text:
Ian Sherr
Business and Technology Journalist
Boxing Essay
I'm an Editor at Large for CNET News writing about mobile devices, social media, virtual reality, gaming and parenting.
Previously, I wrote for The Wall Street Journal, Reuters and the Agence France-Presse, among others. I've also served as an Executive Editor at CNET, managing west coast news coverage.
This site contains some of my best work covering companies such as Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Sony and Electronic Arts. I've also written some fun pieces along the way.
If you want to connect with me, I'm on almost any social network under the username iansherr.
advertising agence france-presse analysis apple cnet commentary consoles crime economy entertainment facebook holidays international internet interview legal military parenting playstation politics retail reuters science scoops security social issues television the wall street journal transportation videogames virtual reality xbox
Star Trek 50th anniversary: Poking fun at Trekkies made this Questarian value them more
As part of CNET's coverage of Star Trek's 50th anniversary, I talked with a dozen cast members from across the franchise about everything from Star Trek's inclusive message to how best to lampoon the Trek universe.
By Ian Sherr
What if TV broadcasts of Star Trek were intercepted by a technologically advanced but naive race of aliens?
That's the premise behind "Galaxy Quest," a 1999 parody/homage that lovingly hits on every aspect of Star Trek, from the corniness of the original series to the incomprehensible technobabble to the pajamalike costumes and, of course, the franchise's dedicated fans. You didn't need to know Star Trek to get the gags, but diehards could spot many inside jokes, including Alan Rickman's masterful sendup of Leonard Nimoy's love-hate relationship with his character, Spock.
But it was Enrico Colantoni who won over many a Trekkie's heart with his portrayal of Mathesar, leader of the Thermians, the alien race at the heart of "Galaxy Quest." The civilization of octopoidal aliens was in disarray until broadcasts of the "Galaxy Quest" reached their planet from Earth.
Colantoni (middle) played Mathesar, leader of the Thermians. / DreamWorks
Believing the TV episodes to be "historical documents," the Thermians modeled their lives on the show's teachings. And when they got into trouble with the evil General Sarris, they head for Earth and ask for help from the "Galaxy Quest" actors, believing them to be extraordinary space-farers.
Although Colantoni knew about Star Trek — fellow Canadian William Shatner is a legend, after all — he didn't know about the conventions "Galaxy Quest" would parody. "It didn't dawn on me there was a whole subculture."
To help create Mathesar, he drew from "The Coneheads," a massively popular "Saturday Night Live" sketch about aliens with conical-shaped heads stranded on Earth. He borrowed the characters' monotone speech, but replaced their robotic personalities with a heartfelt innocence.
"I made him born again," Colantoni, now 53, said of his character. "His innocence was so transparent. He wasn't hiding anything."
"Galaxy Quest" fans may remember talk of a "Galaxy Quest" TV series in the works before actor Rickman died. The death stopped any efforts, Colantoni said, and he hopes it stays that way. But if a TV series does come to be, he wants to be invited, because he enjoyed playing an alien.
"Any character where you're allowed to extend the imagination beyond the here and now is great fun," he said. "I know how much fun an actor has when they put on goofy makeup."
Of the many things he learned from playing Mathesar, Colantoni said he developed a deep appreciation for Star Trek's fans. "When I found out these people were real, I discovered compassion where I might have made fun of them before," he said. "They're no different than a sports fan or a fan of anything."
It also taught him that sci-fi is about the human spirit. "Human evolution is where Star Trek lives," he said.
Colantoni's since gotten into directing, including an episode of the sci-fi drama "iZombie."
Read the rest of this story at
Star Trek 50th anniversary: How Gates McFadden kept her son from confusing her with Dr. Crusher
Star Trek 50th anniversary: Can you imagine an alien that squawks? John Billingsley did
Tags cnet, entertainment, interview, television
Star Trek 50th anniversary: How the cosmos forced Dominic Keating to watch reruns
Star Trek 50th anniversary: The show turned Robert Picardo into a giant science nerd


WASHINGTONWASHINGTON (Reuters) - When Donald Trump first spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin after becoming U.S. president, he reviled the "New Start" treaty - a pillar of arms control - as a bad deal for America.
"The most likely outcome is the restarting of the strategic stability talks between the U.S. and Russia," said Frank Rose, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state for arms control now at the Brookings Institution think tank.
The last U.S.-Russian talks on "strategic stability" - a catch-all term for issues related to nuclear arms control - occurred in September and a subsequent round slated for March was canceled, reflecting strains in the relationship.
"The idea of dealing with the U.S. as equals in this one area of nuclear arms, where Russia is the only other party in the world that is comparable to the United States, has some appeal (to Moscow)," said a former senior U.S. official.
"(It) appeals to their sense of dealing with us as equals, as the other party that wears long pants on these issues," the former official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, added.
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump and Russia's President Vladimir Putin talk during the family photo session at the APEC Summit in Danang, Vietnam November 11, 2017.
"The worst outcome is ... that Trump thinks he is a big deal maker and a big arms controller ... (and gives) Putin something that Putin needs far more than we do," said the former official on condition of anonymity.
While there are published reports Trump aspired to be an arms control negotiator during the heyday of his real estate career, there is deep skepticism among former U.S. officials he has mastered the subject's intricacies.
Further, Trump has operated under the shadow of suspicions about his campaign's connections to Moscow, which are being investigated by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
"The problem is there is so little confidence in what the president is going to do that any suggestion of a deal by him is automatically suspect," said Eugene Rumer, a former U.S. national intelligence officer for Russia now at Washington's Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank.
Rumer suggested Helsinki could yield something like Trump's June meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, where they issued a general statement on denuclearization and left the details to others.
"They can agree to engage in a robust conversation," he added. "Similar to what transpired apparently, in Singapore ... the heavy lift is going to be on the part of the negotiators."


This should make life easier for our bus-going friends. Being able to go online and reload a card rather than picking up weekly or monthly passes in person is very convenient!
"The once-dignified portrait now resembles a crayon sketch of a very hairy monkey in an ill-fitting tunic, he says."
Twitter without the ego, it replaces names and avatars with simple colors.


