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The women are present — Julianne Schultz
Standing up to P — Chris Wallace
Liars, witches and trolls — Mary Delahunty
Cracking the dress code — Jane R Goodall
Solidarity and silence — Madelaine Dickie
Fear of the Q-word — Anne Summers
Back to base — Kristi Mansfield
At that time in history — Shauna Bostock-Smith
Mothers know best — Mark Moran
Madame Butterfly's revenge — Masako Fukui
Do not bend — Sonya Voumard
Top girl — Julian Meyrick
On the rigs — Yassmin Abdel-Magied
The up and down nature of ladders — Julie Bowen Kearney
Homeopathy — Morris Lurie (1938–2014)
In my father's house — Elisabeth Hanscombe
Broken — Hazel Dooney
Getting on with it — Kristina Olsson
Taim bilong ol meri? — Jo Chandler
Is it hard to surf with boobs? — Bronwyn Adcock
Risky business — Mischa Merz
Snake eyes — Pat Hoffie
Firebugs — Tegan Bennett Daylight
Sound the alarm — Sally Breen
Up-skirt — Meera Atkinson
Morning song — Helen Gildfind
She plays as beautiful — Mandy Beaumont
Pack a suitcase — Mandy Beaumont
Online Only (10)
Amina's lesson on contradiction — Shakira Hussein
Secret men's business — Andee Jones
A bleak set of numbers — Kieran Finnane
I don't remember — Moya Costello & Patricia Costello
Moments alone — Kate Veitch
A principal's view — Briony Scott
Batagine — Michelle Kotevski
League of their own — Olivera Simić
The unwritten rules — Kate Galloway
The fig tree — Suvi Mahonen
Solidarity and silence
by Madelaine Dickie
I TYPE IN 'Aceh' and find a slew of photos depicting the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami. Buried among them is the occasional holiday snap of the white sand beaches of Pulau Weh, the wet season surf at Lhok Nga. When I add the word 'women' to the Google Image search, among portraits of Suraiya Kamaruzzaman, who I'm meeting in a few days, and sepia photos of Tjoet Nja' Dhien, the beautiful aristocrat who led Acehnese guerilla forces against the Dutch, I'm struck by a photo of a woman on her knees. The woman is wearing mukena, the white headscarf and dress-like covering that Acehnese women often pray in. Her head is bent and her face crumples in origami-folds of pain, or expectation. Above her, towers a man with a cane wearing an executioner's mask. There's something primeval about it, something that evokes chilling echoes of Munch's The Scream or Angela Carter's short story The Executioner's Beautiful Daughter. The cane fibrillates, a split second from the woman's back. How many lashes has she endured? How many more to go? Has she slept with a man she's not married to? Has she been caught selling rice during Ramadan?
I wonder how many girls are watching, in silence, shadowing their mother's long skirts with their thumbs.
When I get to Aceh a few days later, I grill our driver on the canings. He tells me they're advertised and anyone can go. Apparently there hasn't been one in Banda Aceh for a while.
When I describe to him the face of the woman in the photo, he fires up a clove cigarette, nods and notes, 'Yeah. But the woman wouldn't have been cringing because it hurt. She would have been cringing from shame.'
ON TOUCHDOWN IN Banda Aceh the midday light is bright as magnesium – a shock after two months in Jakarta, where the air is the texture of old, hot tissues and pollution winds scarves around the high rise.
I'm here with Flo Hadjon, a husky-voiced woman from Surabaya who also lives in Jakarta. Both of us, blinking, pull out our headscarves to shade our eyes. Flo's a couple of years older than me, in her early thirties. She looks like an elf, has just had a cancer cut out of her throat, works as a designer, moonlights as a filmmaker, and is covered in tattoos. The tattoos are hand-drawn, Matisse-like. She's quick to give our driver the sobriquet Pak Aceh and he's quick to give her a quizzical, slightly pleased smile in return.
We're here to make a video portrait of Suraiya Kamaruzzaman, the overall winner of the 2012 N-Peace Awards, an initiative of the United Nations Development Program. The awards recognise women who have been pivotal in defusing conflict in their communities and this round of recipients ranged from parliamentarians to women who work in grassroots organisations advocating for peace. Suraiya falls into the second category and is famous for having developed and spearheaded the organisation Flower Aceh, the first women's organisation in the province. Flower Aceh was particularly active in supporting women and children during the vicissitudes of a thirty-year war of independence between Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (GAM) and the Indonesian National Armed Forces (TNI). Tensions flared until Boxing Day 2004, when Aceh was ravaged by a tsunami, which killed more than 130,000 Acehnese, and became an unexpected catalyst for peace. A peace agreement was signed, GAM was disarmed, and Flower Aceh's focus shifted.
OUR FIRST STOP, suggested by Pak Aceh, is between the airport and our hotel. We're on limited time, so leaving our gear in the car, we wander through a garden and along a pathway which runs beside several pagodas. On the pagodas are baskets filled with finger-worn Qur'ans. In a grassy rectangle to our right grow tiny yellow flowers. I assume the place is a memorial garden for tsunami victims, with its feature piece a sculpture of a blue-white wave. As I approach the wave, I feel a rash of unaccountable goosebumps. I try to imagine the tsunami: what it must have looked like, its colour, the destruction and misery too vast. A hot breeze detaches a few frangipanis, sends them spiralling to the grass. As I head back to the car park, I notice the sign.
Pak Aceh hasn't just taken us to a sculpture garden. He's taken us to one of Banda Aceh's mass graves. We're standing above a terraced garden of rotting sarongs and bones, above 46,718 bodies.
SURAIYA IS PETITE, pretty, and not a woman to be distracted by infatuations or dissipations: she has a mind like a blowtorch. As she shows us around her home, a spotless two-storey townhouse, she talks rapidly and I feel a mild surge of panic – worried my Indonesian won't be up to the interview. She takes us upstairs, where there are dustless rows of books, and as she talks, I become accustomed to her nuanced and passionate tone. She tells us she studied chemical engineering at university and during her degree she met other Acehnese women who were activists and feminists. She didn't marry until she was thirty-six because she knew that if she had a husband or children, then TNI or GAM were likely to threaten them. Back downstairs, there are recent honeymoon pictures of herself and her handsome, long-haired, guitar-strumming husband; they are framed by Prambanam, the Hindu temple complex in Central Java.
We set her up for filming on a white lattice bench against a white wall on her front porch. There's the occasional growl of a passing motorbike, the howl of a dog, but it's quiet enough to shoot. She's unfazed by the camera, a natural. Compared to some of the situations she's been in, I imagine having a camera pointed at her is nothing. We learn a few days later from one of her colleagues that during the conflict she was lined up and had a pistol pointed at her head.
But she doesn't talk to us about that. Instead, she tells us about Flower Aceh, which she established in 1989. 'Our focus at Flower was the rights of victims of violence, especially women who had been sexually assaulted. We did things like trauma healing and advocacy, and also ran economic development programs,' she says.
The Flower Aceh office was often filled with mattresses. Women would come from surrounding villages under the guise of visiting relatives in the city. If members of the military or GAM had approached them, and they'd admitted that they were attending training in the capital, then they would have been in grave danger.
'In the villages, it wasn't safe. And if we'd run the training in a hotel [in the city] the women wouldn't have been comfortable. So we had a big room at the office, and a relaxed atmosphere, and at night, it was always busy. Many of the women brought babies and small children, and there were staff from Flower who looked after and played with the children. In fact, some of the women even invited their husbands, so their husbands also knew what they were doing,' Suraiya says.
On occasion, Flower Aceh ran outreach workshops in the villages and Suraiya tells us the place that made the deepest impact on her was Geumpang, an area that became poverty stricken because the women were too scared to tend their crops, too scared to harvest their rice for fear of being raped. 'It's an area that's soooofertile,' she says, 'and very beautiful, but…there came a point where the people could only eat the middle of the banana stems, the soft part. They cooked them, and ate them, because they were starving.'
She first visited the area at the request of a community organisation. The director told her there would be nine women, all victims of rape, who would be waiting to meet her. Instead she was met by thirty-five women. There was only one man left in the village. 'He was an older man,' Suraiya says, 'who wasn't able to move much because he'd been tortured. At first I thought all the other men must have died, but it turned out that this wasn't the case. Some of the men were combatants, and weren't in the area, and some had simply fled the village because it wasn't safe…so the ones who were left to take care of things were the women.'
The women had young hands and old faces, and from morning until late afternoon they told her their stories. One of the women had a husband who was a member of GAM, hiding and fighting in the mountains. She was forced by the military to walk to the mountains every afternoon to look for him. And every afternoon, when she reported back to the military post after another fruitless search, she was tortured. One afternoon, she was physically abused so badly that the soldiers broke her back.
'What hurt her the most,' Suraiya says, 'was that they made her take off all her clothing, and forced her to walk home without a single piece of clothing on. She tried to talk to a young Acehnese man who was with the military, "My child, please give me a piece of cloth. Aren't you ashamed? I am a mother!" And he replied, crying, "I'm sorry, but I can't help you, mother. It's an order"…'
Suraiya breaks off, looks away from the camera, presses her palms to her eyes.
Imagine the shame! This is Aceh, and even myself, a bule, am dressed in appropriate busana, Muslim clothing, with a dark blue headscarf and sleeves to the wrist.
As the woman was telling her story, the other women from her village moved closer and took her hands. The night after it happened, they had also come to her aid, creeping to her home with food and to nurse her, at risk of rape and torture and humiliation themselves.
'For me, what was interesting in meeting these women and listening to them tell their stories and of their suffering was…watching as they held each others hands and as they said, "I'll help you, I'll heal you". Truly, before this, I had never encountered the concept of this sort of recovery or group counseling…but these women were already doing it, in extraordinary, threatening circumstances this solidarity between women wasn't lost,' Suraiya stops.
Beyond the porch, the first drops of rain for months begins to fall.
I GOT A sense of this solidarity in Suraiya's own circle. The following afternoon, we meet one of her close friends, Ibu Haji Iliza Sa'aduddin Djamal, the Deputy Mayor of Aceh. Iliza's office is carpeted, her desk is polished and her presentation is immaculate – she's a buxom, brusque woman with a throng of assistants. She has great respect for Suraiya. 'We hope that many girls will be born who grow up to be like Suraiya, women who age without exhaustion, women who are strong in any situation…' Iliza's voice begins to choke, but she continues, 'Suraiya was a witness. She was a witness who saw the pain of women caught in this conflict and she continued to make a stand. For long enough, women in Aceh have been tortured.'
We're on the top storey of the local government offices and beyond the windows, all the way to a spine of distant volcanoes, the rain crashes.
Iliza reaches for a tissue with sparkling fingers and dabs the skin beneath her eyes. She is one of only a very few women in government in Aceh. Sobbing, she continues, 'With hard work, with tears, with all these limitations, women in Aceh continue to struggle…so that we're no longer marginalised, so that we can have equality.'
ON SURAIYA'S PORCH the rain has stopped and the temperature rockets.
According to Suraiya, just because the war is now over, it doesn't mean that Flower Aceh's work has finished. Suraiya tells us that one of the biggest issues is getting justice for women who were victims of rape during the war. There's the trauma, and the blizzard of shame these women brave to even report their experiences; but the system itself is also stacked against them. On 15 August 2005, the Helsinki Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed. Significantly, no women were involved in the Helsinki talks on either side of the negotiations. The MoU gives a right for compensation to 'all civilians who have suffered a demonstrable loss' in the conflict – so people whose homes had been burnt, or women whose husbands had died, were eligible. Victims of rape, however, were not, and even the designation 'victim', in terms outlined by the Badan Reintegrasi-Damai Aceh (The Aceh Peace and Reintegration Agency), referred only to people who suffered permanent disabilities.
'But for women who were victims of rape – nothing,' Suraiya says. 'Because rape can't be proven physically. This means, that up to this day, our country has not confessed about this. If you speak with the decision makers there are those among them who say, "Enough. It's in the past. Don't bring it to life again, we already have peace…" Yes, today, God willing, we no longer experience this constant threat and we can move on, but how can they?'
