text:
Luanda – Angolan historian Júlio Mendes defended on Friday in Luanda that the legacy of the poet and first President of Angola, António Agostinho Neto, needs a deeper research in order to pass them to future generations.
Júlio Mendes, who is also a lecturer at Higher Institute for Educational Sciences (ISCED),
defended this stand whilst addressing the workshop on "Agostinho Neto, national and foreign cultural values" at the auditorium of Oscar Ribas University.
To the historian, Neto's legacy, which will be studied, contains various aspects relating to his sacrifice to fight against the Portuguese colonialism that led to the country's independence, in November 11, 1975.
"Agostinho Neto used his poems to fight against colonialists and made people believe that it is possible to fight against slavery", he stressed.
About the poems "Sábados nos Musseques" and "Ansiedade", of the "Sacred Hope" book, the source said that they mainly portray the hardships of black people.
This workshop was organised under the activities to celebrate the National Hero's Day, September 17.


text:
ite clay is a
weathering byproduct of rocks, and like DE contains
silica and smaller quantities of other minerals. Despite
the content of silica, bentonite has nowhere near a
hardness of 7.
As for the claim that DE is agatized silica, again
this is not true. Agate is formed from extremely hot
water supersaturated with silica, and possibly some
magmatically dissolved silica. This dissolved silica
deposits in to crevices or vugs within rocks or replaces
organic matter in items such as shells or wood creating
layers of hard silica.
Again, DE is the skeletal remains of phytoplankton
that have died and settled to the bottom of ancient
oceans and lakes. These phytoplankton, nor their remains,
were ever subjected to extremely hot water or magma
to dissolve the silica and redeposit it as a quartz
such as agate.
Food grade DE is extremely soft having a hardness of
1-1.5, as pointed out earlier, far below the hardness
of pure silica that has a hardness of 7. In addition,
food grade DE consists of amorphous, not crystalline,
silica. Amorphous silica is not as hard and sharp like
crystalline silica and does not pose the same health
risks as crystalline silica.
Clumps of DE are also sold as kitty litter. If DE was
so sharp and hard as claimed, cat's paws would
be shredded from scratching in the litter box. Of course
this is not the case since the claims about DE being
hard and sharp to the point of damaging tissues are
Myth: Consuming silica causes kidney
Fact: I have heard people claim that
they got kidney pain within minutes of ingesting DE.
It is hard to say why they experienced this problem,
but it was not from the silica in the DE as I have seen
claimed. A simple fact of anatomy and physiology can
prove this. Once ingested, the silicon dioxide in the
DE has to convert in the stomach in to OA in order to
be absorbed. When the stomach finally empties its contents
in to the in intestines the OA can be absorbed. Next
the OA circulates through the blood where most of the
OA is utilized in the formation of tissues. Finally
traces of OA can reach the kidneys for safe excretion.
No damage occurs to the kidneys since the OA is not
in a solid crystalline form that can cut thinner tissues
of the kidneys. The whole process for the traces of
OA to be absorbed and even smaller traces to reach the
kidneys takes considerably longer than the few minutes
people are claiming to get pain within.

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


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The most inventive way a patient may use to pass an observed urine drug screen and how to prevent it
Article By: MichaelS76
Health and fitness
A review of the most devious yet ingenious way a patient will use in order to pass an observed urine drug screen and how to circumvent it.
Submitted:Aug 16, 2013 Reads: 68 Comments: 0 Likes: 0
The most desperate patient may perform the following:
1. The patient should abstain from illegal drug use for as many days as possible before the test. Within 24 hours of the test, the user should drink considerable quantities of water.
2. Just prior to the test, the user must void the bladder completely.
3. A fresh urine sample must be obtained from a donor, whose urine has the proper constituents or contains no illicit drugs.
4. A Foley catheter is then passed through the user's urethra and into the bladder.
5. The donor's urine is passed through the catheter and into the user's bladder.
6. Then the user must have the drug screen performed as soon as possible to prevent any drugs or metabolites from being processed by the kidneys and secreted into the donor urine.
7. The urine from the donor should match the sex of the patient. Estrogen levels appropriate for a woman would look mighty strange in a man's urine (although drug tests don't normally check for such things.
This is the most desperate attempt a patient may take in order to pass an observed drug screen. If a patient is suspected of tampering with his or her urine an observed drug screen should be performed. If that same patient is suspected of further tampering then the only way to ensure that a proper urine specimen is obtained is to have the patient urinate completely under observation, then have the patient drink copious amounts of water and wait at least 1 hour before collecting another observed specimen. This ensures that the urine contained in their bladder has actually come from the patient and not a donor patient. This is one of two ways to be 100 percent sure that a patient's urine drug screen is accurate, even under observation. The other way is to collect a blood specimen for analysis.
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text:
The Trigger Fish gets it's name from the small fin on the top of its head.
The Trigger Fish can lock this fin into place with a "trigger" which then has to be released before the fin can be lowered. This means that the Trigger Fish can wedge itself into holes and prevent itself from being removed by predators.
These fish mainly feed on crabs and shellfish and can grow up to 60cm. You're most likely to find them among reefs in the East Atlantic and Mediterranean.
Things to Do
- Watch out for his "Trigger" in action
- The females like to dig a hole and hide their eggs at the bottom of the sea, can you spot any here?
- How many different colours can you see?
- Got any specific questions you would like answering? Ask our Animal Care Team!

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


text:
Address: Pungart 4000 Kranj
Medieval Kranj was fortified with a city wall in the 15th-century. Two main city gates and two smaller gates provided access to the city. On the north side along today?s Maister Square (Maistrov trg), the double Upper City Gate was protected by a high tower that can be seen in a depiction from 1649. In front of it and the S section of the double wall was a deep and wide moat, traces of which are still preserved at the Jahavčev Passage and behind the former Špitalski Tower.


Research Programs
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CSIRO is a world leader in developing new techniques and insights to help find targets buried under sediments, beneath Australia's ancient blanket of deeply weathered rock and even under the ocean.
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CSIRO's pioneering research into mine design, equipment and procedures is improving safety, reducing costs and improving efficiency. We aim to ensure that the mining industry is both sustainable, and environmentally responsible.
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CSIRO is providing technologies to help improve Australia's oil and gas self-sufficiency as well as develop sustainable energy resources for the future.
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The oil and gas industry is at the cusp of significant changes with tightening supply necessitating significant technological innovation from CSIRO geoscientists.
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Manufacturing, Materials and Minerals
The Manufacturing, Materials and Minerals Group contains the core of CSIRO's research in the materials, manufacturing, minerals, mining, biomedical and biotechnology sectors.


text:
Creating simple entities
Simple entities include lines (both finite and infinite), circles, arcs, ellipses, elliptical arcs, points, and rays. In addition, progeCAD includes a freehand sketch tool. Entities drawn freehand are also considered to be simple entities.
This section explains several methods for creating simple entities, including how to:
When you use a tool or a drawing command, the program prompts you to enter coordinate points, such as endpoints or insertion points. You can enter the points or distances either using a mouse or by typing coordinate values in the command bar. As you draw, progeCAD also displays a context-sensitive prompt box with appropriate additional options for the type of entity you are drawing.
After you create entities, you can modify them using the entity modification tools.
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How do I...


text:
Computer Science Department
School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University
A Hierarchy of Proof Rules for
Khalil Ghorbal, Andrew Sogokon*, André Platzer
This paper presents a theoretical and experimental comparison of sound proof rules for proving invariance of algebraic sets, that is, sets satisfying polynomial equalities, under the flow of polynomial ordinary differential equations. Problems of this nature arise in formal verification of continuous and hybrid dynamical systems, where there is an increasing need for methods to expedite formal proofs. We study the trade-off between proof rule generality and practical performance and evaluate our theoretical observations on a set of heterogeneous benchmarks. The relationship between increased deductive power and running time performance of the proof rules is far from obvious; we discuss and illustrate certain classes of problems where this relationship interesting.


