text:
Q: Turning an Array Formula from Excel into an Array Formula in Google Sheets I am trying to tinker with a formula in a sample Excel spreadsheet found online in order to make it work in Google Sheets using an array formula.
The formula has to do with setting up an array to find multiple results using multiple search criteria.
Here is the sample spreadsheet: http://www.get-digital-help.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/multiple-criteria-lookup-with-multiple-results1.xls
I recreated the spreadsheet in GSheets and am working with trying to wrap it with an array formula but it only returns one result:
=ARRAYFORMULA(INDEX($C$3:$C$17,SMALL(IF(ISNUMBER((SEARCH($F$3,$C$3:$C$17))*(SEARCH($H$3,$B$3:$B$17))),ROW($B$3:$B$17)-MIN(ROW($B$3:$B$17))+1,""),ROW(A1))))

A: You need to Drag fill the formula down ( just like in Excel).
INDEX won't return a array of results ( unless it's the same row/column)

A: =ARRAYFORMULA(TRANSPOSE(SPLIT(JOIN("•¶",IF(ISNUMBER((SEARCH($F$3,$C$3:$C$17))*(SEARCH($H$3,$B$3:$B$17))),$C$3:$C$17&$B$3:$B$17,"")),"•¶")))

Just providing this as a alternative. This will give a array of results as requested by OP. But there are limits to this formula. The total character limit in JOIN should not exceed 50,000.
Note: Only for Google Sheets


text:
LA Will Pay $7.5 Million to Severely Injured Cyclist, City Plans to Fix Unsafe Roads
As large metropolitan areas fail to provide sufficient bike lanes, appropriate infrastructure, and visible signage, news about accidents and big settlements continue to fill the pages of the media. The city of Los Angeles, which was once haven for cyclists, has just agreed to pay $7.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by a bicyclist who was severely injured on its roads.
The days of LA's cycleways are long gone; they were left by the wayside after the automobile revolution.
Today, Los Angeles city, like many others throughout the country, is often unsafe for cyclists. Three years ago, William Yao became another victim of this dangerous situation when he suffered a dramatic crash in Porter Ranch.
Yao's accident was due to failing and hazardous infrastructure. As he rode on an appropriately marked bike lane on Reseda Boulevard, one of his bicycle's tires hit a section of pavement that had been lifted by the root of a nearby tree.
Yao was thrown from the bike and landed on the pavement. Although he was wearing a helmet, the accident left him quadriplegic.
Like many tragic bicycle accidents, Yao's could have been prevented.
Before the crash, the city of Los Angeles had received numerous complaints about the dangerous condition of that particular section of the road. According to an internal report, the Bureau of Street Services was aware that the road needed repairing, but had labeled it a "non-emergency." It was their failure to respond that ultimately caused Yao's accident.
Right before the accident, there had been an inspection of the road and no one had reported "the substandard bike lane." The internal report also stated that the LA Department of Transportation had installed the bike lane in spite of the road surface's non-compliance with the city's standards.
According to the text of the report, they "merely placed the painted white lines, traffic signs and surface arrow markers without examining or repairing the road surface."
Sadly, this is a common occurrence all across America. The fact that bike lanes are in place is not always a guarantee that people can safely ride on them. As long as officials are willing to overlook substandard bike paths, accidents like Mr. Yao's will keep happening.
And no matter how many millions the city shells out after the fact, William Yao will never recover the use of his arms and legs.
Dozens of complaints are filed over bicycle accidents every year in Los Angeles, California. Recently, a string of large settlements has put the city's dangerous roads in the spotlight. Barely a month before the settlement in Yao's case, another cyclist who had suffered a brain injury as a result of a crash received a $6.5 million settlement.
The estate of another cyclist who died after hitting uneven pavement in Eagle Rock earlier this year received a $4.5 million settlement.
The recurrence of multi-million dollar settlements like these can sometimes compel city officials to be more mindful of much-needed repairs. Perhaps anticipating the financial burden of potential new settlements and verdicts, LA recently announced it would spend $25 million on fixing its most neglected streets.
Upon the announcement of the $7.5 million settlement with Yao, a spokeswoman for the LA Department of Transportation commented, "This was a horrific incident and we are committed to making our streets safer… Our current practice is to install bike lanes only on road surfaces that are in good condition."
For Councilman Paul Krekorian, there is a "sense of urgency" to address the risks presented by LA's least safe streets.
It's frustrating that people have to die in order for cities to finally offer safe bike lanes and roads. My hope is that other jurisdictions, including some cities with a high rate of cyclist deaths here in Florida, will learn from this and follow suit.
Photo: Public domain
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Karina Rodrigues elected to the Florida Bar Young Lawyers Division Board of Governors, Seat 4 in the 17th Circuit
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Over the last few months, I've helped two people prepare for important presentations they were scheduled to give. As they created their content and fine-tuned their PowerPoint decks, they both asked the best way to practice for the actual presentation. Today, I'll share with you the 3 tips I gave them about rehearsing for a presentation.


I've been think a lot about cadet promotions this morning, and was giving some thought to cadet promotions and when cadets should be sustained in grade. A quick google search lead me to CAPF 60-(90-94) and while they give basic guidelines, that doesn't really seem to answer the question as to when you should actually sustain a cadet. So, thoughts/specific examples of when this should occur? How do you use sustains? Are they a punishment in your squadron, or merely a performance review? (My understanding is they should be the latter). Honestly, before today I have never seen these forms, so I assume they're more of a formality.
Just looking for some input, I guess. Sorry if this is a convoluted read.
I've been think a lot about cadet promotions this morning, and was giving some thought to cadet promotions and when cadets should be sustained in grade.
What is your motive here? What is driving you to want to research this?
If you have a particular Cadet in mind, then there must be something that makes you feel this particular Cadet should not advance. Is it something obvious where regs already dictate?
Or is this just a general question , because you, for whatever reason, don't think Cadets should advance quickly?
I don't have a motive, I just spend a lot of time thinking about things. I certainly do not have a specific cadet/cadets in mind, I'm just trying to understand the promotion procedures more thoroughly. I certainly meant no I'll intent, so I apologize if it came across that way.
Edit: No, I have nothing against cadets advancing quickly if they meet all the requirements. I'm not one to look for fault to hold someone back. My intent here is merely to advance my education regarding the cadet program to the best of my ability.
I'm not one qualified to answer your question, but in general terms, one thing that your post brought to my mind is how many teens our Squadron gets that are older. Ideally it would be great if 12-13 years old started and had time to slowly progress all the way through to Spaatz. But we have many that join at 16 or 17 years old. They don't have much time, and some don't even get their O'Rides in, they start so late. So for many like this, and for those who are "motivated" to do the work to progress, I personally, enjoy seeing them climb up the chart as much as possible in their short time as a Cadet.
Very much agreed, sir. If someone wants to work hard and (if applicable) overcome their late start, then I see nothing wrong with that, in fact I'd see it as a testament to their motivation/dedication.
are not ready to be promoted. It's part of the subjective "last-mile" of being promoted.
It should be very unusual, and hopefully doesn't last too long with cadets who intend to stay in the program.
If the cadet has not fulfilled all the requirements for promotion he/she is not promoted. It is kind of that simple. Sometimes a cadet does something that makes you go out of your way of telling him/her (as in a punishment for bad behavior)...sometimes you tell the cadet when they have met all of the objective criteria (tests, PT, TIG, SDAs, etc) but whose "performance or maturity does not demonstrate an ability to accept increased responsibility commensurate with the promotion." Either way the appropriat CAPF 60-9X form must be used to document it.
In the most simple way of trying to put it: It is up to the Commander who authorizes the sustain (that is, does not approve a promotion).
It is entirely subjective to the discretion of the review board to recommend to the Commander to sustain a cadet; and the Commander can elect, despite a board's recommendation to promote, to sustain regardless.
Typically, you would sustain a cadet who has not met the expectations provided as guidance on the CAPVA 60-100 (Cadet Super Chart). Each person is going to have a varying opinion as to what those expectations are interpreted as. But the key is to apply that interpretation consistently across all cadets in the unit.
For example, the Phase III expectations include: "Given an assignment, takes project from beginning to end; develops appropriate goals, plans, standards, and follows through in execution; demonstrates sense of ownership in all assignments." This might mean that the cadet is expected not only to assume responsibility for and complete assignments, but that those assignments are done within a given deadline and that assignments without deadlines are completed in a relatively timely fashion, not held up for extensive periods of time. Again, subjective; everyone is going to have a slight difference in interpreting the expectation.
You might generally see a sustainment for something that was previously addressed before the promotion became eligible, such as a continual problem with uniform appearance and adherence to grooming standards. A C/MSgt who constantly shows up with a haircut grown beyond the standards should be reminded of the potential consequences for failing to get his haircut. At some point, that C/MSgt is going to be eligible for C/SMSgt. This may be a time at which that C/MSgt is going to be told "Look, we've addressed this multiple times now. I don't think you're ready to promote based on the performance you are demonstrating. We're going to have a sit down and talk this over." And present a Form 60-92 documenting the problem, the method to correct it, and schedule a follow-up review. If it remains unresolved, perhaps the sustainment is grade is not the correction, but more severe action (restriction from public activities, temporary suspension, reduction in grade).
REMEMBER: In this program, the opportunities are a privilege. But the backbone of this program is the leadership element. The whole process is not to provide an activity club and decide who gets to participate. It's to develop cadets into leaders through the development of their character, including self-discipline. Promotions are a tool to develop this, along with the denial of a promotion due to performance. The end result is to learn something and improve. If the method used does not have a goal to make a positive improvement, then it is not an appropriate method at the time of use.