FLO AND I are stonewalled by silence a few days later at the Badan Pemberdayaan Perempuan dan Perlindungan Anak (Agency for Women's Empowerment and the Protection of Children). We'd been told they had statistics on women in Aceh, specifically, the precise number of women raped by TNI and GAM. Suraiya had been unable to provide the numbers of women Flower Aceh had worked with, because all their data had been destroyed in the tsunami.
The minute we step through the doors, eyes lock suspiciously on Flo's camera bag and tripod. We're not reporters, we quickly assure security, we're just looking for some information. We're told to wait. We wait. It's just after lunch. Women come into the office, slipping out of their shoes. Every staff member in the room we wait in is female. On the walls, there are posters boldly declaring the steps you need to take if you're a victim of domestic violence. On the table, there's cake. We're offered a slice each, but politely decline. Finally we're called to a small office where we're met by a man.
Flo and I share a look.
With appropriate circumlocution and a soft voice I explain what we're after, ask if he can help.
'Do you have a letter?' he asks.
'A what? What kind of letter?'
'A letter from your organisation stating your request?'
'No, no we haven't brought a letter.'
'Ahh well,' he spreads his hands and a small smile of relief curls his lips. 'I'm afraid there's nothing I can do then.'
I think of Suraiya's mocking iteration, 'Enough. It's in the past. Don't bring it to life again, we already have peace.'
Peace, and silence, I think. Silence and shame.
SURAIYA TELLS US about the children.
One day, maybe in 1999 when she was still director of Flower Aceh and hadn't moved over to her new position with LOGICA 2 (Local Governance Innovations for Communities in Aceh), an AusAID initiative, a father brought four children to the office and left them there. 'If they stay in the village they are not safe,' he told Suraiya. 'GAM are in the process of recruiting and because we men are too old to fight, they want to take our children up into the mountains.' Suraiya says she and the other staff at Flower Aceh were bewildered. What on earth were they to do with children? Finally they had a meeting and agreed to put the kids into an Islamic boarding school, funded from their own pay packets. After a while, a church group from Holland also offered to put thirty children through six years of high school. Every Sunday, Flower Aceh hosted healing sessions for the children. 'Many children heard the screams of their fathers burning alive, or saw their fathers beaten in front of their eyes,' Suraiya says. 'Many of the children hated the sound of the ocean because it reminded them of the sound of the war, of the crack of the guns.'
AFTER THIRTY YEARS of civil war the guns were finally quiet. GAM and TNI soldiers worked side by side to pull dead bodies from the mud left in the wake of the tsunami. Most of the bodies were women.
There's a site in the city where a hulk of a 2600-tonne ship sits rusting five kilometres inland, dragged there by the force of the tsunami. Flo and I visit the site for some footage. There's a steady stream of visitors. On the breezy roof of the vessel young Acehnese laugh, snap photos with their mobile phones, tuck into parcels of brown rice and chicken with deft fingers. From the roof of the ship we can see the ocean, a distant silver lick of water. It's unfathomable, that the ocean could have dumped the ship here. Back in the car park, a woman tugs at my sleeve and with pressing, shameless eyes says she's janda, janda, widowed. Can I help her? We've just interviewed the woman's friend. The woman's friend says when the tsunami hit her son was coming back to Banda Aceh from Medan. A lot of young men go to Medan on the weekends. It's a wild city by Acehnese standards: you can get on the arak or the Bintang beers, maybe find a pretty girl and cut loose.
The woman's son went missing on the road home. He's still missing. She waits for him.
Less than a hundred metres from the car park there's a display of graphic photos depicting blood and mud and the occasional rib bone. There's a photo of a young woman; her small breasts are exposed and her face has slipped off, leaving a black oval. There are the rictuses of children splitting the mud. I have to turn away.
Suraiya tells us that when Flower Aceh conducted research on tsunami survivors directly after the event she was completely shocked by the numbers. Research across eight camps revealed the number of male survivors was at least double the number of females.
At Mesjid Alfaizin (Lampeuneurut) there were 698 men but only 210 women. At TVRI there were 881 men and only 189 women. From data gathered at the sub-district Lampuuk from across five villages that initially had a population of five and a half thousand, there were 750 survivors. Only forty were women.
'Why?' I ask Suraiya. 'Why is the number of women so, so low?'
'When the earthquake hit, many of the men went out to have a look at what had fallen down. They got on the motorbike and left. The women stayed in the homes…'
When the tsunami came, many of the women didn't run, at least not straight away. 'Although they wanted to run, they had to grab their headscarves first,' Suraiya says. 'And the women didn't just look after themselves, but they had to make sure their children were safe, or assist their elderly mothers… There were cultural factors that influenced the numbers.'
I become aware of these cultural factors a few days later in a coffee shop. It's Pak Aceh's local and serves up a sugary robusta, enough to perk me up for an afternoon of filming and Flo up until 2 am, although I suspect she would have stayed up that late anyway – she's finishing off the design of a CD cover for a group of rising Indonesian rock stars. The cafe is spacious and decked out with plastic tables. I nudge aside an upturned ashtray with a painted toe.
'We're pretty much the only chicks,' says Flo, and she's right.
It's about two in the afternoon and the tables are full of men, slowly grinding down their cigarettes, languidly stirring their coffees, talking about the unseasonable burst of rain. The only other woman in the whole building whisks change behind the till.
IT'S BEEN EIGHT years now since the tsunami, and the cultural factors that define and perhaps confine the role of women are being buttressed by increasingly rigid religious beliefs. Historically, Aceh has always been more conservative than other parts of Indonesia. It was the first place in Indonesia to embrace Islam, and for hundreds of years there was a confluence of cultures in the province – Indonesian, Malay, Persian, Indian and Arabic. However, since the MoU was signed, there's been a strengthening in the presence and practice of Sharia, and with it comes public canings for men and women accused of adultery, and public shamings by the Shariapolice of women wearing jeans instead of skirts. This is something that deeply concerns Suraiya.
Suraiya says in front of her local mosque there are pictures of two women. 'The first is like me, she's wearing a headscarf, a long-sleeved shirt and pants. The second is a woman in a long skirt and this is indicated as the correct way to dress.'
In October 2009, The Jakarta Post reported a move by the government in West Aceh to prohibit women from wearing trousers. Suraiya says people should be worrying about social issues, not clothing. 'Why don't we make Aceh an example of a place where people live under Islam and there is no corruption? Or a place where you don't have to worry about getting your bag stolen when you're at the mosque, because we have zero crime?… Honestly, it [Sharia] is an interpretation of Islam that's too narrow. Because it's only the understanding of one school of thought. Who has the right to decide that this is better? The problem is, through the process of implementation, it's women who are becoming a target.'
In January 2013, reports from various news sources indicated that the local government in Lhokseumawe, a city in northern Aceh, planned to introduce a by-law banning women from straddling motorbikes. Women will be forced to ride sidesaddle to hide their curves. It remains to be seen whether this effectively means women in Lhokseumawe will also no longer be allowed to drive motorbikes.
Khairani Arifin (Rani) shares Suraiya's despair at the introduction of elements of Sharia law in public life. Rani is one of Suraiya's oldest friends – the girls lived together when they were at university, and now work together at LOGICA 2. She's also a professor of law and economics, responsible for co-authoring a charter on women's rights – the first of its kind in the Islamic world – and is an ardent campaigner for human rights. We meet at the Flower Aceh office and Rani receives us gracefully. She's dressed in sombre colours and speaks very softly. Her eyes have gravity, a pensiveness that suggests a rich and thoughtful inner life. According to Rani, the biggest challenge for Acehnese women in the future is in being able to rise to positions of leadership. 'The issue of women becoming leaders is always tied up with women's rights, which are always tied up with religion, with Sharia Islam. One of the problems is that religion becomes a justification as to why women can't become leaders – why women can't become involved in public life. There are plenty of passages in the Qur'an that support an active role of women, but these are always forgotten.'
PERHAPS WHAT'S ALSO forgotten is that historically women in Aceh have played active roles – especially militant roles – within the framework of Islam. On our last afternoon, Pak Aceh takes us to Tjoet Nja' Dhien's wooden house. The caretaker tells me the only authentic thing left in the structure is the well. Its wall was made particularly high, to deter the Dutch from throwing poison into it. As I follow the caretaker along the corridors I'm beside myself with excitement – a few months before I watched, spellbound, the 1988 biographical film Tjoet Nja' Dhien, starring Christine Hakim. Tjoet Nja' Dhien (1850-1908) swore she'd take revenge on the Dutch colonisers after her first husband was murdered. She fought alongside her second husband until he died in 1899, when she then took over as general, directing Acehnese guerilla fighters against the Dutch until blindness and old age forced her to capitulate. She wasn't the first woman of military persuasion in Aceh.
Records indicate there was another woman in the 1500s, a royal girl called Keumalahayati, who became an admiral in the navy and a commander of an army of widows called Inong Balee. In the recent conflict against the Indonesian government, up to two thousand women formed a modern Inong Balee – women combatants who were part of GAM.
Sitting under the replica house in the shade, watching the red scuttle of Pak Aceh's cigarette end, I think about Cut Meutia (1870-1910) and the less well-known warriors of the early 1900s, Pocut Baren, Pocut Meurah Intan, Pocut Meuligo. And then about Iliza, Rani and Suraiya, three women who are game changers, who perhaps will represent a shift in Aceh's heroines as they're advocating for peacebuilding, for collaborative and inclusive strategies rather than military solutions.
As I wait for Flo to clatter back down the stairs with the tripod and camera (later I'll watch milky shots of glass lanterns and lattice windows) I come to a difficult and personal realisation. I always thought Islam and feminism were incompatible. Six months of Islamic studies in Bandung didn't shift my opinion. But over the last few days I've come to understand that I'm wrong, that Islam is not synonymous with subservience to men, that women can be articulate, passionate, selfless and great champions of women's rights, of feminism, justice and equality, and still embrace Islam.
OUR INTERVIEW WITH Suraiya is winding up. 'You got any last questions Flo?' I ask.
'One more,' says Flo. 'Do you have any advice for young women? Young women who might want to do what you're doing, or who look up to you? Young Acehnese women?'
'Never give up,' says Suraiya in English, 'never give up.'
ON OUR LAST evening, we go to the ocean. Torpid grey clouds lock to the horizon. There's a low seabreak designed to stall another tsunami. I sink into a chair. All along the waterfront are tiny stalls selling iced coconut drinks and barbequed corn. There's the acrid smell of burning coconut husks.
I reflect on something my boss had said before I flew out. I had been talking about the issues we could frame the profile of Suraiya around: civil war, rape, breathtaking brutality of various Indonesian governments. She said, 'Stop there.'
'Stop, stop, stop. There's to be nothing in this that's anti-government. Our foothold in Indonesia is tenuous as is. We don't have programs in Aceh anymore. We have to tread carefully,' she said.
There was a culture of treading carefully directly after the tsunami. In the not-for-profit development sector you didn't mention the war, you didn't and still don't do anything that will piss off the Indonesian Government. With this in mind, I wonder if the international recognition Suraiya will gain by receiving an N-Peace Award will be enough to rally support from the international community to help women in Aceh see the deliverance of justice for perpetrators of crimes and to assist them to mobilise against their biggest challenge yet: the spectre of Sharia. And if it's not, if we continue to tiptoe around the Indonesian Government, if another generation of women in Aceh are left to face yet another time of trauma alone, will their solidarity be enough?


