text:
| Car Reviews
2009 Jaguar XF Supercharged: Sleek Cat, Deadly Growl
Tim AndrewphotographersJean Jenningswriters
Today is Jaguar's last chance to make a splash in the luxury sport sedan arena before the automaker is packed up and sent to live with its new family. Yes, Ford has thrown in the towel after seventeen years of - to be kind - spotty management of this storied marque. Rather than belabor the sorry procession of bad corporate decisions and compromised products that marred Ford's tenure as keeper of the Big Cat, let's just be here now, sliding for the first time behind the wheel of the new Jaguar XF.
Even as time has run out for Ford, the Jaguar design renaissance has begun to take root. What caught our imagination in the sensuous XK coupe and convertible is about to be proved out in this controversial, new-wave sport sedan conceptualized by Ian Callum, one of the world's great classic sports car designers. "The XF is a stage in a personal journey for me," he explains in his gnarly Scots burr. Callum's journey includes being inspired by the Jaguars of his childhood to become a car designer, a dream that led him from the Royal College of Art to Ford, to Ghia's design studio in Turin, and to TWR Design, where his most famous projects were the Aston Martin DB7 and DB7 Vantage. He landed at Jaguar - his dream job - in 1999, smoothed a couple cars in the pipeline, then had his first smash hit with the XK. There is nothing more important to Callum than building on that success with the XF: "It has always been my career goal to return Jaguar to its rightful place as a leader in automotive design. Cars like the original XJ6 left a lasting legacy, and my ambition has been to create something as seminal. The XF is that car."
His opinion isn't universal. The blogs have been barking since the curtain was pulled from the XF in Frankfurt last fall; a spirited back-and-forth has filled the car mags, including this one, alternately blasting the XF for not being a Jaguar and slavering over its luscious modernity. Hate the front, love the rear? Well, shades of the XK's design debate at launch. But if the arc of the XK's design acceptability and then dominance is anything to go by, the XF will indeed triumph, and Callum will rule once again.
Our money's on Callum.
We came to Arizona prepared to judge the XF out in the real world, where all cars should finally be judged. Parked in front of Paradise Valley's elite Sanctuary Resort & Spa on Camelback Mountain, surrounded by the Benzes, Bimmers, and Audis of the well-heeled clientele, the XF stopped traffic, turned heads, and looked the freshest, the most chic, the most dramatically and dynamically elegant of anything on its wavelength. Perhaps you think this sounds lame, but photos don't begin to do the XF's complex shape justice. It's longer, sleeker, and snarkier in person, with wide, high haunches taut with unreleased energy. The windshield and the C-pillar are impossibly raked, giving the XF the profile of a sport coupe and contributing to a low 0.29 coefficient of drag. At the Sanctuary, the XF proved eminently worthy. The XF is one of the most gorgeous five-passenger sedans on the market today, although long-legged riders will want to call dibs early on the shotgun position, or they'll find themselves negotiating with the front-seat occupants for legroom. There is no dearth of trunk space, however, especially when you flop down the rear seats and expand cargo space into near-infinity.
The Brits will be the first to tell you that they do luxury cabins better than anyone. We'll be the second. The XF breaks some pretty heavy ground in this respect. If you've seen a Motorola Razr phone, you'll recognize the inspiration for interior designer Alister Whelan's aluminum-finished dials, Tungsten-colored switches and buttons, and "phosphor" blue halo lighting throughout the cabin. What you'll undoubtedly notice first, though, is the pulsing red engine-start button. You'll push it and watch a large, knurled knob in the narrow center console - looking every bit like BMW's dreaded iDrive controller - rise up and present itself. As you realize that it's a rotary gear selector, the parked vents on the dash will be rolling open and a seven-inch touch screen will blink to life.
Two things. First, the touch screen controlling the navigation, audio, temperature, and other car systems is much faster than it is in the XK. It works very well and is backed by a bank of redundant button controls. Second, the gear selector is less stupid than it seems at first blush. It quickly and neatly selects a gear and, being fully electronic, takes up so little space (just above an equally electric and tidy half-moon parking brake switch) that the bulk of the center console is left for massive cupholders and a storage bin (which has a power outlet, plus USB and iPod hookups). If you're like us, you'll be using the wide Formula 1 - style, steering-wheel-mounted paddleshifters to manage your own gear changes anyway.
This is the fine wood and leather club lounge of British legend, but freshly executed by a relatively youthful team. Your choice of wood trim merely accents a more prominent swath of aluminum. The padded leather cowl is low and tight, with double stitching that matches soft, lovely, leather seats. When you sit behind the wheel, with your elbows on the high center console and the door-mounted armrest, it feels as if you are commanding the road from your favorite reading chair. If your chair could do four-wheel drifts, that is.
Mike Cross, Jaguar's chief engineer, greeted us not only in person but also on the flat-screen TV in the hotel room on our arrival. The Jaguar public relations team had thoughtfully in-stalled a DVD starring handling wizard Cross at the wheel of an XF executing endless heroic four-wheel drifts on a wet, twisty track. Provocative stuff to be showing a bunch of journalists before letting them take your cars into the Arizona hills for a day. Thank you very much.
We chose the top-of-the-line Supercharged XF for our tour. (Something about that extra 120 hp over the Luxury XF's basic 300-hp, 4.2-liter V-8, yes?) Not that the richly trimmed Luxury base model, at $49,975, skimps on features. It's nicely appointed but has eighteen-inch instead of twenty-inch aluminum wheels and less aggressive rubber, not a bad thing if you're going for a magic-carpet ride. Also, a few of the more exotic luxuries that are standard on the Premium Luxury ($55,975) and Supercharged ($62,975) XFs cost extra for Luxury customers. Tops on the list of desirable options must be the Supercharged XF's standard 440-watt, fourteen-speaker Bowers & Wilkins surround-sound audio system. It will make you incontinent.
Our drive route led us north out of Paradise Valley through rain on Arizona 87, a fast and twisting climb to Payson. Quiet and composed in town, the XF Supercharged was in its glory when it hit the highway. We like this blown V-8 in both the S-type R and the XKR, and it is as enticing in the XF - a full second quicker than the normally aspirated engine, at 5.1 seconds from 0 to 60 mph, with a 155-mph governed top speed. It's moving a big car - more than two tons - which makes those 5.1 seconds fly by. The real joy, though, is found in its healthy 408 lb-ft of torque, which peaks at 3500 rpm.
The ZF six-speed automatic transmission with paddleshifters - found in all XF models - is improved from its launch in the XK, with an instantaneous connection between transmission and engine. The XF's (and XJ's) chief program engineer, Mick Mohan, insists that it's "one of the quickest responding transmissions on the market today." It may very well be. There are three shift modes, the first being the everyday Drive automatic setting. Rotate the selector one notch to S, and the automatic mode becomes more responsive, with adaptive shifting to more aggressive driving. When you're really pushing it, though, you can shift yourself. Holding the upshift paddle for two seconds resets the transmission to Drive mode.
The Supercharged also has its own dynamic stability control mode, in addition to the standard stability control mode and a winter setting, which allows some wheel slip when you need it in low-traction conditions. Dynamic mode gets your driving party started by permitting full manual upshifts, late upshifts, and early downshifts, and it lets you know where you are with a big, amber shift indicator as you near redline.
The XF is a quiet and serene luxury cruiser when you don't want to be a driving hero. And then it leaps into action when the right piece of road finds you in the right frame of mind. The rain had lightened after lunch, and we shot back down on the more rough-and-tumble Highway 188 past the Roosevelt Dam to Globe, giving the XF a thorough workout. With a unibody based on that of the competent S-type, a suspension using the XK's setup front and rear with Computer Active Technology Suspension (CATS) damping, the XK's vented disc brakes, and the magic ministrations of Mike Cross and his crack development team, the XF was bound to be brilliant to drive. It carved those canyon roads with precise inputs from the thickly padded steering wheel. A bit of lift throttle helped nudge the front-heavy XF Supercharged through tighter turns, while it rode all the while with amazing grace, even on its twenty-inch wheels. Gotta love those Pirelli PZeros - 255/35YR fronts and 285/30YR rears.
After our six-hour day behind the wheel, we were ready to drive the XF home to Michigan, which is exactly how all good Jaguars feel. We're also confident that the XF will prove to be the seminal design that Ian Callum believes it is. Moving on from the XK and this new XF, Callum's string of pearls grows with a striking new aluminum-bodied XJ, due in 2010.
"The last ten years have been fairly traumatic, as you know," says managing director and thirty-two-year Jaguar employee Mike O'Driscoll, who has been through all of it and wants to stay on. "When we get things right, we get them terribly right. There's a real camaraderie at Jaguar - a sense that we're all in this and we're going to make it work." As of today, things are looking terribly right.
We're thinking that Tata is looking pretty smart for its reported $2 billion offer. The time is right for a new company to give Jaguar its best shot.
Question & Answer:Michael O'DriscollManaging Director, Jaguar Cars
What makes a Jag a Jag? There are clichéd views of Jaguar born of the retro designs that populated the '80s and the '90s. To somebody who's fastened on that period in time, a Jaguar is a certain design that worked in a period in time. But Bill Lyons never in his entire tenure copied a previous car. Cars evolved, cars developed, and then the guillotine came down and he moved in an entirely new direction. That has been forgotten. Our halcyon days I guess were the '60s, with the E-type, the XJ, the Mark II. What a collection of cars! But each was born of new thinking.
Is the sale affecting you? The sale process was distracting for a couple of months in the early stages. But we're past that. Ford is going to make a decision on the sale of the company. Our job is to run the business and to deliver results. Right now, we are totally focused on the XF launch - not worried about what Ford is going to do - because they're going to sell the company to whomever they're going to sell it to. The best thing I can do is run this company as well as I can. And if we do a really good job, we're going to end up in good hands.
What do you owe Jaguar? To put Jag back on the map, to rebuild this business, no matter who buys it. We've got to make people proud again to work at Jaguar, to be driving Jaguars, and we'll do it.
When does Jag come from the darkness? Storm clouds are often darkest outside the company when inside, you've seen that shaft of light and realize you're making progress. You know you've cracked it, you know you've got it figured out, you know you're back on track. There are still a lot of doubts out there, because you just haven't been able to demonstrate it. A lot of us who are involved with rebuilding this company have got that sense of confidence since we started work on the XF and realized what we had. The XK was the start, but externally, it only really starts to take off with the launch of the XF.
Tata Bags Jaguar
Like Ford, Tata Motors is a publicly held company that's still family-controlled. It's a subsidiary of the $30 billion Tata Group, one of India's largest industrial conglomerates, with a diverse portfolio of businesses from steel companies to luxury hotels. Its global brands include Tetley Tea, Eight O'Clock Coffee, and New York's Pierre Hotel.
The Mumbai-based group is run by seventy-year-old Ratan Tata, an American-educated, fifth-generation scion who has held the reins at the 140-year-old firm since 1991. He has an architecture degree from Cornell and is a graduate of Harvard's Advanced Management Program.
Founded in 1945 as TELCO (Tata Locomotive and Engineering Company), Tata Motors is India's largest indigenous automaker, as well as the country's largest manufacturer of trucks, buses, and commercial vehicles. It launched the Indica, the first modern small car designed in India, ten years ago, and has since added companion models called the Indigo and the Marina. It also markets a range of clunky SUVs with names such as Sumo and Safari.
Tata has previously danced with several global automotive partners, including Mercedes-Benz and MG Rover. It currently has a tie-up with Fiat in India and Argentina and is developing a game-changing "people's car" designed to sell in emerging markets for just over $2500.
Outside of the obvious connection between the two family-controlled automakers, Ford's management might be impressed by Tata's deep financial resources, its extensive global holdings, and the personal charisma of chairman Ratan Tata. The Tata Group has successfully acquired and managed a number of well-known international brands. Unlike rival bidder Mahindra, Tata Motors is listed on the NYSE, and its finances are relatively transparent. Plus, Ford clearly prefers the idea of selling to a so-called strategic investor - a company already in the auto business - rather than a private-equity firm like One Equity Partners, another suitor.
It's uncertain just how Ratan Tata plans to integrate Jaguar and Land Rover into Tata's portfolio or leverage their platforms and technical resources - or if he intends to keep them totally separate from the Tata brand and product range. The details of his strategy should be revealed shortly.