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Christus mit gekreuzten Armen ist ein Ölgemälde eines unbekannten niederländischen Malers, das bis in die 1960er Jahre Rembrandt van Rijn zugeschrieben wurde. Das Werk ist als Hochformat auf Leinwand ausgeführt und wurde um 1659 gemalt. Der Eigentümer, The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, Warren County, New York, bezeichnet das Gemälde bis heute als ein Original von der Hand Rembrandts.

Beschreibung
Das Gemälde zeigt die lebensgroße Halbfigur eines jungen Mannes mit vor dem Oberkörper gekreuzten Armen, der linke Arm über den rechten gelegt. Der Mann ist von halblinks gemalt und blickt dem Betrachter mit leicht geneigtem Kopf entgegen. Er ist barhäuptig und seine in der Mitte gescheitelten dunkelbraunen Haare fallen in Wellen bis über die Schultern herab, er trägt einen lichten Vollbart. Die Figur ist in ein schmutzigrotes Gewand gekleidet und hat einen dunklen Umhang über die linke Schulter geworfen. Das Gesicht der Figur ist durch von oben einfallendes Licht erhellt. Die Brust und die sichtbare Hand werden durch indirektes Licht gegenüber dem dunklen, amorphen Hintergrund in verschiedenen Schattierungen hervorgehoben.

Das Gemälde ist weder signiert noch datiert. Es hat das Format 109,2 × 90,2 cm und ist mit Ölfarbe auf Leinwand gemalt.

Rezeption

Das Christus-Porträt ist seit dem frühen 18. Jahrhundert bekannt und galt bis in die zweite Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts unbestritten als ein authentisches Werk Rembrandts. 1883 wurde es von Wilhelm Bode mit der Nummer 352 in seine Liste der Werke Rembrandts aufgenommen. In seinem 1900 veröffentlichten Werkverzeichnis ist das Bild im sechsten Band mit der Nummer 415 enthalten. Dem folgte auch Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, der das Gemälde mit der Nummer 162 aufführte. 1935 wurde es von dem Kunsthistoriker Abraham Bredius mit der Nummer 628 in sein Werkverzeichnis der Gemälde Rembrandts aufgenommen. Kurt Bauch führte das Gemälde 1966 mit der Nummer 229 auf. Horst Gerson nahm das Bild 1968 in seinen eigenen Katalog mit der Nummer 368 auf und übernahm die Nummer 628 in seiner 1969 erschienenen Bearbeitung der Neuauflage von Bredius' Verzeichnis.

1956 nannte der österreichische Kunsthistoriker Otto Benesch den Christus mit gekreuzten Armen das "monumentalste Gemälde seiner Art", bezogen auf die weltlichen und religiösen Porträts in Rembrandts Spätwerk. Im selben Jahr bezeichnete Wilhelm Reinhold Valentiner es als "zentrale Figur" einer angenommenen Serie von vier Evangelistenporträts, zu denen er den Apostel Matthäus mit dem Engel im Louvre zählte. Mittlerweile ist sicher, dass der Matthäus Teil eines Zyklus von sechs Apostelporträts ist.

Der US-amerikanische Kunsthistoriker Seymour Slive veröffentlichte 1965 einen Aufsatz über einen kleinformatigen Christuskopf, der sich seit dem Vorjahr im Fogg Art Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts befand. Das war das siebte in einer Reihe seinerzeit sämtlich Rembrandt zugeschriebenen Christusporträts, die nach der Auffassung Slives und vieler seiner Kollegen eine einheitliche Gruppe bildeten. Für all diese Porträts diente derselbe junge Mann, nach damaliger Auffassung ein Jude aus Rembrandts Nachbarschaft, als Modell. Eines dieser Tronies, das sich heute im Louvre Abu Dhabi befindet, setzte Slive zu dem Christus mit gekreuzten Armen in Beziehung. Slive sah in Physiognomie und Haltung des Modells eine deutliche Gemeinsamkeit beider Bilder und spekulierte, dass Rembrandt die Halbfigur zunächst als größere Version des Schulterstücks geplant habe, und, getrieben von seiner unglaublichen Schöpfungskraft, einen ganz neuen Aspekt der Persönlichkeit Christi abgebildet habe. Rembrandt sei praktisch nicht dazu in der Lage gewesen, sich selbst zu kopieren, ohne etwas neues zu schaffen. Von den sieben Kopfbildern werden aktuell nur zwei, in der Berliner Gemäldegalerie und im Louvre Abu Dhabi, als Werke Rembrandts oder eines seiner Schüler akzeptiert. Der Kunsthistoriker David de Witt, Kurator für europäische Kunst des Agnes Etherington Art Centre, in Kingston, Ontario, Kanada, hielt von den Kopfbildern ebenfalls zwei für authentisch, das in der Berliner Gemäldegalerie und eines im Philadelphia Museum of Art. Er ist der Auffassung, dass es sich bei den beiden kleinen Kopfbildern um Ölskizzen handelt, die Rembrandt in Vorbereitung des großen Christus mit gekreuzten Armen anfertigte. Horst Gerson nannte das Gemälde noch 1969 eine schöne Interpretation des idealen Christusbilds.

Der Rembrandt-Kenner Gary Schwartz veröffentlichte 1988 einen kritischen Aufsatz zur Zu- und Abschreibungspraxis des Rembrandt Research Project, in dem er Einzelheiten zum Christus mit gekreuzten Armen nannte. Kurz zuvor konnte Schwartz Fotografien einer 1958 durchgeführten Restaurierung des Gemäldes erhalten. Das Bildmaterial offenbarte, dass irgendwann der Mittelteil der Leinwand herausgeschnitten und ersetzt worden ist. Das Gemälde ist also zu einem wesentlichen Teil nicht das Werk Rembrandts, sondern das Werk eines Restaurateurs. Zudem befindet sich die Oberfläche des Gemäldes in einem derart schlechten Zustand, dass von der ursprünglichen Wirkung wenig zu erkennen ist. In den Werkverzeichnissen Rembrandts von Christian Tümpel (Rembrandt. Mythos und Methode, 1986), des Rembrandt Research Project (A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, 1982–2015) und Volker Manuths (Rembrandt. Sämtliche Gemälde, 2019) wird der Christus mit gekreuzten Armen nicht mehr erwähnt.

Provenienz

Das Gemälde befand sich im frühen 19. Jahrhundert in der Sammlung des französischen Kardinals Joseph Fesch, einem Halbonkel Napoleon Bonapartes. Fesch hat über mehr als 40 Jahre eine Sammlung mit angeblich mehr als 20.000 Gemälden aufgebaut. Am 17. März 1845 wurde es im Palais Ricci in Rom versteigert, anschließend befand es sich im Besitz eines M. de Forcade in Paris. Der nächste Besitzer war der österreichisch-französische Kunsthändler und Sammler Charles Sedelmeyer, ebenfalls in Paris, der das Gemälde am 2. April 1873 erwarb. Nur Hofstede de Groot nannte als folgenden Besitzer einen Herrn Bamberger in Paris, das kann aber eine Verwechslung mit einem der vielen anderen seinerzeit Rembrandt zugeschriebenen Christusporträts gewesen sein. Bereits 1883 gab Wilhelm Bode als Besitzer des Gemäldes den russischen Grafen Orloff-Davidoff in Sankt Petersburg an. Die Angabe in den um 1900 veröffentlichten Werkverzeichnissen von Adolf Rosenberg und Wilhelm Reinhold Valentiner, das Bild sei im Besitz des Pariser Sammlers Rodolphe Kann gewesen, beruht auf einem Irrtum der Verfasser.

Nach der Oktoberrevolution fiel das Gemälde an den sowjetischen Staat. 1927 befand es sich im Puschkin-Museum in Moskau. Wie viele Kunstwerke im Besitz der Sowjetunion wurde auch der Christus mit verschränkten Armen zur Devisenbeschaffung in das Ausland veräußert. Er wurde 1933 von der Berliner Galerie van Diemen & Co. an den US-amerikanischen Papierindustriellen Louis Hyde verkauft. Hyde starb im folgenden Jahr und seine Witwe Charlotte baute die Kunstsammlung des Paares bis zu ihrem Tod im Jahr 1963 auf den dreifachen Umfang aus. Bereits 1952 brachte sie die Kunstsammlung in ein Endowment ein. Drei Monate nach Charlotte Hydes Tod wurde ihr Wohnhaus mit der Kunstsammlung als The Hyde Collection der Öffentlichkeit vorgestellt.