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Unique adaptations allow owls to rule the night
Genome Biology and Evolution
Genome Biology and Evolution (GBE) publishes leading original research at the interface between evolutionary biology and genomics. The journal's scope embraces genome-wide evolutionary investigations at all taxonomic levels and for all forms of life — within populations or across domains. Its aims are to further the understanding of genomes in their evolutionary context and further the understanding of evolution from a genome-wide perspective.
By Casey McGrath
As the only birds with a nocturnal, predatory lifestyle, owls occupy a unique niche in the avian realm. Hunting prey in the dark comes with a number of challenges, and owls have evolved several features that leave them well-suited to this task. Owls uniquely combine traits common among predators, like acute vision and sharp talons, with adaptations for a nocturnal lifestyle, such as enhanced hearing and night vision. Pamela Espíndola-Hernández, a doctoral student at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, and her colleagues recently reported the results of a genome-wide scan designed to reveal the genetic mechanisms underlying these adaptations. In addition to confirming the important role of the visual and auditory systems, the study suggests the existence of an unusual adaptation not yet described in birds—a special way of packaging DNA in retinal cells to act as a light-channeling lens—shedding new light on the evolutionary history of this nighttime predator.
The majority of birds have a diurnal lifestyle, meaning they are primarily active during the day. Owls are thought to have diverged from their sister group, which includes mousebirds, woodpeckers, and kingfishers, during the Paleocene, when a radiation of small mammals may have led to an increased availability of nocturnal prey. To take advantage of this nightly feast, owls presumably retained predatory features shared with other raptors like eagles and hawks. At the same time, they developed nocturnal traits that have been observed in other birds that evolved nocturnality independently, such as kiwis and oilbirds. This culminated in a selection of features that make owls uniquely suited to fill the nocturnal predator niche, including retinas adapted for better night vision, asymmetrical ears and facial discs for enhanced hearing, and soft feathers that enable silent flight.
In order to identify the evolutionary forces contributing to this confluence of traits, Espíndola-Hernández and colleagues compared the genomes of 20 bird species, including 11 owls (five of which were newly sequenced for the study) and analyzed the nucleotide substitution rates of individual genes to identify those that experienced positive selection during the evolution of the owl clade.
As predicted, a primary finding of the study was that genes involved in sensory perception showed a genome-wide signal of positive selection. This category included genes involved in acoustic and light perception, photosensitivity, phototransduction, dim-light vision, and the development of the retina and inner ear. Genes involved in circadian rhythms, which regulate the body's internal clock, also showed evidence of accelerated evolution, as did some genes related to feather production.
While these findings were expected, the analysis revealed another category of genes that was wholly unexpected: 32 genes related to DNA and chromosome packaging exhibited an accelerated substitution rate in the owl lineage. As a potential explanation for this surprising result, the authors point out that the DNA in the retinas of nocturnal mice and primates forms an unusual structure that acts as a sort of collecting lens and increases light detection in the deep layers of the retina. The study's findings may therefore indicate that owls independently evolved a similar DNA packaging mechanism in the retina that enhances light channeling in photoreceptors, a feature that has not been observed in any bird species to date.
Espíndola-Hernández notes that the validity of these findings rely on the accuracy of the functional gene annotations within the owl lineage, which represents an important challenge for any genomics-based research in non-model organisms. Thus, she and her colleagues hope to verify the existence of these light-channeling DNA structures in the owl eye by studying owl photoreceptor cells. Direct investigations like these are critical, Espíndola-Hernández points out, to validate the findings of computational research.
Genome-wide analysis of 11 owl species reveals that selection on phototransduction, acoustic perception, and DNA packaging genes contributed to the nocturnal, predatory lifestyles of owls. (Credit: Yifan Pei (drawing) and Pamela Espíndola-Hernández. CC-BY via Genome Biology and Evolution)
Feature image by Zdeněk Macháček
Casey McGrath is a freelance science writer with a PhD in evolutionary biology. She is also the social media editor for Genome Biology and Evolution.
Iftekhar Sayeed 8th December 2020
And the night-jar – so prevalent in the hill tracts of south-eastern Bangladesh?
They're nocturnal predators, too, aren't they?
Kobe 3rd February 2021
A very interesting read, the owls fluffy and cutesy looks seem very contradictory to their nature as predators,
perhaps it is these kinds of combinations that make the animal kingdom very fascinating to us.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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As Google + goes public and all test profiles are taken down (supposedly happening yesterday, July 31 – it hasn't happened yet from what I can tell), it will be interesting to see how brands and rankings will be affected.
During the last few weeks, Google has been scrambling to work out a business solution for Google +. First, the search engine warned those businesses that had profiles that they would be kicked off the invitation only social network beta test. Google said there would instead be a test just for business profiles that companies could apply to be a part of; due to the sheer volume of requests, however, the search engine nixed that idea and said that, instead, a small number of businesses would be allowed to stay on Google + to test it out. Ford Motor Company was one of the businesses that was allowed to stay on.
Google vs. Facebook, Part Deux
It seems like Google is struggling with the incredible popularity of its new social network – and is having trouble calculating what the next move will be. However, Google's Christian Oestlien has said that business profiles for Google + will be out in the next few months. Meanwhile, as Google scrambles, Facebook released a "how-to" page for businesses last week. This "how- to" is intended to help those companies who are creating fan pages on Facebook. It's basically Facebook's formula for success for companies trying to garner likes – and, therefore, business – on their fan pages. Facebook provides tips from building the initial page -Facebook's advice is to "treat your Facebook Page like a hub where people can connect with you, learn what you have to offer and become your fans" – to how to properly engage your audience ("get to know your fans and make people feel at home by responding to Page feedback in a predictable, timely way") to how to "get the word out" that you have a page (run a Facebook ad, etc).
It seems like every time Google pushes, Facebook shoves back; first with video chat, and now with business profiles. Except this time, Facebook is proving its ability to be one step ahead. Regardless of the back and forth nature of the issue, Google has been making some changes while allowing some businesses to have profiles. Now, if you are signed into your Google account and search something relevant to a company you are connected with on Google +, that company will likely show up higher in your search engine results.
Ford: A Test Case
Ford was one of the first companies to start using Google +, and even kept using it after being warned that the profile may be deleted so that Google could start testing business profiles separately (which, again, never happened). When Google decided to let a select few companies remain on the social network, it chose Ford as one of the lucky few. And now, Ford's followers are seeing the face of search change with the evolution of Google +. Though it is not revolutionary to have those signed into their Google accounts to experience altered rankings due to the preferences of their contacts, it is to see brand connections begin to alter search engine results.
What do I mean? Well, let's take a look.
This is Ford Motor Company's test account on Google +.
These are the search results I see when I type in "car companies" while signed out of my Google account. Ford only shows up in the paid advertisements section, once.
These are the search results I see when I type in "car companies" while signed into my Google account (since I am following the Ford Motor Company page on Google +). Ford shows up at the top of the paid advertisements and in the organic results.
Danny Sullivan noted in his Search Engine Land article on this subject, "Until recently, the social connections that Google Social Search uses have been mostly actual people. While brands were allowed to have Google Profiles until March of this year, few of them did. That meant relatively few brands were available for direct connections through Google. It was possible to connect with brands in Google Social Search if you followed brand profiles on Twitter, Facebook or some other ways. However, it was fairly unusual for me to spot that something was getting a boost in Google's search results through that type of connection." So, if you are a brand on Google +, your direct connection with your target audience will bring you higher up in their search engine rankings (when they are signed into their Google accounts). This could be huge for promoting loyalty and means branding on Google + will be extremely important.
It seems like when Google + becomes fully public, those brands people follow and favor will tend to show up in their search results more. Brand loyalty and relevancy are going to become factors in each person's (who is signed into his or her Google account, that is) search results.
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"Dripfeed" NEWSLETTER OF THE BANKS PENINSULA BRANCH OF THE VINTAGE CAR CLUB OF New Zealand (INC) VOLUME 42, No 11 december, 2019 Editor: Michael Williams 10 Selwyn Parade Lyttelton Ph 328 8043, email mimiandmichael@yahoo.co.nz
Chairman: Secretary:
Club Officers: Craig Keenan 322 1006 Ron Hasell 942 1105
Branch Address: 27 Showgate Ave, ChCh 8042 E-mail: bankspeninsula@vcc.org.nz Noggin & Natter: 2nd Thursday of the Month • •
Noggin 7.30 pm at the Papanui RSA. Upham Room – enter either from 55 Bellvue Ave or the first entrance on the left on Harewood Road (Papanui / Main North Road) Thursday 12th of December. We look forward to seeing you there. Supper is provided.
From the Editor: This is the last edition of Dripfeed for 2019, and the next edition will come out in February. I've continued to enjoy the rôle of editor, and the surprisingly positive comments I continue to get from a wide variety of readers beyond our branch certainly makes it worthwhile. And what has made it even more worthwhile recently is the generous gift by Richard Foster of his full set of Dripfeeds, right from Volume 1 number 1. An absolute goldmine, and they will of course become the official club archives . As benefits a club that takes itself very seriously, these historical documents will be kept in a brown cardboard carton in my study. Amongst this motoring equivalent of the Dead Sea Scrolls is the original letter explaining why the Banks Peninsula Branch was to be formed, written by an interim committee of Ron Hasell, Julian Loughnan, Doug Barnard and Gavin Bain. And in the spirit of the American Declaration of Independence, it's signed by fifty people, of whom twelve are still members. Bob Scott was the first chairman, Lindsay Wogan was the first editor, and the first Dripfeed came out in July 1978. After a few issues, certain themes were beginning to come through, and are well worth repeating. Indeed, in the very first issue, under the heading Quote of The Month, the following item came from the VSCC Bulletin. "and Barry Clarke used his Austin Ulster's windscreen to help it stop by rubbing it on the ground. This displeased the organisers, who said that Barry had had an accident
and must not continue. Barry said he often stopped like that because Austin brakes were not much good". (I'm simply carrying on a fine old tradition of Austin 7 abuse.) Another heading was " Lies, Evasions and Half-Truths", and one or two are notable. From September 1978: "Does anyone remember a chap named Garry Moore? Made quite a stir about the time of the Inaugural Meeting and hasn't been seen since." From December 1978: "Ladies a plate, gents bottled goods" From March 1979: "Ted L is working on his MG NA, and hopes to solve the boiling problem" From January 1980: "At the Xmas picnic at Bill Clark's, the children had a vote and voted Gavin Bain the best racing driver in the VCC" I read in the latest edition of Classic and Sports Car that there was an event called 'The Festival of the Unexceptional", and the much coveted Concours d'Lemon was won by a Morris Marina. Most apt. The Branch wishes to express our sympathy to Clive Dodds on the passing of his brother Peter. Welcome to new member Rod McIlrae, who has been hired as a works driver for Rob Cope-Williams' Lotus 23. Rod is one of the great names in Motorsport, especially in his Mustang back in the good old days. We are still hoping to have a display of cars that raced at the original Wigram circuit, or competed elsewhere during that era, at the Skope Classic at Ruapuna over Waitangi weekend in February. Please get in touch with Ron if you have a suitable car and want to participate. Ron Hasell has entry forms for the annual Dunedin to Brighton Veteran run.
Coming Events New Years Day Picnic 2020, Little River Domain. Our annual picnic is on again from 10.30am, so get there early and stop the Triumph Club from getting the best spot. Beware of massed Fords, MGs, and other grey porridge. Last year there were five real vintage cars so see if we can beat that this year. It's always a pleasant day for gossip and slander, as well as a jazz band, ice creams, and barbeque food provided by the Little River Fire Brigade. Gold Coin admission.
Veteran Run 18th January 2020
Back Country Excursion 18th January 2020 This excursion which is intended for veteran vehicles only will travel from Hawarden to Whitnow Station and return to Hawarden.
The total distance travelled will be 62 Kms, which includes 46 kms of good unsealed road. If you wish to attend or for information please contact David and Marion Oakley, Ph 021370956 or 03 3087323, email d.oakley@xtra.co.nz Art Deco Weekend, Napier, February 2020 Contacts: STEVE TROTT stevetrott@xtra.co.nz STEVE DONOVAN stevedon@xtra.co.nz Highland Fling, 24th – 26th of April. This is a new event, organised by the Bay of Plenty branch. It's based in Taihape, gumboot capital of NZ, and is a sort of North Island version of Irishman Creek. Imitation is the best form of flattery I suppose, and only proper vintage cars are eligible, which is a good start. Mostly shingle and farm tracks, it sounds like a lot of fun. For more information, email nicc@vcc.org.nz or phone Kaaren Smylie 021664341 or Alastair Jones 07 5761124.
