Discover the story of the waterways through direct contact with original documents from the past. With a unique collection of over 3,000 drawings, sketches and records of the Irish inland waterways there is a wide range of material to uncover in the Waterways Ireland Archive.
At the heart of the archive are the original drawings tracing the development of the waterways from their conception in the eighteenth century through to their construction and their ongoing maintenance during the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Included are engineer's plans for locks, sluices, bridges and harbours, all providing a fascinating insight into our heritage.
•The engineers had to design the tools and machinery to be used on construction projects. Surviving blueprints reveal designs for loading cranes, winches and pumps, all of which were required for their work.
•Much of the construction works carried out in the 1840's were during a period when Ireland was experiencing a nationwide famine. Public work schemes provided much needed employment for thousands of families but at its height the famine and emigration had decimated the population that it became difficult to find sufficient men to carry out the work.
•The canals were used primarily to transport barrels of porter from St James in Dublin to the rest of the country. The toll books document their journey from the Guinness Distillery to the various towns and cities on the waterways.
These are the most commonly used resource for family historians. Although they were originally used for the allocation of tolls on a canal, they are very useful for locating relatives who worked as boatmen on the canals and tying them to a particular place at a given time. Toll books provide peoples' names, the names of boats worked, (usually) a boat number, the names of owners and details of the cargoes carried.
Basic reference search is available free of charge with all requests responded to within 30 days.
To consult the archives researchers need to make arrangements in advance by contacting +44 (0) 28 6634 6205 or emailing Archive. You can order records ahead of your visit.
The Waterways Ireland Archive collects primary source materials that have historical significance.
If you own material of significance and would like to contact a staff member about donating them to the Waterways Ireland Archive, please e-mail us .


Nick en route back to Lubbock, Clovis, New Mexico. Photo by Chris Taylor.
Nick — 24 September 2015 - Categories: 2015 Field Reports. Tags: 2015 Participants, Nicholas Keys, Participants, People, portrait, Sites, travel.


text:
Procession for slain Harris Co. deputy confronting catalytic converter thieves
By FOX 26 Digital
Harris County Sheriff's Office
Harris County Sheriff speaks during procession for Deputy Darren Almendarez
Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez spoke during a procession for fallen Deputy Darren Almendarez on Monday morning.
HOUSTON - A procession was held Monday morning for Deputy Darren Almendarez with the Harris Co. Sheriff's Office, who was tragically killed off-duty while confronting catalytic converter thieves targeting his truck outside a grocery store.
BACKGROUND: Harris County off-duty deputy killed in grocery store parking lot, 2 suspects charged
"This morning, we're out here to honor a fallen hero with the highest possible honors that we could do," Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said before the procession began. "We did a cordon of honor, and then we also are preparing for the procession that will take him to the funeral home, and ultimately, his final resting place."
The procession for Harris County Deputy Darren Almendarez begins on Old Spanish Trail.
The procession began at 8 a.m. at the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences on Old Spanish Trail and went to Brookside Funeral Home at 13747 Eastex Fwy.
The procession for fallen Harris County Sheriff's Office Deputy Darren Almendarez arrives at Brookside Funeral Home.
Deputy Almendarez, 51, was said to be leaving a Joe V's grocery store on FM 1960 in northwest Harris County Thursday night with his wife when he apparently spotted some suspects attempting to steal his truck's catalytic converter.
According to the sheriff's office, Almendarez saw a black Nissan Altima backed up to his truck and two males under his vehicle. He told his wife to walk to safety and then approached, authorities say.
Harris Co. deputy Darren Almendarez (Photo courtesy of HCSO)
As Almedarez approached the vehicles, the suspects began shooting at him, the sheriff's office says and was hit several times.
According to HCSO, the deputy was able to return fire and shot at least two of the suspects before they drove off from the scene
Almendarez was taken to HCA Houston Healthcare Northwest, where he later died. Two of the wounded suspects, later identified by HCSO as Joshua Stewart, 23, and Fredarius Clark, 19 arrived at the same hospital in their vehicle a short time later. Both were charged with capital murder.
Fredarius Clark (L) and Joshua Stewart (R) are charged with Capital Murder in the death of veteran Harris County Sheriff's Deputy Darren Almendarez.
It was later revealed by the sheriff's office that three men were in the suspects' vehicle right before the shooting. The third suspect, Frederick Tardy, 17, was arrested on the North Freeway Friday.
MORE: Third suspect arrested in connection with the death of Harris County Sheriff's Office Deputy
The 23-year veteran with HCSO was described by fellow officers as a beacon of light, and it was just like Deputy Almendarez to protect and serve, even while off-duty.
BOTCHED RAID: Galveston Police Chief on leave after SWAT raid to wrong house looking for teen falsely accused of murder

