Anyone for TENIS?
3 August 2002
A new system for scanning PWR pressure vessel nozzles has reduced time and costs for the operator. By Karl Quirk and Diego Molpeceres
The past three decades have seen dramatic advances in non-destructive testing (NDT) and each new generation of equipment brings further improvements.
Modern ultrasonic inspection systems offer greater reliability and repeatability than ever before. Smaller, less bulky scanners make for more convenient operations while remote systems minimise the time that personnel need to spend in hazardous areas.
New equipment and techniques have also led to significant savings for plant operators. The latest ultrasonic systems are less intrusive, helping to minimise plant downtime. Wherever possible, they are designed to scan components while still in place, avoiding the need for complex and costly dismantling operations.
RPV nozzle inspection
The TENIS scanner is a good example of how modern design can bring about such improvements. The Spanish inspection company Tecnatom was commissioned to develop a new system to test the primary circuit nozzles within PWR vessels. It worked with Phoenix Inspection Systems from the UK, a specialist in the design and manufacture of automated ultrasonic manipulators for the nuclear industry.
The reactor pressure vessel nozzles are an important focus for any PWR plant inspection, being the critical components joining the wall of the pressure vessel to the primary circuit pipework. The scope of inspection for a nozzle includes the nozzle to shell weld, the inner radius, the nozzle to safe end weld, and safe end to pipe weld. The NDT method required is ultrasonic and the inspection is performed from the inside of the nozzles.
The in-service inspection (ISI) of nuclear power plants in Spain is ruled by Section XI of the ASME Code. The whole scope of the ISI has to be completed over a period of ten years. The nozzles have to be partially inspected (50%) at the end of the first three years - this is called the partial inspection or the three-year inspection. They are then inspected again (the remaining 50%), at the end of the ten-year period, at the same time as other areas of the vessel are inspected.
The inspection is generally carried out while the plant is shut down for refuelling and, at the Vandellos 2 power plant, the partial inspection had been scheduled to coincide with the shutdown which was to take place at the end of April 2002.
Design requirements
Because the ten-year inspection requires the testing of large areas - circular and vertical welds, the nozzles and threaded areas - Tecnatom uses a large "universal scanner" called TIME for these inspections. However, for the partial or three-year inspection, the use of the large manipulator to scan such a small area makes no sense in terms of the cost, time and effort required to set up such a large system.
Another major problem is that, using the traditional method, the scanner is suspended from a polar (overhead) crane that lowers it into the vessel and installs it on the vessel flange surface. This restricts access to the vessel core for other activities, mainly refuelling tasks, and affects the overall schedule.
The plant operator was looking for a device which would overcome these problems and would maintain - or exceed - the quality of data collected by the universal vessel inspection scanners but reduce the use of plant resources such as the polar crane. The system was required to:
- Enter the vessel through the personnel hatch instead of the interlock door.
- Reduce the space needed on the refuelling floor during the set-up period.
- Minimise the time needed to carry out the inspection, by allowing the visual inspection to take place at the same time as the ultrasonic testing.
- Reduce decontamination time and the debris generated in the process.
- Reduce the space required for storage of contaminated containers.
Tecnatom personnel reviewed the objectives, working closely with the operators who were familiar with the plant and its infrastructure, and knew at first hand the practical problems involved.
Although use of the crane was still the best option to place the scanner inside the vessel, once inside, the scanner could be free floating and could be easily positioned by a mini-submarine or manipulation poles.
It was obvious that the scanner would have to be compact and carry on-board cameras to monitor its operation during the inspection. To achieve the objectives, it would have to be no more than 2m long and weigh no more than 80kg.
The scanner needed to be capable of being moved around by four people.
It also had to be able to carry the required number of ultrasonic probes in the correct positions to cover all the inspection zones for the inspection of the nozzles. A modular design would allow the scanner to be adapted for different configurations of nozzles.
Scanner design
The scanner conformed to all of Tecnatom's specifications and was named TENIS (Tecnatom Nozzle Inspection System). The scanner holds ten ultrasonic probes and can scan them axially and circumferentially over the internal surfaces of the nozzle.
The device is based upon an axial chassis assembly consisting of an inboard and an outboard end plate, with three beams between them. This assembly holds together all the other components. The rotation mechanism is driven along the beams and can rotate the probes by up to 380° using a slide ring. The ten probes are arranged in five groups of two, equally spaced around the slide ring. They are operated pneumatically and are retractable by design to protect them from damage while they are being inserted into the nozzle.
There are also two flotation chambers, one on the inboard and one on the outboard part of the scanner. The 5kg negative buoyancy controls the rate of descent while the shape prevents it from spinning around and so ensures that the orientation is maintained.
There were several challenges in designing the TENIS manipulator.
In order to achieve a 5kg weight in water, precise calculations of component weights and displacements were required, and aircraft technology had to be applied to the design of the flotation chambers.
Cable management was difficult since the space available for cabling and other services on the manipulator meant that special cable chains had to be developed allowing rotation through 380°.
The probe holders were possibly the most complex components on the system. It was important that the probes should follow the contours of the nozzle precisely and yet combine this fine movement with robustness during scanning and protection during insertion.
The length of the scanner was restricted to 2m to allow it to be introduced into the containment building via the personnel airlock. This produced conflicts with the coverage required to meet the inspection criteria. The final design met both criteria.
TENIS is designed to work with an existing ROV, a mini-submarine consisting of a framework of extruded aluminium beams, with a moveable propeller. The ROV clamps onto an interface bracket on the back of the scanner and, once lowered into the water, will guide it into position inside the nozzle. Another possibility would have been to use manipulation poles instead of the ROV.
The two units are also linked by the umbilical cable that carries the power supply, telemetry and ultrasonic signal from outside of the vessel. Finally, there is an emergency retrieval cord that is attached to the scanner for use only in the event of an equipment failure.
Testing and training
The go-ahead for the project was given in July 2001, which left just nine months to complete it - six months to design and build a system and the remainder for commissioning and trialling the equipment and training the operators.
When the TENIS scanner was completed, it was shipped to Tecnatom's premises in Madrid. This was the first time the partners were able to fully integrate the system. While Phoenix had been working on the equipment, Tecnatom had designed a programme of trials which would reproduce in the most realistic way possible the conditions within the vessel. A life-size model of an outlet nozzle was created from stainless steel and was placed in a pit 5m deep.
Two types of trials were carried out. The first took place in dry conditions, primarily to test the alignment, repeatability and functioning of the equipment. The second trial was carried out underwater and simulated the whole operation, testing the way in which the device would enter the vessel and be positioned inside the nozzle with the help of the ROV, right through to the point where it is removed from the vessel once the inspection has been carried out.
A portable crane was used in place of the polar crane that would be used in the plant, and distances between the key points were accurately reproduced. Finally, two full months were given over to the training of personnel who would be carrying out the inspection.
TENIS in operation
With trials successfully out of the way, and the training programme completed, the moment of truth finally arrived. TENIS went into operation in April on the inspection of vessel nozzles at Vandellos 2. The inspection showed:
- Introducing the TENIS scanner through the personnel hatch interlock, instead of the containers interlock door, reduced the overall time for the operation.
- The scanner was prepared for inspection on the refuel floor in a space of just 2x2m.
- The use of the ROV or manipulation poles to guide the scanner into the nozzle meant the overhead crane was in use for one hour only.
- Within 48 hours of the scanner being delivered to the plant packed in a container, it was ready to start the inspection.
- The use of poles to deploy the scanner into the nozzles turned out to be easier in a real-life situation than it had been in the testing due to the conditions - distance, illumination and so on - being more favourable.
- Both inspections - the ultrasonic and the visual inspection - were performed in parallel and took an overall time


text: Problems related to reflection of some algorithms of image processing onto multiprocessor systems are investigated. In particular, algorithms of allocation of contours, such as the gradient method and the combinatorial method (the method of the threshold gradient), are considered. In view of complexity of the algorithm of searching objects on an image, we focus our attention on the parallel variant of only one stage of this algorithm. Namely, we investigate the stage of working with a search tree. Thereby we suppose that architecture containing a switchboard or the multiprocessor Cell developed by IBM Corporation is used in all cases. Data allocation, all data transfers, etc. are described. The formulas for acceleration coefficients are obtained.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