Past Events Karamea Touring Weekend, November 15-17 November, 2019. Christchurch's Show Weekend became a touring weekend for an intrepid group prepared to tackle the Alps and a long haul over The Bluffs to the End of the Known World – Karamea. Accomodation in Karamea is nowadays plentiful and the abundance of natures' attractions are matched by a growing shed culture, stocked with an abundance of interesting motor vehicles. This meant that should wet weather strike (perish the thought) we could have almost a surfeit of indoor activities to while away the day. On departure day, Friday 15th November, we met at Pukeko Junction, Leithfield, at 0900 hours for a coffee and route instructions (handed out as an illustrated guide) complete with tales to while away the miles. The route was a simple one yielding an approximate distance from Christchurch to Karamea via Lewis Pass, of 280 miles and a return distance via Arthurs Pass of 265 miles but participants were free to detour as they chose (not that many other passes were available to them). The suggested Friday lunch stop was Springs Junction and Greymouth on the Sunday, though roadside picnics amongst the sandflies were also possible; evening meals at Karamea were proposed for Friday at the Karamea Hotel and Saturday at The Last Resort, thus ensuring a degree of sophisticated camaraderie. The early stages took us through the Weka Pass, Waikari and Hurunui Basins, the Waiau Gorge and Hanmer Basin; if navigators were awake (the instructions tended to put them to sleep) then the Taramakau-Hope Fault was noted in the vicinity of Glyn Wye station; this was the focus for the massive 1888 earthquake which allowed Alexander McKay to document for the first time, significant lateral fault movement, a subject which aroused considerable disagreement between geologists for many years. McKay stands on the upthrown side of the Hope-Taramakau Fault near Glyn Wye station; the trace crosses from left to right, the far side having moved to the right (dextral movement) as shown by the offset fenceline. The 7.2 magnitude 'quake occurred 1 September 1888, causing severe damage in Christchurch. Tragically, late Thursday a Christchurch man was killed by a rockfall on the road near O'Sullivans Bridge in the Buller Gorge, at the junction of SH65 and SH6; our route should have followed SH65 north from Springs Junction to this bridge, however this road and the middle section of the Gorge were closed to all traffic as abseilers cleared loose material from the bluffs in this area. We
duly completed our pre-lunch stop at the Alpine Fault in the Marble Hill recreation area, satisfied the inner man (and woman) at the Junction, then were detoured to continue on SH7 northwest over the Rahu Saddle to Reefton; here a mandatory stop took in the secondhand shop on the route north to Inangahua Junction (SH69) where we finally joined the Buller River as it rushed into the lower gorge section which sports the Hawks Crag Breccia, a rock which hosted New Zealand's only uranium strike in 1956. This unusual rock also records another important event – our breakaway from Australia more than 50 million years ago – as well as forming an impressive cliff into which the main road was hewn.
Harold Wellman ("the man who moved mountains") was, like Alexander McKay, a self-taught geologistand an exceptional thinker. He recognised the full import of the offset river terraces near Marble Hilland elsewhere and proposed 300miles dextral offset along the Alpine Fault; astounding at the time, today no one doubts it. Unfortunately the detour meant we could not access the White Creek Fault a couple of miles west of O'Sullivans Bridge; this fault has moved many times in its history, the most recent being the devastating 17 th June 1929 Murchison earthquake, of magnitude 7.8 – many times stronger than the Darfield 'quake that rocked Christchurch in September 2010. At the time, Canterbury/Westland folk were severely shaken as the Murchison 'quake followed closely on the heels of the magnitude 7.1 Arthurs Pass 'quake of 9th March 1929. We will visit the White Creek Fault another time.
Hodgsons Store in Murchison, takes a nautical lean after the devasting 7.8 magnitude 'quake of 17 June 1929; clearly the building lacked adequate diagonal bracing. The 'quake was centred on the White Creek Fault, 8 miles to the west.
Emerging from the Buller Gorge we stopped briefly in Westport to refuel, then headed nor'east along the narrow coastal plain to turn inland at the Mokihinui; only one of our number stopped off to pay homage to coal-mining in the area; I suspect no one visited the Country and Western Museum, though it may hold hidden delights. Once past these delights, only the dreaded Bluffs lay between us and a whitebait dinner. Settled in to our accomodation at Karamea, we counted from our room, four tui and assorted bellbirds on a pohutukawa a few feet to the north and two fat native pigeons to the south. All travellers were accounted for during drinkies before dinner, and plans were laid for the morrow, on the advice of some locals who averred the arrival of a fine day; they had enjoyed very few in the previous two months. Many chose whitebait for the main course but some were disappointed when their dessert choice, whitebait and icecream, could not be served; Karamea was short on icecream.
Two little treasures; the World's Least Collectible Car (the FSM Niko) stands beside Dripfeed Editor's Most Favoured ReadyReference Car (the Austin Seven). Do not be fooled by the apparent shine on the Niko.
Saturday dawned unclear and the local forecasters were nowhere to be seen. Nature called, with visits such as the Oparara Arches, the Nikau Walk, the Zig-Zag Track and the Big Rimu, but only the brave headed for the end of the road at the Kohaihai; most hovered around Vinnie's café, ducking the lightning, and listening to Radio Karamea (FM, mind you) broadcasting live a local singer/guitarist who was rather enjoyable; her rendition of a James Brown number allowed
injection of the useless information that the Excaliber sports car Brown once owned, now resides in Invercargill in the ownership of a fellow VCC member. The singer, Laura, became quite envious of this near-contact with James Brown. After a spell of thunder and heavy rain an almost break-in-the-weather allowed us to flee the delights of Radio Karamea and head inland towards the gorge of the mighty Karamea River. The sealed road turned to loose metal, narrowed and entered heavy bush, and on we went. At this stage the few who had followed their guide on a previous Westland tour became nervous, recalling a one-way trip, somewhere back of Kumara, down a narrowing track, which eventually turned into a cycle trail through the bush; on that occasion the guides' instructions should have led to a small hydro station. Fortunately a Derby Bentley is quite useful at flattening the brush, so to speak, and we all got out unharmed, apart from the ** which went sideways at some point, being rescued by might and main. But nothing untoward happened; we emerged at Jack's place and he showed us the contents of three sheds, with vehicles which ranged from a terribly fast Audi (all carbon-fibre and glamour and capable of 300+ kph) down to the world's least collectible car (Jack's words) a Polish-built Fiat 126 known as an FSM Niko. He pointed out the paint finish; we suspect it was thrown on from a distance. It seems these came out initially with normal Italian flair and a reasonable engine, but the three million built in Poland began by down-sizing to a more reasonable 249cc engine. Some were sold in Australia – aren't you glad that we separated from them 55 million years ago? Jack also has a very well-finished Model A and a recent acquisition is a Willys-Knight coupé, though it is giving him starting trouble at present. His collection includes everyone's favourite, an Austin Seven (yes, even the Editor loves them, though it is a fairly well-kept secret given away only by his repeated references). And then there is the Lanz Bulldog, which uses the steering wheel for starting (maybe that could be tried with the Willys-Knight), and an Australian-made version of the same sort of thing, a Beetle (VW species), a micro-light which is so under-powered that it can only stay airborne when in ground effect a husky trailersailer….. and so on. We dragged ourselves away from Jack's after admiring his large pet weka and his generating plant; with a head of 50 metres this latter is no trickle-charger and he has it tuned to run very reliably in spite of being a Chinesemade unit (initially). Rebuilt with Karamea do-it-yourself, it was impressive. As was his home-built concrete ford on the road leading further up-gorge. We turned back after an interesting hour and a half; thanks Jack for a fascinating visit. Next on the agenda was a visit to VCC member Ian Hedgman who is restoring a vehicle close to the heart of our Branch's Monte Carlo patron, His Serene Highness – a 1934 Riley Nine Monaco. After examining the hen collection and learning the finer points of chook breeding and triple-yolk laying, the ladies needed no further encouragement to head inside and partake of tea and scones with Ruth, while the chaps went through the Monaco and its pleasures. Currently working on the doors, chassis work will start soon and painting looms closer, followed by upholstery and trimming. When complete it will add interest to the range of cars in Karamea. Our final visit for the afternoon was further south, at Little Wanganui, to see Tony's shed(s); it is enormous, with a sort-of annex, and houses several WWII US army trucks, three jeeps (1942, '44, '47) four Land Rovers, a gaggle of Toyota utes which seem to be breeding quietly as they increase without Tony's assistance, Ferguson tractors by probably the dozen (including a very early one), a range of other tractors and a Daimler Ferret Scout car complete with something like a machine gun (I wonder if it qualifies as a semi-automatic?). Tony was a great host and kept answering questions all the while; all in all it was a super visit. We eventually dragged ourselves away, to do setting-up exercises preparion for another whitebait dinner. As a farmer, Tony has a penchant for tractors and here are just two of the Fergy rebuilds under way; the collection and shed are both extensive. Sunday morning brought the weather expected by some on Saturday, but before departure a couple of us visited the gravesites of Flight Lieutenant Len Chambers DFC (b. Karamea 18 February, 1919, d. 1985) and his wife Lil (b. Canada 1924, d. 2015) in the Karamea cemetery. Len Chambers took part in the successful 1943 Dambusters Raid on the Ruhr dams and received his DFC at BuckinghamPalace; Len later re-trained as a pilot to serve in the Pacific theatre. Known by some as the "Forgotten Dambuster", Len was one of two New Zealanders in 617 squadron who flew on that famed mission against the Ruhr dams on 16th May 1943; the aircraft flown by Les Munro, the other Kiwi, was hit by flak crossing the enemy coast and returned to base; Len was radio/radar operator in the third Lancaster flown by Mickey Martin. Over the Moehne dam, Leader Gibson went in first but his bouncing bomb,though accurately placed, failed to breach the dam; Hopgood followed but was hit over the lake and began to climb away burning, only to explode in mid-air.
Len's pilot went in but their bomb bounced to the left of centre and again the dam stood. Another Lancaster followed, then another, with Gibson and Martin flying above their comrades, flashing their navigation lights to draw the flak away; finally Len saw the dam crack and break – the Moehne had been breached. Martin turned for home with those who had delivered their bombs and Gibson continued to the next target, the Eder dam, which also was successfully breached. After completing his tours in Wellingtons and Lancasters, Len was sent back to Canada (where he had been initially trained as air gunner/radio operator) for re-training as a pilot; he was then posted back to the Pacific theatre but took with him a young Canadian wife, Lillian, whom he had met during initial training. After the War, Len and Lil returned to his beloved Karamea where he returned to carpentry, but like many aircrew who went through hell repeatedly on such missions, Len suffered ill-health. Many New Zealanders know of Les Munro; few spare a thought for Len Chambers. Len's niece, Marlene Bennetts, recently published a small book telling the story to keep a promise to Lil; it is ISBN 978-0473-35630-9, entitled, "The Forgotten Dambuster".
We gathered at Market Cross and departed just after the tens of tons of milk tanker/trailer had passed while we stood chatting on the roadside; all managed to run him down before reaching the Bluffs and a pleasant journey was made to Westport where most refuelled. Coffee was taken at Charleston, with some visiting Constant Bay to marvel how sailing vessels could bring gold miners and supplies into the tiny rock-girt bay, little larger than a decent duck-pond. Incidentally it is more than rock-girt for there are reefs within. Travelling on, coal seams on the roadsides told of later miners after black-gold. On we went, following the scenic coastal road with some stopping at Punakaiki and a few entering Greymouth for a late lunch. Since the Omoto slip is on the move again, we were forced to return via Cobden and travel up valley through Taylorville, but at least this allowed a brief stop at the Memorial to miners lost in the several Coast mine disasters; the last (Pike River) seemed such a needless disaster based on the knowledge it was such a gassy coal, and management's almost unbelievable escape plan. A stop here is salutary. The Grey River was crossed at Stillwater and we turned up-valley for Moana, following the Arnold River, however at Blair Road we turned left to visit Jacks Mill School and learn of the impact of teacher Edward Darracott; his teaching of practical subjects to primary boys and girls spread throughout New Zealand. Due to a political protest Sunday in Greymouth (it seems that farmer's are no longer outstanding in their fields but instead are in town vocalising) caretaker Marilyn Smithem arranged for her daughter to open the Historic Bungalow for us and we enjoyed the visit. Due to heavy rains we could not visit the nearby oil seeps (Kotuku) as the creek has to be waded, so the visit must await another day; we returned to the main road and continued through Moana and on to Rotomanu and Inchbonnie, following the Alpine Fault through this section. Crossing the Taramakau to Jacksons we followed the valley of the Taramakau/Hope/Kaikoura Fault, turning off into the Otira Valley at Aitkens; here we crossed the Kelly's Creek Fault and soon after stopped at Otira Hotel for coffee before crossing the Pass. Several of our troop were entertained by the Hotel's surprising collection of antiques and paraphenalia which included some apparently near-tame paradise shellduck mingling with the hens and guinea pigs outside. Once over the Pass we enjoyed a fine drive through the Cass and Broken River basins before the short climb to Porters Pass; a final stop here allowed a brief look at the Porters Pass Fault before descending to the plains and the last stage of our journey home. A good three days and the wet weather gear hardly got wet; in fact gumboots were not seen in action and the toolbox remained closed. Seven cars and seven couples seemed to enjoy the tour so maybe we should plan another? Fulsome report by Ramon Farmer
To all Fiat Tipo 501 and Tipo 503 owners The Fiat Car Club of Victoria (FCCV) is going to habve a new batch of crown wheels and pinions made very early next year. This is the first opportunity to obtain a new gear set since 2000. These will be made in the revised ratio of 4.6:1, as per the two previous batches. Standard is 5.1:1 which is more suited to heavier cars like sedans. The experience of our members is the revised ratio is almost the same as the 501S and better suited to modern traffic and roads.Price; non FCCV membersapprox AUD$640 FOB plus GST. Further details Richard Unkles richard@unkles.com +61 3 9857 9417. Orders only accepted on the basis of payment of deposit AUD$320 in the Club's account by Friday 20th December 2019. Delivery expected late February. Fiat Car Club od Victoria Inc National Australia Bank Swift Code NATAAU3303M BSB 083277 A/c 525012485
As Citroën and Bentley celebrate their respective centennials, Citroën has, over the 100 years made unconventional, eclectic and innovative cars for the masses, whereas Bentley has made conventional, exclusive and predictable cars for the elite. And as Brockbank so accurately portrays, Citroën is still ahead.
Vintage Car Club of New Zealand
Bank Peninsula VCC - December 2019
vintagecarclubofnewzealand