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Home Neptune
Neptune Moves School Elections to November
in Neptune
Neptune school officials have decided to move the Board of Education elections to November instead of April, when they were traditionally held.
Neptune is one of just a small number of municipalities in New Jersey that still held its school board elections in April. State lawmakers passed legislation in 2012 that allowed districts to move their elections to November.
"We are one of the very few school districts that continued to have April elections; however, they are expensive and create security issues so we decided to move it to November," Neptune School Superintendent Tami Crader said this week.
She said that voters entering schools to vote in April creates a security problem since schools are still open. She said by moving the vote to November, the cost for the election will be shared with the township and that schools are normally closed for the November election anyway.
This means that incumbent board members Jason A. Jones, Donna L. Puryear and Michelle Allen Moss will have their terms extended until November
Voters will also not cast ballots on the school district's annual budget as long as it remains within the state-imposed, two-percent cap on spending increases.
"We have always stayed under the two-percent cap and voters will not be asked to vote unless the budget goes over the cap or if there is a special referendum on the ballot," Crader said.
She said the school district will get $11 million less in state aid this year.
Law Enforcement Seeks Public's Help Following Fatal Crash in Neptune
Festive New Year in Neptune
Neptune Settles Lawsuit for $500,000 With Former Police Chief
Law Enforcement Seeks Community Help in 2019 Barbershop Murder
Neptune Students Urged to Submit Works for Black History Program
Neptune Homicide Under Investigation


text:
package test_locally.api.rtm;

import com.slack.api.Slack;
import com.slack.api.methods.SlackApiException;
import com.slack.api.model.User;
import com.slack.api.rtm.RTMClient;
import org.junit.Test;

import javax.websocket.CloseReason;
import javax.websocket.DeploymentException;
import javax.websocket.Session;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.net.URISyntaxException;

import static org.junit.Assert.assertNotNull;
import static org.mockito.Mockito.mock;

public class RTMClientTest {

    @Test
    public void instantiation() throws URISyntaxException {
        RTMClient client = new RTMClient(Slack.getInstance(), "xoxb-123", "wss://xxxx", new User());
        assertNotNull(client);
    }

    @Test(expected = IllegalArgumentException.class)
    public void instantiation_wssUrl_is_null() throws URISyntaxException {
        RTMClient client = new RTMClient(Slack.getInstance(), "xoxb-123", null, new User());
        assertNotNull(client);
    }

    @Test(expected = IllegalArgumentException.class)
    public void instantiation_connected_user_is_null() throws URISyntaxException {
        RTMClient client = new RTMClient(Slack.getInstance(), "xoxb-123", "wss://xxxx", null);
        assertNotNull(client);
    }

    @Test(expected = DeploymentException.class)
    public void connect() throws IOException, DeploymentException, URISyntaxException {
        RTMClient client = new RTMClient(Slack.getInstance(), "xoxb-123", "wss://xxxx", new User());
        client.connect();
    }

    @Test(expected = IllegalStateException.class)
    public void reconnect() throws IOException, DeploymentException, URISyntaxException, SlackApiException {
        RTMClient client = new RTMClient(Slack.getInstance(), "xoxb-123", "wss://xxxx", new User());
        client.reconnect();
    }

    @Test
    public void disconnect() throws IOException, URISyntaxException {
        RTMClient client = new RTMClient(Slack.getInstance(), "xoxb-123", "wss://xxxx", new User());
        client.disconnect();
    }

    @Test
    public void close() throws IOException, URISyntaxException {
        RTMClient client = new RTMClient(Slack.getInstance(), "xoxb-123", "wss://xxxx", new User());
        client.close();
    }

    @Test
    public void onOpen() throws URISyntaxException {
        RTMClient client = new RTMClient(Slack.getInstance(), "xoxb-123", "wss://xxxx", new User());
        Session session = mock(Session.class);
        client.onOpen(session);
    }

    @Test
    public void onClose() throws URISyntaxException {
        RTMClient client = new RTMClient(Slack.getInstance(), "xoxb-123", "wss://xxxx", new User());
        Session session = mock(Session.class);
        client.onClose(session, new CloseReason(CloseReason.CloseCodes.NO_STATUS_CODE, "msg"));
    }

    @Test
    public void onError() throws URISyntaxException {
        RTMClient client = new RTMClient(Slack.getInstance(), "xoxb-123", "wss://xxxx", new User());
        Session session = mock(Session.class);
        client.onError(session, new Exception());
    }

    @Test
    public void onMessage() throws URISyntaxException {
        RTMClient client = new RTMClient(Slack.getInstance(), "xoxb-123", "wss://xxxx", new User());
        client.onMessage("msg");
    }