To install click the Add extension button. That's it.
Kelly Slayton
Congratulations on this excellent venture… what a great idea!
Alexander Grigorievskiy
Hessian matrix
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In mathematics, the Hessian matrix or Hessian is a square matrix of second-order partial derivatives of a scalar-valued function, or scalar field. It describes the local curvature of a function of many variables. The Hessian matrix was developed in the 19th century by the German mathematician Ludwig Otto Hesse and later named after him. Hesse originally used the term "functional determinants".
Definitions and properties
Suppose f : ℝn → ℝ is a function taking as input a vector x ∈ ℝn and outputting a scalar f(x) ∈ ℝ. If all second partial derivatives of f exist and are continuous over the domain of the function, then the Hessian matrix H of f is a square n×n matrix, usually defined and arranged as follows:
or, by stating an equation for the coefficients using indices i and j,
The Hessian matrix is a symmetric matrix, since the hypothesis of continuity of the second derivatives implies that the order of differentiation does not matter (Schwarz's theorem).
The determinant of the Hessian matrix is called the Hessian determinant.[1]
The Hessian matrix of a function f is the Jacobian matrix of the gradient of the function f ; that is: H(f(x)) = J(∇f(x)).
Inflection points
If f is a homogeneous polynomial in three variables, the equation f = 0 is the implicit equation of a plane projective curve. The inflection points of the curve are exactly the non-singular points where the Hessian determinant is zero. It follows by Bézout's theorem that a cubic plane curve has at most 9 inflection points, since the Hessian determinant is a polynomial of degree 3.
Second-derivative test
The Hessian matrix of a convex function is positive semi-definite. Refining this property allows us to test whether a critical point x is a local maximum, local minimum, or a saddle point, as follows:
If the Hessian is positive-definite at x, then f attains an isolated local minimum at x. If the Hessian is negative-definite at x, then f attains an isolated local maximum at x. If the Hessian has both positive and negative eigenvalues, then x is a saddle point for f. Otherwise the test is inconclusive. This implies that at a local minimum the Hessian is positive-semidefinite, and at a local maximum the Hessian is negative-semidefinite.
Note that for positive-semidefinite and negative-semidefinite Hessians the test is inconclusive (a critical point where the Hessian is semidefinite but not definite may be a local extremum or a saddle point). However, more can be said from the point of view of Morse theory.
The second-derivative test for functions of one and two variables is simple. In one variable, the Hessian contains just one second derivative; if it is positive, then x is a local minimum, and if it is negative, then x is a local maximum; if it is zero, then the test is inconclusive. In two variables, the determinant can be used, because the determinant is the product of the eigenvalues. If it is positive, then the eigenvalues are both positive, or both negative. If it is negative, then the two eigenvalues have different signs. If it is zero, then the second-derivative test is inconclusive.
Equivalently, the second-order conditions that are sufficient for a local minimum or maximum can be expressed in terms of the sequence of principal (upper-leftmost) minors (determinants of sub-matrices) of the Hessian; these conditions are a special case of those given in the next section for bordered Hessians for constrained optimization—the case in which the number of constraints is zero. Specifically, the sufficient condition for a minimum is that all of these principal minors be positive, while the sufficient condition for a maximum is that the minors alternate in sign, with the 1×1 minor being negative.
Critical points
If the gradient (the vector of the partial derivatives) of a function f is zero at some point x, then f has a critical point (or stationary point) at x. The determinant of the Hessian at x is called, in some contexts, a discriminant. If this determinant is zero then x is called a degenerate critical point of f, or a non-Morse critical point of f. Otherwise it is non-degenerate, and called a Morse critical point of f.
The Hessian matrix plays an important role in Morse theory and catastrophe theory, because its kernel and eigenvalues allow classification of the critical points.[2][3][4]
The determinant of the Hessian matrix, when evaluated at a critical point of a function, is equal to the Gaussian curvature of the function considered as a manifold. The eigenvalues of the Hessian at that point are the principle curvatures of the function, and the eigenvectors are the principle directions of curvature. (See Gaussian curvature § Relation to principal curvatures.)
Use in optimization
Hessian matrices are used in large-scale optimization problems within Newton-type methods because they are the coefficient of the quadratic term of a local Taylor expansion of a function. That is,
where f is the gradient (f/x1,..., f/xn). Computing and storing the full Hessian matrix takes Θ(n2) memory, which is infeasible for high-dimensional functions such as the loss functions of neural nets, conditional random fields, and other statistical models with large numbers of parameters. For such situations, truncated-Newton and quasi-Newton algorithms have been developed. The latter family of algorithms use approximations to the Hessian; one of the most popular quasi-Newton algorithms is BFGS.[5]
Such approximations may use the fact that an optimization algorithm uses the Hessian only as a linear operator H(v), and proceed by first noticing that the Hessian also appears in the local expansion of the gradient:
Letting Δx = rv for some scalar r, this gives
so if the gradient is already computed, the approximate Hessian can be computed by a linear (in the size of the gradient) number of scalar operations. (While simple to program, this approximation scheme is not numerically stable since r has to be made small to prevent error due to the term, but decreasing it loses precision in the first term.[6])
Other applications
The Hessian matrix is commonly used for expressing image processing operators in image processing and computer vision (see the Laplacian of Gaussian (LoG) blob detector, the determinant of Hessian (DoH) blob detector and scale space). The Hessian matrix can also be used in normal mode analysis to calculate the different molecular frequencies in infrared spectroscopy.[7]
Bordered Hessian
A bordered Hessian is used for the second-derivative test in certain constrained optimization problems. Given the function f considered previously, but adding a constraint function g such that g(x) = c, the bordered Hessian is the Hessian of the Lagrange function :[8]
If there are, say, m constraints then the zero in the upper-left corner is an m × m block of zeros, and there are m border rows at the top and m border columns at the left.
The above rules stating that extrema are characterized (among critical points with a non-singular Hessian) by a positive-definite or negative-definite Hessian cannot apply here since a bordered Hessian can neither be negative-definite nor positive-definite, as if is any vector whose sole non-zero entry is its first.
The second derivative test consists here of sign restrictions of the determinants of a certain set of n – m submatrices of the bordered Hessian.[9] Intuitively, one can think of the m constraints as reducing the problem to one with nm free variables. (For example, the maximization of f(x1, x2, x3) subject to the constraint x1 + x2 + x3 = 1 can be reduced to the maximization of f(x1, x2, 1 – x1x2) without constraint.)
Specifically, sign conditions are imposed on the sequence of leading principal minors (determinants of upper-left-justified sub-matrices) of the bordered Hessian, for which the first 2m leading principal minors are neglected, the smallest minor consisting of the truncated first 2m+1 rows and columns, the next consisting of the truncated first 2m+2 rows and columns, and so on, with the last being the entire bordered Hessian; if 2m+1 is larger than n+m, then the smallest leading principal minor is the Hessian itself.[10] There are thus nm minors to consider, each evaluated at the specific point being considered as a candidate maximum or minimum. A sufficient condition for a local maximum is that these minors alternate in sign with the smallest one having the sign of (–1)m+1. A sufficient condition for a local minimum is that all of these minors have the sign of (–1)m. (In the unconstrained case of m=0 these conditions coincide with the conditions for the unbordered Hessian to be negative definite or positive definite


text: With the convergence of IP based multimedia and communications, multipoint multimedia conferencing is becoming an important form of communication. There are two major problems that have plagued multimedia conferencing. The first is a form of control needed over the conference to maintain order and data integrity. The second is to optimise the bandwidth requirement as network bandwidth generally increase proportionally to the number of participants within the conference. Both the above problems place a serious limitation on the number of conference participants. The control criteria proposed within this thesis was designed to overcome both the above problems. Based on creating a virtual meeting room, the control criteria was formulated using these two fundamental principles: • The need for a control mechanism to coordinate the conference. • Only one site may broadcast or make changes (collaborative document conferencing) at any one time.


The Memoirs of Armand Charest Part I
Armand Charest in 2000
Armand Charest in 2000
The Charest-Frenchette Family in America: A Success Story
 Ron Charest
Part I – Growing Up in Rhode Island
Chapter 1
The Charest family traces its ancestry with any definite knowledge to Canada as early as 1812. The ancestral home in France has never been definitely established. Some family members feel that the earliest settlers in Canada came from Central France; others feel that Normandy is the likeliest home; others say that the first Charest came from Lacadie, France.
In any event it is most likely that the Charests came to Canada before 1763 since, in that year of the English conquest, the British government forbade immigration from France. Therefore, we can say with a certain amount of truth that the Charests arrived in Canada in the early or the middle of the 1700s or possibly in the 1600s. However, we must also say in all honesty that since the territory contained few French females, the probability exists that the first Charest males might have taken Indian women as wives. This statement might offend some descendants, but the possibility is there, nonetheless.
We have been able to trace the Frechette family as far back as the late 1600s in Canada. We have no way to know where they came from in France However, we must limit this story to the exploits and lives of Alphonse and Emilie Charest, a prolific and energetic couple.
Alphonse was born in the village of St. Gabriel, in Quebec province. Not much is known about his early years. Emilie was born on a farm in St. Didace, also in Quebec province. We do know that she received a fairly good education from the convent nuns. She read books and did receive a daily newspaper from Montreal when the family lived in Woonsocket. I and my children inherited the love of reading from her. She and I spent many evenings discussing world politics and the approaching war.
They first met in the year, 1912, on the road to Lincoln Park, an amusement park somewhere between Fall River and New Bedford, Mass. According to the popular belief, Alphonse and his brother, Armand, were two men about town who enjoyed flirting with the ladies who traveled on the streetcars between the two cities. It so happened that Armand knew the lady who accompanied Emilie on that particular day and she introduced Emilie to Alphonse and the rest is history, as people tend to say.
Due to a health problem Alphonse's doctor advised him to travel out West where the pure air might cure him. Subsequently, Alphonse became a cook on the Canadian Railroad somewhere in Manitoba or in one of those Canadian provinces where no one can say whether it is east of British Colombia or west of Ontario. He also found work in the lumber camps.
He returned sometime in 1914 and promptly signed on with the Canadian government as a cook on the icebreaker, the Laurier, that according to tradition or rumor had picked up survivors from the Titanic.
By 1916 Emilie is supposed to have stamped her foot and demanded, yes, demanded that Alphonse choose the care-tree life or marry her. According to family legend the young man is supposed to have scratched his head, mumbled something about freedom, walked the floor, argued about the demand but he finally gave in.
So Emilie and Alphonse were married in Joliette, Quebec on October 4, 1916 by the Reverend Msgr. Forbes. According to family legend the couple took up residence in Quebec City where, and this information cannot be verified, Alphonse found employment at the famous Hotel, the Chateau Frontenac. Emilie spent one winter on that iceberg and gave Alphonse another ultimatum.
So the couple moved to a city called Grandmere (grandmother). The first Charest children were born there: Marguerite Albina on Sept 19, 1917 and Louis George on October 4, 1918. The couple's need for milder weather eventually made it relocate to Pawtucket, Rhode Island in 1919. Two more children made their debut: Therese Jeanne D'arc on June 9, 1920 and Rita Edmire on Sept 21, 1922.
At that time Alphonse won the food concession at the new factory built by the J.P. Coats Thread company. It was a prosperous time for Alphonse and Emilie who were able to furnish an apartment with the latest appliances including an electric sewing and washing machine. At the expiration of the contract Alphonse opened a restaurant in Pawtucket.
We have no explanation why the couple then decided to move to a bustling textile manufacturing city called Woonsocket where two more little ones joined the growing clan: Lucille Evelina on Dec. 13, 1922 and Armand Gabriel on August 16, 1924. I believe that Alphonse still kept his restaurant open with the help of two brothers.
A business opportunity presented itself so Alphonse moved the family to a small town called Manville where he bought a country house and opened his second restaurant at a busy intersection in the village. It was also a happy and prosperous time for the family. I remember distinctly the house that sat next to a bubbling brook and the swamp to its rear where Alphonse raised his pigs. The final three children came into the world in that house: Claire on November 2, 1925, Noella on Dec 15, 1927, Rosaire on November 7, 1930.
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Fake 3D with Shape Layers in Ae
Move Shapes shows how to create a fake 3D effect using shape layers in After Effects.
You don't need 3D to create 3D. Since the invention of perspective people have drawn in 3D on a 2D plane, essentially creating "fake 3D". In After Effects, animating a fake 3D effect is pretty straightforward. As long as you can animate the points of a vector shape, you can trick the eye into thinking an element is 3D. Some things will be harder than others with this technique, but for something like a spinning box or a moving car, it's perfect.
Check out this tutorial from Peter Arumugam, also known as Move Shapes who shows how easy it is to create a fake 3D car turn using shape layers in After Effects. The video shows direct animation for the After Effects layer elements, likely to convey the concept a little easier. It is worthwhile to note that any time you want to key something, you should have a rig to accept those keyframes, not the element itself.
A great example of using a rig with a fake 3D turn is this tutorial from animator and illustrator, Hunan Hunanyan. The tutorial covers how to rig a car using DUIK in After Effects, making use of the Morpher tool there. Check out that tutorial here.