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Q: Prove $\limsup_{\epsilon \to 0} \epsilon^{-\gamma p} ⨍_{B(x_0,\epsilon)} |f(x)|^p dx < \infty \implies f(x) \le C |x-x_0|^\gamma$ Let $x_0 \in \mathbb{R}^N$, $p \ge 1$, $\gamma>0$, $\epsilon>0$.
How can I prove that we have
$$\limsup_{\epsilon \to 0} \epsilon^{-\gamma p} ⨍_{B(x_0,\epsilon)} |f(x)|^p dx < \infty \implies f(x) \le C |x-x_0|^\gamma, $$
for some $C>0$?
Are the two actually equivalent ($\iff$)?
I guess one should use a theorem on integral average, but I cannot figure out how to proceed.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Toronto Videogame Database
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Set in 1970s New York City the story follows a street gang known as the Warriors, who have been accused of a murder they didn't commit, and must return to their home turf in one night.
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Cel Damage is a cartoony take on vehicular combat games.
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Operations Excellence: BioPharma Consortium Meets in California and the Netherlands
Amir London
BioPharm International, BioPharm International-07-01-2004, Volume 17, Issue 7
Although there are many differences between the industries, especially related to regulatory requirements, there are enough similarities that the future of biopharmaceuticals with respect to contract manufacturing might look much like the semiconductor industry.
Two quarterly meetings of the BioPharma Operations Excellence Consortium were held over the first three months of 2004. On February 3, the US West Coast chapter of the consortium had its first meeting of the year at Abgenix in Fremont, CA, and on March 25 in the Netherlands, the European chapter kicked off its first meeting, which was hosted by Centocor Leiden.
ABGENIX MEETING
The Abgenix meeting hosted 40 professionals from over 15 companies and focused on contract manufacturing, a hot topic in an industry periodically beset by capacity hortages. In addition to the presentations and group discussions, participants were given a facility tour of Abgenix's large-scale manufacturing plant.
One of the more intriguing sessions of the day was a presentation by Joe Dillon, vice president, supply chain, of Silterra, a semiconductor contract manufacturing organization (CMO) based in Malaysia. Dillon discussed the industry's background and how the consortium discussions reminded him of the semiconductor industry 20 years earlier. He also shared that since the '80s, the semiconductor industry has made major advancements that biopharmaceuticals companies might want to emulate.
As an example, Dillon noted that advanced manufacturing execution systems allow customers of semiconductor CMOs to have full, real-time visibility of their products in the CMO plants. He also mentioned that there are a large number of "fabless" companies that focus on product development and outsource all their manufacturing to CMOs, mainly located in Asia. Plus, according to Dillon, manufacturing technology drives improvement in semiconductors, and, as a result, a semiconductor plant can expect to turn over 33% of its manufacturing equipment every three years. He added that labor only constitutes 5% of the product cost, while the tax advantage is the real driver to building CMOs in Asia. The semiconductor industry can thoroughly inspect each product made, Dillon said. He concluded by noting that although there are many differences between the industries, especially related to regulatory requirements, there are enough similarities that the future of biopharmaceuticals with respect to contract manufacturing might look much like the semiconductor industry.
The other presentations of the day were given by Steve Chamow, vice president, process sciences at Abgenix; Karen Walker, director of quality at Abgenix; Patrick Hanley, Sr., manager of packaging at Genentech; Sid Advant, director of technology transfer and clinical operations at Diosynth; and Allan Harmon, plant manager for Baxter BioScience.
The main focus of the presentations given by Walker, representing the development side, and Advant, standing for the CMOs, was the need to develop frequent communication between the organizations as well as a clear, focused set of expectations from the technology transfer to the development of the quality agreement. Harmon's presentation focused on Baxter BioScience's transition of its Hayward, CA facility to transition from supporting internal customers to opening its doors to external customers. For Baxter BioScience, becoming a contract manufacturer required the establishment of a customer-support organization, as well as improvements to the physical plant to provide added transparency to customers and offer visitors a better understanding of the current manufacturing processes.
Abgenix's Chamow discussed the challenges of increasing efficiency in biologics production as well as the key factors to increasing titer. Most of the newer, large-scale production facilities coming on-line are focused on batch production. A discussion developed about perfusion vs. batch fermentation. From a manufacturing perspective, perfusion production theoretically can be more efficient, requiring smaller vessels and fewer changeovers compared to batch processing. This is especially true for processes where large quantities of material are required and suites can be dedicated to products. Many limitations of perfusion were discussed as well. Current technology and equipment constraints have made large-scale production challenging. Also, perfusion requires a long-term, up-front investment for validation. Instead of running three batches over two months to validate a batch process, one may need three runs over at least six months to validate the perfusion process. Because the biopharmaceutical industry is still young, it is too early to tell which technology will become the standard in the end — but batch processing has a healthy lead.
Hanley kicked off an interesting discussion of Genentech's validation of automated vial inspection for liquid-filled vials. Genentech has been exploring the use of automation, due to the ergonomic risks associated with vial inspection and the significant labor costs and space requirements needed to meet growing capacity demands. The discussion focused on the difficulty manufacturers face in validating current manual inspection processes and identifying liquid particles in products. Hanley went on to describe his company's newly proposed inspection process and how it is being validated against current manual processes. Although the process is not fully validated, Hanley said Genentech expects that in the future, it will be able to significantly limit the growth of the inspection group, be more consistent in its inspection of vials, and, most importantly, dramatically minimize the injury rate.
CENTOCOR LEIDEN MEETING
The Centocor session, facilitated by Tefen's European office, was the European chapter's first meeting, hosting over 30 professionals from 18 companies. The large number of participating companies, all European-based biopharmaceutical manufacturers, demonstrated the need for such a forum and the willingness of organizations to share challenges and improvement initiatives. As it was the group's first meeting, a large portion of the day was dedicated to introductions, development of clear expectations, charter statements, and working procedures.
Pedro Tetteroo, vice president and general manager of Centocor Leiden, delivered the day's keynote address. He presented Centocor's vision and manufacturing strategy as well as the company's successful growth story over the past four years. Tetteroo concluded by emphasizing the importance of operations and process excellence to Centecor's success.
Other presentations were given by Eric Goossens, director of production operations, and Johan Telen, director of process excellence at Centocor Leiden; Jo Dalle, director of manufacturing and Wim Croonen, director of human resources at Genzyme (Belgium); Dave Sherwood, director of global quality and compliance at Celltech (UK), and Martin Wrankmore, manufacturing continuous improvement leader at Lonza Biologics (UK). The presentations provided overviews of the companies' current operations excellence programs. The speakers mainly focused on lean operations and Six-Sigma methodologies.
Tefen presented a case study of a successful one-year deviation reduction program it led in partnership with a large, multi-site biopharmaceutical organization, using a Six-Sigma framework. It not only significantly reduced the backlog of open nonconformances (NCs), but it also allowed for the implementation of required infrastructure for continued reduction in NC rates and closure cycle time, including a mechanism for visibility enhancement and elevation of NC reduction ideas from the staff. The program resulted in more than a 35% reduction in the average number of NCs per lot and more than a 50% reduction in average closure time per reported deviation.
The East Coast chapter's meeting was held on May 11 at Centocor, Malvern, PA. Meeting highlights will be summarized in a future column.
At press time, the European chapter's next meeting was set for July 7 and it was to be hosted by Serono in its Vevey, Switzerland facility. The next West Coast meeting has not been announced. For more information about the consortium and details on future meetings, please e-mail us at excellence@tefen.com.
BioBusinessRegulatory/GMP ComplianceQuality/GMPsBioPharm International-07-01-2004