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Michael joined the British Army aged 16, serving nearly 6 years with the Royal Engineers. During his service, Michael spent time in Iraq during the conflict at the beginning of 2003 and then again at the end of the year.
After returning to civilian life, Michael then spent a further 9 years in the Fire Service.
After witnessing several of his friends and peers suffer from post traumatic stress disorder, following their time in conflict, Michael co-founded Combat Pest Control with a simple belief that he had to help his fellow Military Veterans.
Provide and advocate meaningful employment for Military Veterans and spouses.
Educate and assist children in conflict.
In 2018 Michael contacted RFS to help him find someone who could help in the office, after a few conversations with our Head of recruitment Charlie, we realised he needed more than this, he was an entrepreneur who needed someone he could work alongside him, a person who understood his business and would take care of the things that would enable him to do well.
We gave him three really strong candidates who were all very capable of assisting Michael in taking the business to the next level.


text:
Shivshankar Menon (born 5 July 1949) is an Indian diplomat, who served as National Security Adviser of India under Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh. He had previously served as the Foreign Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs. Prior to that he was Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan, and Sri Lanka and ambassador to China and Israel. He is currently Visiting Professor of International Relations at Ashoka University.

Early life and education
Shivshankar Menon hails from Ottapalam in Palakkad district of Kerala. He comes from a Nair family of diplomats; his father Parappil Narayana Menon served as the ambassador to Yugoslavia in his last days. His grandfather K. P. S. Menon (senior) was India's first Foreign Secretary, while his uncle K P S Menon (junior) was the former Indian ambassador to China and 15th Foreign Secretary. His great-grandfather Sir C. Sankaran Nair was a president of the Indian National Congress in 1897, so far the only Malayali to hold this position.

Menon did his schooling from Scindia School, Gwalior, and later did his MA in history from the St. Stephen's College, Delhi.

Career
Menon started his career in 1972 with the Indian Foreign Service.

He served in the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) as Advisor to the Atomic Energy Commission. His work continued through his posting in Vienna. He was then posted to Beijing, the second of three postings he served in China. His last position in China as ambassador was also significant as it marked improvement in Sino-India relations, the high point being the visit of then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Menon has also served as Ambassador to Israel and High Commissioner to Sri Lanka and Pakistan. He was appointed Foreign Secretary in 2006, and was the National Security Advisor to Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh. He relinquished office as India's 4th National Security Advisor on 15 May 2014. He is also currently a Visiting Professor of International Relations at Ashoka University.

A major milestone of his career was the Indo-US nuclear deal, for which he had worked hard to convince NSG member nations along with Shyam Saran to get a clean waiver for nuclear supplies to India.

Menon joined the Brookings Institution (USA) as a distinguished fellow and also serves as chairman of the advisory board of the Institute of Chinese Studies based in New Delhi. He has been a Fisher Family Fellow at the Kennedy School, Harvard University, 2015 and Richard Wilhelm Fellow at MIT in 2015. He was chosen to be one of the "Top 100 Global Thinkers" by Foreign Policy magazine in 2010.

He joined the Institute of South Asian Studies at National University of Singapore as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow in November 2017.

Publications

 Choices: Inside the Making of India's Foreign Policy. 2016. Brookings Institution Press. Penguin.
 India and Asian Geopolitics: The Past, Present. 2021. Brookings Institution Press.

Menon wrote "Choices: Inside The Making of Indian Foreign Policy" that was first published in 2016 and was based on his experience as National Security Advisor Of India.

Personal life
He is married to Mohini Menon and has a daughter and a son. His mother tongue is Malayalam and he also speaks Hindi, English, Chinese and German.

He has interests in classical music and the Himalayas. The Scindia School conferred on Shivshankar Menon the 'Madhav Award' as an alumnus of eminence for the year 2000.

Honours
  Order of the Rising Sun, 2nd Class, Gold and Silver Star (2022)

See also
Vijay Gokhale
Dr. S Jaishankar

References

1949 births
Living people
High Commissioners of India to Sri Lanka
High Commissioners of India to Pakistan
Indian Foreign Secretaries
Ambassadors of India to China
Ambassadors of India to Israel
People from Ottapalam
Malayali people
Scindia School alumni
Indian Foreign Service officers
Recipients of the Order of the Rising Sun, 2nd class
People of the Sri Lankan Civil War
Indian Peace Keeping Force