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Magma chamber recharge at Vesuvius
(29 September 2006)
A new paper in Geology by Daniel Morgan and others, including Jon Davidson, identifies three magma chamber recharge events in the century before the AD79 eruption of Vesuvius. The work analysed the concentration of barium in sanidine crystals, including modelling of diffusion profiles within individual crystals. The most recent recharge event occurred ~20 years before the actual eruption. It is very interesting that the timescales of recharge seem to correspond to a seismic event recorded ~17 years prior to the AD 79 eruption, so we may be witnessing a geochemical fingerprint of a geophysical event. Reference: DJ Morgan et al., Geology, v34 p845-848 (2006).


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Physico-Chemical Studies on Room Temperature Ionic Liquids
A typical salt such as table salt has usually a very high melting point temperature. Ionic liquids however are salts that have a melting point near or even below room temperature! Furthermore, because ionic liquids are entirely composed of ions, their vapor pressure is essentially zero. (In other words, you essentially can't get the ionic liquids to boil, even when applying vacuum!) These properties of ionic liquids make them strong candidates to replace hazardous volatile solvents in industrial chemical processes. Hence, over the last decade research in the field of ionic liquids has focused on two directions: a) the exploration of (organic) chemical reactions in ionic liquids and b) the development of new ionic liquid compounds. Much less research emphasis has been placed in developing a better physico-chemical understanding of the ionic-liquids as a solvent system. Here is where our research interests enter. How do the cations and anions in an ionic liquid interact with each other and how do they interact with a solute? What are the phase behavior properties of ionic liquids with other solvents, in particular with supercritical carbon dioxide, another "environmental solvent system"? Is it possible to combine these two environmentally benign solvent systems?
Significant findings towards answering some of these types of questions disseminated in the past five years include:
 - The ionic liquid 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifyl)amide displays ion pairing of extremely long lifetime-stability when dissolved in low-dielectric media (Journal of Solution Chemistry, 2004, Vol. 33, 379-392).
 - The ionic liquid tryhexyltetradecylphosphonium chloride is soluble in dense CO2 to 7% by mass. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of an ionic liquid being soluble in CO2 (Green Chemistry, 2005, Vol. 7, 475-478).
During my recent (2007-2008) sabbatical research stay at the Friedrich-Schiller-University in Jena, Germany, I had the opportunity to become acquainted with other experimental techniques, especially in the area of calorimetry. We were investigating how a number of physico-chemical properties for several ionic liquids of interest change upon the addition of water to elucidate if water is tightly bound to the ionic liquid, especially when present only in minute quantities.
For more questions and comments, feel free to contact us.


Cross-reactivity of Can f 1 with Syrian hamster and Fel d 1 in children
Main Article Content
Jeongmin Lee
Se-ah Jeon
Sooyoung Lee
Syrian hamster; dog allergy; cross-reactivity
Introduction and objectives: With increasing pet allergies among pediatric patients, the need for precise environmental care is increasing. We investigated the clinical, immunological, and environmental characteristics of pediatric patients sensitized to a dog to evaluate the cross-antigenicity of canine lipocalin Can f 1 with feline lipocalin Fel d 1 and Syrian hamster
Materials and methods: The protein fractions of the processed and commercial Syrian hamster extracts were compared using sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE). An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) inhibition test was performed on Can f 1, Fel d 1, and processed Syrian hamster extract, and the antigen-specific immunoglobulin E (IgE)-binding capacity for each antigen was analyzed using serum samples from patients.
Results: Twelve of 19 patients with a median age of 40.5 months were symptomatic when exposed to dogs. Eleven (91.7%) patients showed a positive IgE response to Can f 1. Two patients were positive for Fel d 1-specific IgE antibody, and one was positive for hamster-specific IgE antibody. SDS-PAGE confirmed the presence of different patterns of protein bands
between the commercial and processed hamster extracts. There was no cross-antigenicity among Can f 1, Fel d 1, and processed Syrian hamster extract.
Conclusions: Since the standard commercial hamster extract did not contain Syrian hamster antigens that were diverse enough, caution should be taken when using it. In children allergic to cats and dogs, sensitization to isolated Can f 1 or Fel d 1 is unlikely to cause cross-reactivity to Syrian hamster hair and epithelium.
Abstract 104 | PDF Downloads 34 XML Downloads 3 HTML Downloads 0
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2. Gabet S, Just J, Couderc R, Seta N, Momas I. Allergic sensitisation in early childhood: Patterns and related factors in
PARIS birth cohort. Int J Hyg Environ Health. 2016;219:792– 800.
3. Kim J, Hahm MI, Lee SY, Kim WK, Chae Y, Park YM, et al. Sensitization to aeroallergens in Korean children: A populationbased study in 2010. J Korean Med Sci. 2011;26:1165–72.
4. Konradsen JR, Fujisawa T, van Hage M, Hedlin G, Hilger C, Kleine-Tebbe J, et al. Allergy to furry animals: New insights,
diagnostic approaches, and challenges. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2015;135:616–25.
5. Nilsson OB, van Hage M, Gronlund H. Mammalian-derived respiratory allergens – implications for diagnosis and therapy
of individuals allergic to furry animals. Methods. 2014;66:86–95.
6. Curin M, Reininger R, Swoboda I, Focke M, Valenta R, Spitzauer S. Skin prick test extracts for dog allergy diagnosis
show considerable variations regarding the content of major and minor dog allergens. Int Arch Allergy Immunol.
7. Chan SK, Leung DYM. Dog and cat allergies: Current state of diagnostic approaches and challenges. Allergy Asthma Immunol Res. 2018;10:97–105.
8. Anna A, Carl H, Konrad W, Christian L, Niklas A, Inger K, et al. Sensitization to cat and dog allergen molecules in childhood
and prediction of symptoms of cat and dog allergy in adolescence:ABAMSE/MeDALL study. J Allergy Clin Immunol.
9. Berto JM, Pelaez A, Fernandez E, Lombardero M, Ferrer M. Siberian hamster: A new indoor source of allergic sensitization
and respiratory disease. Allergy. 2002;57:155–9.
10. Phillips JF, Lockey RF. Exotic pet allergy. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2009;123:513–15.
11. Lim DL, Chan RM, Wen H, Van Bever HP, Chua KY. Anaphylaxis after hamster bites – Identification of a novel
allergen. Clin Exp Allergy. 2004;34:1122–3.
12. Torres JA, de Las Heras M, Maroto AS, Vivanco F, Sastre J, Pastor-Vargas C. Molecular and immunological characterization
of the first allergenic lipocalin in hamster: The major allergen from Siberian hamster (Phodopus sungorus). J Biol Chem. 2014;289:23382–8.
13. Torres JA, Pastor-Vargas C, de las Heras M, Vivanco F, Cuesta J, Sastre J. An odorant-binding protein as a new allergen from Siberian hamster (Phodopus sungorus). Int Arch Allergy Immunol. 2012;157:109–12.
14. Hilger C, Dubey VP, Lentz D, Davril C, Revets D, Muller CP, et al. Male-specific submaxillary gland protein, a lipocalin allergen of the golden hamster, differs from the lipocalin allergens of Siberian and Roborovski dwarf hamsters. Int Arch Allergy Immunol. 2015;166:30–40.
15. Luo S, Sun Y, Hou J, Kong X, Wang P, Zhang Q, et al. Pet keeping in childhood and asthma and allergy among children in
Tianjin area, China. PLoS One. 2018;13:e0197274.
16. Torres JA, Sastre J, Vivanco F, Sanz Maroto A, de Las Heras M, Pastor-Vargas C. Clinical characteristics of patients sensitized to Siberian hamster. J Investig Allergol Clin Immunol. 2016;26:113–115.
17. Apostolovic D, Sanchez-Vidaurre S, Waden K, Curin M, Grundstrom J, Gafvelin G, et al. The cat lipocalin Fel d 7 and
its cross-reactivity with the dog lipocalin Can f 1. Allergy. 2016;71:1490–5.
18. Liccardi G, Salzillo A, Calzetta L, Piccolo A, Puxeddu E, Rogliani P. Is allergic sensitization to Siberian hamster preventable
in high-risk individuals who are already sensitized or exposed to furry animals? J Investig Allergol Clin Immunol. 2016;26:403–5.


text:
CONWAY, Ark. (March 6, 2008) – A research letter written by Hendrix assistant biology professor Dr. George R. Harper was published in a recent issue of Nature magazine, a prestigious honor for science scholars. Harper wrote the paper with Dr. David W. Pfennig from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill's Department of Biology.
Harper, an evolutionary biologist, studied mimicry whereby non-poisonous snakes take on the colorful characteristics of poisonous snakes in attempt to avoid predators that typically don't harm poisonous snakes. His research focused on non-venomous scarlet king snakes that closely resemble highly venomous eastern coral snakes – both possess brightly colored rings of red, yellow and black encircling the body. Predators avoid such tri-colored ring patterns, possibly without previous experience, but Harper found the non-poisonous mimics were more likely to be attractive to predators because they reside outside an area where the poisonous snakes they mimic reside.
Harper's results provide an evolutionary explanation for why the mimics he studied often occur in areas outside of where the poisonous snakes they mimic are located.
A snake enthusiast – Harper's pet snake Ed, a costal plains milk snake, resides in his Hendrix College office – Harper said his research has already caught the attention of several of his undergraduate students who plan to continue the research.
Nature is the world's foremost weekly scientific journal and is the flagship journal for Nature Publishing Group (NPG). Launched in 1869, NPG publishes journals and online databases across the life, physical and applied sciences and, most recently, clinical medicine. Content encompasses daily news from award-winning journalists, expert opinion and practical methodology, and more high impact research and reviews than any science publisher. More than 30 journals are published in association with prestigious academic societies.
Hendrix, founded in 1876, is a selective, residential, undergraduate liberal arts college emphasizing experiential learning in a demanding yet supportive environment. The college is among 165 colleges featured in the 2008 edition of the Princeton Review America's Best Value Colleges. Hendrix has been affiliated with the United Methodist Church since 1884. For more information, visit _URL_.
For more information, contact Mark Scott at _EMAIL_ or _PHONE_.