Ship's bell
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Ship's bell on USS Chancellorsville
A ship's bell is used to indicate the time aboard a ship and hence to regulate the sailors' duty watches. The bell itself is usually made of brass or bronze and normally has the ship's name engraved or cast on it.
Timing of duty periods[edit]
Unlike civil clock bells, the strikes of the bell do not accord to the number of the hour. Instead, there are eight bells, one for each half-hour of a four-hour watch. In the age of sailing, watches were timed with a 30-minute hourglass. Bells would be struck every time the glass was turned, and in a pattern of pairs for easier counting, with any odd bells at the end of the sequence.
The classical system was:
Bell from the Titanic
Number of bells Bell pattern Middle
One bell. 0:30 4:30 8:30 12:30 16:30 18:30† 20:30
Two bells.. 1:00 5:00 9:00 13:00 17:00 19:00† 21:00
Three bells... 1:30 5:30 9:30 13:30 17:30 19:30† 21:30
Four bells.... 2:00 6:00 10:00 14:00 18:00 22:00
Five bells..... 2:30 6:30 10:30 14:30 18:30 22:30
Six bells...... 3:00 7:00 11:00 15:00 19:00 23:00
Seven bells....... 3:30 7:30 11:30 15:30 19:30 23:30
Eight bells........ 4:00 8:00 12:00‡ 16:00 20:00 0:00
† British usage after the Nore mutiny[1]
‡ Before the introduction of time zones, noon was not struck by the glass, but when the captain or officer of the deck confirmed local noon by the sun, using a sextant.
An underwater archaeologist with the Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program in St. Augustine, Florida, recording the ship's bell discovered on the 18th century "Storm Wreck."
"Eight bells" by Winslow Homer, 1887
At midnight on New Year's Eve sixteen bells would be struck – eight bells for the old year and eight bells for the new.
Most of the crew of a ship would be divided up into between two and four groups called watches. Each watch would take its turn with the essential activities of manning the helm, navigating, trimming sails, and keeping a lookout.
The hours between 16:00 and 20:00 are so arranged because that watch (the "dog watch") was divided into two. The odd number of watches aimed to give each man a different watch each day. It also allows the entire crew of a vessel to eat an evening meal, the normal time being at 1700 with First Dog watchmen eating at 1800.[1]
Some "ship's bell" clocks use a simpler system:
Number of bells Bell pattern Hour (a.m. and p.m.)
One bell. 12:30 4:30 8:30
"Eight bells" can also be a way of saying that a sailor's watch is over, for instance, in his or her obituary, as a nautical euphemism for "finished".
Other uses[edit]
Ship's bells are also used for safety in foggy conditions, their most important modern use.[2] On naval vessels, bells additionally are rung as "boat gongs" for officers and dignitaries coming aboard or leaving the ship, in a number equivalent to the number of sideboys to which the visitor is entitled.
Name of the ship[edit]
Ship's bell of HMS Cavalier
The ship's name is traditionally engraved or cast onto the surface of the bell, often with the year the ship was launched as well. Occasionally (especially on more modern ships) the bell will also carry the name of the shipyard that built the ship. If a ship's name is changed, maritime tradition is that the original bell carrying the original name will remain with the vessel. A ship's bell is a prized possession when a ship is broken up[2] and often provides the only positive means of identification in the case of a shipwreck.
Number of bells[edit]
Most United States Navy ships of the post-World War II era have actually carried two ship's bells: the official bell on deck and a smaller one in the pilot house at the 1MC (public address) station, used when the ship is underway.
Cook and boatswain[edit]
According to seafaring legend, the ship's cooks and boatswain's mates had a duty arrangement to give the cooks more sleep. The boatswain's mates, who worked 24 hours a day on watches, would build the fire in the stove, so the cook could get up a little while later and the fire would be already going so he could begin preparing breakfast. In return, between meals, the cooks would shine the bell, which was traditionally the boatswain's mates' responsibility.
Baptizing children[edit]
Ship's bell as Baptismal font at chapel, Yeo Hall, Royal Military College of Canada
Baby is baptized with holy water from the ship's bell
It is a naval tradition to baptize children using the ship's bell as a baptismal font and to engrave the names of the children on the bell afterwards. Christening information from the bells held by the Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt Museum has been entered into a searchable data archive.[3]
See also[edit]
 1. ^ a b Tony Gray. "Workshop Hints: Ship's Bells". The British Horological Institute. Archived from the original on 9 November 2012. Retrieved 12 June 2011.
 2. ^ a b "Ship's Bell". National Maritime Museum. Archived from the original on 9 December 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-07.
 3. ^ "The Christening Bells Project". CFB Esquimalt Naval & Military Museum. Retrieved 6 November 2012.
External links[edit]


The Healthy CXO.
How IIFL CEO Sumit Bali reboots his mind
Aug 10 2019 • Written by Smriti Mishra
~ Smriti Jha
The chief executive officer, executive director of India Infoline Finance Limited (IIFL), and a veteran of more than 20 half marathons, Sumit Bali is an active and one among the fittest CEO list.
Sumit believes that the dedication for running, fitness, sport or such work out activity is a solid indicator of the effort that an individual is likely to put in at work. The passion for running led him to destress at the workplace and keep a balance between work and life. Running keeps him fit; It has a positive influence on the work, he has mentioned repeatedly with the media interactions.
Preparation for running is like a Litmus test
Sumit used to actively participate in sports activities from college days. As a student of Delhi University, he has represented in various events of middleand long-distance competition. A good memory of finishing a half marathon in a rather quick time of 76 minutes is remaining fresh.
He remembers how his mind trains himself to get ready for preparation and training. Sumit believes that if someone sets reasonable objectives for running, one should work diligently to achieve the goal. As per Sumit, It also shows a fair bit of the person's character.
The way you plan, train and overcome challenges in running or any sports is akin to a litmus test. Your preparation and dedication for the activity of choice speak volumes of how you are likely to function in office, says Sumit.
How does workout activity add significant role at work?
For Sumit, balancing training and work calls for discipline and dedication at work. Also, it brings a feeling of being productive throughout the day.
About healthy diet
Sumit Bali is not known for late-night parties. He tries his best to munch on healthy food, especially while planning meals around running. He manages to catch good sleep to smoothen the next day.
The running inspiration leader requests people to spend at least 30 minutes a day, five days a week, on fitness. "It will make them more disciplined and keep them healthy ~ Sumit Bali.
How Sumit trains himself?
Sumit prefers to train five days a week. He runs for 5 to 7 km in the evening, mostly after wrapping the work.
And once a week, he manages to run in the morning. The early morning time allows him to cover the long distance for running.
How he gets the team inspired and motivated?
Sumit believes that to see a senior official balancing work and personal life inspires the team at as well. He motivates the team to come out of the comfort zone and be active. Sumit and team are taking leads and enrolling for various running and sports activities.
Running brings him solution and ideas
Running is the way Sumit gets to freshen the mind and adds vigor to tackle the work stress. The business leader gets the solutions to work-related problems while out on a run.
This is the time to reboot his brain and come up with new and innovative ideas.


text:
Text inputs and textareas are coded with standard HTML elements, then enhanced by jQuery Mobile to make them more attractive and useable on a mobile device. View the dataattribute reference to see all the possible attributes you can add to text inputs.
To collect standard alphanumeric text, use an input with a type="text" attribute. Set the for attribute of the label to match the id of the input so they are semantically associated. It's possible to accessibly hide the label if it's not desired in the page layout, but we require that it is present in the markup for semantic and accessibility reasons.
Text Input:
This will produce a basic text input. The default styles set the width of the input to 100% of the parent container and stack the label on a separate line.
For a more compact version that is useful in toolbars and tight spaces, add the data-mini="true" attribute to the element to create a mini version.
Text Input:
This will produce an input that is not as tall as the standard version and has a smaller text size.
Optionally wrap the text input in a container with the data-role="fieldcontain" attribute to help visually group it in a longer form.
Text Input:
The text input is now displayed like this:
In jQuery Mobile, you can use existing and new HTML5 input types such as password, email, tel, number, and more. Some type values are rendered differently across browsers. For example, Chrome renders the range input as a slider. jQuery Mobile standardizes the appearance of range and search by dynamically changing their type to text. You can configure which input types are degraded to text with the page plugin's options.
One major advantage of using these more specific input types if that on mobile devices, specialized keyboards that speed data entry are offered in place of the standard text keyboard. Try the following inputs on a mobile device to see which display custom keyboards on various platforms.
For multi-line text inputs, use a textarea element. The framework will auto-grow the height of the textarea to avoid the need for an internal scrollbar.
Set the for attribute of the label to match the id of the textarea so they are semantically associated, and wrap them in a div with the data-role="fieldcontain" attribute to group them.
I'm a basic textarea. If this is pre-populated with content, the height will be automatically adjusted to fit without needing to scroll. That is a pretty handy usability feature.
This will produce a basic textarea with the width set to 100% of the parent container and the label stacked on a separate line. The textarea will grow to fit new lines as you type:
The textarea is displayed like this and will grow to fit new lines as you type:
This plugin will auto initialize on any page that contains a textarea or any of the text input types listed above without any need for a data-role attribute in the markup. However, if needed, you can directly call the textinput plugin on any selector, just like any jQuery plugin:
jQuery Mobile degrades several HTML5 input types back to type=text or type=number after adding enhanced controls. For example, inputs with a type of range are enhanced with a custom slider control, and their type is set to number to offer a usable form input alongside that slider. Inputs with a type of search are degraded back to type=text after we add our own themable search input styling.
The page plugin contains a list of input types that are set to either true which means they'll degrade to type=text, false which means they'll be left alone, or a string such as "number", which means they'll be converted to that type (such as the case of type=range).
You can configure which types are changed via the page plugin's degradeInputs option, which can be manipulated externally via $.mobile.page.prototype.options.degradeInputs, which has properties: color, date, datetime, "datetime-local", email, month, number, range, search, tel, time, url, and week. Be sure to configure this inside an event handler bound to the mobileinit event, so that it applies to the first page as well as subsequent pages that are loaded.
© 2012 jQuery Foundation and other contributors

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


text:
Recognizing Sexual Grooming
By Michael A. Patterson and Donald F. Austin
School districts that want to protect students from sexual misconduct by staff should consider ways to prevent "sexual grooming," a task that is difficult because such grooming often is only evident after the fact.
In most sexual misconduct cases, a form of "grooming" takes place. Preventing it can be very difficult, in part because sexual grooming can be quite subtle and similar to innocent behavior. In fact, many experts are not willing to label conduct as "sexual grooming" until intent has been established by actual molestation. However, the best way for school districts to prevent the grooming is by stopping inappropriate boundary invasions.
Even though this makes common sense, it's a fairly novel idea in both law and schools. Only one state -- Texas -- and a handful of school districts have specific board policies addressing boundary invasions.
Our recommendations for dealing with this issue are based on hundreds of litigated cases involving allegations of childhood sexual molestation and listening to testimony of victims and experts such as Timothy Kahn, a private clinician who specializes in sexual behavior and deviancy and is recognized as an expert in court cases relating to sexual predators. It also is based on the experiences of other sexual offender counselors who have listened to hundreds of offenders tell their stories.
State regulations on professional conduct, combined with board policies and practices, can accomplish the goal of stopping inappropriate boundary invasion behavior. Boundary invasion concepts are important to understand because of personnel situations, collective bargaining investigations, and instances in which board members and superintendents need general advice and guidance.
Would you like to continue reading?