Haptic Art LLC was originally founded by Harvard University undergraduates, who thought of an innovative way of employing 3D printing technology at the cross section of art and accessibility.
Our team of modelers lead by Anthony DiMaggio and experienced in both art and 3D modeling, turn an image of a painting into a 3D printable computer relief model taking into account both artistic (color, depth) and accessibility issues.
Haptic Art LLC has partnered with 3D Systems Inc. for the 3D printing of the paintings' 3D models. With 3D Systems' years of experience in the field of 3D printing, we are able to deliver a high quality product to museums and other art institutions.
Haptic Art's 3D printed reliefs are added to the art institution's accessibility section for the blind and visually impaired to meaningfully experience visual art.
Haptic Art's 3D printed reliefs can serve as part of a Museum in the Dark exhibition where people with vision can perceive paintings through the sense of touch in complete darkness.
The museum or other art institution provides us with high – quality images of a painting of interest.
We create a 3D relief model of the painting and share it with the art institution at hand.
We alter the 3D model according to the art institution's feedback.
The 3D model is 3D printed and sent to the museum to be put on display.


text:
import os
import sys
import glob
import pandas as pd
import numpy as np

import src.config.filepaths as fp

def load_csvs(paths, cols=None) -> pd.DataFrame:
    """
    Generate a dataframe from a set of CSV files retaining
    specified columns.

    Args:
        paths: List of csv files
        cols: Columns to use (all if None)

    Returns:
        Pandas dataframe generated from the input CSV files
    """
    df_container = []
    for p in paths:
        try:
            df_container.append(pd.read_csv(p, usecols=cols))
        except pd.errors.EmptyDataError:
            continue
    return pd.concat(df_container, ignore_index=True)

def orbits_to_months(df, subset_cols=None) -> pd.DataFrame:
    """
    Reduce orbital level data to a monthly product that
    flags arcminute resolution grid cells with at least
    one detection in any given month.
    Args:
        df: dataframe with all orbit information
        subset_cols: columns to use in evaluation

    Returns:
        Reduced dataframe indiciating grid cells with at least
        one hotspot detection in any given month.

    """
    if subset_cols is None:
        subset_cols = ['grid_x', 'grid_y', 'year', 'month']
    return df.drop_duplicates(subset=subset_cols)

def months_to_annual_counts(df):
    """
    Given a dataframe containing monthly detections returns
    an aggregated dataframe providing the total number of hotspot
    detections counted in a given gridcell over an approximate
    twelve month period.

    Args:
        df: Monthly detection dataframe

    Returns:
        Aggregated dataframe of annum hotspot counts

    """
    df['day'] = 1  # arbitrary day column to allow use of pd.to_datetime
    df['dt'] = pd.to_datetime(df[['year', 'month', 'day']])
    df['counter'] = 1

    annual_count_df = None

    # iterate over unique datetimes
    for start_dt in sorted(df['dt'].unique()):

        # create approximate 12 month period (~365 days)
        stop_dt = start_dt + pd.to_timedelta(365, unit='days')

        # subset and aggregate
        sub_df = df[start_dt <= df.dt < stop_dt]
        sub_df = sub_df.groupby(['grid_x', 'grid_y']).agg({'counter': np.sum})

        # append
        if annual_count_df is None:
            annual_count_df = sub_df
        else:
            annual_count_df = annual_count_df.append(sub_df, ignore_index=True)

    return annual_count_df

def main():

    sensor = sys.argv[1]
    if sensor not in ['atx', 'sls']:
        raise KeyError("Sensor not in" + "['atx', 'sls']")

    # set paths and target columns
    if sensor == 'atx':
        paths = glob.glob(fp.atx_hotspots)
        cols = ['grid_x', 'grid_y', 'year', 'month']
        min_count = 4
    else:
        paths = glob.glob(fp.sls_hotspots)
        cols = ['grid_x', 'grid_y', 'year', 'month']
        min_count = 2

    df = load_csvs(paths, cols=cols)
    df = orbits_to_months(df)
    df = months_to_annual_counts(df)
    df = df[df.counter > min_count]
    df.to_csv(os.path.join(fp.output_l3, sensor + f"all_flare_locations_{sensor}.csv"))

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Congratulations on your impending trip to Southeast Asia; you have joined the increasing number of people who have realized how beautiful and interesting this region of the world is. If you are trying to fit a lot of destinations into a short trip, and you do not have time for a long, this interesting North Vietnam tour 3 days are all you need to see some of the most famous sites in northern Vietnam.
North Vietnam travel is still a fairly well kept secret. The area is not nearly as touristy as some of the more popular travel destinations in Southeast Asia, such as Bangkok and Bali. When you arrive, though, you will wish everyone could have an opportunity to take a North Vietnam tour. 3 days in the northern parts of Vietnam will give you the opportunity to experience busy urban markets, picturesque waterfalls, fishing villages, and more. On our North Vietnam tour 3 days of bus and boat travel, two nights of accommodations, admission to attractions, and most meals are included.
North Vietnam travel is so enjoyable that you will probably want to stay for more than just a weekend tour. Vietnam offers plenty of opportunities for hiking, biking, and golf. The country is very culturally diverse, with over 50 ethnic groups which have their own languages, customs, and cuisines. The famous market in Hanoi is a testament to Vietnam's cultural diversity, but North Vietnam travel tours also allow you to visit some of the more remote parts of the country, where people make a living by farming or fishing. Our tours give you the opportunity to try some of Vietnam's famous street foods sold at the markets and also to enjoy home cooked meals in several of Vietnam's regional cuisines.
The scenic waterways of Vietnam are one of the reasons that it is such a great place to visit. You can take a cruise for several days or a short boat trip to see Vietnam's famous floating villages. The natural beauty of northern Vietnam is like nowhere else in the world, and everywhere you go, you will see ancient customs and modern ones combine in everyday life.
All of our tours are reasonably priced and include comfortable accommodations. You will be accompanied by a guide who is proficient in the English language. All tours include some free time in which you can explore the areas you are visiting.
Vietnam is really amazing wish to visit it again!


