comes to borrowing responsibly.
How Can You Avoid Loan Sharks?
When in need of a loan, it's important to be aware of the dangers of loan sharks. These predatory lenders often target vulnerable individuals and charge exorbitant interest rates. To protect yourself from falling into their trap, it's crucial to know how to avoid loan sharks. In this section, we'll discuss four key steps you can take to ensure you're working with a legitimate and fair lender. By following these guidelines, you can secure a loan without falling victim to a loan shark.
1. Research and Compare Lenders
Researching and comparing lenders is crucial to avoid falling victim to loan sharks. Here are the steps to follow:
- Gather information: Research different lenders, their reputation, and customer reviews to find the best option.
- Compare interest rates: Compare the interest rates offered by each lender to find the most affordable option.
- Check for hidden fees: Look for any hidden fees or charges that may increase the cost of borrowing.
- Review eligibility criteria: Ensure that you meet the lender's eligibility requirements before applying for a loan.
True story: Sarah needed a quick loan and came across an online lender offering low rates. However, she decided to research and compare lenders


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Moral Sentiment and Democratic Deliberation
Sharon R. Krause
Must we put passions aside when we deliberate about justice? Can we do so? The dominant views of deliberation rightly emphasize the importance of impartiality as a cornerstone of fair decision making, but they wrongly assume that impartiality means being disengaged and passionless. In Civil Passions, Sharon Krause argues that moral and political deliberation must incorporate passions, even as she insists on the value of impartiality. Drawing on resources ranging from Hume's theory of moral sentiment to recent findings in neuroscience, Civil Passions breaks new ground by providing a systematic account of how passions can generate an impartial standpoint that yields binding and compelling conclusions in politics. Krause shows that the path to genuinely impartial justice in the public sphere--and ultimately to social change and political reform--runs through moral sentiment properly construed. This new account of affective but impartial judgment calls for a politics of liberal rights and democratic contestation, and it requires us to reconceive the meaning of public reason, the nature of sound deliberation, and the authority of law. By illuminating how impartiality feels, Civil Passions offers not only a truer account of how we deliberate about justice, but one that promises to engage citizens more effectively in acting for justice.
Sharon R. Krause is associate professor of political science at Brown University. She is the author of Liberalism with Honor.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


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SEE VIDEO Interviews:
Last week a major step was made towards an urgent carbon-neutral future for Caribbean Tourism.
Faced with potential sea level rise, coastal erosion, extreme weather events, an increase in disease and consequent loss of employment, sustainable livelihoods and economic development - the meeting emphasised the importance of action.
Earlier, Oxford University had teamed up with the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre to investigate the opportunities available in the Caribbean and to develop an integrated and holistic practical approach to climate change challenges. Visits were arranged by experts in the field of tourism and climate change from the Universities of Waterloo, Lund and Oxford.
After the initial visits, a symposium was arranged to share experiences. Ranged around the table at Merton College, Oxford's oldest college, last week, were representatives of the whole range of stakeholders from throughout the Caribbean area.
Delegates included representatives of Caribbean Tourism Ministries; academics; the Caribbean Tourism Organisation; donors and development agencies; development banks including the World Bank and the Inter American Development Bank; environmental organisations such as the Nature Conservancy, WWF, the Rainforest Alliance and Conservation International.
The two day symposium included sessions on understanding, adaptation and mitigation of climate change effects and development. Presentations were made on scenarios operating in the pilot Caribbean countries. Break out workshops shared experiences to provide plans for the future.
A climate-neutral Caribbean beckons. The next step is a major meeting in Nassau, this September.
The Caribsave partnership has 7 principal objectives:
- To model regional, national and destinational climate-change potential
- To assess vulnerabilities
- To measure and evaluate knock-on impacts on tourism and livelihoods
- To inform and develop regional policy
- To develop, implement and monitor adaptation and mitigation strategies
- To build capacity and transfer skills through design and implementation of initiatives
- To create the world's first 'Carbon Neutral' tourism region

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


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The Federal Trade Commission is making its own bid to protect gig workers against exploitation. The regulator has adopted a policy statement detailing how it will tackle gig workers' problems. The FTC plans to step in when there are misrepresentations about pay, costs, benefits and work terms. Officials also expect to intervene with "unfair or deceptive" algorithms, harsh contracts and anti-competitive behavior such as wage fixing and monopoly-creating mergers.
The Commission said the classification of workers wouldn't affect enforcement, so companies can't avoid repercussions by classifying people as contractors instead of employees. Violators may have to pay fines and change their practices, and the FTC could partner with other government bodies (such as the Justice Department and National Labor Relations Board) to address issues.
There are gaps. It could be difficult for the FTC to prove algorithm-driven abuse, for instance, and it's not clear which non-contractual "restraints" might hurt workers' freedom of movement. However, this could still serve as a warning to gig companies that might hide steep operating costs, fight unionization efforts or collude with rivals to keep wages low.
The FTC isn't alone in hoping to improve the lot of gig workers. A bipartisan measure in Congress, introduced to the House and Senate this February, is meant to provide portable benefits to gig workers. Last year, the Labor Department revoked a rule that made it harder to protect those workers' labor rights. States and cities have also filed lawsuits and otherwise taken efforts to bolster working conditions. However, the FTC's policy provides an extra, nationwide safeguard that might further discourage attempts to exploit the gig economy.


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|Free Books / Gardening & Planting / Vegetable Gardening /|
Chapter XXVI. Suggestions On Laboratory Work
A course in vegetable gardening cannot be fully satisfactory without suitable laboratory work accompanying the lectures or recitations. Laboratory work is essential for three reasons: (1) It is the most effective means of teaching; (2) it creates enthusiasm; (3) it inspires confidence. When the laboratory work is properly managed the student not only learns methods, but he grasps principles and soon possesses a much clearer knowledge of the subject than is possible without such exercises.
Laboratory work in vegetable gardening may be classified as follows: (1) Special exercises in seed testing, sowing, transplanting, spraying, constructing hotbeds and cold frames, preparing vegetables for market, etc. (See 706.) (2) Work for which the student is held daily responsible. A course in vegetable gardening should be conducted the second half of the college year, since it will then be possible for the student to acquire experience in the starting of early plants and in the making of a home or a commercial vegetable garden. This idea should be carried out whenever facilities will permit. At the beginning of the course each student should be informed as to the dimensions of the plat which he will be expected to plant and cultivate. Give him to understand that it is his problem; that he is expected to plan his work and then work his plan. A map showing the arrangement of the planting should be submitted by the student and approved by the instructor. It is necessary, of course, that the student be provided with seeds, plants, transplanting tools and other equipment, but he must be held absolutely responsible for all details of the work which requires almost daily attention from seed sowing until the close of the college term. The students usually become very much interested in garden making, and under favorable conditions succeed remarkably well, considering that only a small portion of their time can be devoted to this work. (See Figures 108, 109 and no.) Numerous plans of intercropping may be employed in student gardens. (3) Frequent problems should be given in connection with courses in vegetable gardening. The students should be required to prepare definite plans and directions for the planting of home gardens, market gardens and truck farms. There is no limit to the num-ber of practical problems that may be assigned relating to every phase of garden work. For example, what are the seed, hotbed and cold frame requirements to grow enough plants for 10 acres of early cabbage intercropped with lettuce? And again, how much and what kinds of fertilizers will be needed for a typical truck farm of 100 acres to supply the nearast city market? Problems in companion and succession cropping and rotation are exceedingly valuable. Work of this character may constitute a part of the laboratory practice, although most of it should be done between class periods.
Fig. 108. student gardens at the pennsylvania state college.
As the character of the work undertaken will vary exceedingly in various localities, the following notes must be regarded as merely suggestive.
If there are different soil types in the community they should be inspected, if possible, to determine their adaptability for garden crops.
(1) Plow part of the garden plat in the fall and the remainder early in the spring. Note the difference in the moisture supply and in other physical properties. (2) Study the various types of tools on the premises or at local supply houses. (3) If possible, make an actual test of the important types of hand and horse implements.
(1) Make applications of various classes of manure for a few important vegetables. Demonstrations with fresh and rotten manure should prove especially valuable. (2) Make a compost pile of manures and other materials if available.
Study the character and extent of top and root growth of different classes of green manures and cover crops growing in the vicinity.
(1) Determine the fertilizer requirement of the plat to be planted. (2) Each student should mix and apply the materials which have been determined for his particular plat. (3) Apply nitrate of soda at different stages of growth. Various methods of application may also be tested.
Study the various parts used in the overhead system of irrigation.
(i) Study the various types of nozzles and pumps. (2) Prepare spraying mixtures, unless this experience has been gained in previous courses. (3) Make the necessary applications for the control of insects or diseases in the assigned plats.
Fig. 109. students at work IN the gardens of the pennsylvania state college.
If possible the student should have actual experience in frame construction.
(i) Sow seeds under glass for the early plants needed in the student gardens. Special care should be exercised in preparing soil for this work, and the seed beds should be cared for daily. (2) Sowing in the student plats. (3) Demonstrations under favorable and unfavorable conditions.
(1) Practice exercises, using different methods. (2) Transplant seedlings to be used in garden plats, and care for them daily. (3) Transplant in the student gardens at the proper time.
The full responsibility in growing the plants needed for the student gardens is essential in the training of efficient gardeners. Ventilation of frames should be managed by an employee, because students are often engaged in other college duties when this work must be done. It is also usually important for an assistant to attend to placing and removing mats. All watering in the greenhouse or frames should be done by the student.
(1) Any part which the students can take in harvesting and preparing produce for market will be excellent training. (2) The various types of packages should be exhibited and their merits discussed.
It may be possible for the students to gain practical experience in the storing of vegetables by various methods.
The student garden plats afford ample opportunity for practice in the growing of vegetables. Emulation among the students should be encouraged. The plat work should be conducted in a systematic manner. There should be close adherence to the principles as taught in the class room. The college garden is a different proposition from the graded school garden. It is a miniature but real commercial enterprise in which science is brought to bear at every point. Food and moisture requirements are considered; planting distances determined; habits of growth studied; insect and fungous enemies combated and products harvested and prepared for market.
The gardens should not be larger than can be properly cared for by the student in the time available for this work; 20 x 50 feet is about right for a two-hour laboratory period weekly. Much of the work will be done at odd times by the students. This is important, because rainy weather or an excessive supply of soil moisture often prevents work at the scheduled hours.
Fig. 110. students at work in the gardens at the pennsylvania state college.
No allusion has been made in this chapter to the systematic study of vegetables. The student gardens, however, afford a large amount of excellent material for this work, but such study should be treated in a separate course, as indicated in the introductory remarks.