text:
AT RISK? CONTACT NOW
PROTECTING DEFENDERS
EMERGENCY GRANTS
TEMPORARY RELOCATION
SHELTER INITIATIVES
THE EUTRP
INDEX OF ALERTS
ALTERNATIVE FUNDING FOR HRDs
DIGITAL SECURITY FOR HRDs
THE TURKEY PROJECT
Latest updates from ProtectDefenders.eu
By Javier-Roura in Job opportunities
Sudan: crackdown against human rights defenders, journalists, and civil society activists amidst the military coup
ProtectDefenders.eu's partners have received very concerning reports of violence in Sudan against the broad peaceful movement that opposes the military…
By Secretariat ProtectDefenders.eu in Uncategorized
Russia: Judicial harassment against human rights organisations International Memorial and Memorial
ProtectDefenders.eu partners are very concerned by the report that the Russian non-governmental organisations International Memorial and Human Rights Center "Memorial"…
Honduras: Trial of the Guapinol defenders and harassment against their families
ProtectDefenders.eu's partners are closely following and monitoring the worrying situation in Honduras regarding the Guapinol River Defenders. Front Line Defenders,…
Consultancy Vacancy – Final evaluation of the Comprehensive Support to Human Rights Defenders in Turkey Programme 2022-01-10
The Secretariat of ProtectDefenders.eu is looking for a Finance Officer – Turkey project 2021-12-20
Sudan: crackdown against human rights defenders, journalists, and civil society activists amidst the military coup 2021-12-15
Resources for human rights defenders
In this section you will find a compilation of useful resources for defenders, such as manuals, guides, toolkits, and public material produced by our extended network of partners and allied organisations defending HRDs.
It includes advocacy material, resources on European Union and international mechanisms, defending human rights, protection and security for HRDs – including a specific section on digital security – as well as specific resources for LGBTI+ defenders and women human rights defenders.
If you are an organisation or ally and want to contribute to this catalog of resources, you can contact us here.
1 2009 Protection and Security for HRDs New Protection Manual for Human Rights Defenders Manual Protection International
2 2016 Protection and Security for HRDs Manual para prevenir la criminalización de los defensores del derecho a la tierra y el territorio Manual Protection International
3 2017 Protection and Security for HRDs "Rethinking the protection of Human Rights Defenders", roundtable report Report Protection International
4 2021 Protection and Security for HRDs Protection Guide for HRD in rural areas Manual Protection International
5 2021 Protection and Security for HRDs Protection Manual for Community-based Human Rights Defenders Manual Protection International
6 2009 Protection and Security for HRDs Protection of Human Rights Defenders Best Practices and Lessons Learned: Operational Aspects of Defenders Protection (Volume II) Report Protection International
7 2021 Protection and Security for HRDs Collective Protection of Human Rights Defenders ǀ A collective approach to the right to defend human rights Manual Protection International
8 2021 Protection and Security for HRDs Manuel pratique de protection pour les Défenseur·e·s des Droits Humains en République Démocratique du Congo Manual Protection International
9 2017 Protection and Security for HRDs STAND UP! Security manual for African human rights defenders Report DefendDefenders
10 2007 Protection and Security for HRDs Protection Handbook for Human Rights Defenders Handbook Front Line Defenders
Alternative funding for human rights defenders
Due to our specific mandate, ProtectDefenders.eu cannot support all human rights defenders in need. However, in this section you will find information about other funding organisations and partners that can provide support to human rights defenders at risk.
For financial support specifically on the topic of digital security please, see the dedicated section below.
TYPE OF SUPPORT:
NAME OF THE ORGANISATION
PROFILE OF HRDS
2 Agir ensemble pour les droits humains (AEDH) AEDH, a French organisation created in 1989, supports and protects individual HRDs at risk through an emergency relief fund. The relief fund can be used for temporary relocation, livelihood, medical or legal support for a duration of 3 months Emergency fund N/A N/A
3 Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) CPJ's Emergencies Response Team provides comprehensive, life-saving support to journalists and media support staff working around the world through up-to-date safety and security information and rapid response assistance to journalists at risk. Emergency fund N/A Journalists/media
4 Freedom House Freedom House is an organisation aiming at advancing the efforts of people around the world to live in freedom and exercise their rights. They operate two key emergency funds : emergency financial assistance to civil society organisations and the Dignity for all emergency fund for LGBTI defenders and organisations Emergency fund ; Grants to organisations N/A All ; LGBTI
5 Institute of International Education's Artist Protection Fund (IIE-APF) The APF makes fellowship grants to threatened artists from any field of practice, and places them at host institutions in safe countries where they can continue their work and plan for their futures. Fellowship/Relocation N/A Artists
6 Institute of International Education's Scholar Rescue Fund (IIE-SRF) The Institute of International Education's Scholar Rescue Fund (IIE-SRF) is a program that arranges and funds fellowships for threatened and displaced scholars at partnering higher education institutions worldwide Fellowship/Relocation N/A Scholars/Academics
7 International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN) ICORN is an independent organisation of cities and regions offering shelter to writers and artists at risk, advancing freedom of expression, defending democratic values and promoting international solidarity. Fellowship/Relocation N/A Writers and Artists
8 International Federation of Journalists The International Federation of Journalist is an organisation of journalists, representing 600,000 media professionals from more than 140 countries. The IFJ's Safety Fund offers financial assistance in a range of emergency cases such as threats, violence and threats thereof, prosecution, settlement in exile and illness. Emergency fund N/A Journalists/media
9 International Media Support (IMS) IMS (International Media Support) pushes for quality journalism, challenges repressive laws and keeps media workers of all genders safe, so that they can do their jobs. The Safety Fund provides immediate support for journalists who are victimised as a direct result of their journalistic work. Emergency fund N/A Journalists/media
10 Media Legal Defence Initiative Media Defence provides legal help to journalists, citizen journalists and independent media across the world. The Emergency Defence funds legal defence for journalists and independent media across the world. Emergency fund N/A Journalists/media
11 Protective Fellowship Scheme for HRDs at Risk - Centre for Applied Human Rights, University of York Through two different Protective Fellowship Schemes, the CAHR hosts HRDs from around the world for a period of 3 to 6 months. Fellowship/Relocation N/A N/A
The increased use of digital spaces by human rights defenders raises not only new opportunities for a more effective and impactful human rights defence work, but also an array of issues and risks. ProtectDefenders.eu has been adapting its programmes to allow defenders facing digital risks to find support for digital security.
How does ProtectDefenders.eu support Human Rights Defenders and local organisations facing digital risks?
Emergency Protection Grants
Defenders facing risks can apply for emergency and protection grants to cover digital security measures that includes, covering the cost of information technology (IT) equipment and other digital protection material, as well as following trainings on the matter of digital security.
During the year 2020, 30+ emergency grants were allocated for this purpose. A Ugandan journalist at risk was able to enhance his protection, including in digital security, thanks to an emergency grant for comprehensive support. Read about this story here.
Grant-making for organisations
Through this programme, ProtectDefenders.eu supports the consolidation of operational capacities of local human rights organisations, the expansion and capacity-building of these organisations. This means that local NGOs can access digital security measures, to respond to their IT and digital security needs.
In 2020, 15% of the grants to organisation aimed at reinforcing the security of these organisations, including digital security. Thanks to these grants, ProtectDefenders.eu partners, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), supported Syrian journalists from the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM) so they could access IT and digital security support, among other type of support. Read this story here.
ProtectDefenders.eu allocates grants to human rights defenders at risk so they can temporarily relocate in their country or abroad. During the relocation period and depending on the stay plan the host organisation and the HRD have agreed on, HRDs take part in different activities. These activities should be tailored to their needs; it often includes capacity-building activities and trainings in security, both physical and digital.
Training and capacity-development
Via our partners, ProtectDefenders.eu provides training, and long-term capacity development for Human Rights Defenders and local organisations to develop their protection skills, also in the field of digital security and protection.
Digital Security Actors Supporting Human Rights Organisations
In this section, you can find information on other actors who can provide specific financial and/or technical support to human rights defenders on the topic of digital security. If you wish to find resources, such as toolkits, guides or manuals on this topic, you may find them in the resources table.
1 Access Now Access Now is an organisation created in 2009 that defends and extends the digital rights of users at risk around the world Technical Support Global
2 Digital Defenders Partnership The Digital Defenders Partnership offers support to human rights defenders under digital threat, and works to strengthen local rapid response networks. Financial Support Technical Support Global
3 Open Tech Fund The Open Technology Fund (OTF) is an independent non-profit organization committed to advancing global Internet freedom. OTF supports projects focused on counteracting repressive censorship and surveillance, enabling citizens worldwide to exercise their fundamental human rights online Financial Support Global
4 Center for Digital Resilience The Center for Digital Resilience (CDR) helps build resilient systems to keep civil society safe online. CDR?s mandate is to strengthen the digital resilience of civil society organizations and communities Technical Support Global
5 Deflect Deflect is a website security service that offers its service free of charge to non-profit organisations. Technical Support Global
6 Qurium Qurium is a non-for-profit foundation that provides a unique set of proactive and reactive digital security services to a community of journalists, activists and human right workers that often face digital threats against their core communication channels. Technical Support Global
7 Indela Indela funds and supports organizations that work to advance digital rights in Latin America. Financial Support Latin-America
8 Derechos Digitales Derechos Digitales is an independent, non-profit organisation with a Latin American scope, founded in 2005, whose main objective is the development, defence and promotion of human rights in the digital environment. They operate a rapid respond fund to respond to urgent situations Financial Support Latin-America
9 Fundacion Acceso Fundacion Acceso is a non-for-profit organisation that contributes to mitigate the violation of rights related to physical, technological and psycho-social security of vulnerable and/or at-risk populations in Central America. Technical Support Latin-America
10 CIPESA The Collaboration on International ICT Policy in East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) is an organisation that aims at promoting effective and inclusive ICT policy in Africa. Financial Support Africa
This project is funded by
This publication has been produced with the assistance of the European Union. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of ProtectDefenders.eu and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union.
Privacy notice | Cookies policy

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Academic year consists of two semesters, namely the Odd Semester and the Even Semester, each having ordinarily, duration of 90 working days. All academic programmes of the Institute are administered according to the academic calendar issued by Uttar Pradesh Technical University.
The timings observed by the Institute for academic purposes are ordinarily from 9.30 A.M. to 5.10P.M. Any change in the timing is properly notified. No Notices are circulated in the class rooms. Students are advised to see the notice boards of their respective departments, administrative block, library, hostels, workshop etc regularly.


Known as the 'Jewel of the Eastern Cape, Berg and Wild Coast', Port St Johns is nothing short of dramatic! With signature mangrove swamps, impenetrable forests, and waves lashing the jagged rocks, Port St Johns offers visitors a truly 'laid back' Eastern Cape adventure.
Port St Johns' picture perfect shoreline is dominated by the Eastern Cape, Umzimvubu River (Xhosa for 'hippo'), cutting a huge gorge right to the sea between the Thesiger and Sullivan twin mountains, which stand on either side of the river mouth like strongholds, and are regarded as the gates of Port St Johns. Another Port St Johns sentinel is the Cape Hermes Lighthouse, which has since 1903 been warning passing ships of the craggy rocks that line this dangerous Port St Johns Eastern Cape coastline.
Port St Johns beaches are famous for dolphin watching, whale watching and excellent fishing on the Umzimvubu River mouth, and the rocky Poenskop fishing beach, which are exceptionally popular Eastern Cape fishing spots for year round fishing. Or, chill out on Port St Johns Third Beach, which is well known for its mellow atmosphere, and is a favourite retreat for Port St Johns backpackers and free spirited bohemians.
For the more energetic, numerous Eastern Cape hiking trails saunter through the nearby Port St Johns Silaka Nature Reserve, which is nestled in a forested valley between Port St Johns Second Beach and Sugarloaf Rock. Similarly located in a densely forested region a few kilometres from Port St Johns, the Isinuka Springs are visited by thousand of people each year, who seek relief in the sulphur water for various ailments.
The decaying colonial grandeur of Port St Johns offers some wonderfully unique restaurants, and guests are spoiled for choice when it comes to Port St Johns B&B accommodation, who welcome their guests with good old fashioned hospitality, and comfortable Port St Johns Self Catering accommodation which stands just a few meters from Port St Johns Long Beach, with easy access to good fishing, a 9 hole golf course. However, town central is somewhat run-down, and Port St Johns accommodation should perhaps be sought on the fringes of town. Cremorne is a well known Port St Johns self catering establishment and consists of very comfortable log cabin accommodation. Cremorne Holiday Resort also offers a very festive pub and restaurant facility for a "break from the kitchen"
Come experience the beauty and diversity of the Eastern Cape's Port St Johns, and see why they call Port St Johns the "Gem of the Eastern Cape's Wild Coast", where an atmosphere of "live and let live" has made Port St Johns a hotspot for tourists looking for adventure on the wild side.
WhereToStay has sought to provide visitors to Port St Johns with a suitable selection of Port St Johns accommodation, particularly the more popular categories such as Port St Johns Bed & Breakfast accommodation, Port St Johns Self Catering accommodation, Port St Johns Guest House accommodation, and other Port St Johns lodges such as Self Catering Cottages in Port St Johns.
We offer guests to Port St Johns a mixture of upmarket Port St Johns accommodation, as well as affordable accommodation (to suit all pockets and tastes), especially for Self Catering accommodation in Port St Johns, which is a category more geared for family holiday accommodation in Port St Johns.
If in doubt about accommodation quality, we recommend that you consider Star Graded accommodation in Port St Johns, whether it be Star Graded Self Catering Port St Johns accommodation, or Star Graded Port St Johns Bed & Breakfast accommodation. Click here for our Star Graded Port St Johns accommodation page.
Be sure to check our other Port St Johns Special Category for Conference Venue accommodation in Port St Johns.