Beyond offering access to a robust local market, Farmstand Local Foods also offers services that help connect you to relationship-based sales.
We host trips to our partner farms throughout the season for chefs and their kitchen teams to intimately connect with the producers from whom they purchase. These opportunities allow our customers to gain invaluable insight about unique varieties of crops and livestock, seasonal availability, and to create innovative collaboration between farmers and chefs. Tours leave in a vanpool from 21 Acres in Woodinville mid-morning and return early afternoon. These tours create lasting memories and often directly lead to long standing connections between buyers and producers. Click below to register your kitchen team for a complimentary farm tour today.
Farmstand Local Foods works to create contractual sales opportunities for farmers by addressing the volume and price fluctuations associated with seasonality. We help identify supply and demand in successive seasons to create mutually beneficial agreements between local producers and buyers. We actively seek purchasers willing to help farmers reduce their financial risk by committing to purchasing product long before it is harvested.
We believe that direct face time with our local producers helps create educated and committed customers. Similar to a shopper at a farmers market, we provide a venue for chefs, kitchen and dining staff, and other foodservice professionals to meet their farmers firsthand. We host periodic networking events and seasonal celebrations throughout the year in both rural and urban settings to help producers and customers discuss their needs and challenges and plan for the season ahead.
We provide tools to chefs and buyers that help convey their commitment to sourcing locally. For those who want to feature specific farms or products throughout their menu or through social media and other marketing channels, we share photos of farms, farmers, products and other relevant material that effectively illustrate the entire sourcing process to the end customer.
Farmstand Local Foods is committed to reducing the carbon footprint of the food system. We strive to limit carbon emissions whenever possible and to reduce resource waste throughout the food chain. We support local producers who farm without synthetic inputs and who use a systems approach to working their land — the cyclical practices these farmers use help sequester carbon and diminish soil erosion.
Our current food system is responsible for significant climate and environmental impact due to carbon emissions from fertilizer production and use, large scale livestock production, industrial farm equipment, food storage and waste management, and the supporting global transportation system that moves food to consumers. Transitioning to a locally-driven food system has a positive impact on our collective carbon footprint, helping move us toward a sustainable and regenerative future.
We understand that partaking in proactive climate action includes a commitment to eating local products when possible. Tasting the regions' most pure and delicious flavors by eating foods when they're at peak ripeness makes eating locally and seasonally especially enjoyable. Talk to our team to learn more about what products are available throughout the year.
Are you a chef or kitchen manager interested in learning more about the carbon footprint of your menu? We pride ourselves in helping buyers communicate their commitment to sustainable sourcing and the positive implications of doing so. Provide us with your goals and we can help calculate the carbon footprint of some of your featured menu items — you can then share the direct climate impacts that your sourcing decisions make with your customers.
We're proud to be working with Stephen Johnson, President of the Seattle Electric Vehicle Association, to design and build an all-electric truck for moving food to our buyers in Seattle. This project entails converting a 1954 GMC former firetruck into a long range, high capacity, and low emissions refrigerated box truck — stay tuned for exciting updates about this endeavor! In our other vehicles, we use biodiesel whenever possible.
Farmstand Local Foods has an aggregation site located at the north end of the Sammamish Valley at 21 Acres: Center for Local Food & Sustainable Living, a nonprofit with the worthy mission to inspire action to solve climate challenges by learning as a community to grow, eat and live sustainably. Our team acknowledges the tremendous staff expertise available at 21 Acres — a committed group of individuals who have generously contributed to growing a strong local food economy.
We are excited to be working with Cascade Cooperative Farms, an upstart Co-op of egg and poultry producers that consolidate marketing and distribution logistics in order to meet the burgeoning demand for pasture-raised eggs and poultry in Seattle. Farmers who participate in the egg co-op utilize sustainable poultry raising practices, such as avoiding GMO-feed and providing chickens with ample access to green space, sunshine, and roosters. Birds are allowed to root, peck and forage for insects and grubs as they roam cage-free. We think eggs from contended hens and ducks have a more vibrant, flavorful yolk and are more healthful than conventionally produced options. Learn more about the Cascade Cooperative Farms here.
Since 2011, the City of Seattle has partnered with the HumanLinks Foundation and local food distributors to provide participating childcare centers in the city with fresh, local and sustainably grown produce. Childcare center sites are granted funding to order any of the local ingredients that we offer to chefs at high end restaurants. Site directors go above and beyond to incorporate this food into the kids diets in exciting ways and in turn have seen kid's attitudes and excitement regarding their fruits and veggies shift dramatically.
Farmstand Local Foods and the City of Seattle are excited to announce that through both our hard work and advocacy, the program will now be funded in perpetuity from the newly implemented Sweetened Beverage Tax. We want to sincerely thank the HumanLinks Foundation for their unprecedented support that laid the foundation for this worthy program to now grow and thrive for many years to come.
The Sno Valley Farmers Co-op works with a dedicated group of farmers in the Snoqualmie and Snohomish Valleys and coordinates a multi-farm Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. A handful of the participating farms also sell through FLF. We encourage all commercial buyers to consider participating in the SnoValley Co-op, either by encouraging customers to subscribe or by sponsoring an employee CSA and serving as a drop spot. The synergies between this CSA model while also sourcing local food for the commercial kitchen are inherent and reinforce the value proposition of building a local food economy. If a chef is at all interested in an institutional size CSA, be sure to contact us at Farmstand Local Foods.
If you're an individual and interested in subscribing to a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, we encourage you to connect with SnoValley Co-op. Learn more here.
Farmstand Local Foods has an aggregation site located at Goose and Gander Farm in Carnation in the meandering Snoqualmie river valley. Situated above the floodplain, Goose and Gander serves as a central node/drop-off location for several local food organizations including the Sno Valley Farmers Coop CSA program and the Egg Co-op. Centralizing distribution from this convenient location provides ample benefits to the micro-region by cutting down on drive times and providing a platform for organizations to collaborate and build community.
Sno Valley Tilth's mission is to support organic and sustainable food and fiber production throughout the Snoqualmie and Snohomish watersheds. We bring together farmers and the community to build a thriving local food system.
Farmstand Local Foods is incubated by the 21 Acres Center for Local Food & Sustainable Living, a nonprofit located in Woodinville, Washington. 21 Acres' mission is to inspire action to solve climate challenges by learning as a community to grow, eat and live sustainably. The Farmstand Local Food teams is pleased to draw upon the staff expertise at 21 Acres – a committed group of professionals at the nonprofit organization working to build the local food economy. Without the support of 21 Acres and the HumanLinks Foundation, the incubation of Farmstand would not have been possible.
We have an exciting relationship with Cascade Cooperative Farms which is a new cooperative of egg and poultry producers. We are helping the co-op with marketing and logistics to meet the huge demand for pasture-raised eggs and poultry. The farmers who participate in the egg co-op all commit to sustainable practices such as avoiding GMO-feed and providing chickens with ample access to green space and beautiful sunlight. Birds are allowed to root and peck, spending their days eating insects and doing activities that are natural for chickens. Eggs from happy hens often have a brighter and more vibrant yolk due to spending so much time outside, they are also more healthful and flavorful than conventional produced options. Learn more about the Cascade Cooperative Farms here.
Since 2011, the City of Seattle has partnered with the HumanLinks Foundation and local food distributors to provide participating childcare centers in the city with fresh, local and sustainably grown produce. Childcare center sites are granted funds to order any of the fine ingredients that we offer to chefs at high end restaurants. Site directors go above and beyond to incorporate this food into children's diets through fun and relatable menus, and in turn watch kids' attitudes and excitement for their fruits, veggies, and other locally produced foods shift dramatically.
Farmstand Local Foods has a symbiotic relationship with Sno Valley Farmers Co-op (SVFC) and the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program they operate. The SVFC works with farms throughout the Snoqualmie River valley to offer a CSA that features a comprehensive taste of the Snoqualmie watershed. We encourage our buyers to consider participating in the SnoValley Co-op, either by inviting customers to subscribe or by coordinating an employee CSA. Supporting this CSA model while also sourcing local food for the commercial kitchen are inherently beneficial for farmers and reinforce the values of building a local food economy.


Bhubaneswar: In order to facilitate the night stay of people attending their relatives undergoing treatment at hospitals in various municipal areas across State, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik today instructed to start night meal (dinner) facilities at the Aahar centres.
Presently, there are around 54 Aahar centres near hospitals across Odisha which provides a meal at Rs 5 to the people who have arrived at the hospitals from far off places. The dinner facilities will start at the Aahar centres from January 1, 2019.
Besides, in order to seek involvement of public in the noble act, online donation system will also be executed soon. Anyone can donate to feed people through Aahar centres on the occasion of any anniversary or celebrations in their family. The donation will be received online and it will be 100 per cent tax free.
Presently, there are Aahar centres only in 76 municipal areas in State. More such centres will be set up in the remaining 32 municipal areas in the State. Through this over one lakh people across Odisha will be able to get subsidized meal daily.
The Chief Minister has given emphasis on the hygiene and quality of food provided at the Aahar centres.