Get ready for real in-your-face hoops.
The Feb. 14, 2009 broadcast of the NBA's All-Star Saturday night festivities from Phoenix will mark the first time a 3-D sporting event has been made available to the public nationwide, according to the companies.
Last week, in an invitation-only event, National Football League tested a 3-D broadcast of the NFL Network's Dec. 4 San Diego Chargers-Oakland Raiders night game to theaters in New York, Los Angeles and Boston.
For its part, Fox will show the BCS championship game on Jan. 8 in 3-D HD in select theatres. However, the network has not yet identified which markets and theaters will exhibit the enhanced college football championship games.
Morristown, N.J.-based Cinedigm – which recently changed its name from AccessIT – last week announced it has secured $8.9 million in credit to fund the deployment of its digital cinema projection systems in Premiere Cinemas theaters. The publicly held company has installed more than 3,700 digital cinema systems over the past two years in the first phase of its rollout, and eventually expects to deploy 10,000.


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29 / 04 / 2017 HIK ? - ? VSK Arhus ????
01 / 04 / 2017 HIK ? - ? FC Sydvest ????
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29 / 10 / 2016 HIK ? - ? Hvidovre IF ????
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11 / 10 / 2016 HIK ? - ? Randers FC ????
01 / 10 / 2016 HIK ? - ? Holbæk B&I ????
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text:
Psalm 46 is een psalm uit Psalmen in de Hebreeuwse Bijbel. Het is een van de vijf psalmen die "Liederen van Sion" worden genoemd. Artistiek wordt de psalm doorgaans als een hymne ingedeeld.