"Humming is good for your health and fun to do. We all love to hum along to music so try this exercise of humming with your kids."
Here is a humming exercise that is more engaging as it is an activity, one you have likely done many times although were not conscious of the resonance of the sound while you were doing it.
Take a few deep natural breaths releasing any stress or tension in your body.
Begin to hum a song. It can be any song or part of a song e.g. children's nursery rhyme, song from a musical, or any song that you like and catch yourself humming along too. You can also create your own song humming, a catchy tune that you like. What is important is to feel the difference in the resonance as you hum.
Hum the song for 5 minutes and at end of this time, check and see how you are feeling. Relax and enjoy the space you are in.
Allow another 5 minutes to ground yourself by bringing your awareness to your environment and feeling grounded in your body by doing a grounding yoga pose, e.g. tree pose, mountain, cat/cow.
In summary, when you bring your attention to the vibrations of your humming, you start to develop a new awareness of your body and its relationship to sound. Now you can understand more clearly how various notes in a song can vibrate different parts of your body bringing reharmonization and healing.
Stay tuned for Part 5 Humming series in HSY June newsletter, that will focus on "Power of Intention" with a sense of gratefulness to resonate a part of the body that needs healing.
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In this Skellig worksheet, students read to understand the works of David Almond and learn about his life. Students read eleven passages and then answer ten questions related to reading for meaning and understanding the author's craft.
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Classroom Considerations


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Knowing how to braise is a cooking skill that's widely misunderstood. Knowing WHAT to braise is even more confusing to most home cooks.
Now, it's time to end any confusion about this ignored way of cooking because I'm presenting the information to tomorrow's chefs at culinary college. Our braised food will be served by the companion hospitality class in the school's dining room in an 'a la carte' style. This means they'll be bringing us restaurant tickets like real waiters and waitresses.
Braising is a combination cooking method. In a previous class, we categorized all cooking methods as either conductive or convective. Heat is applied either directly to food or indirectly through air or moisture. When you braise something, you're using the best of both methods.
The first step in how to braise something is choosing the correct item for this type of cooking. Generally, the toughest, chewiest cuts of meat are braised. That's because the very long cooking times, moisture and acidic environment have a tenderizing effect that no other way of cooking does.
It doesn't make sense to try to braise filet mignon or a flounder filet, they're already tender. Items like those should be grilled or sautéed because of the quick, intense heat. The perfect item today's lesson would be tough beef cubes, veal shank, or tongue. We've decided to make Beef Bourguignon and Chicken Cacciatore.
How To Braise Anything:
1) Coat the item in flour – By using a starch to coat the item, you help thicken the final pan sauce.
2) Pan Hot First – Just like sauté method, sprinkle some water from your hands and when it sizzles, the pan is ready to cook.
3) Fat Hot - Add some type of oil and heat until it changes from smooth to striated, just before the smoke point.
4) Add the protein product coated in flour - Don't crowd the pieces and don't poke or push them around. Leave them alone.
5) 75% / up to 25% - Cook the item 75% on the first side so you can observe the changes in color, moisture, and texture. These are indicators of how much it's cooking. If you turn it too fast, you lose these visual cues.
6) Deglaze - Add wine to lower the temperature of the pan, and begin combining with the roux to thicken the pan sauce. Reduce the liquid until the wine is almost gone.
7) Stock and aromatics - Add a flavorful liquid like chicken or beef stock and chopped vegetables to the pan along with an acidic ingredient like tomatoes or vinegar to aid in tenderizing.
8) Low and slow – The key to braising is cooking very slowly for a very long time. Reduce the heat to a very soft simmer or poach with no visible bubbles. Leave it alone because 5 to 8 hours wouldn't be unusual for cooking something this way.
When you know how to braise something correctly, you can actually save a lot of money. You can buy less expensive cuts of meat and create delicious, tender morsels because of your cooking method skills. You can also save time, because the more you ignore it, the better it gets. You can't walk away from a sauté pan, but you can walk away from a braise and be very pleased when you return.
See Chef Todd's live How To Braise class from culinary school.
Chef Todd Mohr has a passion for helping people improve their cooking with simple cooking techniques that work! His cooking DVDs, transform home cooks into confident home chefs. "Burn Your Recipes" and your cooking will be transformed.


Monthly Archive for December, 2015
Why the decline in startups helps mature small businesses
In my last column I revealed four reasons why the economic recovery since 2008 has produced fewer startups than those in the past, and the implications of that decline on economic growth. This week I'll explain why companies that survived since 2008 are better off than before, including how the decline in startups may have helped them.
As great as startups can be for macro-economic growth, they can also be messy for a couple of reasons.
1. The risk for startups is extreme and the total cost can be prohibitive. Founders put into their startup more time, energy, emotion and capital than they ever thought would be necessary. And since most fail, the total cost in the aggregate to launch startups that succeed is enormously underestimated.
2. Startups disrupt the price structure. While trying to get a foothold in the economy, and before they know what it takes to capitalize business growth, a classic startup practice is to enter the market with low prices. This sounds like honest competition and good for customers. But established companies do know what they must charge to sustain their business. And even after a startup runs out of capital and leaves the marketplace, damage to the price structure remains.
Small businesses that survived the 2008 financial crisis and aftermath did so by establishing exactly what it takes to run their business in the leanest and meanest terms. One of the consequences of this trial by fire is that these firms have emerged in better shape than after previous significant economic downturns. Here are six reasons:
1. Fewer startups. There has been less price structure disruption since 2008.
2. They deleveraged. Surviving small businesses paid off debt and, as a sector, refused to add new debt (NFIB Index). The banking industry has confirmed an unprecedented lack of business loan demand, which is ironic in that interest rates have never been lower.
3. Stronger balance sheets. Reduced debt, plus disciplined merchandising, inventory and supply chain practices that prevent inventory creep, all improve important financial ratios.
4. More gross profit. Rigorous expense control relieves pressure on gross profit from flat sales and pricing pressure.
5. Improved capital and cash. All of the above practices contribute to profitability, which in the current environment is more likely to be retained. Retained earnings push capital and cash in the direction of sustained operations and long-term success.
6. More creditworthy. Firms that grow beyond organic funding will be more worthy of credit and preferred terms and rates.
When the next expansion does happen, surviving firms will be poised to more profitably take advantage than ever before.
Write this on a rock …The economy needs startups, but existing businesses, not so much.
Revealing the dangerous disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street
Main Street expert, Jim Blasingame says, "There's a reckoning coming."
An essay by Jim Blasingame
"Are Operators still dispensing essential management medicine, or can a portion of the not-so-great recovery be attributed to being over-medicated by their parsimonious prescriptions?"
Click here to return to the full essay at
Please feel free to comment below.