One of the gifts of parenthood is being able to reflect upon your own childhood with more clarity, more understanding and more appreciation.
It's being grateful for the times your parents trudged up a ladder onto a roof to string Christmas lights to bring you joy.
It's realizing all the selfless things, all the inconvenient things, all the time that goes into it.
That's what my Dad did for me, and I'm thinking of him today, up on this slippery frozen roof. And I'm laughing about being the house that kept their lights up year-round a few times- I finally get that now, too.
Because it all takes so darn much time, and he just wanted to make the most of it.
You see, my Dad was raised to have heart. Growing up in a household of three older sisters, he followed in his father's good example, making it a priority to provide for his family.
Doing so as a single Dad through the week meant some things along the way got missed.
He had no time to learn the difference between a text or email.
He thinks the two words iPad and iPod are just differences in pronunciation of people's dialects.
He doesn't know own a computer and can't tell you what a smartphone is, so I know he'll never read this.
What is a blog anyways, he'll ask me, when someone asks him if he's read my latest piece.
It used to drive me nuts as a teenager, to see him falling behind. But in his mind he wasn't.
And even now I suppose I wish he's read these things called blogs. But it's not how he chooses to spend his time. He's retired and he is free and he is living.
And free time for Dad today, like free time before, means he's probably off on a road tripping adventure.
Because life with my Dad is a Sunday drive, except it takes place on a Tuesday night, Wednesday or Thursday.
Memories of a childhood with my Dad is a patchwork collective of moments of me sitting by his side, after he's returned home from a 12 hour day, and we'd be cruising the lots around town looking at all the new cars.
Sometimes we'd make it to Melmerby Beach or to an aunt's house or as far as Green Hill to look at the scenery. Sometimes we'd cruise the new developments in the subdivisions of New Glasgow, or drive by the new seaside shops in Pictou. During the holidays we made a special point of driving the circuit of the county's best decorated homes, and he knew each and every one of them. But there was never really an agenda to our nightly course, like there was no direction to our discussion.
Dad worked a demanding and physical job my whole life, but each and every night when he came home we'd hop in the car, just he and I. He could have just grabbed a beer, and sat his rear immediately into the blue velvet Lazyboy rocking chair in the basement where he'd fall asleep watching the hockey game. But first we would get in that car, turn up the radio to hear the top 9 at 9, and drive.
We didn't necessarily stop at the drive-thru or buy a popsicle, but when we did, that was a great day. We didn't necessarily chat all that much, me being a teenager too intent to hear the music charts, but when we did, it always ended in fits of laughter. He, in his bleach and chlorine stained ripped denim jeans and his decades old blue pullover Helly Hansen sweater, his deeply tanned and calloused hands gripping firm at the wheel.
And there were many different sets of wheels over the years, as I remember being his chief sign maker from the age of 5 when an old clunker grew too clunky and it was placed on our curb for sale. There was the green Crown Vic, the black Ford Bronco, the turquoise Honda Accord. Then I made actual friends and we made more room with the blue Grand Caravan with the wood paneling, the purple Grand Caravan with the captain's seats, the silver Grand Caravan, and so many more substitutes in between. He dreamed of a new vehicle, one that wouldn't be such a quick flash in the pan- but myself, I loved the excitement of change. I loved his ability to make the best of it.
Dad didn't have time for things that didn't matter- he didn't gossip and he never complained. He lived his life simply- not really knowing politics, or what was in the day's news. But he knew how the people in his life were doing.
He certainly couldn't have enjoyed Ricky Martin as much as I did in 1999, but he smiled and turned it up anyways. He must have cringed when I began singing along to Eminem, Nelly and Ludacris, but he put up with it because it was time spent doing what mattered.
Throughout my life my Dad drove me, and my friends, any which place we wanted to go. He was present with me, within the confines of a moving vehicle. We could talk about our days, about a dance, about the mundane- or sit and eat an ice cream in silence after my first break-up. Every drive was the same but different.
He was dependably predictable and honest- he'd break up fights in the schoolyard, and quick grocery store trips would turn into hour long events- he simply cared for, and about, everyone. He made the time for it.
It's December now, and I find myself pointing out Christmas lights to the girls. And so, I'm thinking of my Dad as I find myself on this rooftop stringing lights up myself for the very first time. What a gift it was for me to be raised with an old fashioned Dad- no gadgets, Facebook updates or Instagram accounts distracted him from getting to know me as I grew up.
He always found the time.
You're in my heart this week, Dad. Because now it's my car that's sketchy but the Christmas lights are waiting. So happy you're the one I can call.


The average salary for open Volunteer Manager jobs is currently $95,657, 0% lower than the national average salary for all jobs which is $94,801.
The largest category under which open Volunteer Manager jobs are listed is Social work Jobs, followed by HR & Recruitment Jobs.
There are 14 Volunteer Manager job vacancies in New South Wales available immediately, compared to 12 in Sydney Region.
The Adzuna recency index score for this search is 1.56, suggesting that demand for Volunteer Manager job vacancies in New South Wales is increasing.


text:
Q: Netbeans project specific settings resetting I am having a problem with my project specific settings resetting while I am working.
I am trying to configure my project to use the IDE wide formatting configurations, but after a small while the settings for the project are reset to use the default project specific settings.
I assume this is related to automatic build in the background doing something that is removing the project configuration file but I haven't found out anything more related to that.
Other points to note:

*

*The project is huge

*The project is maven configured

*I am the only one working in netbeans that I am aware of

*The Project has a parent maven project which I also have open in the IDE

*The Project is in a Git repository which I believe I have set up to ignore Netbeans config files.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Poem by Zvi A. Sesling
Oddball Magazine2021-03-01T18:16:13-05:00February 8th, 2021|Art, Contributors, Poetry, Zvi A. Sesling|1 Comment
Artwork © Eric N. Peterson
coyote cyanide
computer hacking
rise on presidential
Lying the norm
cheating, pocket lining
insults common
environment ignored
climate change denied
election brings an end
Zvi A. Sesling is the former Brookline, MA Poet Laureate. He has published four books of poetry and three chapbooks. His flash fiction book is due in 2021 from Cervena Barva Press.
Eric N. Peterson is from Atlanta, Ga. He's been drawing cartoons all his life. He leans towards the absurd, imaginative, and the surreal, as that's where all the flavor is.
Renae Levin February 9, 2021 at 11:24 am
So there is hope after all……after all the turmoil….

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Pay per click campaigns can be executed based on custom parameters. Please call us on 9833211659 for more info.
We are website designing company located in Mumbai,Thane, With experience of more than 10 years. Our speciality is creating websites which runs well on iPad and other latest gadgets.
© Copyright 2014 by Matrixcsi.com. All Rights Reserved.


Today, I had a shoot with a a new model named Matt who was looking to expand his portfolio. Overall, it was a great shoot, and the unedited photos prove it. Matt is one of those models that have range. He is a little older than he looks, and has the ability to play different areas of the age spectrum. The shoot was mostly in natural light, with a few reflectors. And for some of the bed shots we bounced single fill light. Here's a taste of what we got.


In order to offer you a better user experience and more efficient services, we are pleased to announce that we are upgrading our system. Due to this system upgrade, online purchase for Schengen visa insurance, Travel Airbag, and Student Travel Safe products will be unavailable for a certain period of time. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused by this issue and we thank you for your continued support.
For international students, phds, doctorates, interns and au pairs in Switzerland.


text:
Topic: The Culture
The Uses of Philosophy
Teaching is getting dangerous ? see this - an item by someone (Jacqueline Marcus) who teaches philosophy at a college in Florida.
In the Florida legislature, House Republicans, on the Choice and Innovation Committee, recently voted to pass a bill that threatens to restrain academic scholars. The law would allow students to sue teachers for beliefs that do not concur with conservative perspectives. If, for example, professors argue that evolution is a scientific fact instead of a theory, and if they don?t devote equal time to creationism, under this bill, initiated by conservative David Horowitz?s campaign, students can sue the professor for being biased.
Although the bill has two more committees to pass before it can be considered by the full House, it represents a growing threat against the very foundation of scholarly research. The intended goal of this bill is to portray professors as tyrannical monsters who terrorize Republican-conservative students, rendering them into poor, helpless victims under the authority of those, ah yes, Brutal Liberal Dictators!
Indeed, the phrasing of the bill is comical. It turns the essential meaning of ?liberal education? upside down: ?leftist totalitarianism? by ?dictator professors? in university classrooms. How?s this for an Orwellian twist? The bill is titled ?The Academic Freedom Bill of Rights,? sponsored by Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala.
In this rather oppressive atmosphere, particularly if one lives in a conservative county, as I do, teaching philosophy is a dangerous occupation. It?s not quite as dangerous as being a liberal journalist, but it has its risks.
Whine, whine, whine ?
But a good anecdote here -
A conservative student actually tried to push me aside at the beginning of class, dressed for the occasion in his tie and suit, with a digital camera, to deliver his Thou SHALL Kill presentation. It never occurred to him to discuss his proposal with me after class or during my office hours. He simply presumed that he was at equal status with the teacher, and that he has the ?Academic Freedom? to take up precious class time with his flaky opinions on interpreting the word ?kill? in the 6th Commandment.
I explained that students are paying to learn from an accredited teacher with degrees in philosophy/humanities. They?re not paying to hear HIS opinions. The test will be on Plato. He stormed out of the class and then dropped out the next day. (Praise the Lord!)
Here?s a follow-up question for Republican legislators: Some students still believe that Saddam was responsible for 9/11. Now if I were to tell them that even the Bush administration has announced that Saddam was not responsible for 9/11, under this bill, if passed, would students have the right to sue me because I clarified fact from fiction? Do I now become a Big Bad Liberal Dictator for challenging misinformation?
Hey, kids don?t want to learn what they don?t know to be true.
What?s the point in that?
Ric Erickson, editor of MetropoleParis, asks questions ?
- Will a professor be able to counter-sue the student on grounds of terminal stupidity?
- What's stopping these students from getting their full does of 'creationism' in Sunday school? Or, are they lazy - wanting 'creationism' in school so they can cut Sunday school?
Give them a good used toaster!
And over at FAFBLOG the Medium Lobster has this to say -
Freedom is ever-marching, and its latest target for emancipation is none other than the Gulag Academia, where millions of students are held hostage by totalitarian educators whose cruel practice of teaching them things they don't already believe could soon be put to an end.
Florida Republicans are considering passing an "Academic Freedom Bill of Rights" which will give college students the power to sue "dictator professors" who offend their beliefs by teaching material which contradicts them. The Medium Lobster hails this as a measure long overdue. For far too long, higher education has been concerned with "education" and "instruction," mere euphemisms for harsh indoctrination into the totalitarian ideology of Fact. But now students will be given the tools to fight back, to free themselves of their oppressive enslavement to a world in which life evolved over millions of years through natural selection, dinosaurs weren't wiped out six thousand years ago by the flood of Noah, and the evil Xemu was not responsible for the existence of body thetans.
Will students learn more in such an environment? Of course not. If any thin-skinned adolescent can mau-mau his educators into avoiding any subject that fails to reinforce his own prejudices, universities will be engaged in the antithesis of teaching. But this is precisely the point: America has done so much to oppose tyranny in the form of earthly despots that it can only proceed to liberate humanity from the greatest dictator of all: Reality, which tyrannically insists that man acknowledge That Which Is rather than That Which Would Be More Convenient For Us.
Freed from the tyranny of Reality and the dangerous threat of its advance guard, Information, America's youth will be free to live in a world consisting solely of their own pre-existing beliefs, where messy ideological review and examination of fact have become unnecessary. As usual, the Bush administration has been admirably and ably leading the charge in this direction for years.
America's youth will be free to live in a world consisting solely of their own pre-existing beliefs, where messy ideological review and examination of fact have become unnecessary? So be it.
Fahenheit 911 vindicated?
See this item on the wires...
The FBI played an active role in arranging chartered flights for dozens of well-connected Saudi nationals -- including relatives of Osama bin Laden -- after the 9/11 terror attacks.
The New York Times reported that the documents show Federal Bureau of Investigation agents gave personal airport escorts to two prominent Saudi families who fled the United States, while several other Saudis were allowed to leave the country without first being interviewed, citing newly-released US government records.
The Saudi families, in Los Angeles and Orlando, had requested the FBI escorts out of concern for their personal safety in the wake of the attacks. ...
The flights DID take off BEFORE the nation's commercial fleet was allowed to resume flying.
Michael Moore has it right? Who'd have thunk it?
Not that it matters now.
Bob Patterson, columnist for Just Above Sunset, the parent weekly to the web log, comments below...
CBS radio is reporting that FBI papers obtained through the "freedom of information" act show that members of Osama bin Laden's family were permitted to leave the USA during the flying ban right after 9/11 (as was alleged in Michael Moore's documentary film "Fahrenheit 911.")
It's time to change the Freedom of Information act.
Can't Bush do it with an executive order?
Well, yes. But he doesn't need an executive order.
See this from October 11, 2002
... In his October memo, Attorney General Ashcroft recognizes "it is only through a well-informed citizenry that the leaders of our nation remain accountable to the governed and the American people can be assured that neither fraud nor government waste is concealed." Then he talks about "other fundamental values" including "safeguarding our national security, enhancing the effectiveness of our law enforcement agencies, protecting sensitive business information, and not the least, preserving personal privacy." In instructing agencies dealing with FOIA requests, Ashcroft pointed out that "any discretionary decision... to disclose information protected under the FOIA should be made only after full and deliberate consideration of the institutional, commercial and personal privacy interests that could be implicated by disclosure of the information."
Ashcroft assured agencies that should they decide to withhold information, they will be fully supported by the Department of Justice "unless they lack a sound legal basis or present an unwarranted risk on the ability of other agencies to protect important records."
At a mid-March conference in Philadelphia on computer-assisted reporting sponsored by Investigative Reporters and Editors, some journalists reported that the number of FOIA request refusals is on the rise, along with the time it takes to hear from the government. In a report in the March/April 2002 issue of Columbia Journalism Review, John Giuffo writes that "It's not just access to sensitive data about infrastructure and water supplies... that is being blocked." Barbara Fought, a Freedom of Information law officer at Syracuse University, during one of four panels convened to discuss the impact of the Ashcroft memo said that "We're beginning to hear about a few problems, which I think signal a different tone with the Bush administration and the Attorney General." ...
Ah well.