text:
Habitat for Humanity Colombia
Habitat's work in Colombia
Housing need in Colombia
Inadequate housing, overcrowding and insufficient utilities such as water and sanitation are all contributors to the housing problem in Colombia. More than 11.5 million homes in Colombia do not satisfactorily meet the basic necessities of the families that live in them. More than 40 percent of that figure represents inadequate housing and overcrowding, while another 20 percent demonstrates problems with public utilities. Likewise, 9.8 percent of the families suffering from poverty find themselves in this situation due to inadequate housing, and 10.6 percent due to inadequate utilities.
The rural housing deficit has increased in recent years, due to a lack of new programs. Colombia's qualitative housing deficit (that is, houses that exist but are inadequate in their conditions) is currently in the vicinity of 900,000 units, out of which 200,000 are located in rural zones. That deficit has increased in the last five years, since the financing of possible solutions has become so difficult through typical lending institutions.
The housing shortage in Colombia prevents adequate sanitary conditions for many low-income families, so they erectcambuches or tin huts, without public services. This promotes disease, such as dengue, which arises from stagnant water due to a lack of sewers. Inadequate housing also affects children's education; many cannot go to school because they lack a home that provides them with the stability required to enter an educational center. In addition, many school-age children are forced to work, in order to contribute something to the family's income.
Habitat for Humanity in Colombia
Habitat for Humanity was established in Colombia in 1991, when a teacher from a rural school in Quimbaya, Quindío, became aware of the organization through a magazine article. Three years later, the construction of the first 28 houses began in the Los Cerezos de Quimbaya neighborhood.
Habitat Colombia is governed by a national board of directors, and has five branches: Eje Cafetero, Valle del Cauca, Antioquia, and the north of Cauca and Cundinamarca.
Habitat for Humanity Colombia strives to become an alternative for low income families, helping families to build and improve their own homes. Habitat Colombia seeks support and partnership from government, the private sector and civil society—especially young people.
Habitat for Humanity Colombia supports several initiatives, in addition to traditional home construction.
Healthy housing in San Andres: In November 2008, Phase II of this Healthy Housing in San Andres was approved. In addition to housing improvements for 305 families, the project also aims to decrease the risk of illness by improving access and management of potable water, adequately managing sewage waste, and implementing a "healthy home" educational program.
Government subsidies for housing: A significant cause for growth in housing numbers between 2007 and 2008 can be attributed to the effective utilization of government subsidies–for both new house constructions as well as repairs and improvements. Habitat programs are seeking to make good use of these subsidies by ensuring high-quality constructions for families, as well as efficient operations, so as to make best use of the limited resources. Habitat for Humanity Colombia is one of the four national organizations that have received consultants to help assess their subsidy-funded programs, and three of these are financing growth with loans from Habitat International.
Financial education: This project is aimed at educating and accompanying partner families in the planning and administration of their home economy. The manuals and methodology used are the result of a project designed by Habitat for Humanity International and financed by Citi Foundation. Through a series of workshops, families learn to administer their income and expenses, and learn to design a budget, analyze and control their expenses, and follow a savings plan. Families are also informed about the risks and advantages of taking out loans with Habitat for Humanity or other organizations.
Complete houses: In addition to the projects above, Habitat for Humanity Colombia continues to build complete homes. Homeowners invest hundreds of hours of their own labor, helping to build their houses and the houses of others, together with volunteers. Their monthly payments go into a Local Rotating Fund, which allows the construction of new homes.
Learn more about Habitat for Humanity in Latin America and the Caribbean.


text:
ULS IR Lamps are made of high-quality quartz tubes and feature a gold reflector for highest efficiency. The Twin Tube design gives the lamps a higher radiation density and improved mechanical stability. They are available as short-wave, medium-wave and fast medium-wave infrared emitters. This allows you to choose the optimal wavelength for the material to be heated. Dimensions and filaments are fabricated to meet your requirements.
Industrial infrared heaters often use a gold coating on the quartz tube that reflects the infrared radiation and directs it towards the product to be heated. Consequently, the infrared radiation impinging on the product is virtually doubled. Gold is used because of its oxidation resistance and very high IR reflectivity of approximately 95%.


What do you want from a Metaphor: #7
The image of a metaphor is strengthened if
7. it is somewhat common.
You want to reinforce the notion that love is ubiquitous and that your relationship thrives in the every day. Marriage, after all is an every day activity. The metaphor you choose to illustrate your love in your wedding ceremony should be frequently encountered.
If something is too exotic in your life, then your chances of encountering it are slimmer. You loose the reinforcement that common activities offer. So using an image that involves the life-cycle of a camel if you live in Rhode Island, even if it can be made gloriously beautiful, is not going to provide the daily reinforcement that the tides of the sea or the changing of the seasons might.
Tip: Choose a metaphor to describe your relationship that has value and frequency in your life. Then it can be something more than poetic beauty, it can be a marital aid.
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A GROUP of primary school pupils recreated the Tour de France with a ride along the Padiham Greenway.
Youngsters at Padiham Green Primary School cycled up and down the idyllic route in the event they had titled the 'Tour de Greenway'.
The Year 3 and 4 students were headed by headteacher Mark Dixon, and school teacher Jennifer Morton, who cycled on a tandem.
Miss Morton swapped the yellow jersey for a bridal dress to celebrate her impending wedding this summer.
The Year 3 and 4 classes have been learning about the First World War and the Tour de France as part of their studies. They have now learn about local soldiers who were killed in France during the conflict and have decorated the Greenway with information about them.
Youngsters from the lower years at the school lined the route to cheer on their fellow students as they cycled past.


now to fight for the equilibrium that makes it possible for us to live on the earth. Pagan ideas can teach us a lot about conservation, as many of them revolve around working closely with the land and wasting nothing. From working on your garden at home to engaging politically, this time of year is an ideal moment to remember the power and importance of the earth—and to implement the vital changes that need to occur so we can keep living on it.
Image via WildUtopia
However you celebrate, make sure you do so mindfully. Be careful of where you pick herbs and exercise caution with fire, and however you practice, make sure that your actions honor the sanctity of all living things.
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May 21, 2021
Honoring Our Confederate Heritage & Virtues
presented by Ultimate Flags LLC
Why keep destroying history
Closeup of textured Confederate flag
It is a tough time for some people because statues are being removed out of fear. There are many confederate statues that mean a lot to many people. There are many differences of opinion among people and when it interferes with other people and the things they create to remember their history, then it will create conflict.
Key Takeaways:
 - Today we are at an unprecedented time in history, or is it a time when we are destroying history?
 - Cities allowed with pride to have these erected as remembrances of sacrifices of our everyday citizens who fought and died for their beliefs.
 - Are we creating a new history for the future to see, or one that will be destroyed because of the beliefs of others?
"As we begin to take away the remembrances of past history and erect new ones, are we recognizing their accomplishments and beliefs at the cost of destroying others."


text:
Weight Recorder by Weiche Wu. "Imaging how your weight has changed over 10 years, it might response how your life has changed. The human body records something which might be reflected on the weight changes. The idea of the project is collecting a person's weight change to look back on the passing life."
The scale makes a mark without any statistical number every time when you using it. After a while, then you can read the data that the scale has made, then you can see how it changes in a graphic way. At the same time, it could record some specific events. For example, when people go travel with flight, a scale might be used for weighing luggages at home. Therefore, the data on the scale might suddenly climb in an unusual way. That specific data could easily point out some particular things have happened.


text:
Flying in a circulated air, pressurized plan at 30,000 feet has some negative affects the skin. For some people, the difference is very noticeable (to them, if not to others) whereas others experience little effect. There are 2 main ways that plane travel affects the skin:
#1: UV exposure
Studies indicate that there is a high level of UV radiation that makes it through the planes windows because of the higher elevation (closer to the sun + less other atmospheric elements in the air filtering the UV rays). If you love the window seat, it is advisable to apply a layer of sunscreen (or moisturizing sunscreen) before your flight. You likely will not burn regardless, but remember that sun damage is cumulative whether or not the skin burns or tans.
The main symptom of being on a plane is dehydration. Not only of the body, but of the skin as well! For some of us, that may actually lead to acne breakouts because the skin gets dry and overcompensates with increased oil production! For non-oily types, skin may feel dry, itchy or even irritated (because of that barrier function we've discussed already this series). To combat this, try applying a moisturizer before you fly and/or during flight if it's particularly long (6+ hours).


text:
Putnam Gallery, Science Center 136 - Ongoing
TIME, LIFE, & MATTER: Science in Cambridge
Harvard has a rich history of scholarly contributions to the various natural, physical, and social sciences. Time, Life, & Matter features many important instruments that helped make those contributions possible.
Highlights of the exhibit include a multitude of stories told in part by such items as a geometric sector designed by Galileo, electrical experimentation apparatus purchased on Harvard's behalf by Benjamin Franklin, a suite of clocks illustrating the development of modern synchronized time-keeping, medical apparatus designed, in part, by Charles Lindbergh (yes, that Charles Lindbergh), and the artifacts of top-secret research conducted during World War II.
Download a thematic guide for Time, Life, & Matter.
Download Telltale Apparatus, by Christopher Reed, Harvard Magazine, Mar/Apr 2006.
View instruments from Time, Life, & Matter using Waywiser, our online database!
Printing Knowledge in Early Modern Europe
Patent Republic: Materialities in Intellectual Property in 19th-Century America
Science Center 136
Monday - Friday
11:00am - 4:00pm
Special Exhibitions Gallery
Monday - Friday
9:00am - 5:00pm
Foyer Exhibition Space
Science Center 371
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Free and open to the public.
Children must be escorted by an adult.
Both the Putnam Gallery and Special Exhibitions are closed on University Holidays.
The Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments is located inside the Science Center, 1 Oxford Street, on Harvard's Cambridge campus.