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Anderson Entertainment launches first official Gerry Anderson Day as consumer demand drives further growth
Published on: 3rd March 2021
Anderson Entertainment, the production company founded by the creator of the original Thunderbirds, Gerry Anderson, has detail the first International Gerry Anderson Day to take place on April 14th – marking the birthday of the man behind other hits including Space: 1999 and Captain Scarlet.
Celebrating the life and works of the producer, Gerry Anderson Day will feature special events, live streams, unique new content from Anderson Entertainment, limited edition products, and a special YouTube programme.
There will also be special guest appearances from a number of celebrity fans.
Supporting these plans is the redesigned corporate website anderson-entertainment.co.uk, which launched in mid-January, while the event wouldn't be an event without its own hashtag – #GerryAndersonDay
The launch of the event coincides with what is shaping up to be 'one of the biggest years ever' for the company that has recently secured broadcast deals with a slate of TV and streaming services to run series from its library of classics, while Thunderbirds, Fireball XL5, Stingray, and the 2005 reinvention of Captain Scarlet continue to enjoy strong sales on DVD and Blu-Ray.
Meanwhile, consumer demand is also driving merchandising growth. An expanded direct-to-consumer and retail merchandising offering on the popular online Gerry Anderson Store will see a large number of major launches during the first half of the year. The site is already on course to more than double its year-on-year sales in 2021.
New series are on the way too, overseen by Gerry's son Jamie, himself a celebrated writer and producer and MD of Anderson Entertainment, including the new sci-fi drama Firestorm and a reboot of '80s hit Terrahawks. The second series of the popular audio drama hit First Action Bureau – developed and produced during the spring lockdown – will also arrive this year. Series one has just been released on CD.
Jamie Anderson said: "Gerry Anderson's work has been popular for decades and is still gaining new fans. His creations are today a multi-platform phenomenon that is inspiring an expanding product line and the continuing planning and development of new content.
"With interest high – and growing – across multiple generations of consumers and viewers, we expect strong engagement from both fans and media in the first-ever Gerry Anderson Day."


This page may not be monitored by the Management & Staff of BUREAU OF PRODUCT STANDARDS (BPS), thus they cannot respond immediately to your comment or inquiry. If you have an urgent concern, communicating with them directly through their contact number(s) or email is advised.
Good Afternoon. Advance Happy New Year. Ask ko lang po kung ano requirements mag import ng tiles from China po.
Is the "W" brand of lpg safety device is a legitimate and legal products of the our country?
Hi we are planning to import plywood from China. As per checking DTI List of Products under the BPS Product Certification Scheme, it is included on the products that must bear PS or ICC mark. However when I checked BPS Memorandum Circular No. 16-01 Series of 2016, it is no longer included. Can someone clarify this matter to me. Thanks.
We sent the items via UPS Ocean Freight. UPS is requiring us to submit Bureau of Product Standards (BPS) Certificate.
Hi..do you have official copy of manual for ISO 9000:2005 and ISO 19001:2011?How can we avail?


Accelerated Analytical is a full service Microbiology and Analytical Chemistry testing facility. We specialize in Drinking Water, Food, Flavoring, Cosmetic and Pharmaceutical testing under our ISO 17025 compliant testing program.
Accelerated Analytical not only performs tests on your product but we create solutions for your results.
We create custom made methods to solve your testing needs.


You'll give your guests a chance to turn over a new leaf when they arrive and see their seating assignments cheerfully displayed in these delightful keepsakes.
Each leaf place card holder measures 9.5 cm x 4.5 cm and features a dramatic poly resin fall leaf charm in three assorted vivid fall colors brilliantly embedded with three amber rhinestones at its stem, with a wire twist extending at its top to hold place cards, photos and more.
The Wedding Shop exclusive leaf design place card holders come bulk packaged with fall themed place cards included.


text:
De tram van Galway en Salthill, uitgebaat door de Galway and Salthill Tramway Company was een tramlijn met een spoorwijdte van 3 voet (914 mm) die tussen 1879 en 1918 reizigersvervoer verzorgde in de Ierse stad Galway.

Geschiedenis

De tram verbond de stad Galway met de kustplaats Salthill. Het traject liep vanaf de stelplaats aan Forster Street in de omgeving van het station van Galway in Zuidwestelijke richting tot aan het eindpunt op de kust van Salthill. De bouw van de lijn kostte £ 13.000.

Oorspronkelijk werden op de lijn zes door de Starbuck Car and Wagon Company gebouwde dubbeldekstrams ingezet die elk door twee paarden werden voortgetrokken. De tram was zeer afhankelijk van het toerisme en van de door de Galway Bay Steamboat Company ingelegde bootexcursies naar de Araneilanden.

Sluiting
De afhankelijkheid van het toerisme resulteerde tijdens de Eerste Wereldoorlog tot de teloorgang van het bedrijf en veel van de paarden werden in 1917 door de British Army opgeëist voor oorlogsdoeleinden. Het bedrijf werd in 1918 geliquideerd.