text:
LBaaS: Load Balancing for the Age of Cloud
Jim Frey
Jim Frey is Vice President of Research, Network Management for Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) and is a featured guest blogger.
As organizations embrace the cloud, whether as enterprises looking to transform IT or providers expanding and enriching service offerings, traditional IT/networking technologies must be adapted to fit the form of the new reality. This is certainly true of load balancing (LB) as well as application delivery control (ADC), which has undergone virtualization and software programmability/orchestration evolutions.
One related initiative that is getting steady attention is Load Balancing as a Service (LBaaS). At its most basic, the idea behind LBaaS is to provide load-balancing functionality via software so it can be programmed and added to orchestration via APIs. This is the same basic mechanism of all automated, software-defined approaches across the spectrum of cloudification, from software-defined networking (SDN) to software-defined storage, and even software-defined data centers (SDDC). As such, LBaaS could just as well be called "software-defined load balancing."
LBaaS is also related to network function virtualization (NFV), in this case network functions associated with load balancers/ADCs. Both rely on virtualization and programmability, but LBaaS is a higher-level service concept, which may (or may not) be implemented using NFV.
Many of the driving forces around the industry wide LBaaS initiative have centered on the OpenStack community, which launched LBaaS Version 1.0 in 2013 as a branch of the Neutron networking working group. That first version included the most basic of load balancing capabilities and established a basic instantiation sequence: Create a pool; create one or several members in the pool; create one or several health monitors; associate the health monitors with the pool; and create a VIP that is associated with the pool. This was useful for demonstration projects and for lightweight internal cloud usage, but it wasn't meant to be an enterprise-class or carrier-grade alternative to a full-blown industrial ADC.
LBaaS Version 2.0, which is coming as part of the Kilo release of OpenStack (1H 2015), adds much more substantial capabilities, including SSL/TLS termination, support for TLS SNI, and Layer 7 content switching. Additional objectives include TLS client certificates, TLS back-end encryption, UDP support, and Layer 7 content modification. Accomplishing this required non-trivial redesign of the LBaaS architecture, along with Neutron extensions such as the ability to store TLS certifications in the Neutron database. LBaaS v2.0 provides the richness that is needed to meet carrier-grade and cloud operator requirements, in terms of high availability and scalability. For example, the Octavia project aims to provide a reference implementation that is worthy of direct use by cloud operators.
Radware was one of the first independent ADC vendors to embrace LBaaS, in part because it was the first to have fully virtualized its ADC solution, via the Alteon VA product. As part of its Virtual Application Delivery Infrastructure (VADI) strategy, Radware had also already productized and proven an orchestration API and plug-in, known as vDirect. These steps made adapting to support the OpenStack Neutron LBaaS extensions quite straightforward, and Radware has maintained an active presence in the Neutron LBaaS working groups. Other ADC vendors have followed, providing their own driver plug-ins to Neutron LBaaS, and thus allowing OpenStack to deliver on the promise of vendor independence.
But OpenStack isn't the only game in town. LBaaS is a concept that is relevant to any cloud environment. While OpenStack is gaining momentum, the majority of currently fielded and operational clouds are based on alternative open or proprietary technologies, such as VMware vCloud Director, VMware NSX, Apache CloudStack, or Amazon Web Services (AWS). Recognizing the mixed nature of demand, Radware's LBaaS solution is, for example, supporting VMware vCloud Director and HP Helion in addition to OpenStack Neutron. Over time, the real test of success for LBaaS solutions will be how consistently LBaaS features are supported across multi-cloud environments and how effectively more advanced ADC/LB features can added in an automated, orchestrated fashion.
Other questions are facing the LBaaS working groups within OpenStack, such as whether to remain within OpenStack or to disconnect themselves and form their own open community. Regardless of how all that plays out, LBaaS is here to stay, and its continued evolution should be of benefit to the broader cloud community, including cloud providers, cloud administrators, and cloud users.
LBaaS
Previous articleIs Your Home (Network) Haunted? The Threats of the Ghost Vulnerability and the IoT
Next articleThe Growing Role of the ADC
Jim has over 20 years of experience with network management tools, technologies, and practices for enterprises and service providers. As VP Strategic Alliances at Kentik, Jim is responsible for building and leveraging relationships with external organizations of all types, including Technical, Marketing, and Channel alliances. Most recently prior, Jim was VP Research at Enterprise Management Associates, where he covered network planning, monitoring, troubleshooting, and optimization in the context of how those functions serve the higher-level goals of service-centric IT operations and strategy. Before EMA, he held executive marketing and partner management roles at NetScout and Micromuse, and prior to that held product development, management, and marketing roles at Agilent and Cabletron. Jim got his start in tech by spending eight years as a software engineer in the oilfield industry.
Top 6 Questions to Ask When Selecting SSL Protection Solutions
Why Inspecting Encrypted Traffic Is A Must
Here's How Healthcare Providers Can Stay Secure & Compliant
Using Best Practices to Secure Apps in Multi-Cloud Environments


Svalbard as a Fluid Territory is a studio course in Landscape Architecture.
I wanted to learn something new and unique, and see landscapes from a different perspective. I chose the programme because of my interest in Northern territories, and the idea of living in the Northern hemisphere, feeling polar day and night on my skin. I thought I would love it here surrounded by snow-covered mountains, and I was right!
It's an exclusive and different programme and there is no better framework than Tromsø to study it. The location allows you to be in touch with the landscapes you will work with. Also, Tromsø is quite a cosmopolitan city where you can enjoy cultural life and meet people sharing the same curiosity about the North. It's the perfect remote place allowing you to be in touch with wild nature, without being too isolated from the outside world.