Ash Content ASTM D2584, D5630, ISO 3451
Ash Content analysis of plastics ASTM D2584, ASTM D5630, ISO 3451
An Ash test is used to determine if a material is filled. The test will identify the total filler content. It cannot identify individual percentages in multi-filled materials without additional test procedures being performed. An ash test cannot be used to determine the percent carbon fiber or percent carbon black since carbon burns off during the Ash test.
An Ash test involves taking a known amount of sample, placing the weighed sample into a dried / pre-weighed porcelain crucible, burning away the polymer in an air atmosphere at temperatures above 500°C, and weighing the crucible after it is has been cooled to room temperature in a desiccator. Ash residue remaining in the crucible is considered filler unless the residue is less than 1%. Residues of less than 1% are typically the result of additives that did not burn off.
The Ash test result is expressed as % ash. A magnified optical examination of the ash residue is performed to determine if the ash is glass, mineral, or a combination of both. The total ash content equals the weight of the ash divided by the weight of the original sample multiplied by 100%.
Specimen size:
Six grams of sample is typically used, which represents three crucibles each containing two grams of sample. Smaller sample weights can be tested but accuracy diminishes with smaller sample sizes.
Typically the average of 3 crucibles is reported.
Further Analysis:
Identification of Filler
Smaller sample sizes:
TGA (Thermogravimetric Analysis) is an alternative method to determine filler content with smaller samples sizes.
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Google Awards $1.2M in Natural Language Research Grants
Alex Armstrong of I Programmer reports, "Google has awarded over $1.2 million to support research in several areas of natural language understanding that relate to Google's concept of the Knowledge Graph. Google has been investing heavily in machine learning and deep neural networks to improve web search. Supporting natural language understanding is also motivated by the need to further search technology. In the announcement of the awards Google Research Blog explains how natural language processing is integral to its Knowledge Graph technology that represents a shift 'from strings to things'."
The blog post states, "Understanding natural language is at the core of Google's work to help people get the information they need as quickly and easily as possible. At Google we work hard to advance the state of the art in natural language processing, to improve the understanding of fundamental principles, and to solve the algorithmic and engineering challenges to make these technologies part of everyday life. Language is inherently productive; an infinite number of meaningful new expressions can be formed by combining the meaning of their components systematically. The logical next step is the semantic modeling of structured meaningful expressions -- in other words, 'what is said' about entities. We envision that knowledge graphs will support the next leap forward in language understanding towards scalable compositional analyses, by providing a universe of entities, facts and relations upon which semantic composition operations can be designed and implemented."
Read more here.
Image: Courtesy Google


text:
September 23, 2011 1 Comment
The Canvas panel serves as a container for a collection of child elements and allows positioning its children using exact coordinates (in WPF Units).
You can specify the following attached properties for a child element of the Canvas, to control how the child element is positioned.
- Left – Distance between left side of element and left side of canvas
- Top – Distance between top side of element and top side of canvas
- Right – Distance between right side of element and right side of canvas
- Bottom – Distance between bottom side of element and bottom of canvas
If you don't specify values for any of these properties for a child element, it will be positioned in the upper left corner of the Canvas.


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Thomas Wolfe Memorial
The Thomas Wolfe Memorial, located in Asheville, is centered around the rambling Victorian home where the novelist spent his childhood and adolescence. The house was built in 1883, in the Queen Anne style, and enlarged many times, as Wolfe's mother operated it as a boardinghouse called "Old Kentucky Home" for several decades starting in 1906. Wolfe was born on 3 Oct. 1900 in a smaller house that stood two blocks away, but Old Kentucky Home served as the model for the boardinghouse named "Dixieland" in his epic autobiographical novel, Look Homeward, Angel (1929).
The rooms of Old Kentucky Home have been preserved almost intact, with the original Wolfe family pieces arranged much as they were during Wolfe's youth. At first frowned upon in his hometown for the unflattering portrait he painted of it in his novels (Look Homeward, Angel was banned from the Asheville public library for seven years), Wolfe was later celebrated as one of the city's most famous citizens. His youthful home came to be seen as worth preserving as part of the nation's literary history. A classic of twentieth-century Americana, the house has been preserved as an attraction for people from around the world since 1971 as a National Historic Landmark and since 1976 as a North Carolina State Historic Site.
In 1998 a fire severely damaged many of the house's rooms. A number of artifacts and furnishings were subsequently restored, and architects rebuilt the damaged home. The house was closed to visitors for several years, although the visitors center, exhibit hall, and audiovisual program remained open, and the site continued to host special events. All sections of the Thomas Wolf Memorial were reopened in 2004.
Wilson Angley, "Historical Research Report: Thomas Wolfe and the Old Kentucky Home" (30 Oct. 1974).
David H. Donald, Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe (1987).
Richard F. Knapp, ed., North Carolina's State Historic Sites: A Brief History and Status Report (1995).
George W. McCoy, "Asheville and Thomas Wolfe," NCHR 30 (April 1953).
Thomas Wolfe Memorial, NC Historic Site: _URL_
National Park Service: _URL_
1 January 2006 | Mitchell, Ted


Adjective "Accommodate" Definition and Examples
 2. to provide suitably; supply (usually followed by with): The officials were accommodated with seats toward the front of the room.
 3. to lend money to: Can you accommodate him, or are you short of cash?
 4. to provide with a room and sometimes with food.
 5. to furnish with accommodations, as food and lodgings.
 6. to have o
 "thermaes can be accommodate."
 "rooms can be accommodate."
 "people can be accommodate."
 "organisations can be accommodate."
 "doors can be accommodate."
 More examples++


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Reefs of Norway
A plethora of Lophelia pertusa in Norwegian waters
Norway has the highest known density of Lophelia pertusa reefs in the world, mapped at depths between 39 and 400 metres. The estimated spatial coverage of Norwegian Lophelia reefs is 2,000 km², a greater coverage than some countries with well known tropical reefs such as Belize, Mozambique or Seychelles. Some of these reefs have been estimated at over 8,000 years old based on geophysical, visual, geochemical, radiocarbon and other analyses. The first Lophelia reef ever photographed under water (left) in Norway was off the coast of northern Norway at 120 m water depth, in 1982, during pipeline route surveys conducted by the petroleum company Statoil. Subsequently, they were found also on the continental shelf off Mid-Norway in 1985 and onwards.
Here, acoustic surveys revealed large mounds, which were 10 to 25 m in height. It wasn't until 1990 that the research team was able to inspect these mounds using a remotely operated vehicle - the first use of an ROV to record Lophelia reefs using colour video. Innovations also included specially designed buckets (left) to collect samples of Lophelia from the sea-floor some 280 - 300 metres down. From that point onwards research into the Norwegian Lophelia reefs has been intensive, with several hundred reefs discovered to date.
The authors thank Dr. Martin Hovland (Statoil) for contributing the amazing videos and imagery of Norwegian Lophelia reefs.


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Which is correct (or better) English:
"Choose lace in neutral pastel tones or also in grey or black"
"Choose lace in neutral pastel tones, in grey or in black"
"Choose lace in neutral pastel tones, grey or black"
Grey and black are not pastel tones, so you are setting up an either/or situation. Therefore, it would be proper to use the first example:
The first or separates pastel tones from the set of hues in the grey/black spectrum, and the second or offers a choice between the latter two. Note that if you said "grey and black" it would imply that you meant to use both in combination.
Also note that I put a comma in, but it is not strictly necessary. It just gives the reader a handy marker to quickly see the first of the two choices, pastels vs. grey or black.
None of these is incorrect.
But item 1 could be interpreted as meaning something different, because of the word 'also':
Item 1 could mean the 3 options are:
While items 2 and 3 mean the 3 options are:
Item 1 sounds awkward, and ambiguous, and even if the meaning as described above is what you want, I would suggest rephrasing it.
They all mean the same, and they are all grammatical. The difference lies in the tone of the statement.


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home | quality defined
Defining quality health care
The now accepted definition of quality focuses on you. The Maine Quality Forum and The Maine Quality Forum Advisory Council have adopted and are committed to the following definition of high quality health care promoted by the Institute of Medicine:
Safe – avoiding injuries to patients from the care that is intended to help them.·
Effective – providing services based on scientific knowledge to all who could benefit and refraining from providing services to those not likely to benefit (avoiding under use and overuse, respectively).·
Patient-centered – providing care that is respectful of and responsive to individual patient preferences, needs, and values and ensuring that patient values guide all clinical decisions.·
Timely – reducing waits and sometimes harmful delays for both those who receive and those who give care.·
Efficient – avoiding waste, including waste of equipment, supplies, ideas, and energy.·
Equitable – providing care that does not vary in quality because of personal characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, geographic location, and socioeconomic status."
Types of quality
To achieve a clearer understanding of quality health care, it is helpful to understand characteristics of quality within the categories of service quality and clinical quality.
Service quality is the term to describe the characteristics of care such as waiting times, ease of physical access, pleasant staff and clean comfortable surroundings. Service quality also includes such things as cleanliness of your hospital room and respectfulness of the person who draws your blood.
Clinical quality is the term used to describe such things as prescribing the correct medications, performing surgery as safely and appropriately as possible and involving the patient fully in their own care. It includes attributes such as the accuracy of a laboratory test, operating on the correct leg and providing enough information so that you understand your health risks or medical condition.