text:
CDC issues guidelines for pregnant women during Zika outbreak
Jan 19th 2016 4:12PM
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday issued guidelines for doctors caring for pregnant women who might have been exposed to Zika virus, a mosquito-borne infection that can cause brain damage in a developing fetus.
SEE ALSO: Scientists are trying to use genetically engineered mosquitoes to stop the rapidly-spreading Zika virus
The new guidelines, first reported by Reuters, lay out recommendations for doctors whose pregnant patients have traveled to areas with Zika virus transmission.
They follow a travel advisory issued by the CDC on Friday warning pregnant women to avoid travel to 14 countries and territories in the Caribbean and Latin America affected by the virus.
Learn more about Zika virus:
Zika virus and fumigation
Aedes aegypti mosquitos are seen in containers at a lab of the Institute of Biomedical Sciences of the Sao Paulo University, on January 8, 2016 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Researchers at the Pasteur Institute in Dakar, Senegal are in Brazil to train local researchers to combat the Zika virus epidemic. / AFP / NELSON ALMEIDA (Photo credit should read NELSON ALMEIDA/AFP/Getty Images)
A specialist fumigates the Nueva Esperanza graveyard in the outskirts of Lima on January 15, 2016. Health officials fumigated the largest cementery in Peru and second largest in the world to prevent Chikunguya and Zika virus, which affect several South American countries. AFP PHOTO/ERNESTO BENAVIDES / AFP / ERNESTO BENAVIDES (Photo credit should read ERNESTO BENAVIDES/AFP/Getty Images)
A specialist fumigates the Nueva Esperanza graveyard in the outskirts of Lima on January 15, 2016. Health officials fumigated the largest cemetery in Peru and second largest in the world to prevent Chikunguya and Zika virus, which affect several South American countries. AFP PHOTO/ERNESTO BENAVIDES / AFP / ERNESTO BENAVIDES (Photo credit should read ERNESTO BENAVIDES/AFP/Getty Images)
View of the Nueva Esperanza graveyard as it is fumigated in the outskirts of Lima on January 15, 2016. Health officials fumigated the largest cemetery in Peru and second largest in the world to prevent Chikunguya and Zika virus, which affect several South American countries. AFP PHOTO/ERNESTO BENAVIDES / AFP / ERNESTO BENAVIDES (Photo credit should read ERNESTO BENAVIDES/AFP/Getty Images)
In Brazil, Zika has been linked to a rising number of cases of microcephaly, a condition associated with small head size and brain damage. Tourism officials in that country have tried to play down the risks as the country gears up for Carnivale and the 2016 Olympics, the first in South America.
On Saturday, health officials confirmed the birth of the first baby born with microcephaly in the United States attributed to the virus. The child was born in Hawaii to a mother who had become ill with Zika virus while living in Brazil last May.
There is no vaccine or treatment for Zika, which causes mild fever and rash. An estimated 80 percent of people infected with the virus have no symptoms at all, making it difficult for pregnant women to know whether they have been infected.
In its latest to doctors, the CDC urges providers to ask pregnant women about their travel history. Women who have traveled to regions in which Zika is active and who report symptoms during or within two weeks of travel should be offered a test for Zika virus infection.
Those who test positive should be offered an ultrasound to check the fetus's head size or check for calcium deposits in the brain, two indicators of microcephaly. These women should also be offered a test of their amniotic fluid called amniocentesis to confirm the presence of Zika virus.
Pregnant women who traveled in areas where Zika is active but have no clinical symptoms should also be offered an ultrasound, and women whose fetus shows signs of microcephaly should also be offered amniocentesis. Those with no positive findings should be offered frequent ultrasounds to check for changes in the baby's head size.
Pregnant women with laboratory-confirmed evidence of Zika infection should be offered ultrasounds every three to four weeks to monitor fetal anatomy or growth. The CDC recommends that these women be referred to a maternal-fetal medicine or infectious disease expert with expertise in managing high-risk pregnancies.
While there is no treatment for microcephaly, early detection might offer some women the option of terminating their pregnancies or to have specialists on hand at delivery, said Dr. Laura Riley, president of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, who has been working with the CDC on the guidelines.
Riley, an expert in high-risk pregnancies who practices at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, said she is writing practice guidelines for the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, which will be released in partnership with The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Riley said the guidelines could be released as early as Wednesday.
"We're going to be recommending people get an ultrasound. If that is normal, great, but it needs to be followed up," Riley said.
Since the CDC issued its travel advisory, Riley said she has had several calls to her practice from families asking whether they should cancel their travel plans.
She also has had calls from worried patients who have already traveled to countries with Zika outbreaks.
The guidelines will give doctors like her some answers for those patients. Even so, there are many unknowns, Riley said.
For example, it is not clear how accurate a test of amniotic fluid would be in detecting Zika infections, especially those that might have occurred earlier during the pregnancy. In addition, even though a child might show signs suggesting a smaller head size on an ultrasound, that does not give doctors a clear picture of whether the child will have extensive brain damage, Riley said.
And testing could be an issue. Currently, there are no commercially available diagnostic tests for Zika infection. Tests to confirm Zika will require advanced laboratory capabilities beyond what is available in most local hospitals.
According to the guidelines, testing for Zika virus will be performed by the CDC and several state health departments. Doctors are urged to contact their state or local health department to arrange for testing or to interpret results.
Despite the advice, experts admit there is still much about Zika infections that is unknown.
"People are making educated guesses," said Paul Roepe, co-director of the Center for Infectious Disease at Georgetown University Medical Center.
For example, he said it is not clear how common Zika infection is in pregnant women, or when during a pregnancy a woman is most at risk of transmitting the virus to her fetus.
"Does it happen in first few weeks for the first trimester?I'm not sure anybody really knows," he said.'
Trump endorsed by John Wayne's daughter
Ted Cruz aims directly at Donald Trump for 1st time
Republican operatives are trying to help Bernie Sanders
Obstetricians
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists


text:
Alan David Sokal (Boston; 24 de enero de 1955) es un científico estadounidense, profesor de física en la Universidad de Nueva York y de matemáticas en University College London.

Datos biográficos y académicos
Obtuvo un doctorado en Física por la Universidad de Princeton en 1981. Enseñó matemáticas en la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua durante el gobierno sandinista, siendo expulsado de dicha universidad durante el gobierno de Violeta Chamorro. Las áreas de investigación de Sokal en física incluyen la física computacional, la mecánica estadística, la teoría cuántica de campos y la física matemática. Ha publicado más de un centenar de artículos científicos y es coautor del libro Random walks, critical phenomena and triviality in quantum field theory, con Roberto Fernández y Jürg Fröhlich (Springer, 1992 - ISBN 0-387-54358-9).

Se define a sí mismo como una persona con ideas políticas de izquierda. Adquirió gran notoriedad internacional por lo que se denominó el escándalo Sokal en 1996 cuando, para comprobar si la publicación postmoderna Social Text publicaría cualquier contribución que «adulara las preconcepciones ideológicas de los redactores», Sokal sometió para la publicación un artículo absurdo titulado «Transgressing the boundaries: Toward a transformative hermeneutics of quantum gravity» («Transgredir los límites: Hacia una hermenéutica transformadora de la gravedad cuántica»).
El texto fue publicado y Sokal entonces reveló el engaño en otra publicación (Lingua Franca), citando, entre otros, a Noam Chomsky para plantear que las ciencias sociales no siempre basan sus trabajos en la razón. Sokal sostuvo que la motivación de su broma fue «defender a los científicos y académicos de izquierda de un segmento de sí misma muy de moda».

Imposturas intelectuales (1997)

Sokal y Jean Bricmont publicaron en 1997 Impostures Intellectuelles. Originalmente en francés (Éditions Odile Jacob, París), ha sido traducido al español como Imposturas intelectuales (Ed. Paidós - ISBN 84-493-0531-4, con traducción de Joan Carles Guix), al inglés como Intellectual Impostures en el Reino Unido y como Fashionable Nonsense en los Estados Unidos, al alemán, al catalán, al coreano, al neerlandés, al húngaro, al italiano, al japonés, al polaco, al portugués y al turco.

Sokal y Bricmont sostienen que determinados intelectuales «posmodernos», como Lacan, Kristeva, Baudrillard y Deleuze usan repetida y abusivamente conceptos provenientes de las ciencias físico-matemáticas totalmente fuera de contexto sin dar la menor justificación conceptual o empírica, o apabullando a sus lectores con palabras «sabias» sin preocuparse por su pertinencia o sentido, y negando la importancia de la verdad. Además, el ensayo incluye una dura crítica al relativismo epistémico, corriente académica posmoderna que considera que la verdad o falsedad de una afirmación depende de un individuo o de un grupo social y que considera a la ciencia «un relato más».

El libro tuvo valoraciones muy diversas: algunos alabaron lo certero de la crítica, pero otros lo acusaron de ignorar las áreas que criticaba y sacar frases de contexto. Jacques Derrida, escribió una crítica en Le Monde, 20-11-1997, centrada en que los autores sólo elegían a franceses (y a ciertos franceses), que no estudiaban escrupulosamente esas llamadas «metáforas» científicas, ni su papel ni tampoco su estatuto y sus efectos en los discursos que reprobaban, y que todo el texto era una lectura superficial, propia de cierto mundo universitario. Se dio la circunstancia de que en el Times Literary Supplement ellos declararon que habían excluido de su crítica a pensadores célebres, como Althusser, Roland Barthes y Foucault, pero —al darlo a traducir a Libération (19-10-1997)—, modificaron la secuencia e incluyeron además entre los «honorables» a Derrida, porque les convenía para su imagen en Francia: según Derrida, Sokal y Bricmont no habían leído las obras impugnadas, ni conocían las ciencias humanas ni discernían un comentario retórico del razonamiento principal de un analista cultural. Otra serie de textos críticos de la obra de Sokal, bajo la coordinación de Baouduin Jurdant, fue publicada en 2003 bajo el título Imposturas científicas: Los malentendidos del caso Sokal.