Ausstellungen (chronologische Auswahl)
 Wien, Österreichisches Museum für Kunst und Industrie. Ausstellung der Sammlung Sedelmeyer, 1873
 Paris, Palais du Corps Législatif, 1874

Weblinks

 Christ with Arms Folded, Beschreibung des Gemäldes auf der Website der Hyde Collection

Einzelnachweise

Gemälde (17. Jahrhundert)
Christusbild

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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The first time she came into my life she was such a soft ball of white fluff. She was a delight, very loyal and making sure her 'herd' was all right. Being a Maremma, an Italian sheepdog, she bonded with us from the moment she entered our lives. Walking her, even as a puppy, she would tap her front paws against my ankles to tell me 'where to go'; I had to stop her doing this as I wore stockings to go to work.
My children delighted in her, lying on the floor with their heads on her flank, my son juggling her when he got older and big enough to lift her and toss her around his neck over his shoulders, something she had great pleasure in allowing him to do. We had once 10 young adults camping in our backyard, friends my daughter made overseas. They stayed 4 nights, what a delight it was to have them there. The first night, as their visit was impromptu, we had macaroni and shared the one bottle of bubbles we had in the fridge. They left one morning and it took my beautiful loyal dog a few days to get over the fact that she lost part of her herd.
I am telling all this as when she was about 8 years old she seemed to have a problem with one of her hips and it looked it was getting worse. The vet gave her anti-inflammatory tablets and said that if they helped, great, if not than she had arthritis in her hip, common in larger dogs. One evening, I nudged her gently as she was lying in the way. She got up with difficulty and very slowly. It looked like she was partly paralyzed from the waist down.
A little later she lay down on her good hip and sitting next to her, I lay my hands on her bad hip, gently resting on her. She bit me, she was in that much pain. I then lifted my hands off her and sat there doing Reiki. After about half an hour she moved a little and I took my hands off and left her there.
The next day, when I came back from work, she was jumping up and down, twirling with a big smile on her face and looking at me. I made a big fuss of her as I walked to the couch. Sitting down, she 'parked' her bottom between my legs, with her head turned towards me, then off she went jumping up and down, galloping through the lounge room. She repeated this three times. Were we happy!
She lived for another three years and never had this pain again.


A good example of "hidden" ingredients are food additives. Almost everyone has heard of them, but how many of us actually take the time to find out what they are, which ones appear in our food and how they might affect our health?
Well, the answer to that is actually more and more of us - particularly as the health benefits of natural living (and, more specifically, an organic diet) become better understood.
As a result, health-conscious individuals who are seeking to minimise their daily exposure to toxins and pollutants take the trouble to educate themselves about the different types of food additives out there (including their supposed risks and benefits). Over the years, there has been quite a bit of controversy about these chemicals - below are some of the "need to know" basics.
As the name implies, food additives are substances that manufacturers add to foods for any number of reasons (usually to increase profits). For example, to preserve flavour, keep the food fresher for longer and to enhance taste, texture and appearance.
However, not all food additives are bad, despite the negative connotations with the phrase. Some are actually natural compounds - for example, vinegar used for pickling and salt used to preserve meat. These additives have been used for centuries and are natural methods. Similarly, there is a common misconception that processed foods automatically contain food additives, but this is not always the case. For example, long-life milk is processed, yet it doesn't actually require added chemicals to prolong its shelf life.
Unfortunately, the vast majority now used are synthetic or man-made and have, to a large extent, come about as a result of the increasing time constraints of modern living and the changing palates of modern consumers. For instance, the average person is looking for a snack that is either highly salted or sweetened. Similarly, in this age of competitive advertising and saturated food markets, the brighter, highly coloured food items are normally the ones that get picked. Food needs to be fun to eat, nice to look at and tasty.
The nature of the modern diet and lifestyle has resulted in fewer and fewer home-grown and natural whole foods, and an increase in the number and type of processed / refined foods. In turn, this has led to an increase in the number of additives used in foods - both natural and synthetic. It is therefore important to inform yourself about them, to help ensure the health and vitality of you and your family.
If you are unsure whether or not a product contains additives, check the label. If there are ingredients that sound like a chemistry experiment, they are probably best avoided! It is also important to note that some listed ingredients may contain food additives themselves, without those necessarily being specified. For example, a product may contain margarine, which in turn contains additives, but only "margarine" will be listed as an ingredient on the label.
It is good practice to familiarise yourself with some of the more common food additive names, ready to identify them when out and about shopping. Below we will take a look at some of the most notorious additives - E-numbers.
E-numbers - friend or foe?
E-numbers get a lot of media attention but, once again, the reality is a little different to what is often portrayed. The phrase itself conjures up images of "food nasties", but are they really as bad as we are led to believe? Well firstly, let's look at what they are.
After an additive has been tested and approved for use in foods in Europe, it is given a classification known as an "E-number" (a number with an "E" prefix, e.g. E100), for the purposes of regulation and to inform consumers. In other words, it is simply a systematic way of identifying different food additives. Countries outside Europe use only the number (no 'E'), whether the additive is approved in Europe or not.
The important (and perhaps surprising) point to bear in mind, is that even natural additives will be labelled with an "E" prefix - so don't automatically discount a food which otherwise looks healthy. Knowledge is power, so know your E-numbers!
This is a controversial question and one that has not been answered satisfactorily as yet. However, common sense dictates that filling our bodies with synthetic chemicals cannot be as healthy as eating a diet rich in natural whole foods and may even be detrimental to health, for instance by adding to our toxic load.
But since the second half of the 20th century, there has been a significant increase in the use of food additives of varying levels of safety and for the reasons described above. This has necessarily led to the introduction of a wide range of laws worldwide, regulating their use.
- behavioural changes (such as mood changes, anxiety and hyperactivity).
Research undertaken in 2007 by Britain's Food Standards Agency and later published by the British medical journal "The Lancet", provided evidence that a mix of additives commonly found in children's foods serves to increase the mean level of hyperactivity. Similarly, in 2008, AAP Grand Rounds (the American Academy of Pediatrics) published a study that concluded that a low-additive diet is a valid intervention for children with ADHD.
Bearing all this in mind, it is important to remember that all foods are made up of chemicals, many of which are not always "safer" than those found in food additives. For example, people with food allergies and intolerances are also often sensitive to chemicals found naturally in certain foods, such as dairy, nuts or shellfish. However, it is always a good rule of thumb to opt for natural ingredients over synthetic ones and to adopt an organic lifestyle wherever possible.
Additives to watch out for!
- Flavour enhancers: A well-known example is monosodium glutamate (MSG E621). They are commonly found in crisps, instant noodles and microwave and takeaway foods.
- Aspartame: This is an artificial sweetener, which is made of phenylalanine, aspartic acid and methanol (a type of alcohol). When broken down in the body, methanol forms formaldehyde, formic acid (found in the venom of ants and bees) and diketopiperazine - all quite nasty substances! Aspartame is found in diet drinks, yoghurts and sugar-free items (like chewing gum).
- Sulphites: This group of additives is often found in dried fruit, desiccated coconut, cordial and wine. They have been known to trigger asthma attacks in sensitive individuals.
- Propionates: This type of additive can occur naturally in foods (e.g. certain types of cheese). They are also common in bread. The effects are dose-related and may range from migraines, bed-wetting, nasal congestion and racing heart to memory loss, eczema and stomach ache.
- Antioxidants: Don't get confused with the naturally-occurring antioxidants found in whole foods like fruit and vegetables and which are widely used to support good health and immunity. Antioxidants in the context of food additives refer to those that are synthetic chemicals which are added to food, and may therefore have a harmful effect on the body. Examples include Butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) and Butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA), which are added to prevent fat spoilage. They are commonly found in margarine, biscuits, crisps and muesli bars. They have been linked to health conditions such as insomnia, tiredness, asthma and even learning difficulties.
- Colours: The most common offenders in this category of additives are tartrazine (E102) and annatto (E160b). Synthetic colourings have been linked to allergic reactions, as well as learning and behavioural problems in children.
In fact, there are currently over 3000 additives used in food across the world, most of which are synthetic!


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Aplicación móvil de Priority Pass
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Priority Pass celebrates its 25th anniversary
Priority Pass™, the world's original and largest independent lounge membership program, is celebrating its 25th anniversary. To mark the milestone, we're offering a discount of up to 25 percent on memberships, for new Members for a limited time.
In addition to providing access to more than 1,000 airport lounges worldwide, Priority Pass has been at the forefront of travel innovation for a quarter of a century, and continues to invest in improving its offering. In recent years, Priority Pass has launched a Digital Membership Card and dedicated app which help make travel as frictionless and as smooth as possible. In addition, free Wi-Fi is now offered in lounges as standard, enabling Members to work or browse the web as needed.
Priority Pass is committed to enhancing the travel experience for passengers, both inside and beyond the lounge. Research conducted by Priority Pass reveals that 53 percent of passengers view the airport as an enjoyable part of their journey. Passengers are keen to see a wider range of facilities at airports, including good choice of food and drink (48 percent), access to airport lounge (40 percent), airport rewards and discounts (40 percent).
To meet travelers' needs, Priority Pass has recently expanded its offering to include dining options at restaurants in London and Sydney airports, including the Grain Store and Bar at London Gatwick and 7 restaurants across Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport. Priority Pass Members can also enjoy options such as sleep pods at Dubai International and Minute Suites relaxation suites in Atlanta, Dallas Fort-Worth and Philadelphia airports, plus pre-flight spa treatments at Aspire, the Lounge and Spa at LHR T5 in Heathrow.
Commenting on the announcement, Justin Banon, Director, Collinson Group, said, "We are delighted to be celebrating the 25th anniversary of Priority Pass, offering a premium travel experience for our Members. Airports are becoming destinations in their own right and Priority Pass is committed to meeting the ever-evolving needs of both business and holiday travelers."
Find out more about our 25 percent discount promotion on a Priority Pass membership, and full terms and conditions.
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Bienvenido al nuevo sitio de Priority Pass. Usamos cookies para garantizar que le brindemos la mejor experiencia posible en nuestro sitio web.