Galway
County Galway


text:
Cowichan Valley
Housing Under Pressure
Forests For The Future
Curious in Cowichan
Our 10 Principles
South Asia Access to Energy Research Brief
By Graeme Stewart-Wilson ● Energy ● April 19, 2016 April 19, 2016
Download the research brief here
Current Energy Landscape
No country in the world has moved faster than India to deliver electricity to more people, connecting an average of 24 million to the grid system every year since 1990.[annotate info='Lavelle, Marianne. "Five Surprising Facts About Energy Poverty." National Geographic, May 30, 2013. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2013/05/130529-surprising-facts-about-energy-poverty/.'] This impressive progress, however, seems to be undercut by population growth. Today, there are still 306.2 million people in India without electricity, and 705 million people who rely on wood and biomass for cooking.[annotate info='Lavelle, 2013.'] Like most developing countries, there are also marked differences between rural and urban communities in both cooking fuels and electricity consumption. In urban areas, only about one-third of households burn fuelwood for cooking; in rural areas, that fraction is nine out of 10 households.[annotate info='Khandker, Shahidur R., Douglas F. Barnes, and Hussain A. Samad. "Are the Energy Poor Also Income Poor? Evidence from India." Energy Policy 47 (August 2012): 1–12. doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2012.02.028.'] India has had great success in expanding electrical grid coverage over the past decades, with 94 per cent of urban populations now connected. The rural electrification rate is about 60 per cent.[annotate info='Khandker et al, 2012.'] India has supported these newly connected households largely with new coal-generated power.
In 2012, coal made up 56 per cent of the country's installed capacity, but actually accounted for 70 per cent of total power generation that same year.[annotate info='Razdan, Anil. "Energy Poverty in India and What's Needed to Address It." Cornerstone, July 28, 2014. http://cornerstonemag.net/energy-poverty-in-india-and-whats-needed-to-address-it/.'] The general theme of coal as India's main power source is not expected to change in the near future. India's twelfth five-year plan, spanning 2012-17, calls for 88.4 gigawatts of capacity, 78 per cent of which will be met by new coal power plants.[annotate info='Razdan, 2014.'] This scenario has not been without controversy. This year, a former secretary to India's Ministry of Power published an article in the Guardian claiming that while coal power increases India's generating capacity, it benefits affluent, already connected customers instead of the disconnected rural and urban energy-poor.[annotate info='Sarma, EAS. "Coal Is Not the Answer to India's Energy Poverty, Whatever Tony Abbott Says." The Guardian, August 7, 2015, sec. Comment is free. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/07/coal-is-not-the-answer-to-indias-energy-poverty-whatever-tony-abbott-says.'] Advocates for coal insist that it is the only way India — with a rapidly growing economy and therefore rapidly growing thirst for energy — can affordably meet its obligations to its people.[annotate info='Razdan, 2014.'] Coal's detractors insist that its climate change impacts globally and its health care impacts locally make the cost of coal far too high, and that locally generated, indigenous renewable energy is the only way to solve energy poverty.[annotate info='Sarma, 2015.'] Key to this energy landscape is the fact that India is a massive importer of energy resources. Despite its large landmass, the country is relatively energy-poor, with no major sources of fossil fuels or hydropower. Instead, the country imports energy from its neighbours in the region, such as Bhutan which has been investing heavily in hydropower. As the largest and fastest growing economy in the region, India demonstrates many of the energy challenges typical of the region. Some regional nuances will be discussed in the sections below. As all economies in the region expand, energy investments will have to cover a diverse set of strategies — from large-scale fossil fuel and hydropower investments to off-grid renewables — to achieve reliable electricity for 100 per cent of the population.
Rural-Urban Divide
Like most developing regions, South Asia has a stark divide in energy access between rural and urban areas. However, in the South Asia region, researchers have been extensively investigating the subtleties of this divide and the various causes of its tenacity. When it comes to cooking fuel, in India, for example, rural households still rely almost exclusively on traditional biofuels. These include charcoal, animal dung, crop waste, and firewood — the most highly prized being firewood, because of the superior flavour it imparts to food. This traditional biomass accounts for 89 per cent of total energy use in India's rural areas, but only 35 per cent in cities.[annotate info='Khandker et al, 2012.'] There are likely many reasons for this disparity, chief among them being opportunity cost. Biomass is typically collected by women and children, who in most rural cases are not employed outside the household. Therefore, little to no cash income is lost by reliance on biomass. Additionally, biomass is freely available in the environment surrounding rural villages. This means that even when improved modern fuels such as Liquified Petroleum Gas (the fuel preferred by government and international development agencies because of its efficient and clean-burning nature) are available in rural areas, households may not adopt them because of the perceived cost differential, or because agrarian families with low levels of cash-flow simply cannot afford them, while they can afford to spend time collecting firewood.[annotate info='Ibid.']
Who is Most Affected?
Interestingly, it is also women and children who bear the brunt of biomass's negative effects, as they are the ones most often inside during cooking activities. One study found that young children living in households reliant on solid biomass fuels have a two to three times greater risk of contracting acute lower respiratory tract infection (ALRI), which is also the chief cause of death for children in developing nations.[annotate info='Smith, K., J. Samet, I. Romieu, and N. Bruce. "Indoor Air Pollution in Developing Countries and Acute Lower Respiratory Infections in Children." Thorax 55, no. 6 (June 2000): 518–32. doi:10.1136/thorax.55.6.518.'] Indoor air pollution from biomass has further been linked to low birth weight and malnutrition in children, as well as an increased risk of lung cancer, tuberculosis, cardiovascular disease, and even cataracts in adults.[annotate info='Fullerton, Duncan G., Nigel Bruce, and Stephen B. Gordon. "Indoor Air Pollution from Biomass Fuel Smoke Is a Major Health Concern in the Developing World." Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 102, no. 9 (September 2008): 843–51. doi:10.1016/j.trstmh.2008.05.028.'] A World Health Organization (WHO) fact sheet from 2014 reports that women who are exposed to high levels of indoor smoke are 2.3 times as likely to suffer from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) than women who cook with cleaner fuels.[annotate info='WHO. "Household Air Pollution and Health." World Health Organization, March 2014. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs292/en/.'] The same fact sheet also points out that when women and children use their time to gather fuel for cooking, their ability to participate in other productive activities — like income generation or school — are severely limited.[annotate info='WHO, 2014.'] Reliance on traditional biofuels, therefore, not only harms the health of women and children, but it can help trap families in cycles of poverty that stymy other development efforts.
One potential solution that has circulated for many years now is the adoption of improved cookstoves. This is a solution that does not require extensive infrastructure or connectivity, and allows communities to continue local traditions associated with biomass. However, although improved cookstove programs have been around since the 1970s, they have not seen widespread success, and adoption rates remain low. First: what is an improved cookstove? They come in a variety of models — from home-constructed clay to industrially assembled steel — but in essence, an improved cookstove is a device that controls the flow of air into the combustion process, improves heat transfer from the fuel to the cookstove, and removes the byproducts of combustion from the kitchen.[annotate info='Bhutto, Abdul Waheed, and Sadia Karim. "Energy-Poverty Alleviation in Pakistan through Use of Indigenous Energy Resources." Energy for Sustainable Development 6, no. 1 (March 2007): 58–67.'] The end result uses less fuel, and improves indoor air quality. These clear advantages have caused improved cookstoves to be touted as a development solution by governments and NGOs for decades. The United States donated $105 million to a United Nations program aimed at putting improved cookstoves in 100 million households by 2020, and the leaders of the G8 countries have pledged to help reduce indoor air pollution by distributing improved cookstoves.[annotate info='Fraser, Barbara, and Environmental Health News. "'Improved' Cookstoves May Do Little to Reduce Harmful Indoor Emissions." Scientific American, July 11, 2012. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/improved-cookstoves-little-reduce-harmful-indoor-emissions/.']