Más allá de las imposturas intelectuales (2008)
En 2007 Sokal publica en solitario el libro Beyond the Hoax: Science, Philosophy and Culture (publicado en español por Paidós bajo el título Más allá de las imposturas intelectuales. Ciencia, filosofía y cultura). El libro consta de tres partes: incluye de antemano el polémico artículo (artefacto) de la revista Social Text: «Transgredir los límites: Hacia una hermenéutica transformadora de la gravedad cuántica», con nuevas referencias explicativas y varios artículos en relación con ese texto. En la segunda parte trata los presupuestos de ciencia y filosofía en sus aspectos ontológicos y epistémicos. Finalmente analiza diversas pseudociencias y que pretenden equipararse, con motivos y por motivos muy distintos, a la validez y «verdad» de la ciencia.

Obra de Alan Sokal
Artículos
 Pueden verse numerosos artículos de Alan D. Sokal en Arxiv.org
 Pueden verse numerosos artículos de Alan Sokal en Google Académico.

Libros
 1997 - Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science o Intellectual Impostures (con Jean Bricmont)
 1999 - Imposturas intelectuales, Paidós, ISBN 978-84-493-0531-3.
 2008 - Beyond the Hoax: Science, Philosophy and Culture, Oxford University Press
 2009 - Más allá de las Imposturas Intelectuales. Ciencia, filosofía y cultura, Paidós, ISBN 978-84-493-2314-0

Véase también
 Postestructuralismo
 Criterio de demarcación
 Epistemología
 Imposturas Intelectuales
 Postmodernidad
 Jean Bricmont
 Escándalo Sokal

Notas y referencias

Enlaces externos
 Página de Alan Sokal en NYU (en inglés).
 Ciencia, psicoanálisis y posmodernismo. Acerca del libro "Impostures Intellectuelles" de Sokal y Bricmont. Por Michel Sauval.
 Imposturas intelectuales. Recensión de la obra de A. Sokal y J. Bricmont.
 Imposturas científicas: Los malentendidos del caso Sokal. Coord. por Baudouin Jurdant

Físicos de Estados Unidos
Filósofos de la ciencia

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Tabanus anatolicus är en tvåvingeart som beskrevs av Olsufjev, Moucha och Chvala 1967. Tabanus anatolicus ingår i släktet Tabanus och familjen bromsar.

Artens utbredningsområde är Turkiet. Inga underarter finns listade i Catalogue of Life.

Källor

Bromsar
anatolicus


text:
from AlgorithmImports import *

### <summary>
### Test algorithm using 'AccumulativeInsightPortfolioConstructionModel.py' and 'ConstantAlphaModel'
### generating a constant 'Insight'
### </summary>
class AccumulativeInsightPortfolioRegressionAlgorithm(QCAlgorithm):
    def Initialize(self):
        ''' Initialise the data and resolution required, as well as the cash and start-end dates for your algorithm. All algorithms must initialized.'''

        # Set requested data resolution
        self.UniverseSettings.Resolution = Resolution.Minute

        self.SetStartDate(2013,10,7)   #Set Start Date
        self.SetEndDate(2013,10,11)    #Set End Date
        self.SetCash(100000)           #Set Strategy Cash

        symbols = [ Symbol.Create("SPY", SecurityType.Equity, Market.USA) ]

        # set algorithm framework models
        self.SetUniverseSelection(ManualUniverseSelectionModel(symbols))
        self.SetAlpha(ConstantAlphaModel(InsightType.Price, InsightDirection.Up, timedelta(minutes = 20), 0.025, 0.25))
        self.SetPortfolioConstruction(AccumulativeInsightPortfolioConstructionModel())
        self.SetExecution(ImmediateExecutionModel())

    def OnEndOfAlgorithm(self):
        # holdings value should be 0.03 - to avoid price fluctuation issue we compare with 0.06 and 0.01
        if (self.Portfolio.TotalHoldingsValue > self.Portfolio.TotalPortfolioValue * 0.06
            or self.Portfolio.TotalHoldingsValue < self.Portfolio.TotalPortfolioValue * 0.01):
            raise ValueError("Unexpected Total Holdings Value: " + str(self.Portfolio.TotalHoldingsValue))

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Atomic City Underground
Y-12 shipped 10 times too much U-235; contractor fined $33,620 for DOT violations
Consolidated Nuclear Security, the government's managing contractor at Y-12, was fined $33,620 for a July shipping error involving a kilogram of weapons-grade uranium. (KNS photo/Michael Patrick)
A July 13 shipment from the Y-12 National Security Complex to a company in New York contained 10 times the intended amount of bomb-grade uranium, violating multiple regulations and resulting in a $33,620 fine.
According to documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the shipment contained 1,000 grams of highly enriched uranium metal — more than 93 percent U-235, the fissionable isotope — instead of the intended 100 grams.
The National Nuclear Security Administration, in response to questions earlier this fall, confirmed there was a shipping error involving "special nuclear material," but declined to say how much material was involved, the type of material or where it was sent.
Documents released by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration show that the material was shipped by Consolidated Nuclear Security — the government's managing contractor at Y-12 — to Mirion Technologies Corp. in Horseheads, N.Y. The company develops radiation detection equipment and other instruments for the nuclear industry.
The Department of Transportation cited the Y-12 contractor for two violations:
— Offering or accepting a hazardous material for transportation that is not properly classed, described, packaged, marked, labeled, or in proper condition for shipment. This violation notes the fact that the labeling on the shipment did not accurately reflect how much enriched uranium was actually shipped in the containers. Also, the shipment, given the amount of fissionable material involved, should have been sent via "exclusive transport," but wasn't (via the commercial carrer, YRC Freight).
— Failing to retrain hazardous material employees every three years. The documents indicate that a chemical operator who placed the uranium into packages at Y-12 did not have adequate training.
In a response to investigators with the Department of Transportation, CNS Vice President Darrell Graddy described the company's review and said the direct cause of the shipping mistake was human error.
"Personnel mistakenly placed more material into the containers than was intended," Graddy wrote in an Aug. 31 letter to Joseph Gubino, a hazardous material safety specialist with DOT.
"Once the discrepancy between the amounts listed on the container labels was identified, personnel changed the labels without verifying the amounts (inside the packages)," he wrote.
Because of those changes, the Criticality Safety Index and the Transportation Index — two of the controls associated with safe shipment of radioactive materials — didn't match the actual contents of the packages, "resulting in illegal shipment of radioactive material," the Department of Transportation stated.
Graddy said the Y-12 contractor has since made changes in the "workflow software" that's used on the shop floor so that if an operator changes the weight in the system to match the packing instructions, the software "will flag the difference."
The vice president also said CNS has issued a "standing order" to ensure that only properly trained hazmat employees at Y-12 are assigned to the transportation projects.
The documents indicate that Y-12 used the wrong shipping containers for the commercial delivery to Mirion Technologies, apparently due to the misunderstanding about how much fissionable material was being shipped.
According to supporting documents used in the investigation, two 5-gallon "Type A" drums were used to ship the highly enriched uranium to New York, departing Y-12 on July 13 and arriving three days later.
Each drum reportedly had a maximum limit of 60 grams of U-235, but the actual amounts shipped in the containers were 460 grams in one, 540 grams in the other.
The amounts were confirmed in an Aug. 24 email from James D. Cunningham, the transportation and traffic manager at Y-12, to Gubino, a special agent with DOT.
As noted previously, once the error was discovered by the recipient in New York, Y-12 sent a special team to the facility to repackage the material and prepare it for return to Oak Ridge. The documents indicated that 1,000 grams — more than two pounds — of highly enriched uranium were transferred to a Type B container for the return shipment, meeting the standards for the Class 7 radioactive material.
Ellen Boatner, a spokeswoman at Y-12, said Consolidated Nuclear Security paid the fines.
"Y-12 representatives have been in contact with DOT and have cooperated with their findings and paid any fines," she said. "Corrective actions have been identified and have been implemented to ensure full compliance for all Y-12 shipments."
All of the uranium sent to Mirion in July was later returned to Oak ridge, and it's not clear if Y-12 later shipped the correct amount of uranium — 100 grams — to the New York facility.
The National Nuclear Security Administration did not respond to follow-up questions, and efforts to reach Mirion officials for comment were not successful. The company apparently followed procedures in notifying Y-12 of the shipping error.
A feature on Atomic City Underground allows readers to sign up for email updates and receive a notice each time new information is posted on the news blog. Just put your email address in the box on the lower right of the blog's front page and follow instructions. Thanks to all loyal readers.
This entry was posted in Bechtel, NNSA, security, Y-12 on October 20, 2015 by Frank Munger.
About Frank Munger
Senior Writer Frank Munger covers the Dept. of Energy's Oak Ridge facilities and many related topics — nuclear weapons, nuclear waste and other things nuclear, environmental cleanup and science of all sorts. Atomic City Underground is, first and foremost, a news blog, but there's room for analysis, opinion and random thoughts that have no place else to go.
View all posts by Frank Munger →
← Alvarado and Young assume interim roles at NPO Estimated cost on reactor project: $8M →
Our Sponsor:
Senior Writer Frank Munger covers the Dept. of Energy's Oak Ridge facilities and many related topics — nuclear weapons, nuclear waste and other things nuclear, environmental cleanup and science of all sorts. Atomic City Underground is, first and foremost, a news blog, but there's room for analysis, opinion and random thoughts that have no place else to go. You may contact Frank at mungerf@knoxnews.com.
Oh, my
ORNL part of administration's beat-cancer program
IG gigs Pantex on infrastructure report
The new-jobs breakdown at Y-12, Pantex
Archives Select Month June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007
Categories Select Category Additive manufacturing AMSE ATLC B&W Bechtel Centrus Cleanup CNS Critters DNFSB DOE HQ DOE IG East Tennessee Technology Park EEOICPA Energy Issues EnergySolutions EPA Funnybone GAO Good deeds HEUMF HFIR History ITER lithium Manhattan Project Park mercury neutrons NNSA nuclear Oak Ridge EM Oak Ridge things Odd stuff ORAU OREPA ORISE ORNL ORO OSTI Pantex Plowshares plutonium Science security Small businesses Spallation Neutron Source Supercomputing TDEC TWPC UCOR Uncategorized UPF uranium USEC UT Y-12
ATOMIC CITY UNDERGROUND VIA EMAIL
Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Total subscribers: 1,526