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Johnson system random numbers
r = johnsrnd(quantiles,m,n)
r = johnsrnd(quantiles)
[r,type] = johnsrnd(...)
[r,type,coefs] = johnsrnd(...)
r = johnsrnd(quantiles,m,n) returns an m-by-n matrix of random numbers drawn from the distribution in the Johnson system that satisfies the quantile specification given by quantiles. quantiles is a four-element vector of quantiles for the desired distribution that correspond to the standard normal quantiles [–1.5 –0.5 0.5 1.5]. In other words, you specify a distribution from which to draw random values by designating quantiles that correspond to the cumulative probabilities [0.067 0.309 0.691 0.933]. quantiles may also be a 2-by-4 matrix whose first row contains four standard normal quantiles, and whose second row contains the corresponding quantiles of the desired distribution. The standard normal quantiles must be spaced evenly.
 Note: Because r is a random sample, its sample quantiles typically differ somewhat from the specified distribution quantiles.
r = johnsrnd(quantiles) returns a scalar value.
r = johnsrnd(quantiles,m,n,...) or r = johnsrnd(quantiles,[m,n,...]) returns an m-by-n-by-... array.
[r,type] = johnsrnd(...) returns the type of the specified distribution within the Johnson system. type is 'SN', 'SL', 'SB', or 'SU'. Set m and n to zero to identify the distribution type without generating any random values.
The four distribution types in the Johnson system correspond to the following transformations of a normal random variate:
 - 'SN' — Identity transformation (normal distribution)
 - 'SL' — Exponential transformation (lognormal distribution)
 - 'SB' — Logistic transformation (bounded)
 - 'SU' — Hyperbolic sine transformation (unbounded)
[r,type,coefs] = johnsrnd(...) returns coefficients coefs of the transformation that defines the distribution. coefs is [gamma, eta, epsilon, lambda]. If z is a standard normal random variable and h is one of the transformations defined above, r = lambda*h((z-gamma)/eta)+epsilon is a random variate from the distribution type corresponding to h.
expand all
Generate Random Samples Using the Johnson System
This example shows several different approaches to using the Johnson system of flexible distribution families to generate random numbers and fit a distribution to sample data.
Generate random values with longer tails than a standard normal.
rng('default'); % For reproducibility
r = johnsrnd([-1.7 -.5.5 1.7],1000,1);
Generate random values skewed to the right.
r = johnsrnd([-1.3 -.5.5 1.7],1000,1);
Generate random values that match some sample data well in the right-hand tail.
load carbig;
qnorm = [.5 1 1.5 2];
q = quantile(Acceleration, normcdf(qnorm));
r = johnsrnd([qnorm;q],1000,1);
ans =
 16.7000 18.2086 19.5376 21.7263
 16.6986 18.2220 19.9078 22.0918
Determine the distribution type and the coefficients.
[r,type,coefs] = johnsrnd([qnorm;q],0)
r =
type =
coefs =
 1.0920 0.5829 18.4382 1.4494
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Canada and Belgium are two officially multilingual countries with federal political systems. For a great many years, our countries have maintained excellent bilateral relations based on bonds of friendship and trust, as well as the shared values of liberty, democracy, solidarity and tolerance. These bonds were strengthened by Canada's contribution to the liberation of Belgium in the First and Second World Wars and the major convergences between the foreign policies of our two countries, based on a strong commitment to multilateralism on the basis of international law, the promotion of good governance and the maintenance of strong transatlantic ties.
Canada and Belgium have both deployed troops to Afghanistan in order to support that country's security, governance and development. Both countries are also actively seeking solutions to crises and conflicts, notably in Africa, and the fight against arms build-up and the recruitment of child soldiers. We also collaborate on issues of natural resource development in situations of conflict.
Canada and Belgium cooperate, in particular, in the context of the United Nations (UN), the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Belgium's role in the European Union is another important aspect of our bilateral political dialogue.
In recognition of the importance of strengthening the ties between our two countries and of establishing a "privileged dialogue", the Canadian and Belgian departments of foreign affairs signed a joint declaration on December 16, 1999, concerning the strengthening of bilateral relations.
Belgium and Canada also signed bilateral agreements in the areas of taxation, social security, judicial cooperation on crime, air transportation, reciprocal recognition of drivers' licences, as well as in scientific, industrial and technological cooperation.
In 2005, Belgium and Canada signed an agreement on youth mobility. The agreement, which came into force January 1, 2007, allows young Belgians to travel to Canada and young Canadians to Belgium, for no more than a year, in order to visit the country and discover its culture while having the opportunity to work there.
The Government of Canada maintains three diplomatic missions in Belgium: the Embassy of Canada to the Kingdom of Belgium and the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg, the Mission of Canada to the European Union, and the Canadian Joint Delegation to NATO. Canada also has an honorary consul for Flanders. Moreover, the Province of Quebec is represented by the Délégation générale du Québec in Brussels.
In Canada, Belgium is represented by its Embassy in Ottawa and its consulates in Montreal and Toronto; it also has a network of honorary consuls in Halifax, Edmonton, Quebec City, Vancouver and Winnipeg. The three Belgian regions (Walloon Region, Brussels-Capital Region and Flemish Region) have separate economic and trade offices in Montreal and a shared office in Toronto. The Walloon Region and the French community of Belgium also have a delegation in Quebec City.
Canadian exports to Belgium were close to CAD 2.4 billion in 2011. It is important to note that the port of Antwerp is a major point of entry for Canadian goods in Europe. Belgium also serves as a point of entry to Europe as 70% of Belgium's trade is conducted with its European Union (EU) partners.
In 2011, Canada's imports from Belgium were valued at nearly CAD 1.7 billion.
Bilateral investment is very important for both countries. Canadian investments in Belgium totalled nearly CAD 2.75 billion in 2011, ranking 26th among Canadian direct investment destinations globally. The stock of Belgian direct investment in Canada was worth CAD 4 billion in 2011, making Belgium the 14th largest foreign direct investor in Canada on a global basis. There are over 70 Belgian subsidiaries in Canada and about the same number of Canadian subsidiaries in Belgium.
Canadian and Belgian institutions and companies enjoy collaborative relations in science and technology, mostly based on similar approaches to development and synergies in a range of sectors, including life sciences, microelectronics, environmental and imaging technologies. Numerous cooperative agreements have been signed in this area between the three Belgian regions and the provinces of Quebec, Ontario and Alberta.
For more information on Canada-Belgium trade and investment, please see the following pages. Canadian companies interested in doing business in Belgium should consult the section entitled "Services for Canadian companies." Belgian companies interested in Canadian business opportunities are invited to consult the section entitled "Services for non-Canadian companies" (information available in French and Dutch).
Cultural relations between Canada and Belgium have grown and diversified over the past 30 years. Belgian programmers frequently host Canadian artists, both Anglophone and Francophone, in the areas of theatre, music, cinema and literature, the visual arts, and dance. Every year, there are several dozen cultural events, featuring individual artists or groups of artists, particularly in contemporary arts, new technologies and new media.
Conversely, many Belgian artists perform in Canada, whether in the plastic arts, music, children's theatre, and especially dance, as part of festivals or in art centres in major cities (Montreal, Quebec City, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver).
Belgian and Canadian universities have been developing cooperative and exchange agreements and relations for many years. About 20 Canadian universities work with Belgian universities in areas as varied as pure sciences, the humanities and social sciences, health, etc.
The North American Studies Centre (CENA) at the Université Libre de Bruxelles is a reference not only in Canadian studies, but also for Belgium's knowledge of Canada. In Flanders, Studiegenootschap Canada (the Flemish association for Canadian studies) supports teaching and research on Canada by organizing and participating in colloquiums, seminars, courses and publications. The Université de Liège has a Centre for Quebec Studies.
Belgian research centres also cooperate in bilateral or multilateral programs through framework agreements with the European Union. Occasionally, there are even direct collaborations between Belgian centres and Canadian businesses (ex. the Metallurgy Research Centre at the Université de Liège or IMEC, a microelectronics centre affiliated with the University of Leuven (KUL).
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Menu driven interfaces are a huge hit among the users and it actually is a old technology technique, but it well suites around the era and it continuously have to exist, if we go by many windows application and web application, there are many different types of menu driven interfaces are present and those interfaces not only help to provide the sufficient information but also help the user to act on it and perform any actions, it would also be a good idea not just to take action based on these interface but also learn the points mentioned in the menu driven interfaces.
The menu selection strategy of dialogue design presents a list of alternatives or options to the user. The system user selects the desired alternative or option by keying in the number or letter that is associated with that option. (SOE)
More sophisticated technology allows menu selection by touching the screen, or selecting menu options with a pen, mouse, cursor keys, or other pointing devices. (SOE)
The dialogue strategies used by menu driven interfaces are as follows:
1. Open Dialog
2. Pop Up Dialog
3. Vertical Dialog
4. Horizontal Dialog
5. Cross Dialog
The above strategies imply the best use of dialog strategies among the user interface design structure and it actually contains the maximum possible information. It would be a good idea not to just drive the menu culture ahead but to give him sufficient information on this topic.
So, when a user wants to open some file, we can show him Open Dialogue to get the file and select it, we can have several option with this such as user can open single or multiple files. This way user has easy access to his machine to open and save files even, otherwise he have to go back to machine from software and do the action, which never seems to be a good option. This is why the dialogue option provides us with good opportunities and helps us to drive the interface design with the help of menu driven interfaces.
The advantages associated with menu driven interfaces are as follows:
1. Extremely easy to use. Someone who has never seen the interface before can work out what to do. (Teach ICT)
2. There are no commands to learn or remember. (Teach ICT)
3. Step-by-step options are given so that the user doesn't have to remember anything. (Teach ICT)
4. Even if you don't know what to do, you can usually guess your way round the options.
5. Menu interfaces don't have to be visual, they can be spoken - good for telephones or for visually impaired people.
6. They don't need huge amounts of processing power or memory. (Teach ICT)
7. It is fairly easy for the software programmer to create the same menus in different languages. (Teach ICT)
As, we can see there are lots of advantages on the menu driven system interface design, and it helps the users in many terms whether it is the easy selection from the group of list, for some menu or the selection or search of some activity on the menu interface design.
Still, there are many disadvantages for the system design as well, which I also want you to focus on, which will not only help you understand more about on this topic but also let you gather the best possible information on the topic.
The disadvantages of menu driven interfaces are as follows:
1. A poorly designed menu interface may be slow to use. (Teach ICT)
2. It can be irritating if there are too many menu screens to work through - users get annoyed or bored if it takes too long. (Teach ICT)
3. You often can't go to the exact place you want right at the start. You have to work your way through the menu screens even if you know where you want to get to. (Teach ICT)
4. The menu can take up a large part of the screen so you have to keep flicking back and forwards between applications. (Teach ICT)
5. If the menu is poorly designed it might be hard to read e.g. writing is too small for people with poor sight, colors might clash and be difficult to read, font style might be hard to read. (Teach ICT)
So, you can easily see, the choice of menu interfaces derives the strength of applications in the market, and it will continuously being increases because of the advancement in new designs which are much more interactive to the users.
Three strategies which will help menu driven interfaces more appealing are as follows:
1. Always provides search options, to search any menu present in the group of menu, it would help the user if there is any sub menu which he is not able to fine, he can easily search down and then find it, such as present under MS Visio.
2. Always provide help under menu sections, which user can take to get the information quickly which he is missing while looking into the menus, user might not be able to figure out everything in one go but as soon as he learns the system he can start with the activities. (Teach ICT)
3. Put smart and interactive icons before the menu options which will help recognize the activity being done by the menu, and it may also help to recognize the people who will not be able to see properly, the can easily recognize the image.
This way the menu driven interfaces are very popular and can easily help the users from different world with different aspects of looking into the system with best of their knowledge.
As with every option we will have different options available as such for its alternatives, which helps us to figure out the best from those alternatives and select them, it would not only help them to achieve the best results based on the comparison but also helps them to create more and more awareness among the users. There are many alternatives present to the menu driven options such as,
1. Vertical list of displaying information and making them hyperlinks.
2. Creating a list of values and putting links over them to navigate from one option to another.
3. On Web, it would be easy navigation menu instead of menu driven menus.
4. Navigation menus have a list of ways to do it, in which it would be a vertical navigation menu or a horizontal navigation menu. (Jeff)
Some vendors have also started providing menu driven interfaces and help the customers to do their activities fast and quick, as part of a bid to make their services more attractive to end-users, vendors have started to offer menu-driven interfaces as an alternative to the complex command protocols. Designed explicitly with the novice in mind, the menus guide the end-user with prompts through the process of selecting a database and defining the terms of a search. While command-language systems confront users with a blank screen awaiting an input, menus simplify the whole procedure by making it highly interactive.