Coronavirus tests and certificates
 Coronavirus antigen testing at port of Tallinn (D terminal)
 We offer coronavirus testing at Port of Tallinn (D terminal) for travelling, with the issuance of the corresponding certificate.
 If you have symptoms of the disease, please contact 1220 or your family doctor. You must come for the coronavirus test with a face mask.
 Antigen tests determine the presence of coronavirus-specific proteins in a sample. Coronavirus tests are most sensitive when the amount of the virus in the body is at its highest – usually from a few days before to around five days after the onset of disease symptoms. Therefore, a positive antigen test result most likely means that the patient has recently fallen ill and is infectious to other people.
 For whom?
 Coronavirus antigen tests for travel are intended for people who need to rule out infection with COVID-19 so that they are able to travel to countries where coronavirus antigen test results are acceptable.
 How testing works?
 The sample is taken from the nasopharynx using a special cotton swab.
 How quickly are the results available?
 Antigen test results with the certificate are available within 30 minutes.
 Can the results be used as a travel certificate?
 Yes, a certificate for the coronavirus test result will be issued to the e-mail address of the person tested.
 49 €
 5 minutes
 Book an appointment
 Book an appointment


Feb 14, 2017
Romain Millan, Jeremie Mouginot, Eric Rignot
Environmental Research Letters
 - Presents a comprehensive mapping in Queen Elizabeth Islands (QEI), Canada of ice velocity using a suite of satellite data from year 1991 to 2015, combined with ice thickness data from NASA Operation IceBridge, to calculate ice discharge
 - Finds that ice discharge increased significantly after 2011 in Prince of Wales Icefield, maintained or decreased in other sectors, whereas glacier surges have little impact on long-term trends in ice discharge
 - Finds that during 1991–2005, the QEI mass loss averaged 6.3 ± 1.1 Gt yr−1, 52% from ice discharge and the rest from surface mass balance (SMB)
 - Finds that during 2005–2014, the mass loss from ice discharge averaged 3.5 ± 0.2 Gt yr−1 (10%) versus 29.6 ± 3.0 Gt yr−1 (90%) from SMB


text:
- Why do teachers tell you to take off your hat?
- Who invented homework?
- Why do we not wear hats indoors?
- Why do teachers hate hoods?
- Why do teachers hate Wikipedia?
- Does school make you dumber?
- Why are teachers so mean?
- Is it disrespectful to wear a military hat?
- Is it rude to wear a hood indoors?
- Why is it disrespectful to wear a hat?
- Is it rude to wear a hat in class?
- Why are schools so boring?
- Why do you put a cowboy hat upside down?
- Can teachers wear hoodies?
- Why do schools not allow hats?
Why do teachers tell you to take off your hat?
Some teachers are adamantly opposed to it – they see wearing a hat as disrespectful.
In some cultures a hat is taken off as a sign of respect and for the most part that has been the custom in the US.
When passing by someone they knew they would lift their hat as a sign of respectful greeting..
Who invented homework?
Roberto NevelisRoberto Nevelis of Venice, Italy, is often credited with having invented homework in 1095—or 1905, depending on your sources. Upon further inspection, however, he seems to be more of an internet myth than an historical personage.
Why do we not wear hats indoors?
When and Where It's Not Proper for Men to Wear Hats Hats were originally designed to keep the head warm, protect it from the sun, and keep the dust out of his eyes. They were removed when the man went indoors to prevent the dust on the hat from getting on the furniture and floor of the house.
Why do teachers hate hoods?
Some teachers believe students should not be allowed to wear hoods because school should represent the workplace, where an employee would not be allowed to wear a hood. … But the most common reason that teachers argue against hoods is based on the personal belief that wearing hoods is disrespectful.
Why do teachers hate Wikipedia?
They cannot possibly convey all of the information in the world that people are interested in. Even in the current era of the internet, encyclopedia companies cannot be comprehensive and current because the manpower just doesn't exist. Wikipedia allows any user in the world to create entries and edit current entries.
Does school make you dumber?
School does not teach children how to develop their capacity to think logically so that they can reach to their own conclusions when presented with information. … Hence their critical thinking is prevented from improving, and as a result children are turned into stupid automatons.
Why are teachers so mean?
One of the reasons teachers may seem mean is because they feel like their students aren't listening to them and like they're not getting any respect. When your teacher is talking, listen carefully and avoid getting distracted by your phone, the people in the halls, or your classmates.
Is it disrespectful to wear a military hat?
If you are wearing it in an attempt to claim service and or qualifications you do not have (e.g. a maroon beret (Airborne) ) then yes its disrespectful – and also quite dangerous as some serving and ex military may express their displeasure in a physical manner.
Is it rude to wear a hood indoors?
Yes, it's rude to wear hoods indoors plus the only reason I'd be wearing the hood would be to cover from the rain or if I was cold.
Why is it disrespectful to wear a hat?
According to the etiquette experts over at the Emily Post Institute, the act of removing your hat indoors is a longtime sign of respect. In fact, it probably began with medieval knights. … In other words: wearing a hat at the wrong time is rude because wearing a hat at the wrong time is rude, writes todayifoundout.com.
Is it rude to wear a hat in class?
No, wearing a hat to class is not disrespectful.
Why are schools so boring?
But the underlying reasons for the boredom are significant and troubling, according to a report released today. … About 30 percent of the students indicate they are bored due to lack of interaction with teachers and 75 percent report material being taught is not interesting.
Why do you put a cowboy hat upside down?
When you leave your hat on a flat surface or put it away in a hat box, set it upside down. This lets the hat air out and keeps the brim's shape intact. (Plus, there's an old cowboy superstition that says all the luck will run out if you set the hat brim-side down!)
Can teachers wear hoodies?
Rule #11: Leave your hoodies at home. At one school, teachers better not show up wearing shirts with hoods (popularly called hoodies). "Our principal said that's what criminals wear.
Why do schools not allow hats?
One reason hats are banned is because it is a distraction. How could a hat be a distraction? Students are allowed to wear bracelets in school and some of them are brightly colored and could easily become a distraction, but they are not banned. … Another excuse for banning hats is it's disrespectful to wear hats indoors.


text:
The following steps will guide you on how to view or print weekly, monthly or termly role call reports for a class.
- Click on Form Teacher.
- Select Make Roll Call.
- Select a class.
- Choose View Role Call Reports.
- Select from the first drop-down from the left whether to view weekly, monthly or termly reports.
- Choose the week to view (week 11, for instance).
- Click on the role call.
- Click the Print Report button.


text:
It is demonstrated that palynomorphs can occur in fired ancient potsherds when the firing temperature was under 350°C. Pollen and phytoliths recovered from incompletely fired and fully fired potsherds (ca. 2700 yrs BP) from the Yanghai Tombs, Turpan, Xinjiang, NW China can be used as potential indicators for reconstructing past vegetation and corresponding climate in the area.
The results show a higher rate of recovery of pollen and phytoliths from incompletely fired potsherds than from fully fired ones. Charred phytoliths recovered from both fully fired and incompletely fired potsherds prove that degree and condition of firing result in a permanent change in phytolith color.
The palynological data, together with previous data of macrobotanical remains from the Yanghai Tombs, suggest that temperate vegetation and arid climatic conditions dominated in the area ca. 2700 yrs BP.