Interesting, it looks like an unfinished road from the aerial image, a little different on street view though.
When these housing estates were built, I believe there was a regulation to build in fire breaks. So if the street had a house fire it wouldn't spread, as the old through roof terraces would. Also to provide access to the fire and ambulances.
I don't think it's anything so dramatic - it's just a grassed area between the houses for kids to play on away from the road.
It's a good use of space too - if the houses that front onto the grassed area faced onto the surrounding road instead they look like they'd still fit (just!), but they'd have huge rear gardens that would be of no use to anyone but the occupants of the respective houses. This way you still have the same number of houses, plus a small amenity between them.
Don't forget that few people had cars when these estates were built too, so parking wasn't an issue.
There are lots of spaces like this on the council estates of the time.
Here's a similar arrangement in Seacroft (note the similar design of houses): http://goo.gl/maps/0dXa like Phill's example above.
To be honest I surprised the residents haven't demanded tarmac to park their cars on.


Planning ahead for your move will make it less stressful and a more positive experience. When utilizing our large trucking fleet in the Bryan College Station Texas area, here are a few tips and techniques to make your move easier.
Call Brazos Moving & Storage and schedule your move.
Anything Brazos Moving & Storage is packing should be left in place. It's easier and safer; for example, to pack glassware right from the cabinet it's kept in.


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Home / Content Marketing Blog / Content Marketing News / AMP now in Google's Top Stories Carousel and News Headlines
In Content Marketing News, Social Media Strategy
Google has made some important changes to further promote its Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) platform.
Since its launch last year, AMP has been helping website owners and content creators to provide a smoother and more consistent user experience on mobile devices.
With more and more eyeball time moving to tablets and smartphones, Google is keen to avoid disappointing its users by sending them to clunky or unusable pages.
It hopes AMP, along with other initiatives, such as its mobile-friendly bias in search results, will encourage all website owners to adopt a mobile-first approach.
In a recent update distributed through the Accelerated Mobile Pages Project newsletter, Google announced two major changes to where AMP content would appear. The first is in the 'Top Stories' carousel at the top of Google search results, and the second is a 'Headlines' carousel that will appear at the top of Google News.
Currently, these AMP updates are only available in a limited number of countries such as the US and UK, but the plan is to roll them out on an ongoing basis to additional countries.
If you haven't yet jumped on the AMP bandwagon (and are wondering what is even about, for that matter) then maybe now is the time.
A brief history of the AMP Project
The AMP Project was devised after publishers and other users noticed a need for improvement in the load time and wider user experience on smartphones and other mobile devices.
Users expect an extremely fast page load time or they will likely leave and go elsewhere to find the information they want. Research cited on the official AMP Project website suggests that bounce rate can be as high as 58 per cent for pages that take up to ten seconds to load. That's a lot of potential customers to lose, simply because they don't want to wait.
Hence, the AMP project was born. AMP pages load instantaneously and are available across all platforms and apps to enhance the user experience, regardless of where the information appears.
When the AMP project was first introduced it was perceived to be a potential rival to Facebook's Instant Articles, which serves a similar purpose. AMP was pitched as an open source alternative to Instant Articles, meaning it is available to anyone publishing on the web across all platforms.
The idea of the project is to provide a much faster browsing and viewing experience for users, which encourages them to spend more time on web pages. The design of the AMP pages is such that they are visually appealing and the content is easy for users to digest. AMP offers an opportunity to bypass many technical and logistical issues at the back end to provide the experience that their users want, and to present it quickly.
10 Reasons Your Business Needs a Really Great Blog
What the latest update can do for brands
With these latest updates, not only can brands provide their mobile users with speedy and attractive web pages, they also have the opportunity to be seen at the top of Google's search results.
If you have a 'top story' that has been formatted with the AMP specification, it could well be one of the stories that rotate on the carousel right at the top of the page. This provides a much better opportunity to be seen by your audience in a format that will encourage them to stay longer on your page and engage with your content.
The same concept applies to the News carousel, with 15 headlines appearing on rotation as part of the carousel at the top of Google News. Provided you are writing content about trending topics and newsworthy events, your articles have an opportunity to appear in the AMP carousel and be seen by a much wider audience.
The overall objective of the AMP project is to reach a wider audience and garner more readers, with an instant load time and improved user experience. Having AMP for your brand's content will improve its visibility and encourage your audience to spend more time consuming that content, instead of going elsewhere when the page takes too long to load.
Although the most recent updates are not available in Australia and New Zealand yet it's worthwhile to start implementing AMP now, so that by the time the carousels are rolled out Down Under your site already has AMP content ready to go.
What Google's Accelerated Mobile Pages project means for content marketers
How switching to Google AMP could boost your mobile search traffic
Hey, Australia: faster page loads are here as Google's AMP arrives Down Under
Google's AMP takes aim at third party analytics tags to make mobile pages quicker
Content CreationContent Marketing NewsFacebook Instant ArticlesGoogle AMPMobile Content MarketingMobile FriendlyMobile OptimisationSmartphone UsersUser Experience


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Județean Cluj
Tribuna Archive
Director fondator: Mircea Arman, 2015
Director fondator revista pe suport material: Ioan Slavici, 1884
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Even Catholics Are Tempted by Fake Syrian Passports
Victor Gaetan
Senior Register correspondent Victor Gaetan is an award-winning international correspondent and a contributor to Foreign Affairs magazine.
A Visit to the Middle East Highlights the Dysfunction of the US System and the Abandonment of Christian Refugees
I learned the step-by-step of buying a fake Syrian passport from my burly and bearded taxi driver, George, while jammed in Beirut traffic on Thanksgiving.
George, age 26, is from Lebanon's agricultural heartland, the Beqaa Valley, the only boy of six children. He's no refugee; he's never left his homeland.
But the Beqaa Valley, bordering Syria, has taken a heavy economic hit from Lebanon's generosity: Over 1.5 million "visitors" are stuffed into a country half the size of New Jersey.
To make more money, George decided to take the trip north to Turkey, cross the Aegean Sea to Greece, and get to Germany—as a Syrian refugee. (Last summer, the way was cleared for this transit by an unusual alliance: the Turkish Islamic government and an anti-European leftist government in Greece.)
"I sent my passport photo via "What's App" to a guy in Damascus and $400 USD by DHL. A week later, DHL delivered my Syrian passport," explained George proudly, who said some 10,000 Lebanese made it to Germany with "Syrian" documents.
Here's the amusing part: George is Catholic. He's even got a wooden rosary on his rearview mirror.
He's part of Lebanon's largest Christian community, the Maronites, an Eastern-rite Catholic Church in full communion with Rome, led by Cardinal Bechara Boutros al-Rahi, Patriarch of Antioch and All the East.
George decided not to use his new passport after his mother saw people drowning, and begged him to stay home, but his story demonstrates the refugee crisis is rife with corruption. Besides the existence of bribable Syrian bureaucrats, extremists appear to control passport printing facilities.
Worse, a visit to Lebanon and Jordan reveals how US policy prevents us from doing more to protect real Christian refugees threatened by genocide, despite the fact that American decisions endangered them in the first place.
Most Syrian refugees living in Lebanon occupy small apartments in poor neighborhoods, often squeezing 10 or 12 people in a two room space. (Photo credit: Victor Gaetan)
Have no doubt, the extremists known regionally as Daesh (an Arabic acronym with the connotation of trampling or crushing; Islamic State, ISIS, and ISIL, all give credibility to sociopathic outlaws) target Christians and other religious minorities for total elimination—genocide by definition.
Considering the 1915-17 Armenian genocide when some 2.5 million Christians were massacred in today's Turkey, we're witnessing the continuation of a 100-year strategy to purge the Middle East of Christianity by some extremists.
Archbishop Jean-Clement Jeanbart of Aleppo, Syria estimates 1,000 Christians in the city have been kidnapped, beheaded, and murdered. Of 160,000 Christians in Aleppo before the war, there are fewer than 100,000 today.
Because the stakes are existential, many clerics and believers are doing everything in their power to stay.
Although his house was bombed and car was ambushed in two attacks on his life, Archbishop Jeanbart won't leave: "I would sacrifice my own life to be in Syria. It is the first church in the world. I do what I can to encourage people to stay, to remain, to persevere. This is my struggle," the Melkite Catholic leader told the British Daily Express.
So, Western Catholics should contribute to the excellent programs helping Christians who chose to stay in the Middle East. In Lebanon, most Christian refugees I met were Syrians still hoping to return home.
UN Control
Displaced Christians live in poor neighborhoods as so-called urban refugees mainly because, they say, extremists are in the camps, where gangs run rackets and Christian girls are especially unsafe.
Displaced Iraqi Christians, terrorized by Daesh in the summer of 2014, are generally more eager than Syrian Christians to immigrate. They've lost hope Christians can survive in Iraq. I met people with relatives in the U.S. and job prospects, becoming impoverished as they run through life savings, waiting for the sluggish UN to process their paperwork.
As in Beirut, Christian refugees in Amman refuse to stay in camps managed by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) for personal security and to live closer to faith communities.
So, Christian refugees are not priorities to the UN because they avoid dangerous UN camps.
That means, instead of helping vulnerable Christians targeted for genocide, U.S. policies actually discriminate against them by quietly relinquishing decision-making to the United Nations.
Canadian Alternative
A different approach used in Canada promotes what Catholic social teaching calls subsidiarity—local engagement and attention to the individual in community.
Canada's immigration law allows churches, schools, even five approved individuals, to sponsor a refugee. Sponsors help support a refugee for at least a year.
The Archdiocese of Toronto, one of country's biggest facilitators of resettlement, recently sent a team to Amman to interview refugees and identify the most vulnerable—including Christian families—and those most likely to thrive in Canada.
Archdiocese officials are quick to explain they don't discriminate against Muslims, but the system allows them to make sure Christians are included.
This local engagement and refusal to rely exclusively on the UN allows Christians to gain passage to Canada when they are virtually blocked from the US.
By eliminating local involvement, and empowering the UN, the US has helped create a dysfunctional system—in complete disregard to American community traditions!
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El pico de Marboré es una cumbre del Pirineo del macizo de Monte Perdido, situado en una cresta de picos de más de 3000 m que hace de frontera entre España (Valle de Ordesa) y Francia (Circo de Gavarnie), estando incluido tanto en el español Parque Nacional de Ordesa y Monte Perdido como en el francés Parque Nacional de los Pirineos.