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Accident statistics indicate that postcrash fire is one of the most serious threats to human life in aircraft crashes. It is also a serious threat in automotive crashes. Several methods are available to reduce this hazard. The simplest and most effective method is through control of the fuel spillage.
Aircraft crash testing has shown that fuel systems incorporating tough, flexible fuel tanks that are smooth in contour, free from rigid attachments, and mated with flexible fluid lines are capable of preventing fuel spillage during crashes involving decelerative loading above the human survival range.


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length versus an initial long length. Their results show that DIT improves the reliability of fascicle length measurements and suggest caution when measuring fascicle lengths from one single ultrasound image as well as when comparing absolute fascicle lengths across different studies. The manuscript is well-written and would be of interest to ultrasound researchers. I suggest a number of things below that the authors should address in order improve the clarity/accuracy/completeness of the manuscript.
1. Line 40: It is unclear what the authors are referring to by "four strategies." Do you mean UFI, DIT, initial long and initial short? I am under the impression that UFI was compared to DIT only for a single frame (ie: the initial frame) whereas DIT initial long was compared to DIT initial short for a passive cycle (many frames). This sentence needs clarifying as the four strategies are not for the same condition.
2. Line 65: I'm not sure that 'seriously erroneous' is the correct word choice. Inferences about fascicle behaviour from kinematics alone is challenging in MTUs that contain considerable SEE, but may provide information about fascicle behaviour in MTUs with negligible external tendon. I suggest rephrasing.
3. Please clarify in the first paragraph of the introduction that you are referring to B-mode ultrasound.
4. Line 72: I suggest replacing "in dynamic settings" with "during dynamic tasks"
5. Line 96: I suggest using "optical flow algorithms" rather than "…modelling"
6. Line 117: Please clarify to the reader what you mean by "in practice"
7. Line 136-126: Please include why the medial gastrocnemius is popular for ultrasound studies.
8. Line 145: why was 5 out of the total 28 participants chosen for the analysis? Indeed a larger sample would improve the statistical power. This requires some clarifying.
9. Line 167: how was the ultrasound probe secured to the participant during the experiments?
10. Line 170-174: To my knowledge the ultrasound images were not "processed using a semi-automated algorithm" as is stated in the manuscript. This is partly misleading. I am under the impression that the authors used the Ultratrak GUI to manually track all images (both single frame and image series). Was Ultratrak in fact used to initially track the image sequences and then the observer then clicked through tracking results for each frame to update the locations of the upper and lower fascicle insertion sites? If so, this needs to be clarified. If not, it is unclear why Ultratrak was used rather than ImageJ or another image processing software. Please clarify.
11. Line 180-184: Did the raters watch the ultrasound sequences first before tracking (for both the uninformed and the informed tracking)? From my experiences this is a very helpful way to understand fascicle behaviour before tracking manually during cyclical tasks. Further, did the raters always come back to the initial frame and adjust the fascicle end points in the DIT? This needs to be clarified.
12. Line 230: I would like to see a brief description of the "offset-corrected condition" within the analyses portion of the methods. Please include this.
13. The major concern I have with this analysis (and the accompanied statistical results) is that the authors present absolute lengths only. Indeed (as the authors note in the discussion), the differences in results from DIT for the initial short versus the initial long conditions are an artifact of the absolute fascicle length (and the fact that the fascicle may have been out of the field of view for the initial long condition) - specifically the increased likelihood for differences in identifying total fascicle length between raters. I would like to see further analysis comparing initial short and initial long but using % length change or strain.
14. Line 244-261: It is my preference to leave out p values if they are not significant.
15. Please include results from analysis of % fascicle length change or strain as noted previously. These could be added to Figure A with a dual Y axis (left side absolute length change and right side % length change from initial or rest).
16. Line 290: I believe this is a typo and should be "this type of error" or "these types of errors"
17. Line 309-318: To my knowledge, the joint movements you are tracking fascicles throughout are not cyclical but rather start at either a plantarflexed position (initial short) and move to dorsiflexed or vice-versa and do not repeat (ie: are not cyclical since they do not come back to initial position). This paragraph begins with discussing cyclical movementswhich your results can provide some insight for, but do not assess. Please re-work this paragraph.
18. Line 312: Out of curiosity, how many researchers did you personally communicate with in regards to their preference to start tracking on lengthened fascicles? Were all of these researchers trained in ultrasound by the same group(s)? In my opinion, lengthened typically means that the fascicle end points are out of (or nearly out of) the field of view of the telemed linear transducer, so I prefer shorter lengths.
19. One of my major suggestions for the discussion would be for the authors to include some discussion of comparing these methods to the key frames adjustment that is implemented within Ultratrak. The key frames adjustment would qualify as a type of 'informed tracking' and seems to be the gold standard for many research groups tracking fascicles during dynamic tasks or dynamometer contractions. In particular, the first author of this manuscript has used Ultratrak (so presumably the key frames correction) in his previous studies.
20. Line 354-355: As previously mentioned, I would like to see this analysis added to the manuscript. The statement " this effect may be cancelled when calculating differences relatively to the absolute fascicle length" is, in my opinion, the major limitation to this study which the authors have the data to perform the analysis on.
21. Line 360: I am not sure what you mean by "in a relative sense." I believe that you mean that normalized length changes or strains are more consistent between raters but absolute length changes differ. Please clarify this sentence in the discussion.
22. Line 365: "both static and active" should be rephrased to either "static and dynamic" or "passive and active".
23. Line 369-371: The statement "As such, we recommend caution when drawing conclusions from fascicle length comparisons with differences below 10% of absolute fascicle length" seems a bit bold to me. Numerous studies (including some by co-authors of this manuscript) do report fascicle length changes that are less than 10%, for example in the plantarflexors during normal walking. Comparing normalized length changes or strains across studies is, in my opinion a valuable metric.
24. Line 373: "…when comparing absolute fascicle lengths" across what tasks? Please clarify
25. Figure 1: I would like to see Figure 1 also include the initial short conditions (either on the same plots or as C/D panels. Of interest to readers would be whether the fascicle follows a similar length change trajectory when shortening and lengthening. In addition, as previously mentioned, some methodological details regarding the "initial frame offset" (Fig 1B) is necessary within the manuscript.
26. What was the rationale for passive ankle rotations rather that active (as a % of Fmax or max ankle moment)? From my own ultrasound tracking experiences, I do believe that tracking fascicle length changes in active muscle to be (slightly) more straightforward than passive muscle. If anything, I would lie to see this discussed as a limitation of the current study.
All text and materials provided via this peer-review history page are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.