This story will amaze you with examples of desire, determination, and discipline. The life lessons we learn from training and racing are incredible in and of themselves, but when you overlay that with a car accident and subsequent major trauma, the lessons we learn are worth sharing, and that's why we are introducing you to Elyse Sitomer, our Featured Athlete.
Her coach, Laura Marcoux, shared that Elyse completed IMFL after coming back from a double neck fusion 15 months ago. Elyse was an accomplished athlete pre-surgery but had to completely start over after surgery, beginning with just walking in her neck brace. She couldn't swim for a while because she couldn't turn her head to breath, couldn't run because of the impact, and couldn't bike because it required picking her head up too high. She completely trusted her recovery specialist, Dr. Mike Reed, who also is a triathlete. Together he, Laura and Elyse put together a progression from surgery to Ironman Florida where she finished in the top 10 in her age group.
1. If it's not too personal, please share how you injured your neck and required surgery.
I was hit by a car while riding my bicycle in 2014. She hit and left the scene of the accident. This was three weeks prior to IM Fortaleza, Brazil. I still raced it. It was determined in 2017 that I had compression of the spinal cord. It was a matter of time before I was going to be paralyzed. I had surgery May 18, 2017.
2. What were your athletic pursuits prior to the injury/surgery?
I had raced 5 IM and over 16 half IM. I stopped counting the sprints and Olympics. I would place first or at least top 3 in our local races. I had an 11:50 in IM Western Australia. It was my goal to do a sub 11 race.
3. As you contemplated/prepared for the surgery, what were you considering about your athletic goals and triathlon?
Failure is not an option. I worked tirelessly with Mike Reed. He had the confidence and the comeback plan in place. All I had to do was to listen to him. I ran 15 miles the day before surgery. That's how fit I was. Then I had to start all over. I didn't know if I would have the will to do it. I didn't know I would heal so well. Not everyone is as lucky or fit as I am. I think being fit both physically and mentally is what helped me through the whole process. Not to mention coach Laura who was supportive and believed in me when I most definitely didn't. At first, it was climbing the Inca Trail as a carrot. I had scheduled it one year after surgery. Then IMFL became the next carrot. If I had something to focus on, it helped channel my worry and energy. I really didn't have a chance to prepare much for surgery. I was going to be paralyzed. I focused all of my energy on my recovery and going back to racing. Mike believed and knew I could do it. I put my faith in him.
4. You set your sites on racing an Ironman after surgery, why IM and why Florida?
Good question. I want to inspire other people. It has been a rough 4 years with lawsuits, epidurals, pain, surgery, etc. I didn't want the injury or surgery to define me. I wanted to change the outcome of the story. That nothing gets me down. I looked at it as a minor setback. Or rather one-year setback. Ironman was the next chapter of my story. I chose IMFL because it was close to home, I didn't need to take apart my bike and I didn't need to take off too much from work. We also chose IMFL because it would give me the time to train and because I like flat courses. I'm great with the wind. Too bad the course changed last minute. Therefore, I had to change my expectations.
5. Laura explained the progression you had for your training. In your words, share how that went.
I appreciate that Mike was so supportive that he took the time to work with Laura. I felt like it was a team effort. Everyone communicating what needs to be done so I didn't get hurt along the way. Laura was extremely patient, understanding and supportive. It was up to me to communicate any concerns or pain so we didn't get off track. As time went on, she knew when to push and how much. I also had to learn how to trust a new coach. I wasn't only dealing with the surgery. I was working with a new coach. I had one I worked with for four years. I had some habits that needed to be let go. I think Laura is an excellent human being, phenomenal athlete and a great partner as a coach. She definitely worked with Mike to help me come back with a vengeance.
6. How did you practice patience and perseverance during that time?
Did you say patience? Bah Ha Ha! (rolling on the floor cackling!) I'm not sure I have any patience. Perseverance has been gained through my 11 years of racing and learning to never give up. I've always been wired with the "tenacity" gene. Ironman and endurance training teaches you to keep going with one foot in front of the other. I want to give a TEDTalk. Completing this IM meant I could get through one of the most emotional, physical and financial draining times in my life! I believe in mantras. I have one I use. I AM STRONG. I AM POWERFUL. I AM EFFICIENT. The power of the mind is where I get my strength and tenacity.
7. How did having a coach (Laura) help you navigate your goal?
Laura has the knowledge on how to build speed, strength, and endurance. She also has the heart of gold. She made me feel like a human being and not just another number. What separates her from my last coach is her ability to connect with me. She is also an athlete. She made me feel like she cared. I trust Mike Reed implicitly. When he recommended D3, I didn't blink. When Laura was responsive and worked diligently with Mike, I didn't blink. She called me before races to wish me luck. She was there for me. Anyone can follow a racing plan. A coach is your trusted adviser. With Laura she was not only my coach, she became my friend. She helped me do something I lost all faith and hope in. Her love, support, and knowledge helped me over the edge!
8. Please share what you were thinking about either the night before or the morning of IMFL … what was going through your mind during that final stretch until the start.
I felt grateful. Grateful for having the athleticism to compete. I knew I would finish. If I had to crawl, whatever it took. Grateful for a coach and a support system (including friends, training partners). Grateful that they didn't cancel the race entirely. Grateful for the triathlon community. Its a special community and a privilege. I was nervous the night before, trying to remember my race plan. I am very purposeful in a race. I stick to what I trained for. Laura gave me a wonderful run plan with words of wisdom. I read that a few times to inspire me. She taught me how to cope for when things don't go your way. That was the best piece of coaching I have ever received.
9. The race was successful! Describe your thoughts and emotions about the race and your experience through it.
Yes, it was successful because I finished and placed top ten. Something I have been trying to do for a while. The race didn't go as planned. My body didn't respond how I thought it would. So this race was about adjusting expectations and keeping a calm mind throughout the course. I had so many friends on the course either participating or spectating. There were tons of surprises along the way. I just tried to have fun the entire time. I had friends who raced in our local city of Jupiter and then drove 2 and 1/2 hours just to cheer us on! Mike Reed and his son volunteered at an aid station. I got to see him three times and I hugged him on the last one. I had an angel, help me run through the last two miles. She shared a personal story. The best surprise was Laura's brother, Carl, on the course. He came up to me and said, "there are eyes watching you along the way." He told me that he was Laura's brother and she was so proud of me. He encouraged me along the way. I saw him three times. On the last loop of the run, he had Laura on the phone and I got to race with her encouraging me. Priceless!
10. What else would you like us to know about you?
I am more than an athlete. In fact, that makes me giggle. If you only knew me about 31 years ago, I was overweight and was not athletic. To be able to compete and be pretty good at it is astounding to me and anyone else who knew me when. I am someone who loves life, loves to experience new things and loves to be challenged. Being part of the tri-community has helped me become such a strong, powerful and confident human being. As Kate T. Parker writes in the title of her book, "Strong is the new pretty." I think that's my new mantra.
We are all so proud of Elyse and are pleased to turn the spotlight on her!


text:
According to plan
Swedes prepare for U18 Women's Worlds
Published 23.12.2015 09:02 GMT-5 | Author Jeremy Darke
Ylva Lindberg worked as an assistant coach at the 2012 IIHF Ice Hockey Women's World Championship. Photo: Dave Sandford / HHOF-IIHF Images
It was the beginning of a new era for under-18 hockey in Sweden when ex-Swedish women's national team captain Ylva Lindberg took over.
She took over at the helm after a five-year tenure from Henrik Cedergren.
Ylva Lindberg brought her 11 years of national team playing experience, two of those as captain, to a team that was looking to be the foundation of a new generation of junior women's hockey in Sweden.
Since taking over the job as head coach in April, this year, Lindberg has been building towards a new future in junior women's hockey in Sweden. Although, the first step will be to turn around the results of the last two years in the U18 Women's World Championships where Sweden have placed sixth.
It will be unchartered territory for Lindberg when she heads to her maiden 2016 IIHF Ice Hockey U18 Women's World Championship in St. Catharines, Canada and does not hide behind the fact that she is learning the art of national team coach throughout the preparation process of the 2016 championships.
One of her first acts as new head coach was to get feedback off the 12 returnees, from 2015, on what they thought was needed to help grow this team and make it into the force that Swedish hockey is known for.
"The fact is, that in the beginning of the season when I started my work I called all of the players that had played before in the world championships, to ask them about their experiences," explained Ylva Lindberg.
"I tried to create myself a picture of what we needed to work on, and what we need to change to make a better effort in the future. I have listened to the players and what they have had to say, and from that we have started this work."
"Maybe we cannot see all of the results this year, but I hope next year and the years that follow that we see that the Swedish (women's) junior hockey will get stronger."
Lindberg's influence has already paid dividends during Sweden's two pre-championship tournaments in 2015. The young Swede's placed second in the four-nations tournament that was held in Dmitrov, Russia in November, where they got wins against Germany 2-1, Finland 3-0 and went down to host nation Russia in a tough and tight battle 1-2.
They then backed up their solid second place in the four-nations with a dominant performance over Finland in a three-game series that was played in Orebro, Sweden just last weekend. The Swedes were victorious in all three games over their nearest rivals Finland, in a display of offensive power that saw 12 different goal scorers contribute to a 15 goal haul throughout the series, a statistic that gives the team confidence and shows that what coach Lindberg is embedding into her players is already sinking in.
"It is very, very important. I think the whole team gets more confident if they know that a lot of players can produce goals. And of course later in the tournament we need to score to win them. We have talked a lot about goal scoring and in modern hockey today it means a lot. You need to take the puck to the net and you need to be there, says coach Lindberg."
It hasn't just been the scoring that has been impressive for the Swedes during their preparation, 17-year-old, goaltender Ellen Jonsson is also proving that she wants and deserves to be the starter come January in Canada.
Playing as the back-up in Brynas Gavle in Sweden's top women's league, Riksserien, Jonsson has put up impressive numbers in her six starts, but her form when putting on the Swedish national jersey has been absolutely phenomenal.
In her four games played in, one against Russia and three against Finland, she has held a save percentage of 95 and a goals-against average of 1.25, which clearly boosts her claim to be the number one, not that coach Lindberg wanted to set anything in stone.
"The goalie is very important for us. If it is Ellen or another goalie in the net for us, if they can be there and create some comfort to the team and the defence then of course it is a big advantage."
With the series against Finland being the last time the team will get together before they go into camp in Canada before the U18 Women's World Championship, Lindberg was obviously pleased with the progression the team has made, but knows that there is plenty of work that still needs to be done if they are going to be a chance to compete for a medal.
"We have worked on our game and building a strong team every time we have been together, so it is going according to plan. I think we have a very good camp ahead of us in Canada before the tournament starts."
"If you want to go far in the tournament you need to have good power play and penalty kill. That is something that we are going to work on during the pre-camp. We also are going to face the Canadian U18 team in an exhibition game so we are going to work on our defence really well."
"We need to realize that we have a lot of work to do and we are going to face a lot of good teams. We need to be ready to work hard for every bit of the ice out there."
Getting through the group stage of the tournament is as far as the Swedes are looking just now. They know whoever awaits them in the quarter-finals will be a tough opponent, but it will not matter if they do not get there in the first place.
"Our first goal is to win every game in the group, then we will see in the quarter-final. If we don't win the games in the group we don't have a chance to play a quarter-final. It is the first step," says Lindberg. "I know very little about Switzerland and France, so I am very humble to go in there and try to focus on our game and do as well as we can. If we face Russia or Czech Republic (in the quarter-final) it is going to be a very tough game because they are two very skilled teams."