Beautiful New England Style Salt Box home In pristine condition. The large eat in kitchen offers Oak hardwood floors and custom built pine cabinetry. Spacious living room with attached Sun-room / Family room. Three bedrooms, two and one half baths. Recent renovations make this home roomy and functional! Oversize two car garage and storage building all situated on this lush level one acre lot. Enjoy the swing in the backyard with a warm fire in the fire pit. So much to see and enjoy.


text:
Sound and Materialism in the 19th Century
University of Cambridge Research Group
Dr. David Trippett
Dr. Melissa van Drie
Dr. Edward Gillin
Dr. Melle Kromhout
Dr. Stephanie Probst
Acoustics of Empire
After Idealism Conference
Sensing the Sonic Conference
Sardanapalo – Liszt's Lost Opera
Editing unfinished music by a great composer is controversial – but sometimes it needs to be done
15Feb 2019 15 Feb 2019
First page of Liszt's opera Sardanapalo, GSA 60 / N4. Photo © Klassik Stiftung Weimar, Author provided
David Trippett, University of Cambridge
Unfinished works of art have long had a poetic allure. Such works are attractive to us today, in part, because of the curiosity and sadness that inevitably accompany fragments. What have we lost? What might it have become? Perhaps more importantly, unfinished works promise to open a window into the creative process more transparently than "finished" ones. They can provide insight into both the intellectual decisions and technical means by which the artist sought to create something.
For Pliny the Elder, artists' unfinished pictures were "more admired than those which they finished, because in them are seen the preliminary drawings left visible and the artists' actual thoughts". Similarly, in the 19th century, sketches became central to models of the creative imagination, appearing to grant privileged access to this moment of inspiration.
While certain genres celebrate the fragmentary, scholars are often squeamish about dealing with incomplete works, and significant funding to undo unsavoury past attempts to restore sculptures sits alongside occasional outbreaks of public vitriol at botched restorations of paintings and carvings.
Nor are these arguments new. The archaeologist Ludwig Pollak discovered in 1905 that the famous Laocoön sculpture — unearthed in 1506 — had been supplied with a new, outstretched arm, the result of a competition in 1532, judged by Raphael, no less. When the original arm was unearthed, and shown not to be outstretched, it was reunited with the sculpture, which had looked different for the past four centuries.
Laocoön's arm after refixing, 2010. Gentil Hibou/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA
The problem of time
I am a musicologist and so my interest is primarily in musical sketches. These can pose challenges of presentation that scraps of poetry or incomplete drawings do not. However beguiling incomplete art may be, what are we to do with unfinished music?
Writing with the statue of Laocoön in mind, the 18th-century writer Gottfried Lessing famously drew a distinction between the arts that work in time (nacheinander) and those that work in space (nebeneinander). While we can read an incomplete verse, or take pleasure from contemplating the unfinished strokes of a pencil, music exists in time. It needs performance: active realisation in sound. The pleasure of reading a musical fragment in an archive is essentially antiquarian. It excludes those who cannot read scores silently. Music's sensory realisation in time sets it apart in this context.
Many "pieces" remain incomplete, from fragments of chant to Bach's St Mark Passion and Mozart's Requiem, from symphonies by Beethoven, Schubert, Mahler and Elgar to operas by Weber, Donizetti, Mendelssohn, Verdi, Liszt, Puccini and Berg. Some, such as the Requiem or Mahler's Tenth, have been completed multiple times by multiple people. In several cases, we've become comfortable with these "completions", many of which date from the second half of the 20th century, and have been recorded by the world's top conductors and orchestras. But this is not always the case.
In 1966, musicologist Paul Henry Lang poured scorn on the first "completion" of Mahler's Tenth symphony by Deryck Cooke, writing: "One never hears of an archaeologist adding a missing arm of his own making to a recovered Venus, nor would his musicologist colleague do any such thing to a symphony." While there are many such additions to sculpture, perhaps the point is whether the restoration is faked up so you can't see it.
Cooke's work was blessed by Mahler's wife Alma, yet — in at least one respect — Lang's reasoning is sound: no two creative personalities can be alike, meaning that even with all the expertise in the world, some level of creative difference creeps into any such "completion". And attitudes haven't changed much. The classic example of such a debate may be the speculative completion of Beethoven's Tenth Symphony in 1988, where the exaggeration of evidence in Beethoven's manuscript generated similarly fierce reactions.
From this arises the question of whether we should simply leave unfinished works alone in silence. Where existing notation can be performed to a point, should we stop dead in performances ("and here, ladies and gentlemen, the master died")? Should we relegate knowledge of such works to specialists, as Lang suggested? And could we bear to forego Mozart's Requiem and Bach's Art of Fugue in this way?
It seems clear that latter-day performers and scholars ought not to intrude arbitrarily on the integrity of any particular composer's materials. But consider the flipside. If performable music fragments are present, can we allow them to sit in silence, or is there an ethical obligation to bring the music into the world, as a kind of social property?
For me, everything depends on the detail and state of completion of what is notated by the composer. The line between editing, realising and reconstructing is drawn on this basis.
Sardanapalo
My interest in this debate concerns my recent work towards an edition and first performance of Liszt's Sardanapalo, an opera assumed to be fragmentary and irretrievable, but which — on closer investigation — proved to be a continuous piano-vocal score of the first act. It is occasionally written in shorthand, but otherwise specifies the music's cardinal parameters virtually in full: pitch, rhythm, melody, harmony, counterpoint, texture. For nearly two centuries, the hard-to-decipher notation concealed some 52 minutes of music by one of the most famous musicians of the 19th century.
Simply put, I felt an obligation to bring this into the world. The score still needed orchestrating according to Liszt's instrumental cues (a task he remitted to an assistant in 1851, but which never took place). With the exception of this and the final 20 bars – which I supplied based on his earlier closing material – no "compositional" input was needed: Liszt notated or otherwise abbreviated a full conception of the music. But to be realised, it needed to be read in the context of conventions of Italian opera and Liszt's notational practices.
And the resulting music? According to critics it is "absolutely fascinating", "a thrilling piece of music" – "think Bellini reimagined by Wagner and you have some idea of the vast emotional sweep of this gripping music".
Faced with a similar situation to my own, the composer Ernst Krenek argued that: "Completing the unfinished work of a great master … can honestly be undertaken only if the original fragment contains all of the main ideas of the unfinished work." What is meant by "all the main ideas" depends a lot on the source situation, and the reliability and clarity of the individuals' notational habits. The modern, free composition of an absent bridge passage, a missing theme or even an omitted movement would never warrant publication under the name of a historical composer, in my view.
We trust scholars implicitly in this regard. And musicological work depends in large part on reliable scholarly editions. In the end, then, clarity about how extensively "all the main ideas" exist can offer balm against concerns about editing "unfinished" music. Facsimiles, particularly open-access online facsimiles of original manuscripts, can offer full transparency for those with eyes to see and an inclination to investigate. Maybe this would allow our beguilement at unfinished art to be shared, unguarded, with unfinished music.
David Trippett, Senior University Lecturer, University of Cambridge
Previous Of the possible material and sensorial effects of hearing