The 5 Types of People Who Apply to Law School
The Northwest 3L Columns, Featured Lawyer, law school, Lawyer 3 Comments
Originally posted: March 14, 2012
You can tell a lot about a law student by what he or she was doing before coming to law school. In fact, knowing how a person made it to law school can often tell you which type of student they will be. Forewarned, as they say, is forearmed.
The Straight-Through
The largest group. If not a majority, certainly a plurality. From the law school's perspective, these students represent rising academic stars with fresh ideas, unencumbered by convention. From the perspective of the older students, the kids coming straight-through from undergraduate or graduate programs are a bit like puppies, "with a cold nose, bright eyes, glossy coat, and the brains of a stunned herring."
Generally very good at creating ridiculous "exploding dog" hypotheticals that just never happen in reality, less good at devising situations that actually work. The majority of the school's gunners will come from this group. Most common quote: "I just love learning and being in school SO MUCH!"
The Former Waiter
These students had a job, but not a career, before law school. They've spent some time outside of academia (unlike the straight-through students) so they can at least devise reasonable real-world solutions. Unfortunately, their time outside of academia was mainly as a barista. Their motivation for coming to law school comes mainly from the sudden realization that their degree in Sanskrit isn't exactly marketable. Most common quote: "I don't know why those older students are complaining about the cost of law school, I'm living better on student loans than I was from my old job."
The Second Career
These students have had an actual career before law school, but for one reason or another they decided that law would be more interesting. Along with the ex-military group these students are the least likely to care about grades beyond making sure that they aren't failing. Mostly this group serves to annoy the hell out of everyone else by not being stressed out. Every other group except the ex-military people want to strangle these students just to make them admit that they're lying about lacking stress. The fact that this group manages to pass their classes and still go home every night to non-law-school lives is insufferable. Most common quote: "Compared to my last job, law school feels like a vacation."
The Late-Life Crisis
The "I've peaked and I'm kidding myself" category. Not only have these students had a career already, they've advanced quite far in it. And, quite often, they won't let you forget it. What they generally don't mention is that this prior career was in a field where, no matter how educated one might be (and often members of this group of students have useless advanced degrees in fields like "Classics," "Comparative Literature," or "Linguistics"), both the social status and pay were fairly low. Which is why they're in law school now. The world hasn't given them the respect that they imagine their masters in social work should demand and now they're going to get a law degree to fix that little problem. In some cases these people are intelligent and highly motivated. In many, however, it's not their choice of field that's causing the problem. Any gunners not from group one will be from this group. Most common quote: "I just don't see what the professor can teach me; he's younger than I am and I have more experience."
The Ex-Military
These guys have access to and proficiency with firearms. I'm not going to make fun of them.
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 - Allen Hammell
 What about the proverbial douche-nozzles? I think that type is in a class by themselves and transcends any other characterizations.
 You can have females, males, and any combinations thereof. The douche-nozzles know no limitations, and include skinny and fat, ugly and (semi) good looking, and also come in all nationalities and religions.
 All you douche-nozzles, stand up and be counted!!!
 - Phil
 Let me help you out with that last category. I'm a second-career, ex-military guy. I not only don't care about my grades (which is probably why I'm in the top 10% of the class), I have a G.I. Bill and no student loans. Thanks, Uncle Sam!!
 Law school is so much fun when there is no stress. I can actually set my mind to learning instead of fretting. Yeah, I'm also the douche who not only read the case and understood it, I pursued a couple of law review articles on the topic before class, too.
 (Oh, and I don't own a gun.)
 - Anthony
 For somebody who claims to not care about grades, I find it interesting that you insert a backhanded boast about your class rank and add in the fact that you not only read cases, you also read law review articles to prep. Why so much effort if you're so-not stressed-out and don't care about grades? Methinks you actually belong to the douche nozzle group that Allen mentioned.