Junto con los Picos de la Cascada forma la impresionante pared norte del Circo de Gavarnie, con 1500 m de desnivel desde el fondo del valle y donde se encuentra la mayor cascada de Europa, la Cascada de Gavarnie con 425 m de caída.

Rutas
Por la parte española la aproximación en vehículo se suele hacer hasta la pradera del Valle de Ordesa o hasta el valle de Bujaruelo, mientras que por la parte francesa se suele hacer hasta la estación de esquí de Gavarnie-Gèdre, que es la que más cerca nos deja de la cumbre.

Desde Ordesa se suele subir primero hasta el refugio de Góriz, (punto crucial para la exploración de toda la zona), ascender por la misma ruta del Monte Perdido para desviarse después al oeste, buscando el pie del Pico de Marboré.

Desde Gavarnie y desde Bujaruelo se sube hasta el refugio francés de Sarradets, subiendo después a la Brecha de Rolando y bordeando hacia el Este la vertiente sur de la cresta, hasta llegar al pie del Pico de Marboré. También desde Ordesa se puede ascender por el circo de Carriata en dirección a la Brecha de Rolando para conectar con esta ruta.

Historia
Hay indicios de que Philippe de Nemours en 1846 pudo ser el primero en escalar el Pico de Marboré, pero carecen de la precisión necesaria para atribuírselo, con lo que se establece la primera ascensión el 24 de septiembre de 1865 por parte de Russell e Hippolyte Passet.

Flora y vegetación del Macizo del Monte Perdido
El hecho de ser el macizo calcáreo más alto de Europa hace que tenga también una flora muy singular. De las cerca de 3500 especies de plantas vasculares que se pueden encontrar en el Pirineo, apenas 150 son capaces de superar los 3000 m de altitud, y de ellas 95 han sido localizadas en los 34 "tresmiles" del macizo de Monte Perdido y cercanías. Solo las tres puntas de los Gabietos reúnen a medio centenar de ellas.

Sin embargo, debemos destacar que no todas las cimas tienen las mismas plantas, y solo un puñado se repiten, como Saxifraga pubescens, Saxifraga oppositifolia, Androsace ciliata, Linaria alpina subsp. alpina, Minuartia cerastiifolia o Pritzelago alpina subsp. alpina, por citar solo las más comunes.

Para más información sobre la flora y la vegetación del Macizo del Monte Perdido y del parque nacional al que pertenece consúltese:

Referencias

Bibliografía

Enlaces externos

 Web oficial de este parque nacional del Ministerio de Medio Ambiente

Marboré Pico
Marboré Pico
Marboré Pico
Montañas del departamento de Altos Pirineos
Pirineos-Monte Perdido
Bielsa


Randy B. Machemehl, Ph.D., P.E., is a Professor of Transportation Engineering at The University of Texas and former Director of the Center for Transportation Research. He was in private engineering practice as a staff member of Wilbur Smith and Associates before joining the faculty of The University of Texas at Austin in 1978. His research interests include transportation system operations, public transportation systems planning and design, traffic data acquisition, traffic simulation, optimization, and bicycle safety. His is a successful researcher who has worked on more than 300 research projects for the Texas Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration, but he is most passionate about teaching and mentoring students.


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Myanmar Law Library
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Home > Project > The project
Why was the Project conducted ?
It is recalled in a visible manner in the library of the Law department of the University of Dagon in Yangon that « Ignorance of the law is no excuse ».
Actually, this old adage does represent a legal fiction. Indeed, it seems impossible for each Burmese citizen to know or even apprehend the existing body of law of the Burmese legal system. But it is important to remember that even though this adage could be considered as being unreasonable, it is undeniably fundamental as an accused person could refer to its ignorance of the law to avoid sanctions. Without this adage, legal rules would lose their efficiency.
Furthermore, knowledge of the law is intrinsically linked to legal certainty. Thus, to achieve this goal, access to law is crucial. This website is humbly aimed at providing for students, teachers and law professional the possibility for them to analyse legal rules and in general, its legal system.
Therefore, the gap between the citizens and the law could be filled. Allowing knowledge of the law and development of research on Burmese Law would turn the myth into reality.
Partager sur Google Plus
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Legal Journal
Legal News and Agenda
Legal Websites
Ancient Burmese Law
Ignorantia juris neminem excusat
Myanmar Law Library -


I know most of you at one time or another pondered this question. I have thought about this for years myself. We all possess the ability to call on our chi, but most folks don't really realize they have it.
I found my chi so to speak by applying the concept of the "mind moves the chi." I first imagined that I had it, before I actually felt it. Overtime What I imagined I was able to feel.
People who train there breathing in conjuction with their movements, like in the practice of Chi Gung, Tai Chi, Nei Kung etc. Develop the ability to control the flow of their blood.
Taoist call it (Life Force) I just call it blood flow! I also noticed that being able to control your blood flow you are also able to control the pressure in your body. Chi is great for martial artist that use pressure control in their fighting.
Chi is the central idea of Chinese medicine, and of the Eastern understanding of the world. Discover why it is so important to master this principle.
Learn more about the 3 pillars or components that form the foundation of chi kung.
What is Jing Energy? Jing Energy is Chi that is directed by mind intent so that it takes on a specific shape, form or expression. There are approximately 36 basic types of Jing Energy and many more methods, combinations and.
Hi Bob thanks for stopping by and adding value to my post. Thanks for sharing your story.
The Taoists understood that the universe is a massive chi-matrix, a web of interconnectivity, and that following the chi-cycle is the means by which we can link into it. Once we do this, our destiny becomes clear and the impossible becomes possible.


Choosing the right promotional product isn't always easy. Thinking hard about what you're wanting to achieve will help. Do you want to create a lasting impression? A well-targeted corporate gift from our ranges of Branded Drinkware, Printed Technology Items, Printed & Engraved Pens, or Conference Bags — can be a great start to a long & profitable relationship.
Equally at trade shows, events or exhibitions, inexpensive customer giveaways can be a powerful way of spreading a brand message.
It's difficult to decide what defines promotional products from corporate gifts but navigating around our website is the best place to begin.
Feel free to use the Green 'Request a Quote' button from any product page or our free 1800 phone number (above) to talk to us.
Our prices are ALL INCLUSIVE, meaning we don't add set-up or delivery charges later. The prices advertised on each promotional item page is the price you pay.
The price that's displayed is the price you pay — including set-up, proof, printing (if required) and delivery.
This is easy. Order your promotional products on the webpage today & upload your logo. Get your proof before you pay.
Or, simply request a quote.
All freight is included in our prices.