Re: Difference between and listbox...move?
Posted by Jenny, DelphiLand Team on February 05, 2009
In Reply to Difference between and listbox...move? posted by Lee p12462 on February 04, 2009
: I tried both of these and they "seem" to do the same thing (swap items corresponding to the 2 indexes passed). Is there a subtle difference (I'm sure there is) that I'm missing?
: With a ListBox with 4 unique items, I'm trying:
:,2); or
: Form1.ListBox.Items.move(1,2);
: This swaps the 2nd and 3rd items in the listbox.
In your example, both statements perform exactly the same task, but that's purely "by accident" ;)
Starting from items such as A, B, C, D, both Items.Exchange(1,2) and Items.Move(1,2) give us:
A, C, B, D
But with different item numbers, again starting from A, B, C, D we see after Items.Exchange(1,3):
A, D, C, B
Compare this with starting from A, B, C, D and Items.Move(1,3):
A, C, D, B
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text:
Spanish Water Dog
- Weight: 30-50 lb
- Lifespan: 14 years
- Group: AKC Herding
- Best Suited For: Families with children, active singles, houses with yards, farms/rural areas
- Temperament: Hardworking, intelligent, loyal, friendly
- Comparable Breeds: Portuguese Water Dog, Puli
Spanish Water Dog Basics
If you were to imagine a medium-sized dog with thick, curly fur and a penchant for herding, you might be thinking of the Spanish Water Dog. These dogs are an old Spanish breed that has been used for herding for many centuries. The Spanish Water Dog is a highly intelligent breed that does best when given a job to do but, at the end of the day, they love nothing more than to spend time with family.
The Spanish Water Dog is a highly intelligent breed that does best when given a job to do.
There are a variety of theories that exist regarding the origins of the Spanish Water Dog, but most theories suggest that the breed has been present in the Iberian Peninsula for many centuries. In Southern Spain, the Spanish Water Dog is known as the "Andalusian Turk" and it is thought to have been brought over with Turkish shepherds. Several populations of the breed have been traced back to various regions in Spain including one in Northern Spain which became known as the Cantabrian Water Dog. The group from the southern Andalusia sierras was the largest group, known for its strength and herding skills. The Spanish Water Dog was revived during the 1970s in Spain and, in 1985, it was finally recognized by the Spanish Kennel Club.
The Spanish Water Dog is an ancient breed whose origins can be traced back to the Iberian Peninsula around 1,100 AD. This breed was historically used for herding and various populations of the breed were combined to create a well-balanced breed with all the desired traits for herding.
The Spanish Water Dog is a mediumto large-sized breed, so it should be offered a dog food that has been formulated to meet the energy requirements of large-breed dogs. Spanish Water Dogs are also a highly active breed so, especially if you intend to train your dog for herding or other dog sports, you may want to consider an active breed formula.
These dogs have strong natural herding and guarding instincts so they do best when given a job to perform.
The Spanish Water Dog is an intelligent breed so it typically responds well to training. These dogs have strong natural herding and guarding instincts so they do best when given a job to perform. This breed can become fairly territorial and protective of family, so early socialization and training is needed to prevent the Spanish Water Dog from becoming wary around strangers. If trained and socialized from an early age, these dogs can get along well with children and household pets.
Related: Portuguese Water Dog
At maturity, the average male Spanish Water Dog stands between 17 and 20 inches tall and weighs 40 to 50 lbs. The female Spanish Water Dog stands about 16 to 18 inches tall and weighs between 30 and 40 lbs. at maturity.
The Spanish Water Dog is a friendly and affectionate breed with family, but it can be somewhat aloof or suspicious around strangers if not properly trained. These dogs enjoy spending time with family and they require a good deal of daily exercise. This breed does not do well when left alone for long periods of time – they require a good bit of human interaction to thrive. These dogs are sometimes referred to as "Velcro dogs" because they tend to stick so close to family. Spanish Water Dogs are best suited to individuals or families who lead an active lifestyle and mental stimulation is incredibly important because they are so intelligent.
Common Health Problems
The Spanish Water Dog is generally a healthy and hardy breed but, like all breeds, it is prone to developing certain health problems. The health concerns most likely to affect the Spanish Water Dog breed include hip dysplasia, allergies, glaucoma, PRA and hypothyroidism. Responsible breeding practices and genetic testing can help to greatly reduce the risk for these and other inherited diseases in the Spanish Water Dog.
The average life expectancy of the Spanish Water Dog is about 14 years.
Because the Spanish Water Dog is a herding breed it has fairly high requirements for exercise. These dogs require at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise per day plus some active play time, if possible. Training these dogs for herding or other dog sports is a great way to meet both their physical and mental stimulation needs.
The Spanish Water Dog is a friendly and affectionate breed with family, but it can be somewhat aloof or suspicious around strangers if not properly trained.
In 2005 the American Kennel Club (AKC) admitted the Spanish Water Dog into the AKC Foundation Stock Service and, in 2008, it began to compete in the Herding group for dog agility trials. In 2012 the breed was moved to the Miscellaneous group and, as of January 1, 2015, the Spanish Water Dog is now officially recognized by the AKC in the Herding Group.
The Spanish Water Dog has a curly, hypoallergenic coat which, when allowed to grow, forms cords. It is not recommended that you brush or clip the coat of this breed – it is preferred natural. These dogs come in a variety of colors including solid black, grown, white, and beige or any combination of one of these colors with white. The breed standard prohibits tri-colored dogs.
Spanish Water Dog puppies are always born with curly hair and, as they mature, the curly hair starts to form thick cords. Early socialization and training is essential for Spanish Water Dogs because they have a tendency to become aloof around strangers if not properly socialized. This breed can do well around household pets and children if properly socialized while young.
Photo credit: otsphoto/Shutterstock; Life on White/Bigstock.com; Teemu Tretjakov Photography/Bigstock.com


text:
, SVG, and so on) that will be included in a profile. A PIM is a high-level abstraction that does not consider implementation specifics, but rather expresses only the intent of what is being modeled. PIMs can take many forms, such as W3C XML Schema, RELAX NG, Schematron, MOF, or UML models. Once the PIM models for all the profile schemas are created, they can be transformed to Platform Specific Models (PSMs), all of the same normative type. For example, the PSMs might all be XML Schema, UML models, or EMF ECore models. Next, the profile is realized by creating cross-model references between the models, representing the places where tags from one namespace may be referenced by, or inserted under, another. For example, a profile for XHTML+XForms would need to define that an
 tag can be inserted under the
 tag. Figure 3 shows this PSM XHTML+XForms profile annotation as a UML aggregation relationship between the head class from the XHTML PIM model and the model class from the XForms PIM model.
Figure 3. PSM cross-model relationship in UML
You can transform the PSMs into EMF ECore models, which can be created from UML models or XML Schemas using EMF-provided tooling. In the example in Figure 3, the aggregation relationship becomes an EReference in the PSM ECore model. Creating these models and realizing the profiles as references across these models is the role of the compound document schema architect. These PSM models that realize the compound document profile are then used to drive a directed editor, which the instance document creator uses to create and edit instances that adhere to the profile. Figure 4 is a profile for XHTML+XForms+XML Events from PIM to PSM to serialized instance documents.
Figure 4. Model-driven compound document editor profile creation
A model-driven approach is an efficient way to create functional PIMs of specific namespaces that can be used to create PSMs of combinations of namespaces to represent profiles. You can reuse PIM models many times in different combinations to form as many profiles as required. Using Eclipse EMF ECore models is an ideal way to get directed editing and serialization for the creation of an instance document in a Compound XML Document Editor.
The Compound XML Document Editor (available at IBM alphaWorks) is a dynamic editor framework that uses ECore models to drive model-based compound document construction.
You can add any type whose instances are serialized to XML to the Compound XML Document Editor framework without the need to write any Java code. The Compound XML Document Editor uses model repositories, in which ECore models are stored. Once you drop an ECore model into a Compound XML Document Editor model repository and start the Compound XML Document Editor, you can create or dynamically edit instance documents from these ECore models. You can create model repositories to accommodate as many models and compound document profiles as necessary.
You can swap out individual models, or you can switch out entire model repositories at runtime. Furthermore, you can make changes to ECore models on the fly that are immediately reflected in the editor and in serialized instance documents.
The Compound XML Document Editor comes with ECore models for XHTML, XForms, XML Events, SVG, SMIL, VoiceXML, XUL, MathML, and XLink. Figure 5 shows the available profile combinations in the default model repository with XHTML as the root document; it includes a profile that allows inclusion of elements and attributes from several other namespaces.
Figure 5. Default model repository
The Compound XML Document Editor uses the underlying EMF models to provide a directed editing experience by restricting the allowable right-click options for tag insertion. This is illustrated in Figure 6: The profile is honored by an EMF editor that interrogates the PSM model and allows only valid entries in accordance with that compound document profile. Element attributes are represented as properties in a property sheet.
Figure 6. Directed editing
Once you have created a document, you can render it directly from configurable right-click menu options for browsers that support the compound document profile used in the document (see Figure 7).
Figure 7. Rendering options
Figure 8 shows an insurance form for Automobile Loss Reporting based on ACORD schemas rendered in the X-Smiles browser.
Figure 8. X-Smiles rendered XForm
The Compound XML Document Editor is a standards-based, model-driven, compound document development framework that supports dynamic compound document creation and serialization. The Compound XML Document Editor utilizes Model Driven Development concepts with Eclipse EMF to help develop flexible compound documents and the profiles that define them.
Acknowledgements: Thanks to Simon Johnston and Steve Speicher.
- Learn more about Eclipse and the Eclipse Modeling Framework at eclipse.org.
- Stay current on the latest developments with the W3C's Compound Document Formats (CDF) Working Group, which grew out of a Web Applications and Compound Documents Workshop.
- The W3C is also home to many of the specifications mentioned in this article, such as:
- Visit the Object Management Group (OMG) site where you'll find more information on these technologies:
- Confused by all the XML standards out there? Uche Ogbuji's developerWorks article series on XML standards can help you sort through it all:
- Part 1 -- The core standards (January 2004)
- Part 2 -- XML processing standards (February 2004)
- Part 3 -- The most important vocabularies (February 2004)
- Part 4 -- Detailed cross-reference of the most important XML standards (March 2004)
- Read more about XML User Interface Language (XUL) on Mozilla.org.
- Visit the home page for the RELAX NG schema language.
- Schematron is a language for making assertions about patterns found in XML documents.
- Find hundreds more XML resources on the developerWorks XML zone.
- Learn how you can become an IBM Certified Developer in XML and related technologies.
Get products and technologies
- Download the Eclipse-based Compound XML Document Editor from IBM alphaWorks.
- Check out the Unified Modeling Language (UML) site for more information on this popular modeling tool. You can also find more UML-related resources at the developerWorks Rational area.
Kevin E. Kelly is a Senior Software Engineer with the IBM Corporation working on Software Standards. Kevin is a member of the W3C XForms Working Group as well as the W3C Compound Document Format Working Group. His focus is on the client technology and evolving open standards-based technologies for faster, more efficient standards adoption through XML-based and model-driven approaches. Before joining IBM, Kevin spent eight years at Rational Software working on UML modeling and Java technologies. Kevin holds a B.S. from Mercer University, and a M.S. from the University of Montana.
Jan Joseph Kratky is the lead developer for the Compound XML Document Editor and XML Forms Generator. Currently a software engineer with IBM Emerging Software Standards in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, he holds a B.A. from Cornell University and an M.S. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. A Sun Certified Java Programmer and Sun Certified Web Component Developer, Jan has worked with Java technologies since 1997, and with Eclipse technologies since 2001.