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Energy can be made, or generated, using solids, gas or liquids as its source of power. So how do you use energy? Energy can be generated to produce light, heat or the movement of objects. In this experiment, we explore how to get power from water, or hydropower, which can be used to pick up household objects.
Hydropower is mechanical energy that is generated by using the motion of water caused by gravity. Hydropower is one of the oldest forms of energy and has been used by humans since 4000 BC! By learning how to make a water wheel with a handful of household materials, we too can harness, or capture, different amounts of water to generate our own power.
How can hydropower be used to lift an object?
- 2-liter plastic soda bottle
- Craft knife (have an adult help you use it)
- 2 corks
- 1 wooden barbeque skewer
- Sewing thread (16 inches)
- Small objects to lift (small fishing sinker, an eraser)
- Duct Tape
- Large Funnel
- Paper clips
- Using your marker and ruler, measure and mark a few dots 6 cm up from the bottom of the bottle. Connect your dots and have an adult help you cut off the bottom using the craft knife.
- Measure an 8cm section from the cut part of the bottle. Cut out this section so that you have a cylindrical section of plastic.
- Cut four 2 cm-wide strips from the 8cm section with your scissors. Cut these strips in half so you are left with eight curved strips that measure 4 cm by 2 cm.
- Draw 8 evenly spaced lines lengthwise on the cork, and make slits along each line with your hobby knife. Making sure that the plastic pieces all curve in the same direction, slide each 4 cm by 2 cm plastic piece into its own slit. Why do you think it's important that the strips all curve in the same direction?
- Unfold two paperclips and flex one end of each to create a small loop. These paperclips will act as supports for the water wheel's axle.
- Affix your supports on opposite sides of your plastic funnel using your duct tape.
- Cut the skewer in half and poke each half into one side of the wheel cork. Guide each end through a loop on your paper clip support. Make sure your paper clip's loops are loose enough to allow the wheel to turn freely.
- Insert one of the skewers into the other cork and tie thread tightly around it. Tie the loose end of the thread to a weight or other small household object.
- Place your completed water wheel under a gentle stream of water in your sink. Slowly run water over the wheel so that the plastic pieces on the cork catch the falling water and turn it into mechanical energy.
Extra: Water has potential energy due to its position above the ground. The higher above the ground the water is, the more potential energy it has. Can you convert more of this potential energy into mechanical energy? Try making several water wheels and daisy-chaining them together! When water exits one water wheel, it can pass through another, and so on.
The wheel spins and produces enough mechanical energy to elevate small items tied to the end of the thread.
You just generated hydropower using the water from your faucet! Gravity pulls water down toward the earth, and the weight of the water exerts torque (a rotational force) on the water wheel. This torque provides enough energy to turn the skewer, allowing you to raise items attached to the other cork. Did you notice that more water pressure was needed to lift heavier objects? More energy is needed to lift heavy items than lighter ones, and by increasing the flow of water you generated more power.
Hydropower is still used as a source of electricity in the United States. Using the same concepts from your experiment, water wheels capture the force of powerful rivers, converting it into electricity and sending it into the electrical grid. Hydropower is an example of renewable energy, energy that can be continually replenished. What other renewable energy projects for kids can you find?


Irish immigrants have been remembered at an event in the US state of Utah celebrating the 150th anniversary of the 'Golden Spike', the moment when the First Transcontinental Railroad was completed.
The railway connected the east and west coasts of the United States and was finished on 10 May, 1869.
An estimated 10,000 Irish immigrants worked on the railroad.
Many of them were veterans of the US Civil War and made up at least half of the workers from the Union Pacific railway company.
They worked alongside a mix of Mormons, other European immigrants and recently emancipated African Americans to construct the line from the east.
Many Irish also worked alongside the 15,000 Chinese immigrants who were the main workforce building the line from Sacramento, California to Promontory Summit, Utah.
A ceremony was held in Utah to mark the 150th anniversary of the railroad's completion.
The event was addressed by the Irish Ambassador to the US, Daniel Mulhall.
He said he was proud and honoured to mark the enormous role played by Irish immigrants in the building of the transcontinental railroad.
Irish Ambassador to the US, Daniel Mulhall, addressing the crowd
"Theirs was a magnificent contribution to the making of modern America," he said.
The US President Donald Trump has paid tribute to the workers who built the transcontinental railroad.
In a statement he said: "We honor the undaunted efforts of the people who made this innovation possible, including workers of Irish and Chinese descent, as well as freed slaves, Native Americans, Civil War veterans, and Latter-day Saints."


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Children's Stick Insect is a medium sized stick insect. Females are larger and bulkier than males, and usually green, but can also be pinkish or cream. The wings are yellowish with bright patches of yellow and blue at the base. Males are slender and light reddish brown. Both males and both the males and females have two pairs of wings. Males are strong fliers, but females are too bulky to fly well. They rely on camouflage to avoid predators. When threatened, Children's Stick Insect will spread its wings showing the yellow and blue markings. Nymphs have a yellow stripe running along the length of the body. When at rest, the nymphs will align themselves on the leaf so yellow stripe aligns with the leaf midvein.
length to 14cm
feeds on leaves of Eucalypt trees
The females lay their eggs from a tree where they drop down into the leaf litter. The eggs are small, oval and grey and hatch after about four months. The nymphs are light green or green tinged with pink or purple.
Children's Stick Insect is found in eastern coastal areas of Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.
|Common Name:||Children's Stick Insect|


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Download ebook Review of Medical Microbiology and Immunology 14th Edition free pdf
Medical books free.
Review of Medical Microbiology and Immunology 14th Edition PDF
. Review of Medical Microbiology and Immunology 14th Edition ebook
The most concise, clinically relevant, and current review of medical microbiology and immunology
Essential for USMLE review and medical microbiology coursework!
Review of Medical Microbiology and Immunology is a succinct, high-yield review of the medically important aspects of microbiology and immunology. It covers both the basic and clinical aspects of bacteriology, virology, mycology, parasitology, and immunology and also discusses important infectious diseases using an organ system approach. The book emphasizes the real-world clinical application of microbiology and immunology to infectious diseases and offers a unique mix of narrative text, color images, tables and figures, Q&A, and clinical vignettes.
Content valuable to any study objective or learning style:
- 650 USMLE-style practice questions test your knowledge and understanding
- 50 clinical cases illustrate the importance of basic science information in clinical diagnosis
- A complete USMLE-style practice exam consisting of 80 questions helps you prepare for the exam
- Pearls impart important basic science information helpful in answering questions on the USMLE
- Concise summaries of medically important organisms
- Self-assessment questions with answers appear at the end of each chapter
- Color images depict clinically important findings, such as infectious disease lesions
- Gram stains of bacteria, electron micrographs of viruses, and microscopic images depict fungi, protozoa,
- Chapters on infectious diseases from an organ system perspective
Sections Include: Basic Bacteriology, Clinical Bacteriology, Basic Virology, Clinical Virology, Mycology, Parasitology, Immunology, Ectoparasites, Infectious Diseases, Brief Summaries of Medically Important Organisms, Clinical Cases, Pearls for the USMLE, USMLE Practice Questions, USMLE Practice Examination.
Review of Medical Microbiology and Immunology 14th Edition free download
Download Review of Medical Microbiology and Immunology 14th Edition pdf free


text:
World Wildlife Fund Supports Seal Hunt - Why?
News Release from Sea Shepherd
March 20, 2003
Would the World Wildlife Fund Have Supported
the Slaughter of the Passenger Pigeon? You Bet they Would.
That's why they Support the Canadian Seal
If the World Wildlife Fund was established
back in the 19th Century, they would have indeed supported both
the commercial exploitation and the recreational hunting of the
passenger pigeon. After all, there were millions of them, and
WWF supports both the commercial slaughter and the recreational
killing of wildlife.
But, of course, they would have mounted a big
fund-raising effort to save the last few survivors during the
first decade of the 20th Century.
Yes, the pleas would have gone out begging for
money to save the passenger pigeon. The World Wildlife Fund
would have led the prayer vigil for Martha, the last Passenger
pigeon, as she lay dying in her cage at the Cincinnati Zoo in
Today they are doing this with the Harp Seal.
The WWF is supporting the increased kill
quotas and has endorsed the largest slaughter of marine mammals
on the planet.
The World Wildlife Fund has long been a haven
for big game hunters, hunters, trappers, fur farmers, commercial
fishing corporations, and other enemies of animals.
Now, the World Wildlife Fund has publicly
endorsed the largest marine wildlife slaughter in the world.
This statement below is taken directly from
the website of the World Wildlife Fund Canada:
What WWF is Not!
WWF is not an animal welfare organization. We
support the hunting and consumption of wild animals provided the
harvesting does not threaten the long-term survival of wildlife
populations. WWF has never opposed a sustainable seal hunt in
northern or eastern Canada.
Whoa – where does this word "sustainable" come
The East Coast slaughter of harp seals is not
some Inuit or Native subsistence hunt.
It is a Canadian government subsidized
slaughter and the quotas set for 350,000 a year for three years
are the largest quotas ever established. Not since 1850, when
unrestricted slaughter saw kills of a million seals a year has
there been numbers like this. There is nothing sustainable about
these numbers and the government has not produced one
peer-reviewed scientific study to justify such numbers.
Yet, the World Wildlife Fund endorses this
The question must be asked, "Does the WWF
serve the interests of the Canadian government or does it serve
the interests of wildlife?" The answer is obvious.
THE SEA SHEPHERD CONSERVATION SOCIETY SUPPORTS
BRIGITTE BARDOT'S CRITICISM OF THE WORLD WILDLIFE FUND
Famed French Film Actress Brigitte Bardot sent
a letter on March 17th to Chief Emeka Anyaoku, the President of
the World Wildlife Fund.
In her letter Brigitte said:
"I wish to share with you my profound
indignation, deep sadness and disgust concerning the position of
World Wildlife Fund Canada supporting the new quota decided by
the government, the hunt of one million seals over a period of
How can an organization that you preside
over and that has no need to prove its reputation in the domain
of the conservation of species anymore, defend such a scandalous
I went to the ice pack more than 25 years
ago, I saw the massacre of these baby seals, their head smashed
by clubs and picks, I saw these bleeding bodies, these babies
struggling for life whilst being skinned… I will never forget
these pictures, the screams of pain, they still torture me but
they have given me the strength to sacrifice my whole life to
defend the animal's one.
I have often supported WWF, given my image
to some of its programmes, and I feel betrayed, it has attacked
my most symbolic battle.
It is easy and unfair to accuse the seals
of consuming too much fish when, during the same period of time,
floating factories decimate the sea beds, transforming this
natural richness into an aquatic desert. Seals are victims of
overflowing industrial fishing and definitely not responsible
for the deterioration of the populations, they are also victims
of the climatic changes and are directly threatened by the
melting of the ice.
Our duty is to protect them before it's too
If you agree with Brigitte Bardot that this
hunt is despicable and is a threat to the long term survival of
the harp seal and that it's a slaughter of abject, horrific
cruelty, then please boycott WWF.
If you are a WWF member – notify them of
cancellation of your membership.
Contact them and let them know what you think:
This is contact information from their
For questions or concerns related to
membership or donations, please email _EMAIL_.
For questions or concerns related to WWF's
conservation programs, please email _EMAIL_.
You can also reach them by mail, phone or fax:
245 Eglinton Ave. East, Suite 410
Toronto, ON M4P 3J1
Canada Phone: 1-800-26-PANDA
In the Toronto area: _PHONE_
Fax: _PHONE_