Home / Ramblings / What's New? The 'Spoke Welcomes Trek!
People are asking us this question in the shop, sometimes wondering what the latest cool new thing is and sometimes just wondering what's been going on in our lives and in the shop. A lot of times I don't have a great answer and reply with a generic "oh this and that…" but lately there has been something very new and exciting for us to talk about.
Well we've picked up a new bike and accessories line and it's kinda a big deal for us. As of July, The Broken Spoke is the new and exclusive dealer of Trek Bicycles for Santa Fe and all of Northern New Mexico. We've always sold bikes from brands we believe in and we are incredibly grateful for the relationships that we've built with the brands that we have been selling. But until now we have not had the opportunity to work with a brand as large as and with the name recognition of Trek. The bikes, parts and accessories that Trek offers are on par with the nicest stuff our industry is producing and in many cases they are able to deliver products at significant cost savings compared to the competition. Trek also provides many great resources to us, from technical training for our mechanics to business resources for the back office, we believe this move will help us evolve with the times and stay competitive in an increasingly challenging industry.
While we are excited to be partnering with one of the biggies, we will be mindful not to let one brand take over our store. The brands that we have done well with will remain a fixture at The Broken Spoke and we will be sure to keep the Independent in Independent Bicycle Dealer.
We have been taking delivery of Trek bikes and accessories for over a month now, selecting to stock the products that we get excited about and what we think our customers will want. So if you haven't been in in a while or you're curious about what Trek is coming out with for 2018, come on by and have a look--hopefully, you'll think the new bikes look as good as we do.
2017 has been a great year for us so far. We are looking forward to the fall and what most of us consider to be the best riding season in Santa Fe. Thanks for the support we wish you all the best as the summer winds down.


Final 24 hours for our membership promotion. Beginning in a few days, we'll offer only monthly memberships — currently sale priced at $150/month. So, for the price of about 7 months, you can enjoy full access to pebblewriter for an entire year. To sign up now, CLICK HERE.
CL nailed yesterday's downside target and is getting a bounce, which is enough to trick the futures into a 5-pt gain just ahead of the open. The questions are how big the backtest will be, and how long it will last. We remain short from 2139.23 on Oct 27 [see: Distress Call] and yesterday's downside targets remain unchanged.


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Hallmark House: Big Changes Coming to Maboneng
by 2summers | Apr 2, 2015 | Arts and Culture, Johannesburg, Johannesburg City Centre, Lodging | 6 comments
Here's an article I wrote about Hallmark House, the Maboneng Precinct's most recent development project, for JHBLive. (Read the original JHBLive article.) I'm also working on a follow-up opinion piece about Maboneng, coming soon. Enjoy:
I have always thought of Maboneng as a place: a trendy place, along Fox Street on the east side of the Joburg CBD, where I go for breakfast at Market on Main on Sunday mornings or to eat Ethiopian food on Saturday afternoons. I go to Maboneng for art exhibitions, for urban photowalks, and to entertain my aunt from New York when she passes through Joburg on her way to the Kruger.
But I recently went to the opening of Hallmark House, a 15-story building on Siemert Road that Maboneng is redeveloping. And now I realise that Maboneng is not just a place. It's a thing.
Looking up at Hallmark House, formerly called Hallmark Towers.
Propertuity, the company that created Maboneng, is buying buildings all over the city – branching out slowly from its little enclave along Fox Street – and earmarking those buildings for development. Hallmark House, formerly called Hallmark Towers, is the grandest Maboneng undertaking to date. Propertuity is transforming the tower into a residential building/retail centre/arts and entertainment space/boutique hotel.
The bedroom in the Hallmark House show apartment.
Did I mention that Hallmark House, which is being designed by a world-famous African architect and slated to become one of the most luxurious buildings in the city, is smack-dab in the middle of town? Right beside the Joe Slovo Drive off-ramp, around the corner from some uber-dodgey abandoned buildings? If you've ever gotten lost in this area and feared for your survival (which I have, several times), then you'll understand why the location is significant.
View from the balcony of the Hallmark show apartment.
I arrived for the launch of Hallmark House on a Friday afternoon and traveled up to the 13th floor using a confusing set of lifts. A thunderstorm had just passed through; traffic was terrible but the clouds were bunched perfectly along the horizon, waiting to inflame the sky at sunset.
The walls of Hallmark House, which was built originally as a diamond-polishing centre in the early 1970s, are nearly floor-to-ceiling with windows. The 13th floor is currently empty save one show apartment in the northwest corner. I trotted the length and breadth of the floor like a puppy at the dog park, nearly 360 degrees around, forcing open every window and feverishly shooting pictures of the mind-boggling views.
Hallmark's 13th floor.
View to the northeast. The mural is by graffiti artist ROA.
The show apartment was open and David Adjaye, the building's award-winning Ghanaian architect with offices all over the world, was on hand to answer questions. The apartment was beautiful and David seemed like a great guy, but I couldn't spare time to speak to him. I rushed from one end of the 13th floor to the other, trying to capture as many of the infinite beautiful skyline shots as possible before the sun went down. The view. I couldn't stop snapping that view.
A wider view to the northeast.
A view of Hillbrow to the north.
And finally, the flaming sunset.
I went back to Hallmark House three days later to take a proper look at the show apartment and to visit the roof, which is slated to house a Grand Café (the first in Joburg), a Bioscope Cinema, and an open-air gym.
I looked down on Metro trains cruising past the six-storey graffiti mural depicting African animals to the northeast, and the nine-story mural of Nelson Mandela shadowboxing to the southeast. I zoomed in on the sea of satellite dishes and laundry lines atop a building to the west. I gazed at the wall of high-rises in Hillbrow to the north.
View to the southeast from the roof of Hallmark House. The original Maboneng Precinct, five or six blocks away, is in the center of the photo.
I schemed about how I could scrape together a few hundred thousand rand to buy one of these apartments.
Joburg's inner-city enthusiasts tend to have strong feelings about this place-thing called Maboneng. Some hail it as a vibrant urban mecca for local entrepreneurs and creatives. Others bemoan it as an exclusionary, overly gentrified inner-city haven for the rich. I have my own opinions but I'll leave those for another article.
I will say, though, that Maboneng is accelerating the pace of change in an already fast-changing metropolis. Hallmark House is on the way to becoming one of Maboneng's biggest change-catalysts and I can't wait to see what happens next.
UnderAnAfricanSun	on April 2, 2015 at 5:55 pm
Exciting news and terrific photos ! I just love the Jozi skyline.
Sunshinebright	on April 3, 2015 at 12:37 am
Great cityscapes. The mural is gorgeous. A question: If the Hallmark House is so luxurious, how come that bedroom is so tiny?
2summers	on April 3, 2015 at 6:53 am
Well, luxurious doesn't always mean big. This is 21st-century big-city living! Although I think there will be some larger penthouses too.
Vincent	on April 9, 2015 at 7:16 am
Wow, stunning!! I can't even recall where this building is located. Anyway, thanks for snapping & sharing this beautiful sunset!!
2summers	on April 9, 2015 at 4:20 pm
Hi Vincent, if you take the Joe Slovo exit from the M2, go past Maboneng, and go another km or so until the ramp ends, Hallmark House will be on the right. Glad you like the pics!
Vincent	on April 12, 2015 at 2:43 pm
Thanks Heather!! I'll sure check the building in the coming weeks!!