Maarten Luther baseerde zijn lied "Een vaste burcht is onze God" op deze psalm.

Interpretatie
Men kan de boodschap van de auteur samenvatten als 'Bij God kun je terecht, hij is sterk en een hulp in nood, daarom hoef je niet bang te zijn, wat er ook gebeurt.'

Indeling
Psalm 46 bestaat uit drie refreinen:
Refrein 1: vers 1-4
Refrein 2: vers 5-8
Refrein 3: vers 9-12
Achter het 4de vers staan niet de woorden "de Heere der heirscharen is met ons; de God van Jakob is ons een Hoog Vertrek". Dat is achter die andere refreinen wel zo.

Externe links
 Diverse vertalingen van onder andere Psalm 46

046

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


1 Finding Affordable Dental Implants in McKinleyville, California– Why So Costly?
5 How Do I Get Dental Implants in McKinleyville CA?
You believed whatever was great. No person showed up to notice that you were missing out on a couple of teeth, and afterwards someone crossed the line. You were provided nana sandals and a crocheted covering for Christmas, the tip being that it was time to huddle on the couch with your pet cat as well as a glass of warm milk.
Finding Affordable Dental Implants in McKinleyville, California– Why So Costly?
Shedding your teeth has actually started to make you look old. You rarely speak with any individual anymore anyway, so why not work out in for an early nap? Rubbish! When affordable dental implants are simply a phone call away, you don't have to settle.
Probably relative will be extra direct and also skillful about it, but a person has to tell you that affordable dental implants could be life-changing. Finding affordable dental implants begins with a net search as well as the determination to take a trip a bit. Possibilities are you will certainly have to go to a major city to locate a dental expert that makes it his organisation to supply cost effective oral solutions to people that require them. It may appear like false economic climate if you have to pay for train tickets or gas, but merely note the distinction in expense as well as it quickly comes to be clear: taking a trip is well worth the initiative to have your smile again.
The reason dental implants are so pricey is that great deals of people obtain entailed in making them, putting them as well as completing them. Add this to the cost of materials plus the dental expert's helicopter costs, and soon you will have to offer your vehicle to be able to consume steak once again.
How Do I Get Dental Implants in McKinleyville CA?
Dentists could reduce costs by doing just what every customer does to save money: buying in bulk. Given that there is no such thing as a bad dental professional, it is clear that these treatments take location often enough for a professional to purchase products ahead of time. Additionally, if he is educated, he can do even more of the job himself as opposed to sending you to a different person to tackle each part of the procedure. All of this might save you cash, even after you request a strong sedative to get you via the process.
A lot of these dental methods promote solutions online. Net advertising and marketing helps to maintain expenses down as well as reach even more people, while expanding their customer base at the same time. Even more consumers as well as lower media expenses include up to cost savings we could hand down to clients. When you see one of our dental professionals, make sure to ask for a price analysis for the dental implants.
Consider making use of these services before any person needs to trigger you. Surprise them with a new smile. The benefits start with self esteem, which is critical to living a complete life. Not every person that loses teeth will be senior. Numerous youths deal with oral problems or injuries which cause tooth loss. When you can not grin or speak openly, this cuts you off from individuals as well as hinders your possibilities of success, especially if you wish to work in a customer support capacity.
Worse still, your jaw needs teeth in it to stay healthy. Without anything to support, your jaw begins to atrophy like a muscle that never ever gets utilized. Your mouth will transform shape so that, even if you intend to obtain dentures ultimately, they will not fit. Act rapidly to avoid this from taking place and offer us a telephone call today.
The advantage of picking affordable dental implants over dentures is that they will help you to keep bone mass, whereas dentures do not. If you wear dentures as you do without teeth, you have just as good a chance of shedding bone.
Also dentures could be positioned in your mouth semi-permanently. Your dental practitioner will certainly repair them to a variety of posts so that you take hip jump lessons without losing them. While the shrieking of your fellow dancers or the audience as they go flying could be exciting, the guideline of 'finders caretakers' could spell your downfall for discovering affordable dental implants.
Pay little focus on the price of your close friend's treatment. Her mouth is different from yours, so the services you need will not set you back the exact same quantity. It could take longer for your treatment to be ended up. More products can be needed. Bone grafting could be required before any type of further job can be done. Attempt not to be daunted.
When choosing affordable dental implants, simply locate out what type of anesthetic solutions are offered at the exact same time. This need to put you at your convenience. You might be asleep the whole time. This is particularly helpful if your major issue regarding mosting likely to the dental expert is that you are simply afraid. An anxiety of dental practitioners prevails, but is occasionally preventable. Do not see 'Little Shop of Horrors' or 'Marathon Guy,' and also you could be simply fine.
Probably household participants will certainly be extra skillful and also direct concerning it, yet a person needs to tell you that affordable dental implants could be life-altering. Locating affordable dental implants begins with a net search as well as the readiness to take a trip a little bit. While the yelling of your fellow dancers or the audience as they go flying could be amazing, the guideline of 'finders caretakers' could mean your failure for finding affordable dental implants.


Fonderia Artistica Battaglia is pleased to announce the international preview of the Battaglia Foundry Sculpture Prize #03 winning project Intralocutors by Rochelle Goldberg which is part of her show - born in a beam of light - at The Power Station in Dallas, on view until April 14th, 2019.
Rochelle Goldberg (1984, Vancouver, CA) earned her MFA from Bard College (NY), and currently lives and works in Berlin. She was the recipient of the 2015 Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, and was the Artist-in-Residence at the Atelier Calder in the Spring of 2017. Recent solo exhibitions include The Plastic Thirsty, SculptureCenter, New York; A Worm Filled Body, Parisian Laundry, Montreal; No Where, Now Here, GAMeC, Bergamo; Intralocutors, Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York; Pétroleuse, Éclair, Berlin; 1000 "emotions", Federico Vavassori, Milan. Selected group exhibitions: Artists Institute, NY; Manoir de la Ville de Martigny; Kunstverein Dortmund; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Okayama Art Summit, Okayama; Front Desk Apparatus, New York; What Pipeline, Detroit; Fondation d'entreprise Ricard, Paris; Atelier Calder, Saché; WeissFalk, Basel; Oracle, Berlin; Catriona Jeffries, Vancouver. Forthcoming projects will include a residency at the Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas (2018) and solo exhibitions at Casa Masaccio, San Giovanni Valdarno (2018) and The Power Station, Dallas (2019).


text:
/*!
\ingroup PkgCircularKernel2GeometricConcepts
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*/

class CircularKernel::ComputeCircularX_2 {
public:

/// \name Operations
/// A model of this concept must provide:
/// @{

/*!
Computes the `x`-coordinate of the point.
*/
CircularKernel::Root_of_2
operator()(const CircularKernel::Circular_arc_point_2 &p);

/// @}

}; /* end CircularKernel::ComputeCircularX_2 */

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


My topic at the recent Historic Homes Workshop in St. Petersburg was on choosing exterior paint colors for historic Florida homes (it seemed more fitting to the theme of the workshop than "History of Outbuildings"). Below is the slide presentation that was used as a background for the talk. Unfortunately it doesn't have my witty delivery along with the slides, but I am available to give the presentation to neighborhood associations and other local groups that are interested in the topic. Or you can email for clarification on any of the slide information.
The presentation covers three approaches to choosing colors: Historically Authentic, Historically Accurate, and Starting form Scratch.


There are many types of static roof vents in today's market, to mention a few types – ridge vents, louver vents, gable vents, dormer vents, cupola vents, mushroom vents, free standing static vents etc.
Basically static roof vents are all natural roof ventilators and you cannot beat natural – you will save on energy costs with no moving parts to wear out – generally depending on what material they are fabricated from they will last for a very long time. However most of them do not have any design detail within them to allow them to harness the principles of fluid dynamics. Fluid dynamics – convection, the venturi effect and wind driven airflows.
For most static roof vents they just sit there on the roof needing some other form of inlet air such as eaves vents without any form of design within the vent to harness the use of fluid dynamics, so the possibility of them being of any value for roof ventilation is almost nil.
Not only that, they are also aerodynamically designed to take anything Mother Nature has to throw at them – rain, hail, snow, cyclones and the Smoothline Ventilator System is the only roof ventilators that New South Wales Bushfire Brigade use on the buildings that house their bushfire fighting engines in the far south coast national forests. As well as the fact they are designed to use all the principles of fluid dynamics. They are designed to work as a system within themselves, without the need for any other product to induce air into the roofspace.
What they will do for you is keep your home cool in summer, keep your roof space dry from condensation and/or humidity moisture 24/7 365 days a year. For a one off cost will never need replacement, you can't beat that.
So when you are looking for effective roof ventilation look no further, Universal Tile Ventilators for tiled roofs and Smoothline Ventilators for corrugated colorbond roofs.