I'm converting a file from .doc format to pdf but the links in the doc format when converted to pdf don't seem to work except for my Blogs URL which is in the header of the document. I've tried using different converters including Warrior pdf converter and Primo pdf.... If you have some links that aren't clickable in Flipsnack, is because they were not hyperlinked in your PDF. If you forgot to do that before saving your PDF, you can always add links directly from our editor by going to Link -> Hyperlink.
16/08/2016 · The first link doesn't work in the Link to a Document content type by default. Since you can open the pdf file online, I suggest you use the "get link… combine pdf files windows 7 20/09/2013 · Interactive buttons don't work in PDF Home › Forums › EPUB and eBook › Interactive buttons don't work in PDF This topic contains 1 reply, has 2 voices, and was last updated by David Blatner 5 years, 3 months ago .
I'm converting a file from .doc format to pdf but the links in the doc format when converted to pdf don't seem to work except for my Blogs URL which is in the header of the document. I've tried using different converters including Warrior pdf converter and Primo pdf. compound words worksheet grade 1 pdf I use rmarkdown to render pdf documents. Now I want to add internal links in the texts. In the helping pages of rmarkdown, it says an internal link is defined as: See the [Introduction](#introdu... Now I want to add internal links in the texts.
29/10/2012 · If I open Adobe Reader and open the link in "file/open" it works, (but this option is not optimal for the users) But if I click on the hyperlink in the browser (IE 8, X86 version), which then opens the Adobe reader program, (not displayed in browser (which don't work either)), it don't recognize it as a sharepoint file.


More than 2.4 million customers pass through the tills of the nation's busiest McDonalds... so the Senso floor needed to withstand this high traffic environment.
The site is located airside at Schiphol, requiring a lot of flexibility in the organization. For example, all employees are screened by Schiphol and background checks are made. Working airside requires more time and attention than most other projects.
The interior design for McDonald's Europe is closely monitored and controlled, with colour and material selection being paramount. The normal specification for the corporate tile could not be used, because of the very lively mezzanine deck which would cause tiles to debond.
Senso managed to deliver the perfect solution by matching the colours, installing a seamless Toughwear floor and then cutting and sealing to create the tile gridlines. A seamless 'tiled' floor.
Given the large number of visitors and exceedingly high turnover, speed of delivery was crucial. Our teams worked in shifts so that the shop was fully renovated in six days - with new floors that included stainless steel lines as specified in the McDonald's Corporate Identity.
The selection of our floor was made because of its reliability and longevity. Our recommendation was the implementation of the Senso HospitalityCR system combined with Tough Wear technology. This combination of simultaneously rigid and flexible substrate and the hard top layers provides extremely long life and low whole life cost. Ideal for stores and restaurants.


For many small business owners, outsourcing payroll services and tax duties has become something of necessity. Although these payroll processing services play a vital role, many small business owners in the Denver Colorado area start to feel uneasy when they have to think about it. Many small business owners who would rather outsource these duties because it merges the necessary tools and internal support needed for payroll processing to be done while allotting the additional workloads to be outsourced as well. Colorado Payroll Services can provide small businesses with all-inclusive services in the areas of payroll services and human resource administration. By offering small business owners a comprehensive way to maintain their employee payroll, the employer can be guaranteed that each employee will receive the correct pay and receive their paycheck in a timely fashion. Many seasoned business owners understand that delays and errors can cost them productivity, employee assurance, and most of all penalties.
Outsourcing your payroll services and any HR administration needs of your company will help to alleviate the additional stress that many employers are faced with in running their businesses. Finding a reliable payroll outsourcing company is key and the payroll service company should also be able to implement the correct system that will work for your individual business needs.
Another key component is tracking employee time with accuracy, as it will protect a business from considerable regulatory exposure and will significantly reduce labor costs by eliminating errors and the over reporting of time worked. Some small business owners may seek a simplified system (web-based or software) that can easily be deployed and can closely monitor employee activity. Other business owners may seek a more sophisticated web-based time system that can provide time off management, scheduling, automatic tracking of shift differentials, multi-state labor law profiles, employee self-service portals and even mobile applications to track time & labor distribution in the field. Time & Labor Hardware options can consist of clocks that allow employees swiping an access card or badge, to use a thumbprint or hand for verification, or even logging into a personal computer or commonly used workstation "kiosk style". Automating time & labor data collection will provide a business many benefits such as a more efficient payroll services process, reduced effort for your payroll staff, and the creation of far more legitimate time tracking process that will help a business get closer to being truly "audit proof" if the DOL shows up at your door.
In a world of significantly intricate work legislation, a Professional Employer Organization (PEO) provides important knowledge in human resource monitoring as well as presumes some threats and duties on behalf of its client business.
You, the business owner, keep workplace management and also managerial control of your employees. You still decide who to employ and who will be discharged. You still choose the establishment and implementing of a pay scale. The PEO becomes the "employer of record" as well as "back office support business" and deals with some aspects of payroll, safety, risk administration, and also assists with Human Resources (HR) management. They manage as much or little as you desire and usually have specialists on staff that cover whatever impacts the life process of an employee. From background checks to wage studies to handbooks to compliance to run the risk of administration to terminating a staff member. The option is yours.
They likewise offer or have accessibility to benefit solutions and a host of other solutions and choices at reduced expense that make them a great choice for businesses seeking to get to a few of the exact same offerings that Fortune 500 firms have accessibility to. Not just do they use a lot more, they typically handle all the management of these things.
Exactly what does this mean for you business owner? Even more assistance, even more solutions, more things in order to help you recruit or keep your employees AND ALSO more time to concentrate on what you do best … run your company!
Just like larger corporations, many small businesses offer a form or retirement planning. Most business owners and their employees probably see their retirement as a time when they can stop or reduce working and take the time to do the things they've always dreamed about such as spending more time with their kids and their families, traveling, relocating to a warmer climate, and so on. Employees understandably want to safeguard their retirement savings that will act as their future financial cushion, however few actually know how make that happen on their own. Nowadays there are so many investment options available, it is practically impossible to attain one's financial goals without some type of guidance. Colorado companies and their employees deserve a retirement strategy that involves personalized, ongoing, face to face retirement advising to help provide the peace of mind with knowing their financial future is secured.
If you analyze the most profitable and successful companies in any business sector, you will probably find that they have put in place effective strategies to maximize ROI for their largest capital investment – their employees. Starting with the recruitment process to keeping the employee informed once they become part of the organization, these are key elements that will aid in building a solid foundation. Employers need to keep their employees well-informed of updated policy changes, new criterion and changes in benefits as this will allow all employees not to be misinformed regarding vital information which they need, and in turn this reflects positive employee and employer relationships. When businesses are able to turn these duties over to another source, they can then focus more attention on growth and success. For those businesses seeking these types of payroll solutions, Colorado Payroll Services can meet and exceed all of your business needs.
Contact us today for a free estimate and proposal for all your Denver Payroll Services needs.