mean scan length was 188 s at 32 weeks (SD = 121, range = 48–261) and 194 s at 36 weeks (SD = 42, range = 150–234). It should be noted that in order to account for the differences in scanning time, the average number of movements observed for each group at each gestational age was divided by the average scanning time for that group at that age. This number was then multiplied by 100 to give a relative frequency of movements per hundred seconds of codable scan time. Thus, frequency of movements can be readily compared between groups with differing scan times in descriptive Tables 1 and 2. Below, we report the results for "mouth stretch" and "lip pucker".
Table 1 Average number of mouth stretches per scan and rates of mouth stretching per 100 s of scan [with 95 % confidence intervals] for the sound and control groups by gestational age
Table 2 Average number of lip puckers per scan and rates of lip puckering per 100 s of scan [with 95 % confidence intervals] for the sound and control groups by gestational age
Mouth stretches
The mouth stretch mean counts from the fetuses at 32 and 36 weeks of gestational age can be seen in Table 1 and Fig. 1a. These suggest that fetuses at both gestational ages produce more frequent mouth stretches in the sound group compared with the no-sound control group. These observations were confirmed by the main effects Poisson linear mixed model. The overdispersion test gave a dispersion parameter estimate of 0.89, which is under one, and therefore indicates no overdispersion. There was a significant main effect of group, X 2 = 5.78 on 1 df, p = 0.01, and of gestational age (X 2 = 10.78 on 1 df, p = 0.001), demonstrating that fetuses in the sound group performed mouth stretches more frequently than fetuses in the no-sound control group, and there was a general trend towards fewer mouth movements as gestational age increased. When an interaction model was fitted, the interaction between group and gestation was also significant (X 2 = 7.58 on 1 df, p = 0.006), indicating that there was differential change in mouth stretch rate as gestational age increases. For the sound group, there was no evidence of a change in the rate of mouth stretch (β = 0.49, 95 % CI = [−0.71, 1.69], exp(β) = 1.63 , p = 0.41); for the no-sound group, there was a decrease of 76 % in the rate of mouth stretch (β = − 1.41, 95 % CI = [−2.17, − 0.65], exp(β) = 0.24, p < 0.001).
Fig. 1
The effect of gestational age and presentation of an auditory stimulus on the frequency of (a) mouth stretches and (b) lip puckers
These data indicate that fetuses presented with the auditory stimulus MA produce more mouth stretches than fetuses presented with any specific auditory stimulus. However, it is possible that the presentation of the auditory stimulus triggered an increase in the number of mouth movements in general. In order to test this hypothesis, the frequency with which fetuses performed the second mouth movement, a lip pucker, was established. The lip pucker is a valid mouth movement for comparison as fetuses at 32 and 36 weeks of age not exposed to any specific stimulation show similar frequencies of mouth stretches and lip puckers. To corroborate this, we examined frequencies of lip pucker and mouth stretch in the control group. A paired-sample t test indicated that, pooled over the two gestational ages, there was no significant difference between the frequency of mouth stretches (M = 0.163 per minute) and lip puckers (M = 0.218 per minute), t(13) = 0.63, p = 0.54.
Lip pucker
The lip pucker mean counts from the fetuses at 32 and 36 weeks of gestational age can be seen in Table 2 and Fig. 1b, showing only small differences in the frequencies with which fetuses pucker their lips depending on gestational age and group. Across both gestational ages, it appears that a similar amount of lip puckers were produced by the control group and the sound group. This was tested using the mixed effects Poisson model as before. Again, the overdispersion test indicated that no overdispersion was present in the data, with the dispersion parameter of 0.516 being less than one. Results indicate no statistically significant main effect of group, X 2 = 0.87 on 1 df, p = 0.35, no significant main effect of gestational age, X 2 = 0.01 on 1 df, p = 0.93, and no interaction between group and gestation, X 2 = 1.64 on 1 df, p = 0.20.
These data suggest that the frequency with which fetuses show lip pucker lip movements are independent of the presentation of an auditory stimulus. Additionally, there is no evidence that gestational age affects the rate of lip puckers. From this result, we can infer that the presentation of the auditory stimulus MA does not cause an increase in the frequency of mouth movements in general. Rather, it increases the frequency of a specific mouth movement corresponding to the MA sound, with a jaw drop and the mouth stretching in the vertical plane.
Results of this study indicate that fetuses respond to a specific sound MA with a specific mouth movement which mimics the sound heard, namely a mouth stretch which involves a jaw drop. There are a number of researchers who argue that given the precocity of the functional development of the auditory system, the abilities shown in newborn babies must have their origin in prenatal life [13, 36]. Given that research [37] has established that the fundamental frequency (F0) of vowels are well transmitted to the fetus, using the sound MA seemed to be an ideal candidate in this study. However, in order to eliminate the possibility that fetuses would respond with more mouth movements in general, we analysed the occurrence of another type of mouth movement, namely pursing of lips, which in the control no-sound group occurred with similar frequencies to mouth stretching. We found that upon hearing MA, fetuses did not respond with an increase in pursing of their lips. Given the results by Green et al. [11] who found that control over vertical movements of lips and jaw during speech developed sequentially with jaw movements preceding lip movements, this might explain why we found a relationship between hearing the MA sound and producing the mouth stretch. Ferronato et al. [38] suggest that postnatal speech stimuli are special stimuli which elicit specific behavioural reactions. They argue that the pairing of certain acoustic stimuli with defined motor activities (e.g. rhythmic sounds with rhythmic movements) demonstrate that the "human brain is primed with the body" (p. 3). This according to Ferronato et al. [38] could indicate that auditory input and behavioural output might play a role in the integration between external and internal information which is essential for learning in general and language acquisition in particular. In terms of differential responding to sounds over the duration of the third trimester, fetuses did not show a significant increase in the production of mouth movements as a consequence of maturation. However, there is a numerical increase in mean responses as gestational age increases, which needs to be further investigated.
Turning to the observed changes over time, we identified a significant interaction between the sound and no-sound groups in the slope of the rate of mouth stretch in response to the stimulus of "MA". The no-sound group showed declining rate of mouth stretch, whereas the sound group showed no such decline. Fetal movements in general tend to decrease with gestational age. Our results provide evidence that appropriate mouth movements associated with specific stimuli do not decrease in this way.
This feasibility study was not a randomised control trial but used a convenience sample. However, we consider it unlikely that fetuses of mothers who did not consent to participate were different to those who participated in our study, and so there was minimal selection bias.
This feasibility study established that it is possible to test specific fetal fine-grained reactions to sound stimulation. More research is needed to develop this feasibility study. Firstly, a randomised controlled trial is needed with balanced numbers of treatment and control participants. Additionally, a range of different auditory stimuli should be examined to determine whether the fetus is reacting to a specific MA sound or to any general auditory stimulus such as white noise. Additionally, a greater range of specific sounds could also be examined in order to fully explore how the fetus produces not only random mouth movements but specific pre-speech movements.
The potential implications of this work are twofold. Firstly, this work is likely to provide knowledge on the relationship of prenatal reaction to specific sounds and postnatal language development. Secondly, there is a possibility that lack of reaction of the fetus to specific sounds could be used as a prenatal diagnostic test for deafness.
 1. 1.
 Trevarthen C. Communication and cooperation in early infancy: a description of primary intersub


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Two fishing cats born at National Zoo9:02 am - 06/16/2012
Looks like the National Zoo has two new young additions! Twin fishing cats were born May 18, marking an important milestone for the endangered species.
The twin kittens were the first-ever fishing cats to be bred and produced in the D.C. area — making future breeding possibilities a more tangible option. Just 27 of out of 30 fishing cats in North America are considered reproductively viable.
The fishing cat population has decreased 50 percent over the past 18 years due to poaching in Southeast Asia, and scientists are working hard to help this endangered species thrive in the future. Named for their hunting technique, fishing cats tend to find the majority of their diet living in water.
These kittens are going through procedures most human babies experience after birth — physical examinations and vaccinations. They are being closely monitored by specialized scientists.
They will make their first public appearance late this summer, but their father, 2-year-old Lek, can be seen now on the National Zoo's Asia trail. Their mother, Electra, has heightened maternal instincts and doesn't let the twins go too far.
Apparently the zoo originally planned to pair Electra with another male, but the original pair showed no interest in each other. When Electra met Lek, they instantly showed their affection by nuzzling and grooming each other.
The match made in heaven is definitely a step in the right direction toward saving another endangered species, as these cute young kittens show.


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St. John the Evangelist School
About St. John the Evangelist School
SJES at a Glance
- Pre-K-8th grade Catholic School founded in 1960 by Father Robert E. O'Kane, and originally staffed by the Benedictine Sisters.
- A member of the Diocese of Arlington
- Accredited by the Virginia Catholic Education Association
- Located in Warrenton, VA, situated at the Blue Ridge foothills of Fauquier County
- Small, intimate sized school of 250 students, with a faculty & staff of 40+
- School Hours: 8:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. with early morning and after school Extended Day Services
- Foreign Language, Art, Technology, Music, Physical Education and Algebra are offered to all students
- Extra-curricular activities include CYO Basketball, Tennis, and Cross Country. We also offer a Soccer and Lacrosse club.
- Extracurricular activities include Soccer Club, Drama Club, Spanish Club, Little Flowers, National Junior Honor Society, Student Council Association
- Our school offers a challenging academic program for pre-school through 8th grade that stimulates each child's intellectual curiosity and desire for life-long learning
- LabLearner Hands-on Science Program is offered to all students
- Middle School Honors Program in Math & Literature
- St. John the Evangelist School provides a safe environment which encourages the development of self esteem, confidence and spiritual growth
St. John Preschool (SJPS) and St. John Elementary School (SJES) are operated by St. John Parish, and accredited by the Virginia Catholic Education Association. (VCEA) The program is aimed at promoting each child's spiritual, emotional, intellectual, physical, and social growth from age 2 1/2 to 8th grade. The Diocesan Preschool curriculum is planned to enhance the total development of the growing child and is organized in a sequential manner that follows a theme or unit. Our teachers are qualified and nurturing with ongoing yearly enrichment training.
Our educational aim is to make each learning activity for your child fun and game like, developmentally appropriate, challenging but not frustrating, and a multisensory experience. The students of S JPS are exposed to many concepts and encouraged in creativity. We are delighted at the mastery of concepts; however, mastery is not a forced expectation. There will be plenty of time in the future during the St. John Elementary school years for mastery of concepts and review. Our focus is on exposure to appealing learning activities.
Kindergarten – Grade 5 Curriculum
The curriculum at St. John the Evangelist Catholic School integrates Catholic values with the knowledge and skills necessary to develop spiritually, intellectually and socially.
The curriculum includes Religion, Reading, Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, Fine Arts (Art, Music, Band), Physical Education, Computer Education, Library and Foreign Language. Spanish is part of the curriculum in grades K-8. Students in grades K-5 receive enrichment in Spanish each week for 30-60 minutes.
Advanced math is provided in grades 5-7 for those students, who are recommended by the teacher, scored a 90 or above in standardized testing, and has maintained a math grade of 93 or above.
Grades 6 – 8 Curriculum
The curriculum at St. John the Evangelist Catholic School integrates Catholic values with the knowledge and skills necessary to develop spiritually, intellectually and socially
The curriculum includes Religion, Reading, Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, Fine Arts (Art, Music, Band), Health and Safety, Physical Education, Computer Education, Library and Foreign Language.
St. John the Evangelist School
111 John E. Mann Street
Warrenton, VA 20186