Despite the clear advantages and international attention, however, improved cookstoves have not become widespread in South Asia. Research from Pakistan provides some answers to this conundrum. For one, the urban poor benefit from programs to disseminate improved cookstoves more than their rural counterparts, despite the fact that most biomass is burned in rural areas.[annotate info='Bhutto and Karim, 2007.'] Higher adoption rates in cities are due to the higher likelihood that the urban poor are already using a stove of some sort, rather than an open fire. They are more likely to spend money rather than time on acquiring fuel, which may give them the capital necessary to invest in an improved cookstove. Finally, the urban poor have better access to credit than poor people living in rural areas.[annotate info='Ibid.'] Additionally, education plays an important role in who chooses to invest in improved cookstove technology. A study of 100 households in northwestern Pakistan observed that the most important barrier hindering adoption of improved cookstoves was simply that there was very little awareness among villagers of the potential negative effects of traditional cooking methods. Without an intensive program of information dissemination on the part of the government or NGOs, the study concludes, rural inhabitants will see little motivation to transition to improved cookstoves.
While improved cookstoves may allow households to limit their exposure to harmful toxins in the short run, the investment does also lock them into use of biofuels for the foreseeable future, and curtails any incentive to expand modern energy services to that area. Additionally, researchers from other parts of the world who quantitatively tested indoor air quality in households that use different cooking methods, found that improved cookstoves can still produce elevated levels of indoor pollution.[annotate info='Fraser and Environmental Health News, 2012.'] Some families may use their stoves to burn plastic and other trash, and even when using other fuels, incomplete combustion of solid fuels produces many toxic substances.[annotate info='Ibid.'] Ultimately, the cleanest and most versatile cooking solution is that currently used by 60 per cent of the world: natural gas or electricity.[annotate info='Ibid.'] The challenge is to make gas or electricity widely available, with extremely clean cookstoves filling the gaps in only the hardest to reach communities.[annotate info='Ibid.']
The ultimate goal is to eventually provide all rural villages with access to electricity. There is one question that remains: what is the best way to accomplish this? As mentioned above, India has seen tremendous success in its efforts to electrify populations in the proceeding decades. Until now, grid-based electrification has been the predominant model in India, successfully covering 94.5 per cent of the county's inhabited area. Even when it comes to renewable energy, India has focused on large-scale investments, such as hydropower plants in the highlands of Bhutan. In fact, Bhutan has been praised by the World Bank for successfully redistributing the wealth created by its hydropower projects. With pro-poor policies in place, the revenue gleaned from sales to energy-hungry India has allowed Bhutan to reduce its percentage of poor citizens to only four per cent, while the whole of South Asia's poverty rate is still 30 per cent. With its abundant steep slopes, fast flowing rivers, and large glacial flows, Bhutan has a large estimated hydropower potential — about 30,000 megawatts, with only six per cent of that currently exploited.[annotate info='Dharmadhikary, Shripad. "Hydropower in Bhutan – Time for a Rethink?" International Rivers, January 8, 2015. http://www.internationalrivers.org/blogs/328-5.'] The importance of Bhutan to India's energy future was demonstrated after the 2014 landslide election of Prime Minister Modi, who made his first official state visit to India's tiny landlocked neighbour to the northeast. The two countries expect to jointly install an additional 10,000 MW of capacity by 2020, in the form of 10 mega hydropower projects.[annotate info='Dharmadhikary, 2015.'] Despite the enthusiasm of both countries for these projects, as with most undertakings of this scale, the plan has generated major controversy. The required excavation and flooding for reservoirs will disrupt important and unique ecosystems in both countries, and a number of farming communities must be relocated — although they are compensated by the Bhutanese government, many argue that new land is simply not enough.[annotate info='Ibid.'][annotate info='Liu, Coco. "Bhutan Prospers by Exporting 'Sustainable' Energy, but Some Doubt That It Is." Climate Wire, December 4, 2013. http://www.eenews.net/stories/1059991245.']
However, South Asia's unconnected villages today are often quite remote, or small enough that national censuses do not even recognize them as villages.[annotate info='GNES. "Renewable Energy-Based Rural Electrification: The Mini-Grid Experience from India." New Delhi: Global Network on Energy for Sustainable Development, 2014.'] Although Bhutan's hydropower development will help to green the region's energy mix, it will do little to solve the energy poverty of these remote and tiny hamlets. Therefore, off-grid solutions based on renewable energy may be most appropriate for these areas. The majority of off-grid renewable projects in India have been undertaken by state energy agencies, under the direction of the national Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE). A number of NGOs have also financed and constructed pilot projects across the region.[annotate info='GNES, 2014.'] India's experience with deploying renewable-based mini grids to electrify rural areas has led to a number of important lessons. First, community buy-in and acceptance of the project is essential; projects that focus on productive uses of electricity, and thus allow community members to see direct and concrete benefits in the form of income generation, are most successful at creating buy-in and acceptance.[annotate info='Ibid.'] Second, research has demonstrated the importance of modular projects — this allows communities to adapt technologies to their specific needs, without necessarily requiring an expensive custom-designed system.[annotate info='Ibid.'] Finally, communities cannot make these microgrid projects happen alone — governments must play a strong and active role, with clear-cut policy frameworks, milestones, financial support, and capacity-building initiatives.[annotate info='Ibid.']
India is also home to some interesting and innovative business models from the private sector that are allowing companies to participate — and turn a profit — in rural electrification. One example, known as the A-B-C model, is a particular favourite of the World Bank. Using this model, OMC Power identifies three groups of customers in a rural village: "Anchors," "Businesses," and "Community" members. The anchor customer provides a predictable load that offers a guaranteed source of revenue for the company, for example a school or health clinic. In the case of OMC Power, the main anchor customers in rural India have most often been telecom towers. With a guaranteed revenue stream to predictably pay off their investment, the project developer can then expand the mini grid to service usual customers such as businesses and the surrounding community. OMC Power has further developed something called a "business-in-a-box" concept through which community entrepreneurs are brought into the village electrification process.[annotate info='Ibid.']
Graeme Stewart-Wilson
Reporting in the DRC: 'As soon as I started…the lights went out'
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Gabrielle Nina Mitch describes the struggle to keep her phone charged, while reporting on energy access in remote regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
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By Adelana Olajide ● Energy ● December 29, 2017 August 5, 2022
Our reporting fellow Adelana Olajide explains how Nigeria's power problems impact his journalism career.
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GUILFORD COUNTY, N.C. – State Highway Patrol has charged a woman in the death of her great-grandmother after a fatal wreck in Guilford County.
Mary Massey died in the wreck on U.S. Route 421 South near Neelley Road on Saturday. She was 88.
Highway patrol said the driver was her great-granddaughter, Rhenda Massey.
Officials believe the rain caused Rhenda Massey to lose control of her SUV. It ran off the road, hit a tree and overturned.
Rhenda Massey faces charges of misdemeanor death by motor vehicle, exceeding a safe speed, and having unsafe tires.
Four other family members who were passengers were taken to the hospital. Their injuries range from minor to serious.
The crash had traffic backed up for a couple miles on Saturday.