text:
L. Diane Tindall
919.865.1112 dtindall@wyrick.com
Print This Bio
Diane's practice focuses on labor and employment law. She provides clients with representation, counseling and training on all state and federal employment laws, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, and state wage and hour laws, as well as covenants not to compete, trade secrets, wage payment and collection, employment terminations and severance, policies and handbooks and other issues related to employment.
Diane is admitted to practice before all federal and state courts in North Carolina, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court, and regularly defends management clients in proceedings before the state and federal Departments of Labor and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Before her law career, Diane was an English professor at North Carolina State University. After law school, she clerked for former Justice Francis I. Parker on the Supreme Court of N.C. and with Justice, now retired, Sarah Parker on the N.C. Court of Appeals.
Diane received her B.A. from the College of William and Mary, her M.A. from West Virginia University, and her J.D., cum laude, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Named one of Top 50 Women Super Lawyers in North Carolina (2007, 2014-2016)
Listed among North Carolina Super Lawyers for Labor & Employment (2006-2022)
Listed among Business North Carolina Magazine Legal Elite: Employment Law (2005, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2013-2018)
Listed among The Best Lawyers in America: Employment Law–Management, Litigation–Labor & Employment (2013-2022), Employment Law – Individuals (2021-2022)
Professional & Community Activities
North Carolina Bar Association, Women in the Profession Committee (Chair, 2009-2011); Joint Task Force on Diversity (2009-2010)
American Bar Association, Labor & Employment Law Section
North Carolina Bar Association, Labor and Employment Law Section
North Carolina State Bar
Certified Mediator, North Carolina Civil Superior Court
Society for Human Resource Management ("SHRM")
Triangle Society for Human Resource Management ("TSHRM")
Icardi v. Celeris Corp., 2002 N.C. App. LEXIS 1506 (N.C.App. 2002), cert. denied, 2003 N.C. LEXIS 342 (N.C. 2003)
Purdham v. Strategic Techs., Inc., 2002 U.S. App. Lexis 9194 (4th Cir. 2002)
Warren v. Variety Wholesalers, Inc., 70 F.3d 1264 (4th Cir. 1995)
Werner v. Alexander, 130 N.C.App. 435, 502 S.E.2d 897 (1998)
Pittman v. Barker, 117 N.C.App. 580, 452 S.E.2d 326 (1995)
Myokinetex, Inc. v. MXI Group, Inc., 329 N.C. 498, 407 S.E.2d 537 (1991)
Jamin v. Williamson, 94 N.C.App. 699, 381 S.E.2d 345 (1989)
Cochran v. Cochran, 93 N.C.App. 574, 378 S.E.2d 580 (1989)
Speeches & Publications
"Avoid Expensive Overtime Claims: Properly Classify Mortgage and Loan Employees," Carolina Banker Magazine, Spring 2016
"Fair Labor Standards Act in North Carolina: Calculation and Payment of Minimum Wage and Overtime Pay" and "Work Time or Hours Worked," Lorman Education Services, Moderator and Presenter, March 2013
"Health Care Reform in a Nutshell: A Quick Guide for Employers and Employees," Labor and Employment Section Newsletter, North Carolina Bar Association, June 2010
"No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: How a $300 Bonus Decision Ended Up in the Fourth Circuit," Labor and Employment Section Newsletter, North Carolina Bar Association, December 2008
"Workplace Recordkeeping: The Ins and Outs of Document Creation and Control," Capital Associated Industries, August 2008
"The Ins and Outs of Employment Contracts," Women's Edge Magazine, August 2007
Our Labor & Employment practice group provides a full range of labor and employment law services to businesses, management, and individuals.
Related News & Insights
View All Newsright-arrow-sm
The OSHA Emergency Temporary Standard: COVID-19 Vaccination Mandate Requirements For Large Employers
Client Alert: Recent Changes to North Carolina Wage And Hour Statute May Catch Employers Off Guard
Can I Require My Employees to Get the COVID-19 Vaccine? Yes, But . . . .


Leeds - The International Cricket Council (ICC) and the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) have stepped in after a row erupted over a dead ball dismissal by Steven Finn on day one of the second Test at Headingley between England and South Africa on Thursday.
The England quick bowler was controversially denied the wicket of Proteas captain Graeme Smith in the 12th over of the morning session when the batsman edged Finn to England captain Andrew Strauss at first slip.
In a joint statement, the ICC and the MCC - the guardians of the laws of the game - confirmed umpire Steve Davis had ruled the ball was dead because Finn had dislodged the bails in his bowling follow through.
"Jeff Crowe, ICC Match Referee, (said) that Finn had broken the wicket at least three times prior to this specific incident," the statement said. "Both batsmen complained that it was a distraction and Finn was told to move over. The umpires decided that if it happened again they would call dead ball. It did and so Davis called it under 23.4(b)(vi)."
Strauss had an animated discussion with umpire Davis after the decision, but the law in question says: "An umpire shall call and signal dead ball when the striker is distracted by any noise or movement while receiving."
Smith clearly wasn't distracted when Finn collided with the stumps for a fifth time in the 20th over because he pulled the ball to the deep midwicket fence, only for Davis to again call dead ball and negate the boundary.
Davis then denied Smith a second boundary when Finn once again brushed the stumps in the first over after lunch.
"A precedent may have been set but it remains to be seen whether dead ball will be called on each occasion that this happens for the remainder of the match," the statement added. "Unlike some other laws, there is no specified warning procedure for this situation. MCC's Laws sub-committee will discuss the matter at its next meeting and will work closely with ICC on issuing guidance to umpires."


text:
NYCFC Merchandise Case Study
In 2015, New York City Football Club embarked on their inaugural MLS season, and turned to Legends to execute in-venue retail and e-commerce operations at Yankee Stadium. NYCFC was determined to cultivate a loyal fanbase in their first year and needed strong in-venue retail and e-commerce to extend their brand beyond the pitch.
Legends used many of the learnings from operating the New York Yankees retail and applied them to the team store locations at Yankee Stadium, but created a unique feel for NYCFC. The team flipped each team store, in addition to pop-up merchandise locations, for each NYCFC matchday.
In 2015, NYCFC saw major returns on their investment, breaking MLS records for both open and non-open day sales. The club were ranked No. 1 in Overall Fan Experience Rating, No. 1 in sales volume and No. 1 in per cap sales during a season, while selling over $1 million of merchandise on the e-commerce platform.
See also: Global Merchandise Merchandise in Venue


To give Canada a securities regulatory system that protects investors from unfair, improper or fraudulent practices and fosters fair, efficient and vibrant capital markets, by developing a national system of harmonized securities regulation, policy and practice.
We are here to ensure investors have fair access to market facilities and market or price information through regulation that can detect, deter and penalize market manipulation and unfair trading practices.
We aim to reduce the risk of failure of market intermediaries and when it cannot be avoided, we then seek to reduce the impact on investors and other market participants.
In pursuing these three objectives, securities regulators try to protect investors while supporting efficient capital markets.


text:
Category: Sunnah Actions in Prayer
If a person takes someone in front of him as a sutrah then that person moves away, should he move to a nearby sutrah?
While I am praying behine someone else, taking him as a sutra, if he leaves what should I do? Should I move forward or stay where a was?.
Height and width of the sutrah
Is the reward for prayer reduced by half if one does not have a sutrah?
Praise be to Allaah.
Firstly: The sutrah is mustahabb according to the majority of fuqaha', and some of them are of the view that it is obligatory.
It says in al-Mawsoo'ah al-Fiqhiyyah (24/177): It is Sunnah for the worshipper, if he is praying alone or is leading others in prayer, to have a sutrah in front of him that will prevent people from walking in front of him, and enable him to focus properly on the actions of the prayer. That is because of the report narrated from Abu Sa'eed al-Khudri (may Allaah be pleased with him), that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: "When one of you prays, let him pray facing towards a sutrah and draw close to it, and not let anyone pass in front of him." And he (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: "Let one of you use a sutrah when he prays, even if it is an arrow." This includes when one is travelling and when one is at home, and it includes both obligatory and naafil prayers.
The idea behind it is that the worshipper should refrain from looking beyond the sutrah, and focus properly so that his mind will not wander; the idea is also to prevent others committing sin by passing directly in front of him.
The command in the hadeeth is to be understood as meaning that it is mustahabb, not obligatory. Ibn 'Aabideen said: It is makrooh to omit it. There are reports to show that it is not obligatory such as the report narrated by Abu Dawood from al-Fadl ibn 'Abbaas (may Allaah be pleased with him) who said: The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) came to us when we were in the desert and he prayed in the desert with nothing in front of him.
The Hanbalis said something similar. Al-Bahooti said: That is not obligatory because of the hadeeth of Ibn 'Abbaas (may Allaah be pleased with him) who said that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) prayed in the open with nothing in front of him.
It is mustahabb according to the Hanafis, and the well known view of the Maalikis, for the imam and the person praying alone if they think that people will walk in front of them. Otherwise the sutrah is not prescribed in those cases. And it was narrated that Maalik enjoined it in all cases. This was also the view of Ibn Habeeb and was favoured by al-Lakhmi.
The Shaafa'is said that it is Sunnah in all cases, and they did not mention any limits.
The Hanbalis said: The sutrah is Sunnah for the imam and the person who is praying alone, even if they do not fear that anyone will pass in front of them.
For the person who is praying behind an imam, it is not mustahabb for him to use a sutrah, according to consensus, because the sutrah of the imam is the sutrah for those who are praying behind him, or because the imam is a sutrah for him. End quote.
Shaykh Ibn 'Uthaymeen (may Allaah have mercy on him) said, after quoting the evidence for both points of view: The evidence of those who say that the sutrah is Sunnah, who are the majority, is stronger, and this is the more correct opinion. End quote from al-Sharh al-Mumti' (3/277).
There is nothing wrong with taking a person who is praying or sitting in front of you as a sutrah. Then if he leaves and you find another sutrah close by, such as a wall or pillar, or another worshipper, you may move towards it, and his moving will be forgiven, because it is for the sake of the prayer. But if there is nothing nearby, you should complete your prayer as you are, and stop anyone who tries to walk in front of you.
It says in al-Mudawwanah (1/202): Maalik said: If a man is praying behind an imam and he missed part of the prayer, and the imam says the salaam, and he has pillars on his right and on his left, there is nothing wrong with moving back and standing behind the pillar on his right or on his left, if it is close by, to use it as a sutrah. He said: The same applies if it is front of him and he moves forwards towards it, so long as it is not far away. He said: The same applies if it is behind him; there is nothing wrong with moving backwards, if it is close. He said: But if the pillar is far away from him, he should pray where he is, and he should try to prevent those who want to pass in front of him as much as he can. End quote.
And Allaah knows best.
Ruling on closing the eyes when praying
Covering the head during prayer
He is assailed by doubts because he no longer focuses on his prayer
Do women have to wear niqaab?
Moving the finger during Tashahhud
Virtue and times of regular Sunnah prayers (Sunnah mu'akkadah)
In what order missed prayers should be made up
If her period begins before sunset, even if it is just a moment before, her fast is invalidated and she has to make it up.