I'll Know It When I See It
Viewing drawings is the most basic feature of document management packages. More nonCAD users, such as those in technical publications or purchasing, need to find drawings, examine them for detail, and possibly plot them out. In its simplest form, a viewer lets people only look at drawings to extract information.
Documents must be in a database before authorized users can view them. Most viewers and document systems are based on widely used databases. This information is typically called metadata, or data about company information, such as which computer holds drawings for a particular project, which computer stores the specs for a project, and which computers have memos and communications for the job. With this setup, the user need not know where the file is stored to view it.
For those faced with managing a mountain of paper drawings, one expert suggests dividing the pile into active and inactive stacks and scanning only the most recent or active drawings. Most viewing packages also include features for checking out and returning drawings. Check-out lets users view, and with proper credentials, print drawings.
PDM Systems
Guiding the Workflow
Workflow managers make sure documents such as drawings, approval forms, and memos get to the right people at the right time. They provide a framework so the tools that designers use, such as CAD or view-redline capability, are more easily plugged in. That means a document-management package must support a wide range of file formats from word processing, spread sheets, and raster formats such as.tiff and.gif.
Workgroup managers differ from full-blown PDM systems in that workgroup-level solutions can be assembled and working in 120 days or less while a company-wide PDM system can take years.


Re: Normalization Form KC for Linux
From: Dan Oscarsson (
Date: Fri Aug 27 1999 - 05:08:40 EDT
>As Rick was saying elsewhere in that message, there is a lot of confusion
>about the various forms a text can take during its life. We have to be able
>to tell the difference between internal data structures inside running
>programs, storage formats, publishing formats, input, rendering,...
>I believe that the sense of the meeting has been that properly decomposed
>characters are easiest to analyze and transform, and composed **glyphs**
>give the best results for rendering, when available. I don't see anything
>in those two ideas that requires coding of precomposed characters in
>internal data structures or storage. If this is being proposed for
>publishing, I think it will help in some cases while we all wait for more
>capable software written by people who believe in the difference between
>characters and glyphs.
What is a character?
In Swedish we have a character which in ISO 10646 has the code 0xc5.
This is a vowel which for English speaking persons look like
an A with a small ring above.
It is a single glyph, it is a single charcter, it is one letter, it
cannot be decomposed.
Likewise, for an English speaking person, "i" is one character though
the glyph looks like it is composed of a small vertical bar and a dot
I very much prefer to have letters represented in my software as
one code value, instead of long compose sequences that need a lot
of software to manage.
If you use the compact normalized form C from Unicode for transmission
and storage, you get a compact form for storage, easy to handle because
you know the order of data. If you prefer to have everything decomposed
in your software, it is easy to decompose the data. On the other hand,
if everything is stored in unnormalized mized format, you need a lot
of software just to normalized the data before you can work on it, and
it will take up more storage and bandwidth during transmission.
I am sure there are languages with alphabets that a decomposed order
is natural, but I think there are more that composed and normalized
are much better to have for handling in software.


text:
Developing Planck scale physics requires addressing problems of time, quantum reduction, determinism and continuum limit. On the already known foundations of quantum mechanics, a conceptual framework needs to be built. The quantum gravity framework project aims to accomplish this. The latest proposals are given in the paper Quantum Gravity Framework 2.0 and its previous version Quantum Gravity Framework 1.0.
The list of heuristic proposals that form the quantum gravity framework, as presented in version 2.0, as a starting point, is as follows :
- Quantum SelfEvolution: - Flow of time in the phase space in a single point system, which is different in the versions 2.0 and 1.0.
- Local Quantum Reduction: This can be done in a natural way by local reduction through quantum diffusion theory,
- Quantum Evolution of a multipoint discrete manifold: This can be done by evolving the systems through a foliation chosen dynamically, and
- Continuum limit and determinism: They can be enforced by adding terms and averaging to the field action.
These proposals are offered as a starting point. The proposals can be applied to the various physical scenarios such as: 1) Minisuperspace reduced cosmology of Isotropic and homogenous universe with scalar field, 2) Expanding universe with perturbation, and 3) Newtonian Universe. Ways to experimentally test the theory need to be discussed. The version 2.0 contains some ideas regarding this. Since this project is just a starting point extensive further research is required. Further research in this direction will be posted in the website soon.


text:
Wildlife Ecology and Conservation Research
Virtually all of the research conducted by the Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation is conducted to enhance our knowledge and understanding of the conservation and ecology of wildlife, habitats, and natural systems. Within this scope, faculty and students in the Department are engaged in a wide breadth of research activities, at spatial scales ranging from microhabitats to global phenomena, evaluating levels of organization ranging from molecular genetics to ecosystem responses, assessing temporal scales ranging from rapid behavioral responses to multi-generational consequences, and working with taxa ranging from plant species, to invertebrates, fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals. This work is generating new knowledge that also spans significant breadth, including the ecology of wildlife populations, conservation of wildlife habitats, human perspectives on conservation, approaches to managing ecofriendly human communities, spatial dynamics of natural populations, behavioral ecology, plant-animal interactions, and a diverse suite of other topics. Departmental research programs are directed by a wide breadth of drivers, including intellectual curiosity, conservation need, funding availability, opportunistic occurrences, knowledge gaps, institutional capacity, stakeholder needs, research paradigms, and a diverse suite of other factors. The research done by the Department geographically ranges from the University campus in Gainesville to the mountains of Asia.
This breadth of research makes it challenging to characterize and bound the Departmentís programs in a simplistic framework. Moreover, the Departmentís research enterprise is a highly organic and dynamic entity, combining long-term directed efforts with transitions into new and emerging cutting edge topics. In attempt to characterize the general flavor of the type and breadth of research activities in the Department, here programs are categorized into five broad and overlapping categories (Conservation Biology, Spatial Ecology, Wildlife Conservation and Management, Wetlands Ecology and Conservation, and Human Dimensions in Wildlife Conservation). Rather than a comprehensive look at all the Department research, this overview presents a sampling of activities to provide a general snapshot of the types of research the Department is engaged in.


text:
Become a fan of h2g2
The Blackface sheep is the most common hill breed in Scotland. They are extremely hardy and can survive in the harsh climate associated with the hills of Scotland. All Blackface sheep have horns and have black and white legs and face. The fleece should be completely white. Their wool is mainly used to make carpets or mattresses.
When kept on the hill, Blackface ewes will stay within an area that they will get to know very well (this is called hefting). They will know the best area to find shelter, and the best area to find good grass. The ewe will pass this information on to her daughters. It is not recommended to buy in flock replacements for hill farms as the sheep may get lost, or die in the extreme weather as they do not know where to find shelter.
Blackface sheep are bred pure to produce flock replacements or small carcass weight lambs, generally for the European market. The Blackface ewes are often crossed with a sire such as a Border Leicester or Continental sire to produce ewes that are very prolific and will produce lambs for the meat market. Blackface ewes are also crossed with terminal sires such as the Suffolk to produce a quality prime lamb.
In hill environments, Blackface ewes will normally produce one lamb per year, on a lowland farm with good grazing they regularly produce twins, with triplets not being uncommon.