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text:
Vivian Fung
Last played Sunday, January 29 2023 at 04:49 AM
Pizzicato for String Quartet
Ying Quartet
Last played Monday, January 23 2023 at 05:51 PM
Conor Hanick, piano
Album: Dreamscapes
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Kristin Lee, violin
Metropolis Ensemble
Andrew Cyr, conductor
Last played Tuesday, August 29 2017 at 07:47 PM
Miniatures (for clarinet and string quartet)
John Bruce Yeh, clarinet
Maia Quartet
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Piano Concerto, "Dreamscapes"
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Birdsong (Live from the Americas Society, October 1, 2012)
Kirsten Lee, Conor Hanick
Album: Music of the Americas Concert Series
Last played Saturday, March 11 2017 at 10:38 AM
Harp Concerto (Live from Le Poisson Rouge, April 6, 2014)
Bridget Kibbey, harp
Last played Friday, March 03 2017 at 05:10 PM
String Quartet No. 3 (Live from Banff International String Quartet Competition on August 30, 2013)
Last played Monday, January 02 2017 at 04:10 AM
Keeping Time
Mary Kathleen Ernst, piano
Album: Mary Kathleen Ernst: Keeping Time
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String Quartet No. 2 (Live from the Music of the Americas Concert Series on April 26, 2011)
Afiara String Quartet
Last played Friday, October 23 2015 at 06:51 PM
Jenny Lin, piano
Album: Glimpses