As the internet provides with endless opportunities of flourishing, it also bring various hazards with it. In the era of 1980, the main security risks were the computer viruses passed around through the floppy disks. However, in the current era, many things have come into the picture like social engineering, phishing, bot nets and thereby, advanced persistent threats. All over the web world, there is a strong evidence of the number of cyber crimes and till date, this remains a serious issue. Even though the web hosting companies are trying their best to counter these cyber crimes, it is important for every website owner to take the necessary steps for safeguarding their websites before it's too late.
On the consumer level, there are phishing websites out there to steal your credit card or online banking information by establishing themselves as a trusted brand. At a business level as well there are various threats in the cyber world.
The DDoS attacks have become a major concern for the website owners today. These attacks are launched by the 'bot nets' or through a collection of computers and servers that are compromised. It is a fact that alone any one of these machines can't do a lot of damage; however, if many machines try to attack a website with bogus requests, then in this case the only defense mechanism would be having more bandwidth than the attacker. As more companies move towards the cloud hosting platform, it becomes a challenge to the attackers as they have to employ thousands of machines for causing the desired damage.
There has also been a substantial increase in the criminals attacking the prominent and popular websites. Attacks are being posed on the advertising engines in order to get access to the information or for the sole purpose of disabling the websites for some political reason.
The first step towards solving the security issue starts from the basic stage; that is – development and design. If the developers do not take all the security issues into consideration, any hacker will get the opportunity to exploit the flaw for getting access to the confidential information present in the website. In order to fix this issue, it is important to ensure that all the scripts are well planned and tested, especially the ones that deal with private and confidential information.
Another very efficient measure is to use a Digital Certificate (Digital ID) from a trusted authority along with an SSL encryption. As a result of this, all the parties present in the online transaction are covered with a higher level of security. Another crucial aspect to be taken into consideration is updating the content management systems to the latest versions, as they can be vulnerable to hacking attacks without updates.
A wide range of hacks are caused as a result of bad passwords. If you just change the letters to the numbers, your information is still vulnerable to hacking attacks.
Preferably, a random password string created from 10 characters created from a-z, A-Z and 0-9 is very efficient and it is difficult to break it. You can also make the use of the online password generation tools that will create a complicated password for you; identification of a complicated password is difficult for the hackers. Also, make sure that you are changing all the important passwords on a regular basis, this is a simple thing however it is highly effective when it comes to safeguarding the website from the hackers.
Usually, to keep the business processes going the staff is allowed to access it from anywhere through a laptop or a browser and HTTPS is used as the security measure. Even the business administration networks are used through the public internet through HTTPS and people consider this as a highly trusted platform. In order to ensure the best security over the business network, it is important to consider a VPN or a cloud framework. Access to the business network should not be allowed from any laptop, it must be a company machine. Moreover, the browser must be password protected.
There should be strict procedures in place for revoking the user access right away. In case of a lost laptop or user password, the management must be in the position to change the user's access credentials right away. Furthermore, any laptop that is utilized for accessing the company data should have an encrypted hard drive.
Therefore, even in the event of loss of a laptop, only the hardware is lost and no one will be able to retrieve any data from it. It is also important to implement password screen locks for enhanced security. All the employees connected to the business network, should be given a randomly generated passwords that are stored in the database, rather than allowing them to select their own passwords.
As the cyber crimes increase, the web hosting companies have started implementing effective measures to safeguard the business data and protect the website from getting compromised. Your selection of the web host is a big step towards ensuring the smooth functioning of the business website. Also, the companies should not aim at creating and managing their own data centers; preferably select the best web hosting company and let it take the charge of performing all the necessary actions of safeguarding your website from the various cyber hazards. A good web hosting company will provide with an efficient firewall technology that will detect the attacking IPs.
A few timely measures from your side will ensure that your business and data is covered and is not vulnerable to hacking attacks. Taking time to get things in place is surely going to help you in the long run.


text:
Die London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR, üblicherweise als the Brighton line bekannt) war eine britische Eisenbahngesellschaft, die von 1846 bis 1922 existierte. Ihr Territorium bildete ungefähr ein Dreieck mit London an der Spitze und fast der gesamten Küste von Sussex als Basis. Es wurde im Westen durch die Strecken der London and South Western Railway (LSWR) begrenzt, im Osten durch die South Eastern and Chatham Railway (SE&CR). Die LB&SCR bot die direktesten Verbindungen zu den Seebädern der Südküste an, wie z. B. Brighton, Eastbourne und Worthing. In den südlichen Vororten von London existierte ein komplexes Netz von Vorortslinien.

Geschichte
Die ersten Strecken der LB&SCR wurden zuerst von zwei verschiedenen Gesellschaften betrieben:
 Die 1835 gegründete London and Croydon Railway (L&CR) baute eine Strecke von London Bridge nach West Croydon, die am 15. Juni 1839 eröffnet wurde.
 Die London and Brighton Railway (L&BR) wurde 1837 gegründet und in abschnittsweise eröffnet: Brighton – Shoreham-by-Sea am 12. Mai 1840, Norwood (gemeinsamer Bahnhof mit der L&CR) − Haywards Heath am 12. Juli 1841 und Haywards Heath − Brighton am 21. September 1841.

Beide Gesellschaften fusionierten am 27. Juli 1846. Die Hauptbahnhöfe der Gesellschaft in London waren Victoria und London Bridge. Mit dem Inkrafttreten des Railways Act 1921 wurde die LB&SCR am 1. Januar 1923 zusammen mit der LSWR und der SE&CR zur Southern Railway fusioniert. Manche Dampflokomotiven der LB&SCR sind noch heute auf Museumseisenbahnen in Betrieb.

Bei der Elektrifizierung gehörte die LB&SCR in Großbritannien zu den Pionieren. Bereits 1903 erhielt sie die Genehmigung, die Vorortsstrecken umzubauen. Obschon die Strecken der Midland Railway von Lancaster nach Morecambe und Heysham bereits zuvor umgestellt worden waren, ging die LB&SCR bei der Umstellung weitaus konsequenter vor und verfügte über ein weitaus größeres Netz an elektrifizierten Bahnstrecken als die Midland Railway. Beide Unternehmen entschieden sich für ein System mit Oberleitung und 6600 Volt Wechselstrom, der Hauptlieferant war die AEG aus Berlin. Das Oberleitungsnetz hielt sich jedoch nur wenige Jahre, da die London and South Western Railway ein System mit Stromschienen ausrüstete und ihr Netz weitaus größer war als jenes der LB&SCR. Nach der Fusion wurden die früheren LB&SCR-Strecken ebenfalls mit Stromschienen ausgestattet.

Siehe auch
 Liste von ehemaligen Eisenbahngesellschaften im Vereinigten Königreich

Weblinks

 LB&SCR-Fanseite (englisch)

Bahngesellschaft (England)
Gegründet 1846
Aufgelöst 1922
Southern Railway (Großbritannien)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Processed meats come with increased risk of heart disease, diabetes
Exploring a world within a world
Could the processing agents be the problem?
By Todd Datz Harvard School of Public Health
Date May 17, 2010 July 19, 2017
In a new study, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) have found that eating processed meat, such as bacon, sausage, or processed deli meats, led to a 42 percent higher risk of heart disease and a 19 percent higher risk of type 2 diabetes. In contrast, the researchers did not find any higher risk of heart disease or diabetes among individuals eating unprocessed red meat, such as from beef, pork, or lamb.
This work, which appears in today's online edition of the journal Circulation, is the first systematic review and meta-analysis of the worldwide evidence for how eating unprocessed red meat and processed meat relates to risk of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.
"Although most dietary guidelines recommend reducing meat consumption, prior individual studies have shown mixed results for relationships between meat consumption and cardiovascular diseases and diabetes," said Renata Micha, a research fellow in the Department of Epidemiology at HSPH and lead author of the study. "Most prior studies also did not separately consider the health effects of eating unprocessed red versus processed meats."
The researchers, led by Micha and HSPH colleagues Dariush Mozaffarian, assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology, and Sarah Wallace, junior research fellow in the Department of Epidemiology, systematically reviewed nearly 1,600 studies. Twenty relevant studies were identified, which included more than 1.2 million individuals from 10 countries on four continents (United States, Europe, Australia, and Asia).
The researchers defined unprocessed red meat as any unprocessed meat from beef, lamb, or pork, excluding poultry. Processed meat was defined as any meatpreserved by smoking, curing, or salting, or with the addition of chemical preservatives. Examples include bacon, salami, sausages, hot dogs, or processed deli or luncheon meats. Vegetable or seafood protein sources were not evaluated in these studies.
The results showed that, on average, each 50 gram (1.8 ounce) daily serving of processed meat (about one to two slices of deli meats or one hot dog) was associated with a 42 percent higher risk of developing heart disease and a 19 percent higher risk of developing diabetes. In contrast, eating unprocessed red meat was not associated with risk of developing heart disease or diabetes. Too few studies evaluated the relationship between eating meat and risk of stroke to enable the researchers to draw any conclusions.
"Although cause-and-effect cannot be proven by these types of long-term observational studies, all of these studies adjusted for other risk factors, which may have been different between people who were eating more versus less meats," said Mozaffarian. "Also, the lifestyle factors associated with eating unprocessed red meats and processed meats were similar, but only processed meats were linked to higher risk."
"When we looked at average nutrients in unprocessed red and processed meats eaten in the United States, we found that they contained similar average amounts of saturated fat and cholesterol. In contrast, processed meats contained, on average, four times more sodium and 50 percent more nitrate preservatives," said Micha. "This suggests that differences in salt and preservatives, rather than fats, might explain the higher risk of heart disease and diabetes seen with processed meats, but not with unprocessed red meats."
Dietary sodium (salt) is known to increase blood pressure, a strong risk factor for heart disease. In animal experiments, nitrate preservatives can promote atherosclerosis and reduce glucose tolerance, effects which could increase risk of heart disease and diabetes.
Given the differences in health risks seen with eating processed meats versus unprocessed red meats, these findings suggest that these types of meats should be studied separately in future research for health effects, including cancer, the authors said. For example, higher intake of total meat and processed meat has been associated with higher risk of colorectal cancer, but unprocessed red meat has not been separately evaluated. The authors also suggest that more research is needed into which factors (especially salt and other preservatives) in meats are most important for health effects.
Current efforts to update the United States government's Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which are often a reference for other countries around the world, make these findings particularly timely, the researchers say. They recommend that dietary and policy efforts should especially focus on reducing intake of processed meat.
"To lower risk of heart attacks and diabetes, people should consider which types of meats they are eating. Processed meats such as bacon, salami, sausages, hot dogs, and processed deli meats may be the most important to avoid," said Micha. "Based on our findings, eating one serving per week or less would be associated with relatively small risk."
Rebecca Compton '09 (from left), Alexandra Mushegian '10, Professor Anne Pringle, and Kristi Fenstermacher '08 study lichen on Harvard gravestones.