Can removing tattoo cause cancer? – Tattoo Removal Laser Sound
The most frequent reason for a woman to get a tattooed body part is either 'self-expression' (to get a tattoo and feel better about her appearance) or, less often, as an attempt to escape an embarrassing situation (e.g. 'he's always asking if I'm anorexic').
Infectious diseases: HIV/AIDS and Chlamydia
This has been the cause of so many painful scars (from a chlamydia or a venereal disease). A tattooed nipple has caused an infection in the skin (injecting your blood into the nipple causes an infection on the underside of the breast, which makes the tattoo disappear).
It's also well known that people with HIV/AIDS can cause a tattooed penis to disappear after they have been diagnosed with this disease.
There is no proof that a tattooed penis causes infection like this.
There are many different types of infections caused by diseases which most women are usually protected against.
There is an association between getting chlamydia and getting a tattooed penis, however people may be too embarrassed (and/or do not realise how bad the symptoms are) and not ask their healthcare provider about this as they don't want to be embarrassed.
Some women find the experience of having their body tattooed offensive to the penis and that this makes them want to hide the whole thing
Some women consider having their genitals tattooed offensive because the artist puts their own personal branding on them. Some women may find it offensive to have their genitals tattooed because they feel uncomfortable or ashamed of it. A tattoo may be too personal and painful for some women.
Having a tattooing operation also prevents women's fertile periods. Therefore, they often have a problem with pregnancy without being able to conceive. If they are pregnant, the baby could be born with a severe congenital deformity.
The vagina is also known to be more likely to get infected with STDs than most other parts of the body.
A woman with HIV or herpes can get a tattooed penis with little or no warning or indication
Many women with HIV/AIDS also get an erection and have the ink fall on the skin of the penis or their anus. This can cause serious infections when the tattoo is removed.
Some women may even find the experience of having their genitals tattooed offensive to the penis. Some don't
laser tattoo removal machine for sale canada, tattoo removal machine price in nigeria, tattoo removal near me arlington mall arlington, laser tattoo removal cost for small tattoo drawings, picosure laser tattoo removal machine price


text: This panorama of a University of Pittsburgh football game at Heinz Field was photographed by James Blakeway. The Panthers football team moved to Heinz Field in 2001. Located near the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio Rivers, the Panthers share Heinz Field with the Pittsburgh Steelers. It is considered one of the finest football stadiums in the country, with a capacity of over 65,000 fans. The University, founded in a log cabin in 1787, is among the oldest institutions of higher education in the United States. The Panther, a formidable creature once indigenous to the Pittsburgh area, was adopted as the University of Pittsburgh's mascot in 1909.


Often we want to compare how different data series have changed over time. If the starting values are significantly different, graphing the trends in each series may not make the comparison better than a table of numbers. This makeover shows how you can use an index line graph to compare trends in different data series using a common starting point.
You can also view this slide makeover directly on Slideshare.


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Setting a server role in Salt (comparing Puppet and Salt)
By Spencer Christensen
December 23, 2013
There are many ways to solve a given problem, and this is no truer than with configuration management. Salt (_URL_) is a fairly new tool in the configuration management arena joining the ranks of Puppet, Chef, and others. It has quickly gained and continues to grow in popularity, boasting its scalable architecture and speed. And so with multiple tools and multiple ways to use each tool, it can get a little tricky to know how best to solve your problem.
Recently I've been working with a client to convert their configuration management from Puppet to Salt. This involved reviewing their Puppet configs and designs and more-or-less mapping them to the equivalent for Salt. Most features do convert pretty easily. However, we did run into something that didn't at first/assigning a role to a server.
We wanted to preserve the "feeling" of the configs where possible. In Puppet they had developed and used a convention for using some custom variables in their configs to assign an "environment" and a "role" for each server. These variables were assigned in the node and role manifests. But in Salt we struggled to find a similar way to do that, but here is what we learned.
In Puppet, once a server's "role" and "environment" variables were set, then they could be used in other manifest files to select the proper source for a given config file like so:
 file {
 source =>
 ensure => present,
 owner => "root",
 group => "root",
 mode => "644"
Puppet will search the list of source files in order and use the first one that exists. For example, if $hostname = 'myniftyhostname' and $system_environment = 'qa' and $system_role = 'sessiondb', then it will use rsyslog.conf.myniftyhostname if it exists on the Puppet master, or if not then use rsyslog.conf.qa-sessiondb if it exists, or if not then rsyslog.conf.sessiondb if it exists, or if not then rsyslog.conf.qa if it exists, or if not then rsyslog.conf.
In Salt, environment is built into the top.sls file, where you match your servers to their respective state file(s), and can be used within state files as {{ env }}. Salt also allows for multiple sources for a managed file to be listed in order and it will use the first one that exists in the same way as Puppet. We were nearly there; however, setting the server role variable was not as straight forward in Salt.
We first looked at using Jinja variables (which is the default templating system for Salt), but soon found that setting a Jinja variable in one state file does not carry over to another state file. Jinja variables remain only in the scope of the file they were created in, at least in Salt.
The next thing we looked at was using Pillar, which is a way to set custom variables from the Salt master to given hosts (or minions). Pillar uses a structure very similar to Salt's top.sls structurematching a host with its state files. But since the hostnames for this client vary considerably and don't lend themselves to pattern matching easily, this would be cumbersome to manage both the state top.sls file and the Pillar top.sls file and keep them in sync. It would require basically duplicating the list of hosts in two files, which could get out of sync over time.
We asked the salt community on _TAG_ on Freenode.net how they might solve this problem, and the recommended answer was to set a custom grain. Grains are a set of properties for a given host, collected from the host itselfsuch as, hostname, cpu architecture, cpu model, kernel version, total ram, etc. There are multiple ways to set custom grains, but after some digging we found how to set them from within a state file. This meant that we could do something like this in a "role" state file:
# sessiondb role
# {{ salt['grains.setval']('server_role','sessiondb') }}
 - common
 - postgres
And then within the common/init.sls and postgres/init.sls state files we could use that server_role custom grain in selecting the right source file, like this:
 - source:
 - salt://rsyslog/files/rsyslog.conf.{{ grains['host'] }}
 - salt://rsyslog/files/rsyslog.conf.{{ env }}-{{ grains['server_role'] }}
 - salt://rsyslog/files/rsyslog.conf.{{ grains['server_role'] }}
 - salt://rsyslog/files/rsyslog.conf
 - mode: 644
 - user: root
 - group: root
This got us to our desired config structure. But like I said earlier, there are probably many ways to handle this type of problem. This may not even be the best way to handle server roles and environments in Salt, if we were more willing to change the "feeling" of the configs. But given the requirements and feedback form our client, this worked fine.
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Should America stop offering unemployment benefits
Statutory health insurance for the unemployed
Anyone who pays into the statutory unemployment insurance is entitled to unemployment benefit I after a certain period of time. The state supports people without such a claim with unemployment benefit II or basic state security if necessary. We explain what each of these means for statutory health insurance.
 1. Receipt of unemployment benefit I
 2. Receipt of unemployment benefit II
 3. Receipt of basic security in old age and in the event of reduced earning capacity
 4. Private health insurance for the unemployed
Receipt of unemployment benefit I
Anyone who becomes unemployed and is entitled to unemployment benefit (ALG I) is required to be insured by law. The only exception to this rule is the unemployed who are 55 years of age or older.
For all others there is a compulsory insurance in the statutory health insurance (GKV). The Federal Employment Agency pays the contributions to the statutory health insurance. In principle, the unemployed person remains insured with the health insurance fund with which he was already insured before he became unemployed.
Recipients of unemployment benefit I do not have to pay the additional health insurance contribution themselves. The Federal Employment Agency pays the respective additional contribution to the fund.
If the recipient of unemployment benefit I has partners or children who are family insured through their health insurance, nothing changes in this free family insurance.
Insurance during blocked periods
The employment agency can impose a blocking period of up to twelve weeks - for example, if you quit your job yourself. During this time you will not receive any unemployment benefit I. Statutory health insurance initially continues for one month. From the second month onwards, the Federal Agency pays the health insurance contributions.
Receipt of unemployment benefit II
For recipients of unemployment benefit II (Hartz IV), the job center pays the costs of the health insurance, provided that they are legally required to have insurance. The job center also pays the additional contribution.
However, the job center does not pay the specific additional contribution of the fund with which the ALG II recipient is insured. Rather, it pays a flat rate that takes into account the average additional contribution of all health insurance companies.
The job center transfers the fixed lump sum for the insured directly to the health fund.
If the head of the household has a partner or children, the GKV family insurance has only been valid for children up to the age of 14 since 2016. All others from the benefit community become independent members of a health insurance company of their choice. However, the job center also pays the contributions for them.
Anyone who has reached the statutory retirement age and is in need of help or is no longer able to work in the long term due to reduced earning capacity is entitled to basic state security under certain conditions. This benefit is intended to guarantee the welfare recipient an adequate livelihood.
The basic security is a benefit of social assistance. The legal regulations can be found in the Social Security Code (Sections 41 to 46b SGB XII).
Full disability
A full reduction in earning capacity is when one can pursue any gainful activity for less than three hours a day. Your own professional qualifications do not count here.
If the recipient of the basic insurance is subject to insurance, the contributions to statutory health and long-term care insurance are deducted from the creditable income. As a result, the need for the needy increases.
If the person in need pays the contributions to their health insurance themselves, they are taken into account as needs. This is often the case with people who have private health insurance (PKV) or who are voluntarily insured by the state.
In the case of statutory health insurance, the additional contribution from the respective health insurance fund is also taken into account in order to determine the level of basic security.
Contributions from privately insured persons
In the case of people in need with a private health insurance, the contributions are only paid in an appropriate amount. Contributions to a basic tariff or standard tariff are considered appropriate. These PKV social tariffs offer protection that is comparable to statutory health insurance.
Legal entitlement to the basic tariff
Health insurance is compulsory in Germany. Anyone who, as a recipient of basic security, does not have health insurance, but is also unable to take out statutory insurance, has a legal right to a basic PKV tariff. This applies, for example, to those in need who have lost their private insurance due to premium debts.
Better performance with a change of fund
If you are unemployed or receive basic security, you will not save anything by changing your health insurance company. The additional contribution is taken over or taken into account by the social welfare office in the amount of the need.
A change can still be worthwhile if the new health insurance company offers better additional services for the insured - such as an attractive bonus program or reimbursements for special preventive examinations.
Private health insurance for the unemployed
If privately insured people receive ALG I, they must take out statutory insurance for as long as they are younger than 55 years. However, you can be exempted from compulsory insurance if you have had private health insurance throughout the past five years. Such an application should be made within two weeks of the start of unemployment.
The Federal Employment Agency then pays a subsidy for private health insurance. This grant is as high as compulsory membership in statutory health and long-term care insurance would cost.
Alternatively, you can switch to statutory health insurance and at the same time take out private health insurance. This secures the current conditions of your contract. If you want to go back to private health insurance later, you can re-enter your tariff - without having to go through a new health check and lose your accumulated aging reserves.
No change from 55 years
Anyone who is 55 years of age or older is no longer required to take out insurance even if they receive ALG I. In any case, he remains privately insured.
Privately insured persons who receive ALG II (Hartz IV) keep their private health insurance. The ALG-II recipient can switch to the basic tariff with his insurance, the benefits of which correspond approximately to the level of the statutory health insurance. The contribution in the basic tariff is halved for the period of ALG-II receipt and completely covered by the job center.
If you do not want to change your tariff, the job center pays a maximum of half of the contribution in the basic tariff as a subsidy. If the actual private health insurance contribution is higher, the insured person would have to pay the difference himself.