The subject of nutrition, as we think of it today, is not directly mentioned in the Bible—that is, the Bible doesn't talk about calories and the balance of fat, protein, and carbohydrates a person needs. Neither does it mention GMOs or the benefits of eating whole foods versus processed foods, because the production of food had not yet been industrialized. Furthermore, there was no scientific understanding of the elements in food and what they do to and for the human body. However, from biblical principles we can deduce that it is beneficial and even morally right to emphasize a healthful diet.
First of all, the Bible encourages us to care for our bodies, and good nutrition is naturally part of that. God cares about man's physical comfort and well-being (Exodus 22:27). Paul argues that, since a believer's body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, he should flee sexually immorality, which harms the body that was bought by Christ's blood (1 Corinthians 6:18–20). This argument can be carried over to other issues, including drug and alcohol abuse and how we treat food. Food is fuel. It is not meant to be used purely for pleasure, or we could eat nothing but chocolate and cheese pizza and be healthy. Food is meant for nutrition and good health.
God gives food to us, as he does to the creatures of the animal kingdom (Psalm 147:9; 104:27; 136:25). The earth has been created to produce foods that are full of vitamins and minerals and amino acids that the body needs to survive and be healthy. Food is a gift from God; it is His provision. Why do whole, raw, unprocessed foods contain the most nutrition? Because they come right from God's hand.


Los Ebanos is a census-designated place (CDP) in Hidalgo County, Texas. The population was 335 at the 2010 United States Census. It is part of the McAllen–Edinburg–Mission Metropolitan Statistical Area. The city is named after the Texas Ebony (Ebenopsis ebano) that anchors the Los Ebanos Ferry.
Los Ebanos is located at 26°14′37″N 98°33′40″W / 26.24361°N 98.56111°W / 26.24361; -98.56111 (26.243665, -98.561039).
According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 0.6 square miles (1.6 km2), all land. Los Ebanos also serves as an official border crossing between the United States and Mexico via the Los Ebanos-Diaz Ordaz Ferry. The hand-operated cable ferry provides transport between Los Ebanos and Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, Tamaulipas.
As of the census of 2000, there were 403 people, 135 households, and 100 families residing in the CDP. The population density was 711.9 people per square mile (273.0/km²). There were 168 housing units at an average density of 296.8/sq mi (113.8/km²). The racial makeup of the CDP was 97.02% White, 0.25% African American, 1.99% from other races, and 0.74% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 98.01% of the population.
There were 135 households out of which 28.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 48.9% were married couples living together, 20.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 25.2% were non-families. 23.7% of all households were made up of individuals and 13.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.99 and the average family size was 3.59.
In the CDP, the population was spread out with 25.6% under the age of 18, 12.9% from 18 to 24, 20.6% from 25 to 44, 20.6% from 45 to 64, and 20.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females, there were 73.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 72.4 males.
The median income for a household in the CDP was $7,066, and the median income for a family was $7,692. Males had a median income of $28,750 versus $37,500 for females. The per capita income for the CDP was $6,240. About 64.7% of families and 72.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 89.7% of those under age 18 and 72.6% of those age 65 or over.
Los Ebanos is served by the La Joya Independent School District. The zoned schools for residents are Sam Fordyce Elementary School, Lorenzo de Zavala Middle School, and La Joya High School.
^ "Texas ebony Ebenopsis ebano". Trees of Texas. Texas Forest Service. Retrieved 2009-12-17.
^ "2010 CENSUS - CENSUS BLOCK MAP: Los Ebanos CDP, TX." U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved on September 17, 2018.
^ "Elementary School Zones 2017-2018." La Joya Independent School District. Retrieved on September 16, 2018.
^ "Middle School Zones 2017-2018." La Joya Independent School District. Retrieved on September 16, 2018.


text:
Once upon a time, in a restaurant located in the center of Paris; the city of love, whine, lights, and fine dining, there lived a spoon named Nathaniel. He happened to be crafted out of the most beautiful silver and etched with the most delicate rose design. He was handsome and well mannered, and he jumped at the chance to help people eat their food. Everyone liked Nathaniel, he was friendly and attractive and downright wonderful.
In the very same pantry there lived a can opener named Regina who must've been the ugliest kitchen tool in the world. She was coated in a thick layer of rust the color of hundred year old yams. Her handle was made of cheap plastic that was cracked in many places and smelled like strange chemicals. No one liked Regina, she just opened cans with a squeak and then sat on the shelf all alone. She used to cry sometimes when other utensils made fun of her, but she learned that if she held still and didn't even bother to lift her gaze at the persecutors; that they would turn and leave.
One day when Nathaniel was looking particularly shiny and bright he left the kitchen with a plate of warm spaghetti and never returned. All of the cutlery and glassware banded together and made a search party. Regina watched as cheese graters and goblets bounced around on the white tile floors calling out "Nathaniel! Where are you?" in loud worried voices. She didn't care about Nathaniel. She didn't care one bit. Not a speck of worry could be found in her thoughts, although she did begin to wonder where he could be; so she went looking for him too.
She scaled enormous cupboards and dived into deep oceans of dirty dishes. She opened drawers and barreled through innumerable kinds and quantities of noodles. Where was he? Regina inspected the kitchen from top to bottom until she couldn't think of another place to look. Nathaniel was really gone, maybe he was gone forever. She felt a tiny bubble of concern forming in her brain and then it "POPPED!"
She had forgotten to check the top of the fridge! She knew that Nathaniel had to be there, he had to be hiding there for some reason and she was going to find out why. This was her last obstacle to face and she wasn't sure how it was possible to deal with. She did know however that Nathaniel had done it. If Nathaniel could do it, so could she.
It took Regina hours to get to the top of the fridge; she had to find objects to stand on top of each other until she had made a tower tall enough to reach. When she could finally peer over the top of the refrigerator, she saw him. Nathaniel was bright red orange colored and sticky all over. He had been used by a small child to eat the spaghetti!
He noticed Regina staring and quickly turned away. She climbed up the final step to the roof of the fridge and sat down next to him. Nathaniel cried when she did this, for he realized what it was like to look strange.
"I can't be seen like this." He wailed, "I look awful. I'm so sorry that the other utensils picked on you and I didn't do anything. It must've really been horrible!"
Regina laughed quietly and smiled at him, "You know, I never expected to hear one "sorry" especially not from someone who didn't do anything."
Nathaniel looked at Regina with sorrowful eyes and said, "Never look at the rusty outside of someone when their inside is as radiant and polished as silverware from the most wonderful silver makers in the world."
© Natalie C.,San Bernadino, CA
Who knew that utensils could make such wonderful characters?
Life Cycle of a Fly
By James Kruidenier
Eaton CO, CO
The music slices into me
By Rethna Eddy
The Story of Impossible Sorrow
By Rachel Carter
By Jordan Daigre Daigre
A Million Years Ago...
By Zach Branson
By Kendra Hoskin


Today in the lovely Summer sunshine we had the Years 1 and 2 Sports Day! We had many activities which included football dribble, discus throw, hurdles, bean-bag throw, running and skipping!
It was a lovely morning enjoyed by everyone.


text:
Orszag: Another Mandate May Be Necessary to Save Obamacare's Long-Term Care Entitlement
Avik Roy Forbes Staff
Commentary from Forbes' Policy Editor
Peter Orszag. Image by Getty Images North America via @daylife
Back in February, I touched upon a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee, which addressed the CLASS Act: Obamacare's new entitlement for long-term care for the elderly. In that hearing, HHS Secretary admitted the obvious, that CLASS was "totally unsustainable," due to its toxic mix of loose eligibility requirements and subsidized benefits. I wrote:
What's far from clear, however, is whether or not the CLASS Act is salvageable without an individual mandate. Any such entitlement is certain to attract the sickest population at the expense of the healthy, and given Sebelius' ideological approach to health insurance, it's doubtful that she can tweak the program's eligibility requirements enough to make it truly sustainable.
An individual mandate for CLASS will evolve just as it has for emergency care: badly designed federal policy will create a large fiscal problem. Then, mandate advocates will shake their heads and say, "Sorry, the only way to fix this problem is to install a mandate so people don't game the system."
I noted that Sen. John Thune (R., S.D.) asked Sebelius whether or not she advocated an individual mandate for CLASS in order to prop up its stability. Sebelius refused to rule it out:
I—I can't tell you about the mandate, but I know that the modeling, if you are at the 2 to 3 percent participation rate, you have a barely sustainable program. If you move closer to 5 or 6 percent, you have a much more sustainable program, and that's one of the issues that's being very carefully looked at…I think increasing the work requirement to 5 full years, having some anti-gaming provisions so people can't opt in and out of the system which [is] possible under the original [law]…having premiums that are indexed, are all part of the framework of what could make this program sustainable.
This past Friday, Sen. Thune had an op-ed in the Washington Times, where he called attention to a piece in Foreign Affairs by former Obama budget chief Peter Orszag. Orszag thinks that forcing people to buy CLASS may be one of the "only solutions" to saving the program:
A final concern involves the CLASS Act, a voluntary national long-term-care insurance program created by the bill. There is a serious risk that healthy people may be reluctant to join the program, whereas those who most need long-term care will be eager to do so, jeopardizing the idea of a broad and stable risk pool. The only solutions may be to make the purchase of such insurance mandatory or to require employers to provide it by default unless employees opt out -- a strategy that has worked well in boosting participation rates in 401(k) plans.
As Thune points out, this is the logical consequence of letting Obamacare's individual mandate stand: soon, the government will see fit to mandate all sorts of purchases for the greater good.
Think about that for a minute. Before the health insurance mandate came along, a federal requirement for people to buy a particular product - insurance or anything else - was unprecedented in our nation's history. Yet a little more than one year later, there already is a call for the federal government to impose another mandate on the American people. The first step in this direction was bad enough. A second step clearly would take us down a dangerous path of even more federal overreach.
This is not just idle speculation by a former government official. In fact, the way the Obama administration has defended its health care law makes it seem almost impossible for it to do anything except require that everybody buy into the fatally flawed CLASS program.
Here's how it works: The administration claims that the insurance mandate is "essential" because, without it, insurance markets would be subject to adverse selection - only sick people would enroll and premiums would skyrocket as a result. But the CLASS Act is subject to the same - or even greater - adverse selection pressures as the market for health insurance. So if Obamacare has an essential mandate to purchase health insurance, it seems it would be just as essential that the government mandate participation in CLASS.
A number of the debt-reduction deals incorporated a repeal of CLASS. Hopefully, one way or another, we'll get there before it's too late.
UPDATE 1: Orszag wrote me to say that I "mischaracterize and misunderstand" his position. He's given me permission to publish the relevant portion of his email:
Avik:
You (and Sen. Thune, for that matter) mischaracterize and misunderstand the sentences cited from my Foreign Affairs article. It was not that we should mandate CLASS. It was rather that, to get any long-term insurance market functioning -- whether publicly or privately provided -- we would likely need either a mandate or an opt-out. The experience with the private market absent either step would seem to be consistent with my point (which is not surprising given the adverse selection effects involved), and I'm curious as to how you see long-term insurance developing absent either step.
UPDATE 2: Hank Stern of InsureBlog says that "neither the very wealthy nor the poor need [long-term care insurance]" :
The LTCi market is, by definition, narrow and focused. That is, neither the very wealthy nor the poor need it. One of the most fundamental rules of the insurance business is that first there must be a need for the coverage. There's a specific, well-defined middle-class swath that most benefit from LTCi, and that's further diminished by the fact that it's not inexpensive coverage.
Perhaps the most important benefit of modern LTCi products is Partnership Compliance, which encourages folks to buy policies in order to stave off the Medicaid folks. But CLASS Act plans are not Partnership compliant, making them even less attractive and less valuable.
Avik Roy
I am Forbes' Policy Editor, and president of a non-partisan think tank, the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP.org), which develops policy reform i...