But there is a question in that which is about how do we align the incentives to actually genuinely get hospitals committed to this vision we have of out of hospital care?
I will leave you to deal with the really technical part of that, but you see I think one of the things we have got to realise, in a sense almost to give ourselves confidence, is the enormity of the task we have engaged upon and to realise that as we progress in making these changes there will be adjustments along the way. And one of the things you have raised is one of the points we were talking about at our last NHS stocktake, which is you have got to be careful that you don't get incentives that collide with each other in the service, so that some incentives are to pull the care out of the acute sector, then the acute sector has an incentive to keep it there. Right, we have got to find a way of managing that situation because the basic construct of reforms for me is this, it is to build up over time, greater patient input into the service that they receive, it is then to have practice-based commissioning and the way that you work as PCTs with an incentive to get the care into the Primary Care setting insofar as that is appropriate closer to the patient. It is then to make sure through payment by results that actually you know what money you are spending and that hospitals have an incentive to make sure that they are offering a good service. And it is then within the overall framework to try to make sure therefore that you are keeping care as close to people, getting the care in the most appropriate setting, and having the patient and those at the ground floor of the service you know driving the change.
Now that is the construct but it is massively difficult, you know this is a piece of change engineering that is absolutely enormous. And it is therefore very important I think, and you can see this reflected actually in the changes that we made in the PCTs, that there will be adjustments as we move along, we would expect this, for something like payment by results it would be utterly ridiculous to think if you were just going to introduce the system it was all going to work as absolutely as it should and you were never going to have to make changes to it. There will be adjustments continually that are happening but the important thing is that the purpose of the change is to move away from a centrally driven performance-managed system, which has the advantage that you can lash the change through the system, but has the disadvantage that it squeezes out the creativity and innovation and ability to be flexible. The idea is to switch from that system over time to change that is self-sustaining, so that if there is an innovation you want to make as a Primary Care Trust, you have an incentive through the system to make that change.
Now I think how we manage that is going to be really, really difficult and we shouldn't be in the least bit surprised that there are these issues that arise about the way the incentives work, or that we have to sit down in partnership together based on experience as the system comes in and make changes along the way. And that is the best way to make this thing work because at each stage of this you will learn lessons on how you are implementing it, we learn lessons as policy-makers. I think one of the important things that we do in this whole process is not to be either ashamed or worried of saying to the public in a sense look there will be changes in the way the system works as we make progress, there will be things that you experiment with and think 'well actually I don't think that is the right way to do it, let's look at a different way of doing it'. And you know we have got to get to the point where we are unafraid to do what any other institutions or certainly major businesses would do as a matter of course, which is continually to re-evaluate the change process that you are putting through. The point that you raise is absolutely right, you have got to make sure that the incentives within the system don't rub up against each other. And I think this question, particularly with the acute sector, of how we make sure that they are not in a contrary way pulling care into the acute sector that doesn't need to be there, is one of the prime things that we have got to sort out.
Yes. Normally on the technical stuff there is clearly more work we need to do on the tools we have given you as commissioners to reduce the emergency admissions and challenge excessive lengths of stay will help, but we will also reinforce this direction of travel. We have already said over time we will move the acute tariff to best practice because by basing it on average cost it is inflated by those hospitals who are keeping a patient with a hip fracture in for 30 or 40 days when the average in the best hospitals is 10 or 11. Start moving it down towards 10 or 11 and that is a pretty dramatic incentive for acute hospitals to become a great deal more effective and it will release the money you need to improve other services.
On the Monitor point, which we discussed at the meeting in September, as you know I have asked for a meeting with some of the people in the department, some of the Primary Care Trusts, a couple of Foundation Trusts and Monitor itself, just to look at how we get right the balance between the autonomy of Foundation Trusts, which is very important, and we have signalled of course recently that if they want to apply to you to provide some services in the community themselves, you know they are free to do that as well, but we have to balance their autonomy with the cooperation that is needed right across the health economy to ensure that the whole system is in balance and doing the best for patients.
I think that is really important and I think that is really helpful, because you know one of the things when we go out to our membership on a regular basis is this issue about innovation, people want more space to innovate and that can only come from the local level, but it also comes with permission to sell. You know industry recognises that if you put in innovation, about one in five innovatory things will succeed. We are actually succeeding on virtually everything we have put in, which probably means we have quite an opportunity to try harder and to be more innovative as long as we can accept the risk that goes with that, and I think that is a real positive encouragement to everybody in the room to be thinking differently out of the box with political support.
I used to run a small non-governmental organisation whose aim was to help support the alleviation of poverty in some of the poorest countries of the world. We had a very difficult job, we were tackling some of the world's most difficult problems, we were not well paid, we were always short of money, we never knew what was going to happen next and we were full of optimism and energy. And when I joined the NHS I was really surprised to realise in this wonderful organisation which is fully funded and has a huge amount of national support and respect, and love actually, that it was full of people who were anxious, grumbling, resistant to change, and what I want to know is what is the Department of Health and the NHS Confederation going to do to help us to change this mentality within our own staff, because they are the people who must bring about the change, they can't do that whilst they are full of pessimism, and also they are the chief ambassadors to the public. It is from our staff that the messages about what is going on is coming, so what we need, we are aware of all this, what we need is help, advice, support and leadership from you, and we will give it locally of course.
Yeah! I think part of the problem, which I notice in many other walks of life, is that what is demoralising for people is when they are working in a service and they actually think they are working very hard and doing a good job, and there is a negative impression given of the service the whole time. The trouble is you know it is like some head teacher who berated me the other day and said: "Why don't you get some good publicity for all the good things that are going on in the schools?" And I said: "Look Madam I would be starting a lot further back down the chain than the head teachers if ever I was able to do such a thing." And I think the thing that we have got to do is twofold, we have got first of all to get across a balanced picture, you know of course there are tremendous challenges in the Health Service but actually there is a lot of really good stuff that is going on out there and we have got to try and proclaim that and we have got to do that together. And the second thing is, just to return to what I said earlier, about giving people a sense that actually what they are engaged in is immensely ambitious and difficult but extraordinarily worthwhile, because it is very difficult and it is very challenging. And what you are doing, as I say, there are, Jill was just saying a moment or two ago about business people, funnily enough I had a business person the other day say to me, who was a highly successful entrepreneur in the country, and he just described how he had tried to make some change in his business that involved about 3,500 people and what a complete nightmare it was to try and do it, and it had all been very very difficult and they had a terrible time and so on and so forth. And he said to me, he was actually saying to the group of people who were leading the change with him, imagine what it must be like for these people in the Health Service, you know dealing with so many people. And so I think part of it as well is just giving people a sense, (a) that it actually is improving as a service and we should be proud of the improvements that are made; but (b) there is something very exciting about making change. And I think the other thing obviously is the work that you do at a local level. You know we can support you but in a sense if you are giving that strong and confident message that will reflect itself I am sure in the people that work in the Health Service.
Can I add, what the Secretary of State said earlier about allowing us to make decisions at a local level is part of the answer to that, because if our staff feel all the time we are being told what to do by someone up there, it is very hard to get that sense of ownership and belief because they don't feel they have got it. And I think if we, in partnership with government, can make decisions genuinely at the local level, which we are engaging our own staff in, and as I said earlier telling the story convincingly for the case for change, I think they are willing to do it, it is just we need that space to get on with it, and then I think it is up to us as PCTs to drive that change through at a local level.
The NHS, only the police have a workforce more dissatisfied than the NHS despite all the wonderful changes that are going on, and it has to be one of the top priorities. The other thing I think we are bad at, and I think it is something we should engage in dialogue, is how when we are making major change do we invest some of the resource, not into the patient care changes, but into changing the staff. And we are very bad at doing that because the NHS and every manager wants to spend every penny they can on direct patient care, and therefore some of the things that would make it possible to produce the change, we don't do because we see that as the use of a penny that isn't going on a patient. And actually that may be very good in the short run, but in the medium term it doesn't produce change, so we ought to be thinking about how we make that investment for change around our staff. And we have done it, you know when we closed the large mental institutions we did a wonderful job in terms of training, in changing our staff, in the attitudes of the management, and we need to revisit some of the successes of the past and be proud of what we have done.
I am going to take three questions now because there are a lot of people who want to ask questions and I want to get through as many as I can.
I think everything that has been talked about is very much supporting, and we have got examples of where we have changed emergency care and really moved things forward. My question is really about the strength of levers because I think we are all aware of the challenges we face and I think that clinical leadership has been touched on and I think it is there but we massively need to increase that and make sure it happens because it is absolutely correct, having good clinical leaders will make things happen. The other issue is the strength of lever, for example practice-based commissioning is regarded as a key lever of the reform, but I think it needs to be significantly strengthened and really be powerful for it to make the difference, otherwise it will be seen as a lever but not really having the bite at the end of the day. The other issue is about responding to changes in the system, for example we talked about the incentive of payment by result, I mean there are lots of examples, for example if a patient stays in A and E an extra 15 minutes it counts as an extra admission and suddenly the hospital is charging 50% extra admissions, and there are lots of these that obviously clinicians can spot, but we have got to be able to change systems fast enough otherwise the system cannot change because it is frozen by that perverse incentive. Thank you.
Devon I think has the distinction of being the largest territory, if not the largest population among the PCTs, so we are very exercised about keeping in touch with our grass roots. And this is a question really about accountability, and there are two distractions I have come across in my short stint so far as a chairman. The first distraction came shortly after the Labour Party Conference when it was being suggested that PCTs were quangos and didn't bear enough accountability to their local population, and on the third day of my chairmanship I was interviewed on the local branch of the politics show pointing out the existence of Overview and Scrutiny Committees, and I am a great fan of the County Councils and their ability to scrutinise services across a broad spectrum, but I am curious about whether there is confidence among senior politicians that the partnership and the mechanism of joint commissioning between the County Councils and PCTs is one which they see as robust.
The second distraction is a rather specific one to Devon, is that we are working quite well with Devon County Council on formulating joint commissioning, but we now have a request from Exeter City Council, which is seeking to become a unitary authority, to work with them as well on their future aspirations for the commissioning of health and social care, and I would be interested to know whether there is a plan to amalgamate the proposals of the local government White Paper and the patient-led NHS proposals. Thank you.
I have to say that the RCN is very excited about the reform overall of care closer to home, we totally believe in it. And I am also excited about IT and I haven't heard much about it, but my understanding is we can't really get there without a good IT system that makes a difference and that nurses are wanting to be involved in that. But one of the realities is our training budgets are being slashed and nurses are not getting away from the units and not being able to attain their professional development, and so it is almost as though there is a freezing on that and it has something to do with the response to the deficits and balancing the books. And I think that when we are trying to work with the change to go forward and things happen that seem like it is reversing the change, that it is undermining it, for example the endangerment of specialist nurses who are keeping patients out of hospital, keeping them in the community, close to home, working with them, but they are in jeopardy of being lost. So those are the kinds of concerns that it seems like we are moving forward but that these issues then push us back, and it is just not clear about how we can work together to make sure those things are minimised and that there is a safety net for patients in terms of the changes that happen.
OK. Maybe if we divide those up into two, because there is a cluster around clinical engagement, investment in training and development for clinical staff to make the changes happen, and then we have got this big question about accountability. So maybe Patricia, because I know this is something very important to you.
Can I start, I will start with Beverly if I may, and just on the issue of IT which like you I am hugely enthusiastic about, I think it would be really helpful Beverly if we can work more closely with you and get the RCN and some of your members really making the case for something like the electronic patient record which will make an enormous difference to the quality, the speed, the safety of the care that we can give to patients, and that case needs to be made more strongly I think as we overcome some of the criticisms and worries about the IT programme.
On the issue about what is happening in some hospitals where as you and I both know specialist nurses are being asked to go back on to the wards as part of what is often a short term set of measures designed simply to deal with financial problems, hugely frustrating to everybody. But I think we do have to recognise that in the enormous growth that has taken place in the NHS finances over several years, and partly because we are still completing the necessary reforms to the financial framework so that everybody understands really clearly what the financial position is, and it is not hidden from sight by some of the brokerage and other devices that have been used in the past, in this process some organisations have overspent. And a few of our hospitals, even last year as the deficit was building up and up and up and becoming visible to everybody, they were taking on more staff, taking on staff they couldn't afford, and now having to make decisions that are incredibly difficult for all the staff to get back into financial balance. But I think what we have to do is to go on working together, both nationally and locally, to ensure that we support staff through those difficulties, we do more, and the Chief Nursing Officer is looking at this of course with modernising nursing careers, to support nurses who want to start their careers or retrain in order to work in the community, because clearly that is where a lot of the growth is going to come, but also to support staff where a hospital assigns possibly because of the other changes taking place like more daycare surgery, they need fewer acute beds and therefore fewer staff in some of their wards. And all these changes happening simultaneously can be particularly difficult for frontline staff and we need to recognise that, we need to support them, we need to make sure that the hospitals with the biggest financial problems - the small minority - have the time they need to work through those problems, but we have to recognise the longer they take to sort themselves out, the longer somebody else has to compensate by underspending themselves for the overspending that is continuing in that minority of hospitals. So being fair to everybody in all of this, as many of you know because you are contributing towards those regional reserves, the so-called top slicing, being fair to everybody is part of the very real difficulty here.
On Ken's point about stronger practice-based commissioning, I completely agree, it is something you and I have discussed before. That was very much the thrust of the guidance on practice-based commissioning that we have just put out. I think it is one of the key challenges for Primary Care Trusts to support GP practices who are really up for practice-based commissioning, help them to make that happen and sort of support and challenge and develop the ones who aren't really signed up for it or really taking advantage of it yet.
This is an issue that goes on, particularly in the Shire counties, all the time and I have got the same issue up in the north-east in County Durham. It is basically a matter for the local authorities to sort out amongst themselves, although we have certainly in my area we have been more keen on moving to a unitary situation. And I know it must be very difficult for you because then you get slightly conflicting lines coming at you, the trouble is, I will be absolutely open with you, some of these things at a local level are let us say difficult because in the end if you move to a unitary authority the question is what is the unit and that is a very very difficult thing to do. I think what we have got to try and do is iron out any of the practical problems that come from that, and I also think incidentally that more generally what we have got to do is to say why it is important that good management and good commissioning within the Health Service was one of the reasons I wanted to come along today is to say we are actually proud of people who are managing commissioning in the Health Service, it is an important part of getting it right.
And there are just two points that I wanted to make in this regard. The first is, and I think this is partly in answer to the point that Bev is making, because at the moment it is very difficult, you are going through this process of transition and there will be difficult things that happen along the way. On the other hand, for the first time I think people are facing up to decisions and having to align their capacity with revenue streams …… and that is difficult to do. I think however what we have got to do is to make sure that as far as possible there is an alignment between our long term goals and the short term measures that we take in order to get financial balance. But you see one of the things that is really difficult about debating public services is that people, and this is something I have certainly learnt over time because frankly when I was an opposition politician I would say a public service is not a business, you have got your public services here, you have got your businesses there and the two are completely different entities. And what I have come to realise is that it is true that public services have a different ethos and a different purpose than a business, what is not true however is that some of the same challenges do not affect the business and the public service equally and that actually how you manage in things like procurement, in things like the efficiency of your through put, in things like how you handle workforce change, some of the challenges are actually identical and in exactly the same way that businesses can learn something about social and public purposes from public services, public services I think can learn something of management practice and efficiency from business. And it is a very difficult thing to say to people because they immediately say oh you want to privatise everything, you are not, you are simply saying that if you are handling a procurement budget that runs into millions of pounds, whether you procure it well or badly is a question that any business person would recognise. And the point that Patricia is making about the electronic patient record, it is obviously sensible, indeed it is potentially an amazing opportunity for the Health Service to have a single electronic patient record. But how you then manage that process of change through the service is going to be massively difficult. But the IT implications of change in the Health Service are actually not totally different from the IT implications that face any major business.
And that brings me to the second thing, in answer to the point that Ken makes, and this is in a sense my closing plea to you today, is that one of the other things that is very difficult when you are sitting at the top of government is to get the feedback quickly enough, and for us then to respond quickly enough to it. Because the point that I was making earlier about how you adjust as you go along, I think the points you are making in practice-based commissioning need to be strong and need to have the clinical leadership. This is really, really important. And one of the things that we have often talked about in our stock-takes is the degree to which you have PCTs doing the commissioning, and then you have got GP-based commissioning and how those two inter-relate together, which have some quite tricky issues to do with that, when you come up against a snag that you feel we in the system we have designed have put in your way, we need to get that feedback as quickly as possible coming through so that we can make adjustments and changes. Because this question of the unbundling of the tariff, you know there were reasons why we did it in the way that we did it, but once you start to put the system in place you realise there is a real problem if you don't have that flexibility. So we have to make change. But the quicker you get this to us, and you shouldn't be at all afraid either as a PCT network within the confederation, of saying look here are the changes that you could make right away that would make a difference to the way this system works, and then it is our obligation frankly to respond to that.
Now that is what I think is a sort of partnership approach to managing change. And I know this may come as a shock to you, but we don't deliberately want to get things wrong. You know it is one of the mistakes people often make about political leaders, they don't actually usually sit there and say how do we devise things that will make people's lives most difficult. It is usually because there is a difference between the information that we get, which is subject to all sorts of changes before it actually reaches you, and the people on the ground. And all the time what you have got to do with this, as I have learnt over the years, is to have it road tested by the people who are doing it. But that information needs to come back to us, and if it does come back to us all I can tell you is insofar as it is possible to make the changes and adjustments in line with the practice that you are experiencing on the ground, we will do it.
I am afraid, I know there are lots of you who want to ask questions but we have had 40 minutes of I think amazingly frank discussion with the Prime Minister and with the Secretary of State which I have certainly found very enlightening and I do think highlights how important PCTs are.
But may I on behalf of all of you thank the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for giving us their time this morning and being so open with us. Thank you very much.