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The USA Canada Province of the Society of the Sacred Heart has released an innovative discernment app for young adults. Although the real life contact points are geared to the north American context, other elements could be useful to young adults in Australia and New Zealand.
The Call Me Back app has eight components:
- Faceworld is a way to reflect on the world context, social issues and the reality of young adults today.
- My Route is to explore the questions and intuitions, opportunities and calls of their lives.
- Belonging is a tool for reflecting on one's experience of belonging to a group, a project, a dream.
- My Creations helps people to get in touch with their creative experience through drawings, music, etc.
- My Journal helps people learn and apply guides for prayer, daily examen (a technique of prayerful reflection on the events of the day in order to discern God's desires), principles of discernment and praying with some of the Society of the Sacred Heart's founding mothers like Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat and Saint Rose Philippine Duchesne.
- My inspiration contains quotes from the Gospel, Oscar Romero, Martin Luther King, and others to inspire.
- My Toolkit contains the different activities and workshops the Society of the Sacred Heart has to offer (e.g., retreats, leadership training, shadowing a sister, service learning, project design, etc.)
- Home: Portal where one finds access to various areas of the Society of the Sacred Heart.
Here's a video introducing each component;


Compile-time configuration
There are three compile-time configuration options that assist in debugging Berkeley DB and Berkeley DB applications:
If you want to build Berkeley DB with -g as the C and C++ compiler flag, enter --enable-debug as an argument to configure. This will create Berkeley DB with debugging symbols, as well as load various Berkeley DB routines that can be called directly from a debugger to display database page content, cursor queues, and so forth. (Note that the -O optimization flag will still be specified. To compile with only the -g, explicitly set the CFLAGS environment variable before configuring.)
If you want to build Berkeley DB with debugging run-time sanity checks and with DIAGNOSTIC _TAG_ during compilation, enter --enable-diagnostic as an argument to configure. This will cause a number of special checks to be performed when Berkeley DB is running. This flag should not be defined when configuring to build production binaries because it degrades performance.
When compiling Berkeley DB for use in run-time memory consistency checkers (in particular, programs that look for reads and writes of uninitialized memory), use --enable-umrw as an argument to configure. This guarantees, among other things, that Berkeley DB will completely initialize allocated pages rather than initializing only the minimum necessary amount.


I'll list the reasons why using fingerprints as passwords is bad.
 1. You only have 10 of them (assuming you don't use your feet's)
 2. Once one is stolen from a device or server, it's not like you can change it, but it's gone forever
 3. Someone, without reaching extremes like chopping fingers off, could just force your fingertip onto the reader.
Yes, TouchID is nice and cool and convenient, but the idea of using my body as a password is creepy. Yes, it's not like there's a picture of your fingerprint stored somewhere, and yet there is some data derived from it instead, maybe a cryptographic hash.
A good old password that is only in my brain is so much better and safer (for now, at least).
Now, let's talk about iris identification…


Coping with Difficult Coworkers
Coping with difficult coworkers effectively requires significant forethought and restraint. Three guidelines can help you when dealing with difficult employees and other coworkers.
By Katie Shonkon / Dealing with Difficult People
At one time or another, most of us have found ourselves coping with difficult coworkers. We might experience flare-ups over workload, funding, or personality issues, to name just a few sources of workplace conflict. The experience of coping with difficult coworkers can be extremely stressful. The following conflict negotiation skills can help you address this type of difficult situation at work, whether you are managing difficult employees or dealing with coworkers.
1. Reappraise Negative Emotions
The anger triggered by workplace conflict can damage our decision making by prompting overconfidence, unrealistic optimism, and aggression, negotiation researchers have found.
One negotiation study by James Gross of Stanford University and his colleagues compared the relative costs of two forms of emotional regulation: 1) suppression, or attempts to tamp down and avoid confronting our emotions, and 2) reappraisal, or attempts to control our emotions by changing how we think about a given situation. In this study, relative to those who engaged in reappraisal, participants who suppressed their emotions had impaired cognitive processing, and their negotiation counterparts liked them less.
How can you reappraise your anger when dealing with difficult employees or coworkers? Try to anticipate when you may be subject to strong emotional experiences and reappraise the situation beforehand, suggests Stanford University professor Margaret A. Neale. As an example, before a conference call with a difficult coworker, think about what they might say that could cause you to react emotionally. If you anticipate a threat, consider what it might suggest about what they value, says Neale. This type of reappraisal may help you head off an emotional reaction when coping with difficult coworkers.
2. Respond to Challenging Moves
Whenever negotiators are bargaining over concrete issues, such as the terms of a work project, they are simultaneously conducting a parallel negotiation regarding their relationship, write Deborah M. Kolb and Judith Williams in their book Everyday Negotiation: Navigating the Hidden Agendas in Bargaining (Jossey-Bass, 2003). This "shadow negotiation" explains why discussions of concrete, seemingly rational matters can lead to angry outbursts and hurt feelings.
Negotiators may make any of several "moves" to question each other's legitimacy and assert their power, note Kolb and Williams. For example, whether subtly or directly, a negotiator may challenge your competence or expertise, demean your ideas, or criticize your style.
How can you defend yourself against such moves without being accused of overreacting? Kolb and Williams suggest several responses, which they call "turns":
 - Interrupt the move. Take a break, which should give everyone present time to gain control of their emotions.
 - Try naming the move. Put your coworker on notice that you recognize their power play. If someone says, "You can't be serious!" in response to one of your ideas, for example, you might respond, "Actually, I'm quite serious. Instead of cutting me off, how about if you give me a chance to clarify my plan?"
 - Correct the move. Substitute the other side's negative remarks with a more positive interpretation of your behavior. If a coworker incorrectly blames you for a decision that went wrong, rather than lashing out, provide hard evidence in the form of the facts.
 - Divert the move. Shift the focus back to the issue at hand. If someone criticizes you as overly sensitive, you might say, "Let's try to avoid personal judgments and concentrate on the proposal."
3. Mediate a Resolution
The techniques of professional mediators can help us when coping with difficult coworkers and other sources of workplace conflict, writes Tufts University professor Jeswald Salacuse in his book Leading Leaders: How to Manage Smart, Talented, Rich, and Powerful People (Amacom, 2006).
In mediation, disputants work together to reach a resolution that satisfies both sides. The mediator helps disputants deal with conflict by encouraging them to share information about their interests and explore creative solutions.
As a leader, you can never be fully impartial, but you can adapt mediation skills with the goal of handling difficult conversations and helping the organization. By listening closely and encouraging problem solving, you may be able to bring employees together.
Leaders also can leverage punishment and rewards to resolve workplace conflict, writes Salacuse. If two unit heads have been fighting over an account, you could threaten to penalize them or their departments—say, by giving the account to a third unit or by decreasing their funding—to motivate them to negotiate a resolution. Alternatively, you could reward disputants for setting aside their differences, whether with praise, additional funding, or some other valued resource.
What other advice do you have for coping with difficult coworkers?