Learn how to increase it yourself, giving you the power. You are so much more than others see and you know it! Find your purpose!
See the testimonials below what the women are saying about Focus Gym ❤❤ Be you!
Yes I Want to Experience It, Show Me!
Puts fresh oxygen into your lungs!
Helps you step out side your comfort zone!
Is easy to follow and look within and become more!
Lets you experience how amazing you really are!
Find you purpose in life!
Have been overwhelmed from the beginning, and enjoyed it immensely to listen to all of these pearls of wisdom. This has been constructive, informative and has changed a lot of things for me, I feel energetic and I have stopped procrastinating things I was doing and the relaxation is wonderful. I always look forward to going outside and I will continue.
The walks, train of thought, exercises and relaxation have done a lot for me. I began to take better care of myself and being more present. Stop constantly looking in my rear-view mirror. Changes for the better and I took a big leap forward.
Immediately after my first walk, I knew I wanted to know more about this amazing program that had such a big impact on my life in just a few minutes! I took a leap of faith and started the journey with the Focus Gym ❤❤ Be you! family. It has certainly been a great journey for me. Everyone in my environment has noticed the changes in my life and I feel people wondering what has happened to make this change possible. What few people know is that my change happened because I decided to open my heart and mind to everything Focus Gym ❤ ❤ Be you! offers. I learned that I'm great just the way I am. I control my own reality. It is my decision! Earlier, I had often heard people say that they woke up in the morning and they would decided to be happy. I used to think that this was total nonsense. I mean, how in the world could people allow themselves to say such nonsense. Now a few weeks later I am that person, I have never been happier and I so grateful. I look forward to taking the next level with the Focus Gym ❤❤ Be you! family. You came into my life at the right time, and for that I will always be grateful.
I want to be spoken to, so that I feel great and gain self-confidence!
I want to be more than I am right now!
My experience with Focus Gym ❤❤ Be you! has been great. Going for walks and listening to uplifting lectures is awesome and gives me a lot. All the content and the exercises are very interesting and informative.
Wow what a wonderful novelty program to listen to while walking outside! Just finished level 2 now and this is just awesome, I stay mentally and spiritually balanced. I look forward to going outside alone enjoying myself and listening to great lectures and breathing fresh air. I recommend that you try it, you deserve it. I look forward to go on Level 3. Go Focus Gym ❤❤ Be you!
I enjoyed the walks but do not quite know how to describe the experience. A remember in one of the first walks that you talked about the when experiencing pain to remember how you felt before the pain, I used that method while giving birth now on the 20th of March👌 and she is like a dream come true!
I really enjoyed walking and listening to Focus Gym ❤❤ Be you!, unintentionally I began to think about myself and found an analogy with the lectures. Thought to myself: Yes, I really need to do that, and I really want that and I became more positive after the walks.
The relaxation was wonderful as well, to lie down and I often I fell asleep and woke up after the count down had finished. 😊Sometimes when I got home, tired from work, I laid down for 15 minutes to listen, fell a sleep and woke up refreshed.
It was a really good time to listen for me, as I got divorced about a year ago (after 20 years of marriage) and it was good to go out and be alone with myself and Focus Gym ❤❤ Be you! and take care of myself and ponder what I want and how I'm going to live my life.
I often felt better going out at night in the dark, felt like I got more in touch with myself then.
I always looked forward to listen and that motivated my to go outside.
A great program, great well-being and constructive, I felt really great on the walks and the relaxation is great.
A great new addition to build up spiritually and get to know who you really are and of course, it is awesome to walk outside by yourself in Icelandic weather and listen to Focus Gym ❤❤ Be you! and get a new vision of life and change your mindset for the better. You have built a great program which deserves a compliment! I'm always smiling and cheerful when I wake up in the morning and can't wait to go out. Thank you so much for everything!
I have been struggling with a lot of depression, so one dark winter day I saw an ad about Focus Gym ❤❤ Be you !, and I was absolutely surprised, did not know what to do except, all I knew I would have to go for a walk , it was exciting and something new, after my first walk, I immediately realized how great I felt after each walk and at last I experienced myself as unique and that I have a purpose. I felt how I have the right to be here and I felt something awakening within me.
Finally, I understand that I am allowed have "me" time being a mother of 5 children, I just did not allow myself that in the past but felt that I could give more of myself with each walk a took, and today I'm happy and allow myself to smile and give more of myself than before.
I have found myself and this has made me stronger and I am better equipped to deal with life, I have a long way to go but I have started and that's what matters the most.
- Anonymity - Focus Gym ❤❤ Be you!
To go for a walk while listening to Focus Gym ❤❤ Be you! was for me like spiritual nourishment and uplifting. I felt excited about going back outside to listen and walk, after the 2nd or 3rd walk. Lot of lectures surprised me and they more often than not, struck a nerve and provoked me to wonder about a lot of things in life. I experiences a calmness that came over my soul and I felt more joy by simply existing.
I looked forward to each walk and got into a routine with cardio training and my soul has started to prioritize in my mind and use the tools I learned to use in Focus Gym ❤❤ Be you! Often the experience was so profound that I got goose bumps while listening and I always came home with a smile and I now have more faith in myself and life.
I loved taking the walks, looked forward all day to take the walks, and often I woke up at 6 am to walk and walked twice those days 😊 I feel I have really grown and flourished in the first month, I have been more cheerful and happier. I often got this "aha" moment when I was listening to the lectures and sometimes goose bumps. I managed lift myself out of a long hard period in my life with the walks and the relaxation, that I really love!
When I heard of Focus Gym ❤❤ Be You! I was not in a good place in life, all lights had been extinguished and I was trapped in a deep hole. But sometime Focus Gym grabbed my attention and I went for it. I do not regret that decision, the walks, meditation, exercises and everything that I listened to really got me and I managed to crawl up out of the hole and I saw the light again.
The walks charged me up with energy and encourage one to examine your own life with the eyes of a researchers to see what you can do better. The meditation, relaxation, and exercises added even more to the experience.
I want to experience Focus Gym ❤❤ Be you! Click here to read about the trainig!


Main Title Superfund record of decision : Mattiace Petrochemical, NY : first remedial action.
The 2-acre Mattiace Petrochemical site is an inactive liquid storage and redistribution facility in Glen Cove, Nassau County, New York. The site overlies a system of three unconsolidated sedimentary aquifers, which may be affected by onsite contamination. From the mid-1960s to 1986, organic solvents were stored, blended, and repackaged onsite. Drums were reconditioned onsite, and resulting water/solvent mixtures were discharged to above-ground tanks or to an onsite leaching pond. A solvent water separator was used to collect overflow from the above-ground tanks for discharge to the leaching pond. There is evidence, however, that overflow from these tanks may have been discharged directly into the soil. The Record of Decision (ROD) addresses Operable Unit 2 (OU2) and includes removal of drummed sludges and highly contaminated soil. The primary contaminants of concern affecting the soil, sludge, and debris are VOCs including benzene, PCE, TCE, toluene, and xylenes; other organics including phenols; and metals including arsenic, chromium, and lead.
"09/27/90." "PB91-921533." "EPA/ROD/R02-90/119." "Office of Emergency and Remedial Response."


Our statement above is what typify's Thames Valley Guns and we are learning all the time. Learning about a rifle is about stripping it down, finding out what makes it tick, looking at its design features, capabilities, reliability, accuracy, history and manufacturing standards.
To maintain and record this information, we have produced a set of Armourers reports. These notes are the results of my personal inspection and testing of these firearms. Some rifles are new but many can be anything up to a hundred years old, therefore these notes reflect my personal opinion and any reliance you place upon such information is therefore strictly at your own risk. These notes are freely available and can be downloaded in PDF format by clicking on the following links.


text:
> Donor's Voices > An Interview with Mr. Satoru Kadoya
An Interview with Mr. Satoru Kadoya
Daikin's achievement is not only aim to an optimum profit but we are also willing to support the society through community services. The support may be either in small or large group of activities which will benefit the public and community. As well as EDF, who has been working to support the poor children in need to be able to pursue better future career through education.
Mr. Satoru Kadoya
Nowadays, not only the government sector but public companies and joint ventures in Thailand are also paying more attention to community services. Most of activities are made trough financial donation to non-profit organizations or by putting their own efforts and time to support community service activities.
Mr. Satoru Kadoya, the president of Daikin Compressor Industries Ltd., a world leading compressors and air-condition manufacturing. Their products are sold to the subsidiaries and other regions worldwide. Mr. Satoru told us that even though the company does not have specific policy for community service but the employees are willing to support the community. They realized that they should have done something beneficial to the people and community where they are working at. This could gain better understanding and relationship between the company and people in the community.
Daikin Compressor Industries Ltd. and the president himself have been supporting the Education for Development Foundation (EDF) by donating fund for poor children in North Eastern region for over 4 years. When Mr. Satoru Kadoya first came to Thailand, he wanted to donate the money for the foundation in Thailand. At that time EDF has sent the brochures to introduce the foundation to Daikin. That was the beginning of Daikin Compressor Industries Ltd. in knowing EDF and its activities. The beginning of year 2005, the company has also donated the money received from winning the Best Executive Award amount of 100,000 THB to EDF to support the orphanages in North Eastern provinces whose parent died in the Tsunami 2004.


Marina Antimonova believes it is unnecessary to think about money.
The Minister of Socio-Demographic and Family Policy of the Samara region, Marina Antimonova, seems to be at the center of the scandal because of her rather controversial statements. In response to mothers' claims about low child support, the official stated that the state does not have to cover all family expenses.
"Do you think that the state should support everyone? Where is the father of a child? There are retraining and employment programs for mothers on maternity leave, etc. In order not to feed children with bad food, our generation would grow gardens. If you want a child, you will always find a solution!" – wrote Antinomonova on Twitter under the tweet of publication 63.ru. Komsomolskaya Pravda paid attention to this.
Mothers on the forum, in turn, wrote that the lump sum paid in the region (10 thousand rubles ($144)) covers only diapers, at best, for three months, they have to feed their children with cheap products containing palm oil.
"Do you want to have children as your continuation or to earn money on them?! Why did you boil everything to money?! – the Minister answered in anger.
She invited all those dissatisfied to personally come to her to the Ministry.
After the statements of Antimonova were spread by local media, the official hurried to apologize to everyone whom her words could offend. She also insists that she was misunderstood and the phrases were taken out of context.
To recap, earlier a similar scandal broke out in the Sverdlovsk region, where now the former Head of the Youth Policy Department Olga Glatskyh said that the state does not ask anyone to give birth to children, and in general, it owes nothing to the youth. A few days ago, the Minister resigned.


Brown chops in drippings. Spread rice in greased baking dish. Reserve 1 T. onion soup mix & sprinkle the rest over the rice. Drain mushrooms, saving the liquid, & spread with the pimentos over the rice. Add hot water to the mushroom liquid to total 3 cups & pour over rice. Top rice with the browned chops & sprinkle with the reserved onion mix. Cover tightly with foil & bake at 350 for 1 hour. Remove the foil & bake another 10 minutes or till the excess liquid evaporates.