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What can I expect to learn?
June 15, 2011
Practical outcomes of the certificate include demonstration of innovative applications of counseling theory and practice that promote health and wellness, social and environmental justice, and, ultimately, environmental sustainability. A consensus on competencies in this area is emerging; the certificate will provide leadership on a national stage. Examples of certificate competencies include:
- Applying therapeutic interventions within an ecological conception of care (e.g., promoting stress reduction using natural settings, etc.).
- Understanding processes of affiliation with nature and development of environmental identity
- Recognition of multiple forms diversity in terms of environmental worldviews and vulnerability to impacts of environmental problems
- Understanding determinants of pro-environmental or conservation behaviors
- Integration of ecopsychology principles with other areas of counseling theory and practice including human development, marriage and family therapy, spirituality, and diversity and social justice perspectives.
- Application of psychodiagnosis and counseling interventions in the context of environmental issues (e.g., grief, despair or anxiety about environmental degradation, addressing nature phobias).
- Introduction to specialized counseling modalities such as wilderness therapy
Return to Ecopsychology Admissions & FAQs


When Chiropractors work with Medical Doctors, fee-splitting issues arise
When Chiropractors work with Medical Doctors, fee-splitting issues arise. This is like Harry met Sally without the New Year's scene.
Chiropractor Courts Medical Doctor for Multidisciplinary, Integrative Medicine Clinic
Harry DC, a chiropractor in California, New York, Texas, Massachusetts, or some other state courts Sally MD, a medical doctor, to establish a partnership founding a multidisciplinary, integrative medicine clinic. In fact they want to also bring on Tom, an acupuncturist, and Tina, a Reiki practitioner.
The reason Harry wants Sally is because his chiropractic patients often have a lot of pain and require an MD who can prescribe pain relief drugs. Harry has been referring many chiropractic patients to Dr. Sally, but he'd rather make money off these referrals.
Harry knows that if he asks Sally to give him money for every referral, this would be a prohibited kickback.
He also knows that having an MD in-house will help him market his chiropractic practice.
Harry asks us the following questions:
 - Do I have to create a professional medical or chiropractic corporation? Which one?
 - If I create a medical management company (MSO), how much can I charge? What percentage of revenues are acceptable?
 - How do I manage risks of kickbacks and fee-splitting and of corporate practice of medicine?
 - Is my state friendly or unfriendly to a multidisciplinary model of care where chiropractors and physcians work side-by-side, and share ownership?
 - Does it matter if the patient sees the chiropractor first, or the medical doctor first?
Laws governing professional corporations, kickbacks and fee-splitting are relevant
When reviewing any question about legal parameters of integrative care, or about any innovative arrangement in medicine or chiropractic or another healthcare profession, it's good to review the underlying legal rules.
For example, let's take a look at Massachusetts law, which can be quirky. Searching the law for professional corporations yields some different results.
Massachusetts defines "medical service corporation" (176B) as a corporation organized for the purpose of establishing and operating a non-profit medical service plan. That doesn't sound quite right.
On the other hand, "professional corporations" (156a) is a better place to look. Section 3 says that a professional organization may be organized "only for the purpose of rendering professional services and services ancillary thereto within a single profession."
Right off the bat, this rule sounds different than the Moscone-Knox Professional Corporations Act in California.
In California, we'd have several different options:
 - A professional medical corporation, where the MDs own 51% or more and the other providers (for example, chiropractor(s)) own up to 49%.
 - A professional chiropractic corporation, where the chiropractors own 51% or more and the medical doctors own up to 49%.
Assuming this is allowable, the question is whether it's of strategic advantage to Harry, the initiating chiropractor.
We'll come back to this question. Let's turn to fee-splitting. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 175H provides:
Section 3. (a) Any person who solicits or receives any remuneration, directly or indirectly, overtly or covertly, in cash or in kind in return for purchasing, leasing, ordering or arranging for or recommending purchasing, leasing, or ordering of any good, facility, service, or item for which payment is or may be made in whole or in part by a health care insurer, or any person who offers or pays any remuneration, including any bribe or rebate, except as provided in subsection (b), directly or indirectly, overtly or covertly, in cash or in kind to induce any person to purchase, lease, order or arrange for or recommend purchasing, leasing or ordering of any good, facility, service, or item for which payment is or may be made in whole or in part by a health care insurer, shall be punished by a fine of not more than ten thousand dollars, or by imprisonment in a jail or house of correction for not more than two and one-half years or in the state prison for not more than five years, or by both such fine and imprisonment, and may be held liable in a civil action under section seven.
It's not clear from the statutory language itself whether an arrangement that contemplates an MSO receiving compensation at fair market value (FMV) for its services, at a percentage of gross revenues, would be allowed or would constitute illegal fee-splitting.
Sometimes the rules are very clear and sometimes they are ambiguous but one can interpret the rules to support a defensible position. Sometimes it's best for counsel to contact the appropriate regulatory Board and get an informal read. The situation is much clearer in California, where Business & Professions Code Section 650(b) explicitly allows an MSO arrangement as a percentage of gross revenues at fair market value.
Harry, the chiropractor, has several options here:
 - Create a professional chiropractic corporation and if allowed, either hire the MD and/or give the MD shares in the professional corporation. The risk of this strategy is that even if technically allowed, the chiropractor could be viewed as intruding into the practice of medicine (by virtue of owning the corporation and/or employing the MD). This could be an unlicensed practice / corporate practice of medicine issue.
 - Create a professional medical corporation where Sally MD owns 51%. The downside here is giving the MD control. In either case, contracts would need to be carefully drafted so that Harry retains control of the intellectual property and Sally doesn't walk away with it.
 - Harry could rent space to Sally, under the umbrella of his integrative care center. He would need to put certain things in place to distance himself from liability for Sally's negligence. He could probably get paid a flat fee at fair market value for marketing Sally's medical practice.
 - Create an MSO and possibly give Sally equity, if she has a separate, non-clinical role in the MSO that adds value.
Harry and Sally can have a life of happiness together (professionally), but it's less about infatuation and more about careful legal planning.
Whether you're a medical doctor, chiropractor, acupuncturist, massage therapist, Reiki or energy healing practitioner, nutritionist, homeopathic doctor, or another healing arts provider, contact us with legal questions about setting up an interdisciplinary or integrative clinical care center.
In the real world, Harry booked a one-hour consultation, and then proposed a compliant arrangement to Sally. Harry hired our firm to draft the necessary agreements and Sally signed.
And they lived happily ever after.
And, if you go to New York or Massachusetts or California you will find their integrative center flourishing, in its many locations, branded under Harry's carefully chosen name.
The End.
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Assigning the result of a Boolean calculation into a variable is no different than assigning the result of number calculations or text string joins.
The following are examples of assigning the results of comparisons into new or existing Boolean variables.
1 var timeToEat = me === hungry; 2 var affordable = price < budget; 3 passed = mark >= pass;
Assigning the results of a comparison to a Boolean variable
1 Creates a new Boolean variable timeToEat that will be true if and only if the current values in me and hungry are both the same data type and value, otherwise it will be false
2 Creates a new Boolean variable affordable that will be true if the value in price is less than the value in budget.
3 updates the existing variable pass (or creates a new global variable if it doesn't) that contains true if the value in mark and pass are equal or the value in mark is greater than the value in pass
You only need to assign the result of a comparison to a Boolean variable like this when you need to test that result in multiple places in your code. Where the result of the comparison is only needed once it is more common to test the comparison itself, rather than assigning it to a variable first.
This tutorial first appeared on _URL_ and is reproduced here with the permission of the author.


Parlophone Records
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Parlophone Records is a record label, which began in Germany in 1896. It is best known as one of the record labels who put out music by The Beatles in the 1960s. Parlophone's L-shaped logo began as the logo of the German Lindstrom label, which became part of Parlophone.
The company became part of EMI in 1931, and was known at the time especially for jazz and comedy records. They also issued records of "regional music", including works by Scottish and Latin recording artists. George Martin, staff producer, sometimes travelled to Scotland to record popular artists there.
The Beatles were signed to Parlophone in 1962, and released most of their records on the label.
Parlophone continues today with artists like Lily Allen and Radiohead.
In 2012, Universal Music Group bought EMI (the owner of Parlophone), but Universal chose to sell Parlophone to Warner Music Group.