text:
Wife of Union General Fitz John PorterFitz John Porter was a career U.S. Army officer and a Union General during the Civil War. He is most known for his performance at the Second Battle of Bull Run and his subsequent court martial, caused by his political rivals. After the war, he worked for almost 25 years to reclaim his reputation and restore his name to the army's roll.
Image: General Fitz John Porter
Harriet Pierson Cook was born in New York in May 1833. Fitz John Porter was born on August 31, 1822, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He came from a family prominent in American naval service; his cousins were Admirals David Dixon Porter, and David Glasgow Farragut. Nevertheless, he pursued an army career.
Porter graduated from West Point in 1845, ranking 8th out of 41 in his class, and was assigned to the artillery. He served in the Mexican War, being wounded at Chapultepec and earned 2 brevets. He was appointed as the Artillery and Cavalry instructor at West Point, served on the frontier, and the Utah Expedition. During the expedition, he was the adjutant for future Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston.
After the war with Mexico, Porter returned to West Point and became a cavalry and artillery instructor from 1849 to 1853, and then became adjutant to the academy's superintendent until 1855. He next served at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, as assistant adjutant general in the Department of the West in 1856, where he was brevetted to captain that June.
Harriet Pierson Cook married Fitz John Porter in 1857.
Porter inspected and reorganized the defenses of Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, until late 1860, when he aided in the evacuation of army personnel from Texas after that state seceded from the Union.
The Civil War
Porter was named a Colonel in the 15th U.S. Infantry on May 14, 1861. He was ordered to Washington, DC, by General George B. McClellan to assist in training Union recruits in the Army of the Potomac. This strengthened his relationship with McClellan, and he soon became a trusted adviser and loyal friend to McClellan.
In August 1861, Porter was promoted to Brigadier General of volunteers, backdated to May 17 so he would be senior enough to receive division command in the Army of the Potomac. McClellan created two provisional corps, and Porter was assigned to command the V Corps.
Porter led his division in the Peninsula Campaign from March through July 1862, and directed the seige against Yorktown. He fought at New Bridge, Hanover Court House, Mechansville, Gaines' Mill, Turkey Bridge, and Malvern Hill, where he played a leading role in covering the withdrawal of the Union army. For this series of battles, he was brevetted a Brigadier General in the Regular Army.
On June 27, 1862, with only Brigadier General Fitz John Porter's V Corps north of the Chickahominy River, General Robert E. Lee assaulted the lone corps at the Battle of Gaines' Mill. Struggling through the day, Porter's Corps fought bravely. Meagher's Irish Brigade and General William French's brigade were sent to reinforce Porter. With the Fighting 69th leading the way, the Irish Brigade allowed Porter's troops to cross the Chickahominy and rejoin the Army of the Potomac.
For his successful performance on the Peninsula, Porter was promoted to major general of volunteers on July 4, 1862. Porter was then transferred to the Army of Virginia under General John Pope in the Northern Virginia Campaign. Porter did not like Pope, and he openly challenged this reassignment, criticizing Pope personally.
The Ninth Massachusetts had already engaged in hours of vicious fighting with a Confederate army at Gaine's Mill. After a lull, the stillness was broken by a vigorous Southern assault as the rest of the Union forces melted away, leaving the Ninth nearly alone. Just then the 69th New York Volunteers came dashing in; firing ceased and the day was saved.
During the Second Battle of Bull Run on August 29, 1862, General Pope ordered Porter to attack the flank and rear of CSA General Stonewall Jackson's wing of the Army of Northern Virginia. Porter had stopped at Dawkin's Branch where he had encountered J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry. He received a message from Pope directing him to attack the Confederate right, but at the same time to maintain contact with the neighboring division under General John F. Reynolds, contradictory orders based on faulty information.
Pope was apparently unaware that General James Longstreet's wing of the Confederate Corps had arrived on the battlefield and the proposed envelopment of Jackson's position would have collided with Longstreet's large force. Porter chose not to make the attack because of the intelligence he had received that Longstreet was to his immediate front.
On August 30, Pope again ordered the flank attack, and Porter reluctantly complied. As the V Corps turned to head towards Jackson's right and attacked, it presented its own (and consequently the entire army's) flank to Longstreet's waiting men. About 30,000 Confederates attacked Porter's 5000 men and drove through them and into the rest of Pope's forces, exactly what Porter had feared would happen.
Pope was infuriated by the Union defeat, and he relieved Porter of command on September 5, 1862.
Porter moved back to McClellan's army, and remained in command of his corps through the Maryland Campaign; they served in the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862. Antietam seemed to prove everything that Union officials believed about General McClellan - that he was overly analytical, overly cautious, and prone to overestimating the size of his enemy. McClellan's slowness in committing Porter's V Corps allowed Lee's army to regroup. By November 5, McClellan was relieved of command.
Court Martial of Fitz John Porter
Porter was relieved of command of the V Corps on November 10, 1862, according to Special Order No. 337, issued by the War Department. By direction of the president, Porter was ordered to report immediately to the adjutant general in Washington, DC. For radical Republicans, led by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, it was part of the continuing shakeup of an army "that was not quite responsive to the will of the government."
Since McClellan had been forced out of the army, he could not provide political cover for Porter. In fact, Porter's association with the disgraced McClellan and criticism of Pope were significant reasons for his conviction at court martial. Porter's friendship with McClellan was used against him during the trial.
On November 25, 1862, General Fitz John Porter was charged with two violations of the Articles of War, Article IX, disobeying a lawful order, and Article LII, misbehavior in front of the enemy. The charges contained specific incidences in which Porter violated both articles. It was obvious that the charges were instigated by the disgruntled General John Pope.
Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, who detested Porter's good friend McClellan, personally chose the court who would hear Porter's case, and most of them also disliked McClellan. As if this were not damning enough, Porter chose as his attorney Zachary Taylor Reverdy Johnson, a Democrat who had supported Stephen Douglas against Lincoln in the 1860 presidential election.
Porter's trial was open to the public, and quickly became a political battleground, the Republicans represented by the prosecution, the Democrats by the defense. Federal officers, including Pope and Irvin McDowell, used the trial to try to clear their names in the debacle that had occurred at Manassas.
General Fitz John Porter was found guilty of both charges on January 10, 1863. He was dismissed from the Union Army on January 21, 1863, and "forever disqualified from holding any office of trust or profit under the Government of the United States." Porter spent much of the rest of his life trying to restore his good name and reputation.
Porter finally found employment in late 1863 as the superintendent of a gold mining operation in Colorado. After the war, he returned east and went into the mercantile business, then served with distinction as Commissioner of Public Works, then Police and Fire Commissioner of New York City.
For years, Porter was kept from clearing his name by Edwin Stanton, who thwarted any government attempts to reinvestigate the matter, and punished any officers who supported Porter. Yet Porter never ceased petitioning for a new hearing, which was finally granted in 1886, after retired President Ulysses S. Grant wrote an article in his favor in the North American Review magazine.
In 1878, President Rutherford B. Hayes commissioned a board of inquiry under Edwin Stanton's replacement, Major General John Schofield, to investigate the matter. The commission found Porter guilty of no wrongdoing, finding that he was right in not committing his men to a doomed assault which Longstreet would have crushed.
However, this came too late to save Porter's military career. In 1882, the political climate was such that Porter finally had his citizenship and army rank reinstated. In 1886, President Chester A. Arthur reversed Porter's sentence. By a special act of Congress in 1886, Fitz John Porter was awarded the permanent rank of Colonel of Infantry, to rank from May


text:
Implementing the OurSCHOOL Student Survey at St. Dominic in 2015 allowed former Principal Kevin DeForge and Assistant Principal Joelle Marshall to learn that 32 per cent of students reported feeling medium to high levels of anxiety at school. Knowing it's not just the data that matters, but what you do with it, Kevin and his team sought to understand what was driving this.
Using the insight gained from the OurSCHOOL survey, the St. Dominic staff created a three-pronged approach to reducing anxiety and empowering students.
1. Introducing opportunities for students to embrace experimentation and gain confidence
2. Working closely with students to reduce anxiety levels at school
3. Engaging parents and caregivers and integrating classroom practices into the home


Friday, Nov. 4 _TAG_ _TAG_
50-50 Challenge
 1. Open the container on your desk and examine the contents (8 objects)
 2. Select 4 different objects to place on your paper.
 3. Sketch out a drawing, scene, person, or object that incorporates these 4 objects somehow in the drawing (see artist example: Bulent Ustun)
 4. Be sure to fill 50% of your sketch paper.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
 - You can use the found objects in any way that you want, but the object itself can not be altered or taken apart in any way.
 - To receive full credit for your drawing/participation, the objects need to be placed back into the container, the way you found them at the start of the hour. Any missing items or broken pieces will result in a loss of credit for each member of the table.
Take a photo and post it using the hashtag:
Graphic Coms: Tourism Postcard Challenge
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