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Sunset at Lake Needwood. Derwood, Maryland.
Photo taken in July 2015. Credit: Martina Sestakova.
In bloom. Prague, Czech Republic.
Need a Quick Getaway? Hike the Annapolis Rock!
The Fall season comes with cooler temperatures and amazingly colored trees. If you, like me, love being outdoors, you probably have favorite hikes and parks to explore during this time of year. I recently discovered a new location: the Annapolis Rock!
The Annapolis Rock hike is part of the Appalachian Trail (near Boonsboro) and is one of the most popular hikes in Maryland. Why? The views are breathtaking! Once you climb up (about a 2.5 mile hike) to the lookout, you will be able to admire the Greenbrier Lake - a blue spot in the field of greens and browns and reds of the trees.
No need to rush back home? Then, I recommend you stay at the nearby camping area. There are 16 sites including 2 group sites. I promise you will find a lovely spot for your tent. Once settled, you can keep exploring the area or make a meal. My friend and I enjoyed a bowl of ramen noodles while listening to the sounds of winds rushing through tree tops. And what could be better than enjoying a cup of coffee on the outlook in the early morning?
If you live in the Washington D.C. area, the Annapolis Rock hike is a great option for for a quick getaway or a weekend of camping. Go explore!
Pink blooms. Prague, Czech Republic.
The fashion world is all abuzz in September with Fashion Weeks taking place in metropolitan centers worldwide. I keep an eye on the shows and very much enjoy seeing the latest designs on the catwalks. So much creativity and innovation!
While the New York Fashion Week is now over, let's take a look at several dresses that caught my attention and that I believe you will enjoy too. My favorite dresses are knee-length as I enjoy designing them and sewing them for their versatility - they are great for warm days but also practical over the winter when one can dress them up with a pair of tights and boots.
Naeem Khan presented a lovely collection - my favorite is the dress below. While the cut and silhouette are simple, the fabric is striking! I would love to learn about how the fabric was designed and manufactured. Tracy Reece worked wonders with white lace and Caroline Herrera showcased how to be ultra-feminine in delicate print combined with pink sheer fabric.
Mid-length dresses on the runways were beautiful too! Ralph Lauren presented a color blocked dresses and Narciso Rodriguez stuck to what he knows best - simple yet immaculate constructed structural dresses.
And finally, I could not keep my eye off gorgeous full-length gowns. There is such variety of cuts and finishes these can be done in. Naeem Khan's silver number - breathtaking! Marchesa went ultra-romantic and J.Mendel presented exquisite color combinations in exquisite fabrics.
Do you have a favorite dress? A favorite designer? Let me know!
Dame Vivienne Westwood at her "Let it Rock" boutique in 1971.