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- Knowledge Management -
Knowledge Management Strategic Planning
A Knowledge Management Strategic Plan is a comprehensive approach to knowledge management. Strategic planning may take the form of a multi-year strategic plan or may be as short as six months. Strategic planning is useful for knowledge management because it helps to identify areas to focus knowledge management initiatives on. The plan could include any of the following: an introduction, purpose, challenge, vision, responsibilities, priorities, strategic activities, corporate activities, and activity timelines.
Last Review / Update: 2011-07-04


A cashier is a member of a wider team at any business that deals with the monetary transactions from selling a good or service. A cashier is responsible for dealing with large amounts of money, in cash, cheque, and credit card form.
Cashiers also must interact with customers daily, and have a comprehensive knowledge of the products and services offered by the business, so that they are able to answer any customer queries. They must be aware of any sales or discounts at any time, so that they can always calculate the correct price, and charge and collect the correct amount from customers.
A cashier is directly involved with the customer experience as well as collecting money from the sales made, so it is vital that they are friendly, reliable, knowledgeable and trustworthy.
Day-to-day tasks of this role:
 - Calculate and process customer purchases.
 - Collect payment from customers for purchases.
 - Answer customer questions.
 - Bag or wrap products for customers.
 - Process refunds/exchanges for customers.
Recruitment Process
Skills profile for a Cashier
A cashier does not need to have any formal qualifications in order to be successful in the position, however, past on-the-job experience may be favourable. There are some common skills required for this position.
A successful candidate will need to understand the challenges that cashiers face today with maintaining hygienic distances and dealing with stressed customers. They also need to be willing to learn, be customer-centric, as well as being flexible with shift times, and able to fill in extra shifts from time to time.
A cashier should have excellent communication skills. They must be able to effectively liaise with a range of customers and people from various backgrounds, and confidently engage with a culturally diverse customer base. They must be able to be friendly with customers, but also maintain a professional manner.
Cashiers must also have strong customer service skills. They must prioritise customer service in every interaction, provide a happy service, and treat every customer with the same level of respect. They must make an effort to understand the customer's point of view in every circumstance, and respond to this in a positive manner.
Cashier Job Description
 - Why is this role being filled?
 - What makes your company unique?
 - What would it be like to work for you?
 - What technical skills are needed for this role?
 - Which soft skills are applicable?
 - Include availability preferences in this section
 - What are the key deliverables for this role?
 - Compensation & bonuses
 - Employee benefits & perks
 - Ongoing training benefits
As a cashier will be dealing with large sums of money on a daily basis, it is important to ensure that the candidate is comfortable and confident doing so. They may have to do some simple addition and subtraction sums in their head from time to time, so it is essential that they are able to do so and feel assured that they are charging the correct amount to the customer, or give back the correct change. It is important to outline this in the application, to ensure you hire somebody who is competent handling money.
Ensure to include in the job description what it is like to work for your company, what your company values and what your expectations are for the successful candidate. This will ensure you identify the right person for your company.
Sample skills assessment
Cashier 1
Question 1
Question Type: Document
What area do you think you will need the most support in if you were to commence in this role? Please explain this in the document below.
Cashier 2
Question 2
Question Type: Text
How would you communicate with someone who didn't speak your language?
Cashier 3
Question 3
Customer Service
Question Type: Video
How would you ensure you provided great customer service to every customer, even if they were disgruntled or angry?
Interview guide for a Cashier
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text:
The CSSGrid control provides a grid-based layout system, with rows and columns, making it easier to design web pages without having to use floats and positioning.
While regular controls (such as Buttons and Labels) can be added directly to a CSSGrid, there is a special control called CSSGridItem which is used to define sections within the Grid. CSSGridItems can be combined to make irregular sections in the CSSGrid. In the above example, the top row of the CSSGrid has been merged into a single control called Header.
The CSSGrid control can be used as a wrapper for other controls you have set up in your project. Add them to the Design Screen as usual, then right click in a CSSGrid and use Add Child. The control will then move into the CSSGrid. If you reposition the CSSGrid, the included controls ("children") will move with it. Use right click Remove Child to take a child out of a CSSGrid.
CSSGrids can contain other CSSGrids.
To add a CSSGrid control to your app, choose the CSSGrid icon in the Toolbox, then position it on the Design Screen. Use the Property Editor to set the properties you need. Right click in the CSSGrid to add children.
At runtime, controls can be added as children to the CSSGrid or CSSGridItems using the addChild() function:
Here are some useful resources for learning more about using CSSGrid:
The CSSGrid will not appear properly in the Design Screen of AppStudio on Windows. The Design Screen uses IE11 to render images: IE11 does not handle the CSSGrid properly. If you run your app in Chrome, it will render properly. MacOS is fine.
alignContent and justifyContent
The alignContent and justifyContent properties define how the CSSGrid will look. Both have the same possible values.
To see their effect, run the CSSGrid sample which comes with AppStudio. It has Select boxes which let you play with both settings so you can see the effect.
|start||The items are packed flush to each other toward the start edge of the alignment container in the cross axis|
|end||Aligns the grid to be flush with the end edge of the grid container.|
|center||The items are packed flush to each other toward the center of the alignment container along the cross axis.|
|stretch||The items are shown so that the combined size exactly fills the alignment container along the cross axis.|
|space-around||The empty space before the first and after the last item equals half of the space between each pair of adjacent items.|
|space-between||Place an even amount of space between each grid item, with no space at the far ends.|
|space-evenly||Place an even amount of space between each grid item, including the far ends.|
|alignContent||The align-content property is used to align the whole grid vertically inside the container. See above for options.|
|gridTemplateColumns||Defines the line names and track sizing functions of the grid columns.|
example: auto auto auto
|gridTemplateRows||Defines the line names and track sizing functions of the grid rows.|
example: auto auto auto
|gridTemplateAreas||Specifies named grid areas. Each line of the grid has a list of area names. The line are grouped by single quote signs. example:|
'header header header header header header''menu main main main right right''menu footer footer footer footer footer'
|gridColumnGap||Sets the size of the gap between an element's columns. Can be 'normal', px, %, etc.|
|gridRowGap||Sets the size of the gap between an element's rows. Can be 'normal', px, %, etc.|
Standard properties are supported, plus:
|addChild(control)||control is added to the Control. Runtime.|
|attributes||A list of HTML attributes. To prevent jQuery Mobile from styling the element, use data-role=none. Attributes are separated by spaces. Design time.|
|center||Centers the contents, horizontally and vertically. Only works if HTMLTag is 'div'.|
|class||List of CSS classes to apply to the element. Class names are separated by spaces. Design time.|
|content||The text to use in between the HTML tags. Can be text or HTML. Design time. At runtime, use.innerHTML.|
|innerHTML||The text to use in between the HTML tags. Can be text or HTML. Run time. At Design Time,, use content.|
|position||How children positioned. Default is'relative': elements are positioned relative to each other and the size of the CSSGrid. With 'absolute', controls are positioned within the CSSGrid set by width and height. Other options are 'fixed' and'static'. Design time.|
|style||A list of style properties, each in the form styleName:value; Example: "height:40px; width:100px".Design time.|
Standard events are supported.


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I've got a table defined like this :
create table _TAG_
(bar float)
And I'm looking for a way to round every value contained in column bar without changing the total sum (which is known to be an integer, or very close to an integer because of float number precision).
Rounding every value to the nearest integer won't work (ex : 1,5;1,5 will be rounded to 1;1 or 2;2)
It's quite easy to do this using several requests (eg storing the original sum, rounding, computing the new sum, and updating as many rows as needed to go back to the original sum), but this is not a very elegant solution.
Is there a way to do this using a single SQL request?
I'm using SQL Server 2008, so solutions taking advantage of this specific vendor are welcome.
Edit : I'm looking for a request minimizing the differences between the old values and the new ones. In other words, a value should never be rounded up if a greater value has been rounded down, and vice-versa
share|improve this question
A nice question. I'm putting it into my todo list for blog posts. – Quassnoi Sep 17 '09 at 12:37
add comment
3 Answers
up vote 3 down vote accepted
See this solution explained in more details in the article in my blog:
You need to keep cumulative offset for each value:
1.2 (1 + 0.0) ~ 1 1 1.2 +0.2
1.2 (1 + 0.2) ~ 1 2 2.4 +0.4
1.2 (1 + 0.4) ~ 1 3 3.6 +0.6
1.2 (1 + 0.6) ~ 2 5 4.8 -0.2
1.2 (1 - 0.2) ~ 1 6 6.0 0.0
This is easily done in MySQL, but in SQL Server you will have to write a cursor or use cumulative subselects (which are less efficient).
The query below selects the difference between the sums of the values and of those rounded down to the nearest smaller integer.
This gives us the number (N) of values we should round up.
Then we order the values by their fractional part (ones that are closer to their ceiling go first) and round the first N up, the others down.
SELECT value,
 FLOOR(value) + CASE WHEN ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY value - FLOOR(value) DESC) <= cs THEN 1 ELSE 0 END AS nvalue
FROM (
 SELECT cs, value
 FROM (
 SELECT SUM(value) - SUM(FLOOR(value)) AS cs
 FROM _USER_
 ) c
 CROSS JOIN
 ) q
Here's the script for the test data:
SELECT RAND(0.20090917)
SET _USER_ = 0;
WHILE _USER_ < 100
 INTO _USER_
 VALUES (FLOOR(RAND() * 100) / 10)
 SET _USER_ = _USER_ + 1
INTO _USER_
SELECT 600 - SUM(value)
FROM _USER_
share|improve this answer
_USER_ : thanks for your answer. With your solution, 1.4/1.4/1.2 would be rounded to 1/1/2 which isn't 'fair' since 1.4 is greater than 1.2. – Brann Sep 17 '09 at 10:43
_USER_ : that's exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. Thanks! – Brann Sep 17 '09 at 12:17
_USER_ : in my realworld problem, I've got another column 'ListID', and I want the sum per ListID to remain constant. I've adapted your request using group by clauses, and it almost works, BUT the ROW_NUMBER applies to my whole request, instead of the grouped by request. Is there something I can do? – Brann Sep 17 '09 at 12:46
_USER_: could you please post some sample data and the desired resultset? – Quassnoi Sep 17 '09 at 12:48
_USER_: meanwhile, try to replace OVER (ORDER BY value) with OVER (PARTITTION BY listID ORDER BY value). This will return you the row numbers groupwise. – Quassnoi Sep 17 '09 at 12:50
show 1 more comment
If you have a list of n values whose elements are accurate only to within an integer value (+-0.5), then any sum of those elements will have a cumulative error or +-(n*0.5). If you have 6 elements in your list which should add up to some number, then your worst case scenario is that you're off by 3 if you just add the integer values.
If you find some way of showing 10.2 as 11 in order to make the sum work, you've changed the precision of that element from +-0.5 to +-0.8, which is counterintuitive when looking at integers?
One possible solution to think about is to round your number during display only (using some format string on your output), not already at the retrieval stage. Each number will be as close as possible to the actual value, but the sum will be more correct too.
Example: If you have 3 values of 1/3 each, displayed as whole-numbered percentages, then you should be showing 33, 33 and 33. To do anything else is to create a margin of error greater than +-0.5 for any individual value. Your total should still be displayed as 100%, because that is the best possible value (as opposed to working with sums of already rounded values)
Also, be aware that by using a float, you've already introduced a limitation on your precision because you have no way of accurately representing 0.1. For more on that, read What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating-Point Arithmetic
share|improve this answer
_USER_: Yes, showing 10.2 as 11 is exactly what I'm trying to achieve. And that's what the user wants to see, too. – Brann Sep 17 '09 at 12:21
add comment
First get the difference between the rounded sum and the actual sum, and the number of records:
declare _USER_ float, _USER_ float, _USER_ int
select _USER_ = sum(bar), _USER_ = sum(round(bar)), _USER_ = count(*)
from _TAG_
Then you spread the difference equally on all values before rounding:
declare _USER_ float
set _USER_ = (_USER_ - _USER_) / _USER_
select bar = round(bar + _USER_)
from _TAG_
share|improve this answer
_USER_ : if I'm not mistaking : 0.2/0.2/0.2/0.2/0.2, sum=1, roundedsum=0, offest=0.2, finalresulst = 0/0/0/0/0, finalsum=0. – Brann Sep 17 '09 at 10:57
_USER_: Yes, you are right, this doesn't give the right result. However, the principle of spreading the deviation equally is sound. I'll give it some more though... – Guffa Sep 17 '09 at 11:32
add comment
Your Answer