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Testing for DNS leaks is pretty similar to the previous leak test, just look at the DNS servers instead of the IP address:
1. Open _URL_ while the VPN is disconnected and make a note of your DNS servers' IP addresses (found in the 'Your DNS Servers' section). Unless you have changed your device's DNS settings, the DNS servers shown will be those belonging to your ISP. You can see our DNS servers in the screenshot below.
DNS Results When Disconnected From the VPN
2. Connect to any server on the VPN server list. Then, refresh the leak test page on your browser.
3. Look at the DNS server results again. If any of your ISP's DNS servers appear, your VPN is leaking DNS requests.
Here are two examples of DNS leak tests we ran while connected to two different VPNs.
The first is ExpressVPN – only one DNS server appears and it belongs to the VPN company. The DNS servers listed above in the first test are not showing, therefore it's not leaking DNS requests.
DNS Results When Connected to ExpressVPN
The second is VPN99 – you can see both Google DNS and our ISP's DNS servers. VPN99 uses Google DNS rather than first-party servers, however the presence of our ISP's servers in the results shows that it's leaking our DNS requests.
DNS Results When Connected to VPN99


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August 08, 2023 at 08:47 AM
Crocodile fat 30 ml ( 1.01 oz)
Crocodile fat is an important national primary form of Middle Eastern cosmetics. For the face: crocodile fat is a powerful moisturizer, actively regenerates cells, suitable for all skin types. It is especially good for age-related, wrinkled skin, as this fat improves blood circulation in blood vessels, improves metabolism, noticeably tightens the oval of the face. Crocodile fat is also used for severe skin inflammation, in the presence of such serious diseases as psoriasis, severe burns, allergic dermatitis and skin protection from UV radiation. For the body: crocodile fat is successfully used in the treatment of diseases of the musculoskeletal system, osteochondrosis, artira, intervertebral hernia, joint diseases. It has analgesic and anti-inflammatory effect. In the presence of sports injuries, crocodile fat helps to accelerate the healing of fractures. It is also recommended to use corocodyl fat even for pregnant women to prevent overgrowth of the skin. But the main purpose of crocodile fat is to help in the treatment of varicose veins! For hair: restores severely damaged hair, actively nourishes the bulbs, prevents hair loss.


Return to Human Space Flight home page
NEEMO 6: Home | Timeline | Journals
Crew Interviews
Interview: Marc Reagan
The NEEMO 6 Crew Interview with Marc Reagan, mission director
Can you explain what NEEMO is, and what does it have to do with the International Space Station.
We saw a need to prepare our crewmembers for space that was outside of the training realm. We have great simulators; we have the ability to teach how systems work and how procedures can be followed, and how to interact with the control center. But, what we were missing was the mission analog environment, living in an extreme environment in close proximity to other people in isolation for extended periods of time and following a regimented timeline that's being re-planned day after day. All of those are aspects of the real mission that you don't get from simulations or from normal training. NEEMO was developed as a concept to fill the rest of that gap, to prepare crewmembers for their first space missions.
Can you describe the Aquarius environment that the crewmembers will be working in?
The Aquarius habitat is the only undersea research facility in operation in the world today. It is located just a few miles offshore near Key Largo, Florida. The sea floor there is 60 feet, and it's in a National Marine Sanctuary, and it's right on the edge of a reef, and there's a lot of reef life there to study. The hatch depth, which is the depth that controls the pressure inside, is about 47 feet. The module itself is about the dimensions of one of our modules on the International Space Station. It's about 45 feet long and about 13 feet in diameter, so it's a pretty tight environment for a crew of six to live in.
How and why were you selected for your involvement with the NEEMO project?
I was one of the people in the beginning that helped put this together as a viable project. I guess I self-selected by being aware that it was going on and volunteering early and helping put it together. We have a very small team of people that run this project - there are only four of us, and I was one of the original four.
What is your role in the NEEMO mission?
In this particular mission I'll be the Mission Director. I'm responsible for getting the mission put together beforehand, and I'll be responsible for executing all of NASA's objectives during the mission. It's a mission that's being operated in the end by the National Undersea Research Center that owns Aquarius. So, all issues related to safety, they have to answer to. The support of the facility, they answer to. But, as far as the objectives that we at NASA are trying to accomplish, all of those are within my purview.
Can you explain how you think that NEEMO is a valuable training tool for the ISS?
What NEEMO does is it gives crewmembers a chance to prepare for their role in upcoming ISS missions in a way that we can't accomplish with our normal training. It's primarily used by the Astronaut Office for rookie crewmembers who've never had a mission to experience their first mission, and make any rookie types of mistakes that they would make. It's also used as a commander upgrade program for the Astronaut Office, so people that have never been commanders of a space mission have the chance to go through this as the Commander of a NEEMO mission and get a chance to have people under their command and make first-time commander types of mistakes. That's probably the greatest value it has. The fact that it's an extreme environment, the fact that you have safety concerns that are always hanging over you because you could make mistakes that could injure or kill you, make it a valuable analog to spaceflight. You always have to be aware of those safety considerations in everything that you do. That's something we just can't simulate in a simulator here.
Can you explain some of the similarities between saturation diving in the undersea environment, and life in space onboard the ISS?
The biggest similarity is the fact that because you're saturation diving, it means that you cannot return to the surface. It takes about 17 hours to go through a full decompression to get back safely to the surface. On the International Space Station, for comparison, if we had to evacuate and get in a Soyuz craft and come back to the primary landing site in Kazakhstan, depending on where you are in the orbit, that could take as much as 18 hours. So in both cases, you're very isolated from the things you take for granted on this planet.
You served on the NEEMO 2 mission. Can you explain your role in that and as a former crewmember, how it will help you better understand the challenges of living and working on the Space Station?
I served on NEEMO 2 as an aquanaut. There were four of us from NASA and two from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington that were helping supervise that mission. That mission allowed me the opportunity to go through all aspects of a real mission from these types of interviews beforehand, to in-flight, public affairs, and educational events. We ate space food throughout the course of the mission. We worked with the Mission Control Center here in Houston. And, we had to, as a crew, figure out what kinds of shirts we were going to wear for photos and things like that. Every aspect of preparation for a mission as well as after the mission, for example, getting all the data to the right people from the experiments we did, getting thank-yous to the right people for the support they gave - all of that gave me a really much better appreciation for what a crewmember has to go through. The spaceflight itself is only a portion of what's consumed their lives for years, leading up to and even after the mission. I think that's helped me much better appreciate what International Space Station astronauts go through as well.
Can you explain how this type of training for NEEMO is different than other types of training at JSC?
I come from the Training Division. In fact, three of our four on our topside team that run these missions work in the Training Division here. So, a lot of the training we do for our aquanauts is very similar to what they see for Space Station. In the big picture, we have a lot of different things that you have to get training on: lots of different experiments the in-flight events that happen, the diving that's happening, and you're proxy scientists for different people. I think the greatest similarity is just the sheer number of widely varied things that you have to go and get training on. At the same time, there's a pretty big difference in the training we do for NEEMO and the training we do for Space Station. Our Space Station astronauts spend a very large amount of their time learning how the systems onboard work, learning how to be the primary responders if systems break down, and keep the Space Station operational and viable. That's not the case with NEEMO. We have two professional "habitat technicians" that are employees of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, and they supervise the missions and the habitat. They are the professionals that make sure that the systems work, and our astronauts, or our aquanauts from NASA, don't get involved in that really, with the exception of the diving gear itself. There's a full week of aquanaut training that teaches you how to use the diving gear safely, because on the excursions they do, they are solely responsible for staying safe, and diving properly and using the equipment properly. That's very similar to astronaut training, but the habitat systems and life support, we don't train in, and that's a big difference that we have.
How is the research on NEEMO similar to the research that's being conducted on the ISS?
Throughout the course of the NEEMO project, we've done dozens of experiments that are similar or actually even on the International Space Station. We've experimented with portable ultrasound devices. We've done experiments where we took crewmembers' blood and looked for viral shedding. On this mission in particular, we have not so much experiments that are on the International Space Station as experiments that may someday be on the International Space Station. This is more of a technology demonstration for things that are out there in manned spaceflight in the future. But, things that are very similar to what we see on board the Space Station is the resistive exercise device, for instance. We have one that we think is an improvement over the one that's on orbit right now. Exercise is a very crucial component to the wellbeing of astronauts in space. We're testing a next-generation of hardware on this mission. We have a bone device that measures the strength of bones. With bone loss that we see in space, that's a very important thing to NASA and to our astronauts. Field testing that kind of technology in an operational environment could go a long way toward making it viable for future spaceflights.
You've been a Space Station training lead for years. Can you explain how that's helped you in designing and directing this mission?
I've had several crews that I've trained, both Space Station and Shuttle crews. I've been involved in training of multiple flight control teams for missions ranging from Shuttle to Station. So I've seen a wide variety of human spaceflight missions come together, and I think it's given me a perspective of the important elements that are involved in space missions, and making sure that we incorporate those same important elements in our NEEMO analog.
You've also spent some time this year as a CAPCOM in Mission Control. Do you think that will help you in your interactions with the NEEMO


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by Christiane Montavon, CFX
The physics of aero-acoustics makes modeling a challenging task; pressure fluctuations produce noise, which propagates over large distances far from its source. To simulate these phenomena, it is necessary both to model the detailed fluctuating flow in the neighborhood of the sound source, and the far-field propagation effects.
The primary aim of the EU Alessia Project has been to develop software tools for the simulation of fluctuating flows, with particular focus on flow-induced acoustics. The partners in the project are CFX, Technical University of Munich, Shell, Alfa Laval, LMS and Fiat Corporate Research.