text:
HomeRussia & FSU
'Cesspool of terrorism:' Crimean leader blasts Ukraine for escalating tensions near border
Cars at Jankoi border crossing point on Russia-Ukraine border © Alexandr Polegenko © Sputnik
The head of the Crimean Republic says that Kiev deliberately undermines peace by deploying units manned with nationalist radicals near the border. He added, however, that the situation in Crimea is calm and controllable.
Crimean Supreme Court bans Tatar Mejlis as extremist organization
"They have placed gunmen from the Right Sector [an ultranationalist Ukrainian group outlawed in Russia] and the so-called Crimean Tatar Battalion near the Crimean border. The border regions have become a cesspool of extremism and terrorism," Sergey Aksyonov wrote on his Facebook page after attending a joint session of Crimean and federal counter-terrorism committees.
Aksyonov said that the situation in Crimea remains calm and controllable, but listed the military conflict in southeastern Ukraine and mass migration from these regions to Russia as the main challenges that security agents have to deal with.
In mid-August, Lenur Islyamov – a leader of the 'Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People' group, which Crimea banned as extremist in April of last year – announced that he had founded a volunteer Crimean Tatar battalion for the purpose of capturing Crimea by military force. The Crimean directorate of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) has opened a criminal case regarding the move.
'Return' of Crimea is impossible – Russian senator on latest Ukrainian plan
Also in mid-August, several top Crimean officials said that despite attempts of Ukrainian authorities to isolate the peninsula and damage its tourism-oriented economy, the flow of visitors has remained constant, with many of them coming from Ukraine.
The head of the Crimean Committee for Interethnic Relations, Zaur Smirnov, said that the Ukrainian government had ordered border guards to create artificial delays at transition points, forcing Ukrainians to spend hours at transition points at the Crimean border. He added that in the end this plan had failed, however, as the interest in Crimea among tourists is only increasing.
The Crimean Republic reunited with the Russian Federation in mid-2014, after over 96 percent of its population approved the move in a referendum. The decision was prompted by the ouster of the democratically-elected president of Ukraine in a violent coup in Kiev, and the installation of a nationalist-backed government that almost immediately declared war on the pro-Russia regions in the country's southeast, which refused to recognize the newly-imposed leadership.


We propose a mathematical theory and an efficient algorithm for measuring local resolution that address all of the above limitations. The theory (Online Methods) is based on the following idea: a λ-Å feature exists at a point in the volume if a three-dimensional (3D) local sinusoid of wavelength λ is statistically detectable above noise at that point. A likelihood-ratio hypothesis test of the local sinusoid versus noise can detect this feature at a given P value (typically P = 0.05). We define the local resolution at a point as the smallest λ at which the local sinusoid is detectable, and we account for multiple testing with an FDR procedure.
Science. 2016 Feb 26;351(6276):969-72. doi: 10.1126/science.aad8857.
Mahamid J1, Pfeffer S2, Schaffer M2, Villa E3, Danev R2, Cuellar LK2, Förster F2, Hyman AA4, Plitzko JM2, Baumeister W1.