Antennas Delta and Gamma Matching
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-- Ed Paradis, email on 5 Dec 2010:
Matt B raised a great question about antenna building at a recent shop night.
"What is the difference between a Gamma Match and a Delta Match?"
If you ever see designs for Yagi or "Beam" antennas, you'll see reference to these two types of "matches". The purpose of both of these is to match the impedance of the antenna to the coax feeding the antenna. Adjusting the match is one way to tune an antenna to better radiate the available energy at the frequency you're transmitting at. They have no significant purpose for receiving.
A gamma match looks like this: ( from this article: )
In that image, you see the two halves of the driven element going vertically with the boom in the center. In the Yagi antennas we built in the shop, the driven element was the copper wire that was bent into a U shape and the boom was the wood supporting the whole thing. You'll see in that image a smaller piece parallel to one side side of the driven element with a "clamp" on one end connecting it to the element and the other side is being fed by the center of the coax.
In these designs, your driven element doesn't have a big U shape, instead it looks just like all the other elements on the antennas we built. But to efficiently get the signal from the coax to the antenna, the energy is fed in a different place on the element. At radio frequencies, the shape of your parts matters, so this is solving the electrical problem of an impedance mismatch with a geometrical solution of connecting the coax in a different place along the element.
So you'll see gamma matches are sort of asymmetric: The little piece parallel to the driven element is only on one side. The clamp is conductive and you would tune the match by moving that clamp further or nearer the boom.
A delta match, performs a similar function. It also matches the impedance of the coax to the antenna.
Here is an image of a delta match. It is the two triangular pieces that look like braces going from the boom to two of the antenna elements. ( from )
In this image, you can see that the coax connects to the ends of the diagonal pieces and also uses a loop of coax at a transformer to produce a "balanced" signal. ( same site as above )
Coax is "unbalanced" because the RF energy it carries is one sided. There are two conductors, the center wire and the outer cylindrical shield, but energy travels via the center conductor and not the outer metal shielding. Antennas, on the other hand, are inherently balanced. You always have to have two halves that oppose each other. Think of the two halves of a dipole antenna. At any moment, one half will have a positive voltage and the other half will have a negative voltage. You'll see antennas that look like they only have one half, but that the other half exists. It might be the ground, your metal car body, or in bad situations, your feed coax, radio and your hand!
So the other sides of the diagonal pieces of the delta match connect somewhere to the driven element of the antenna, like a gamma match, but on both sides of the boom. Here is an image of "half a gamma match". ( same site as above )
Notice how the side on the boom is insulated and the side connecting to the element is riveted so that it conducts energy.
So there you have it! Gamma matches and Delta matches are very similar and perform pretty much the same tasks. A Gamma match is super easy to build and the Delta match is a bit more complicated.
A Gamma match is unbalanced and a Delta match is balanced.
--- Mega Super Bonus Stage --- So if you built or ended up with one of the 70cm Yagi antennas we built, you might be wondering why there is no Delta or Gamma match. Or you might be wondering what the weird U-shaped thing is all about. Or you might be wondering how people build Yagi antennas out of tape measures with no match what-so-ever.
The bent piece is doing the same sort of thing that a Gamma match is doing, but instead of taking the energy out on a short feed piece, it brings the antenna all the way back around. Again, distance matters at Radio Frequency, so feeding the energy "all the way around" a half wavelength distance is significant. I can't find a good diagram of what is going on, so if you'd like me to draw you one, ask me next time you see me in the shop. This was fine at 70cm where the length of the antenna elements are short. If you were making an antenna that had 10 or 20 foot elements, that would be a significant mechanical challenge compared to a Gamma or Delta match.
The reason you can get away with no match on some antennas is that they are resonant at a wide enough range of frequencies that they do not require a match. Or the match might be "close enough" that you aren't concerned about a mismatch. The frequency you're using the antenna at might make a match so strange (tiny or huge) that it does more harm than good.
Both a $2000 state of the art camera and a $5 disposable camera will take a picture. Understanding the limitations and options will lead to great photo with either. Antennas are similar.
--- Confusing Thing at the End --- There is another type of match, called the Beta or Hairpin Match. These are different than the U-shaped thing we used on our 70cm Yagi antennas. Both are hairpin-shaped, but in the following image you can see that the hairpin match is connected across the feed point.
Hairpin matches are balanced like Delta matches.
Interestingly, here is someone using a hairpin match on a tape measure antenna:
Notice how in the second image, there is a piece of wire soldered vertically between the two wires traveling horizontally. Changing the position of that wire to the left or right will tune the antenna.
I hope this helps people understand a little more about the different parts of the antennas you'll see around. If you would like to know more, there are plenty of other bits to talk about; just ask or check out the ARRL Antenna book in the workshop.


Uganda is made up of numerous tribes, each with their own set of traditions and rituals. A SunTrack Adventures' cultural tours in Uganda gives personal insight into some of the 56 different native tribes, their beliefs and their traditions.
Although, most of our cultural experiences are visiting authentic remote villages, the cities and townships of Uganda represent a unique culture of its own. Each metropolis represents an interesting blend of cultures and ethnic creeds that is reflected in the architecture, food, art, clothing and much more.
More importantly, many of the indigenous people in Uganda face great pressure from the modern world. SunTrack Adventures cultural tours in Uganda help raise awareness about their challenges, as well as the vital role they play in Africa. Additionally, a portion of the fees collected by your safari accommodation in Uganda during your Ugandan wilderness safari activities are dedicated to the local communities for education, health and special projects to improve the quality of life.
We arrange a cultural tours to local villages where you witness an authentic way of life that exists in few places in today's world. You are welcomed into a traditional home to observe meal preparation, familial structure and ancient practices. The itineraries are culturally-sensitive so that your visit has little to no impact on the village and people.
You can also see fascinating & interesting cultural artifacts at the culture museums. When visiting Uganda – there is more to be seen and done than the classic game drives. One of the often overlooked highlights of a safari in Uganda is undoubtedly the opportunity to interact with the diverse cultures that call Uganda home.


text:
(PRWEB) February 01, 2013
Agnes Schultz imparts important life lessons in a fiction book
How will a little seed, blown away from its refuge and landed on a lonely, rugged hillside, survive on its own equipped only with hope and sound advice from its loving mother?
Agnes Szenozicska Schultz tries to answer that and more in The Little Tree, a poignant tale about how a little seed finds hope and strength despite dire circumstances. Once snuggled safely at its mother's branches, the little seed is helplessly swept away one stormy night into a rugged hillside where neither bushes nor trees grow. Alone and frightened, the little seed suddenly finds hope as it landed on a very small but fertile piece of land to grow its roots. Remembering the advice of its loving mother on how to survive, the little seed finally finds the courage and determination to become a strong tree amid hardship and desolation.
As the now little but lonely tree basks in its strength and beauty, he feels a sudden spark of joy when he is able to provide an exhausted little bird with a resting place and a gravid bird with a branch to build its nest. Finally discovering its purpose in life—a place of refuge for small animals that make their way on the rocky hillside—the little tree is proud of its triumph. Even so, it never forgets its mother's most valuable advice and shares it to other trees on the nearby forest with the help of the birds he has befriended.
Filled with important life lessons, Agnes Schultz's The Little Tree is certain to touch and inspire readers, young and old alike.


text:
Eugene Ionesco (1909 - 1994) was a Romanian-French playwright, and one the foremost figures of the French avant-garde theater.
Ionesco was born in 1912 in Romania of a French mother and Romanian father; his formative years were spent in France. In 1925 he returned to Romania when he learnt the "native" language. He subsequently taught French. Does a perfect knowledge of two languages enrich one's appreciation of language in general?
"Bilingualism involves a sort of intellectual acrobatics. I think that it is indispensable for my work as a writer. But I don't believe that different languages represent totally different visions of life, nor that nationality is an isolating factor. From my experience as a bilingual speaker, I would say that there can be an exact translation from on language to another, because there is a commonly shared structure which is permanent and universal. Although children learn a different language depending on where they were born, nevertheless the process is the same in all cases. For we all have the same anxieties and ask the same questions; and nationality, like politics, is secondary to the central problem of man's existential condition."


text:
Be Part of the Movement
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Calling All Teachers and School Administrators!GlassLab needs your help piloting our newest games. These pilots provide you with preview access to our games and help us refine our games to maximize learning impact.
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- Early access to games
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