Although typography was invented in China as early as the eleventh century, it never met a great success as traditional xylography before the end of the nineteenth century. The great number of Chinese characters or types to use is the main reason for this failure. With the arrival of protestant missionaries in the nineteenth century and the opening of China to western technology, typography took the advantage. Owing to diverse technical improvements, made by English or American missionaries, as well as engravers from Paris or Berlin, difficulties have been cleared up. The archives of the London Missionary Society, of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, the papers of William Gamble, and the archives of the Cabinet des Poinçons at the Imprimerie nationale, are teeming with informations about the fight between xylography and typography. The present article, which is based upon these archives, describes the slow conquest of the latter process.


Framed with a silver rope edge, the Lariat Medium Cross Pendant w/ Emerald Green exhibits a combination of silver and gold precious metals. A hand cut yellow gold scroll pattern fills the inner area while silver bead accents and a black antique background complete the design for a truly original piece.
Sterling Silver and 1/10th 10k Yellow Gold with Emerald Green Cubic Zirconia and Black Antique.


Every woman wants to be a mother. Wanting to become a mother and bring up her own children is naturally implanted biological drive and nature's way of ensuring propagation of species. Similarly every man grows up and automatically wishes to get married and father children. In fact the ability to father children is built into the psyche of man and to a large extent it is a part of his ego too.
Traditionally once the couple are married and settled down, it is natural for the extended family to expect them to start planning for pregnancy and children after the first year of marriage. Now days of course the urban lifestyle has redefined the relationships and as such the couples are left alone to choose their lifestyle and pattern. In case of any failure or problem in conception, normally the woman is first suspected to have fertility problems. In the olden days there used to be a lot of social stigma attached to infertile women. However today the situation has changed. Infertility and problems with conception are no longer limited to women alone. The percentage of men suffering from infertility has also increased.
In current times the causes of fertility are mainly related to poor sexual health of the couple. Both men as well as women suffer from several lifestyle diseases and conditions that make it difficult for them to conceive. Most men are known to drink and smoke. Those who start this habit early in life run the risk of damaging their sexual health and become impotent. Commonly people do not know the fact that there is a direct connection between the emotional and mental state of men with their sexual health. Emotional trauma and suffering can bring about erectile dysfunction and related problems. Though physically the man may appear to be fit and fine, he may not be able to perform satisfactorily in terms of his sexual performance. The present lifestyle is also a major cause of sexual dysfunction and poor sexual health in men and women. Though materially we live in a rich and advanced society, the fears and stress levels have increased tremendously. Life is full of uncertainty and insecurities. Though men do appear strong and resilient, everyone does not have the emotional balance and strength to face the hurdles in life. Many men succumb to pressure and suffer from nervousness and depression etc. These may not be apparent in the external behavior of men but from within the emotional upheavals manifest in the form of erectile dysfunction as well as digestive problems and loss of immunity etc.
To be able to conceive and have a healthy child, it requires mental as well as physical preparation on the part of the couple. Physical health as well as emotional health of both plays an important role in conception as well as in the continuation of pregnancy. The man and the woman need to be physically fit and their sexual health should be good too. If the man is too tired and pre occupied or vice versa, they are unlikely to be able to create the right environment for conception.
Understanding of the natural rhythm of the body, mind and the soul and the romance of love needs to be felt and understood by the couple to be able to create and give birth to new life.


People from the world over visit formal Italian gardens, i giardini Italiani, known for their grandiose yet tranquil ambience. Be it one of the finest Italian Renaissance gardens at Villa Lante in Rome, the renowned garden surrounding Palazzo Giusti with its cypress-lined avenues, or the statue and fountain-filled Giardino di Boboli in Florence, traditional Italian gardens are some of the most respected all over Europe and the world.
But these gardens have come down the centuries to modern Italy, and were created by the nobility. Italian gardens today are much more informal, and often include vegetable gardens which provide fresh produce for the average Italian kitchen. Whereas there are still people who create gardens with topiaries, statues and fountains, the modern Italians have also adopted a few other European styles, the British and French in particular.
That aside, due to the difference in climate from the cold and wet north to the warmer and almost arid south, the gardens in various parts of Italy vary in their vegetation and structure. This has led to the popularity of fusion Italian gardens in modern times, namely the Tuscan gardens.
One of the most famous exports of Italy today, the Tuscan style is a curious mish-mash of formal principles of gardening mixed with a few peasant characteristics, like wildflowers and vegetable patches, along with a mixture of the sort of plants found in the north and south of Italy. These sometimes include some trees that are quintessentially Italian, like the Olive, Fig and Cypress, which need specific care regimen.
Whether Renaissance or Tuscan or Roman, wild or well-pruned, Italian gardens have a charm all their own that mimics the essential appeal of Italy and its people. While it is great to be able to visit Italian gardens in Italy, it is also possible to bring some of its charms home into your own garden with a judicious adoption of plants that give an Italian feel. Some of the gardening experts writing in the Italian garden category of Life in Italy do just that.
Now you too can really understand what Italian gardens and gardening in Italy are all about, read tips on growing various Italian plants, tend to your Italian herb or vegetable garden or use environment-friendly gardening methods. Just browse though the articles, and they will update you with all that there is to know about the gardens of Italy.


Many times employers are hesitant to take action when an employee has been on an extended leave of absence due to a workers' compensation claim arising from an injury or illness occurring while in the course of work duties or when the employee is unable to return from a protected leave, such as the federal Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), or a state's equivalent leave. Employers must look to the mandated leaves, organizational-internal policies, and past practices before taking an adverse employment action, such as disciplinary action or termination. Ensuring compliance with regulatory guidelines, and consistent application of internal policies and practices will generally protect an employer from any discriminatory practices.
* Workers' Compensation Leaves: Employees who have sustained an on the job injury and are on a workers' compensation leave of absence are protected under individual state non-discrimination regulations, and may enjoy protection under a state's mandated leave or the FMLA. Employers must ensure that these employees are treated the same as other employees who are temporarily disabled and follow any internal policies or past practices related to the leaves. Further, employers should consult with the claims manager at their workers' compensation carrier to discuss any adverse employment action prior to taking the action, to determine that there is agreement in terminating the employment of the individual, and to discuss the effect of such a termination on the claim.
* FMLA or State Equivalent Leaves: Employers must comply with the FMLA or a state equivalent leave if the employee is employed at a work site that has 50 or more employees within a 75-mile radius. FMLA or the state equivalents often run concurrently with a workers' compensation claim and/or internal leave of absence policies. The FMLA or the state equivalent provides a period of time of job protected leave. After the expiration of the mandated leave, employers may rely on internal policies and practices related to the extension of time off if the individual is still unable to return to work. Otherwise, an employer may terminate the individual's employment if he/she is unable to return after the expiration of the mandated leave.
* Internal Leave of Absence Policies: Many times an employer who does not have to comply with a mandated leave or who wants to provide an extended leave of absence will have an internal temporary disability leave policy that affords employees time away from work for recovery. These internal practices also may be used to extend an employee's leave if he/she is still unable to return to work following an FMLA or state equivalent leave's expiration.
The key with all leave of absence administration is that the employer's policies and practices are consistently applied. Consistent application of these policies and practices will ensure non-discriminatory practices when it comes to the termination of an individual who is unable to return to work from leave. If you have questions about your leave of absence requirements, or need assistance in the development of a policy in this regard, please reach out to your HR Professional for guidance.
Subscribe to Paycor's HR Support Center and find employee handbook templates to get you started. Or, upgrade to HR On Demand to get personalized answers and advice from an HR professional. Contact us to learn more.


If there's one bag that should be on your want list, it's the Wandler Hortensia bag. This cult favourite by Amsterdam based designer Elza Wandler has been creating a frenzy in fashion land. You'll recognise the bag from your Instagram feed (it's an influencer favourite) or fashion week (where it has been spotted and photographed a dozen times). The trapeze shaped bag with rounded bottom makes this is a classic go-to bag for business wear (checked suit anyone?) but don't be afraid to show off this beauty with a summer safari chic outfit.