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Pushing the envelope for providing power with the Puxin biogas system on Palawan Island in the Philippines
These are children from the Pasay City slum in Manila, in the Philippines. Their future is uncertain. Their environment is fraught with dangers. Disease vectors from toilet and organic wastes (rotting food scraps from kitchens and cafeterias and restaurants and markets) and indoor smoke from the burning of firewood and charcoal (for those who can afford it) and garbage (for those who can't) cause disability, suffering and mortality. Most of the families here live without electricity; a few risk the dangers, both social and physical, of illegally tapping into city power lines just so they can have some light at night to read by.
This is the American Airlines gate at Chicago's O'Hare airport, one of the busiest hubs in the world for national and international travel and commerce. Here Emerson Electronics' Insinkerator Corporation is using its market leverage and long experience in the technical engineering and marketing of food-waste grinders to inform the public that we can "grind virtually any kind of food waste into an unending source of electrical power for a city." The campaign challenges our spirit of innovation and the breadth of our collective vision as a society by boldly stating on one column "It's never been done before..." and then on the next column "Consider it solved!".
How can we relate these two images...?
Solar CITIES e.V. and Chance for Growth e.V. , two German non-profit organizations based in Essen, Germany, made a joint trip in March of this year, funded by Novartis Pharmaceuticals, with an Insinkerator donated by Emerson Electronics, to the Philippines to see how we can connect the "Insinkerator-based biogas" initiative that Dr. T.H. Culhane and Dr. Sybille Culhane have been building over the past three years through their work with the National Geographic Society and the Blackstone Ranch Foundation with the medical mission that Dr. Sven Volkmuth Jacynthe Omglin Hakan Celebi Eveline Hau Dr. Christian Kories Dr. Sabine List and Shervin Setareh have been conducting in Manila, Isla Verde and Palawan Island with the Alouette Foundation over the past four years.
The goal was to create what may be one of the world's first "Medical Biogas Missions", bringing together Medical Doctors and Urban Planners and Development Professionals and Social Welfare Specialists and Engineers, all willing to go far beyond conventional borders, both geographically and philosophically, to see how we can use what we now know about the worlds of people, animals, plants and microbes to combat disease, pollution and poverty through "probiotic" rather than "antibiotic" bacteria-based solutions.
The journey started in this shanty town region of Pasay City where Alouette's founder, Bernard Pierquin, lived for many years, studying the problems facing the urban poor, and where he established the Alouette headquarters. Culhane, no stranger to living in and studying slums, stayed at the foundation building for a week while meeting with government officials and local stakeholders, visiting the offices of Social Welfare, Finance and Customs, and arguing the case for food-waste-based energy and health improvement solutions.
Culhane also conducted meetings at the infamous garbage dump at Payatas Hills in Quezon City northeast of Manila, where 80,000 people eke out a living recycling trash around one of the world's largest landfills in a fashion similar to the Zabaleen people of Cairo, whom Culhane worked and lived among while getting his Ph.D. in Urban Planning, and with whom the Culhane's formed Solar CITIES.
Culhane discovered that that there was a "Biogas Emission Reduction Project" being conducted with international donor support at the landfill. Essentially what is occurring is that carbon credits are being given to the sanitary landfill facility and money has now been invested in equipment to turn the methane that the landfill generates into carbon dioxide. The first investment was in flaring equipment so that most of the methane is simply burned on-site as it is generated. The second investment was in a biogas-burning electrical generation system, enabling about 20 to 30% of the methane emissions to be transformed during the burn into electricity used by the facility itself. "The biogas plant, commissioned [in 2008,] now produces some 100KW of electricity for internal plant operations and perimeter lights of the facility" states the Philippino government website.
Organizational leaders at the site showed Culhane encouraging plans to expand that generation capacity to as much as 50 MW in phase three, providing electricity to many of the surrounding residents.
All of this is good in its way, and it was wonderful to see Garbage trucks with signs on them saying "no source separation, no collection!", encouraging Manila's citizens to use separate bins for organic and inorganic waste and be aware of what they are putting in them. In this way the Filipino municipalities are tackling the solid waste management problem properly and aggressively.
What was missing, from our perspective, was a recognition of the greater efficiencies that can be achieved by following the lead of municipalities in Stockholm, Sweden, the UK, Australia and parts of the U.S. where it has been shown that by grinding food waste at source through devices like the Insinkerator and other kitchen-sink-based "disposals", the problem of smelly organic waste accumulating in communities is completely eliminated, fewer fossil-fuel burning, carbon emitting, noisy and expensive garbage trucks are needed and the energy balance in producing electricity through biogas can be radically improved. Sewage systems already exist and water carriage of food waste to water treatment plants costs next to nothing given that much is gravity fed and the pumping energy is almost the same regardless of what is in the waste water. The mix of food waste and toilet waste in the pipes and water treatment plant improves the quality and rate of the anaerobic and aerobic phases of digestion and the caloric quantity of the water entering the plant, which was rather energy poor when it was just fecal material and soaps, is radically improved so that it makes much more economic sense to capture methane and generate electricity at the water treatment plant than the landfill.
Be that as it may, we have to applaud the Payatas dumpsite for embarking on a biogas-as-renewable-energy path.
If there was one thing that we found disturbing, it was that, when visiting a family living next to the dumpsite who are pioneering the now-famous "water bottle solar light" in their shanty, we learned that the "trash recyclers" in the community used to make their own biogas at home the way we have been teaching people to do since visiting ARTI India in Pune, creating do-it-yourself biodigestors from recycled water tanks, but that they were "shut down" by the municipality and the development agencies, being told it was "too dangerous." Now forbidden to make their own fuel from their garbage, they are forced to deliver all of the organic waste they recycle to the landfill. They are told that one day they will be able to buy lower cost electricity made from the landfill gas, but for now these desperately poor people must purchase gas bottles to cook on. From our perspective and experience, home-made biogas is not only cheaper and more reliable than bottled gas, but much safer since it is under low pressure and is produced in controllable volumes. The development agencies don't feel the same way, however, so we hope we can continue the dialog with them and the social welfare agency in the future so that the garbage pickers can return to their former practice of biogas innovation and slum dwellers in places like Pasay City can also join the ranks of all of us around sharing our home-scale decentralized solutions for self-provisioning.
Since we were unable on this trip to convince authorities to let us do home scale biogas in the city, we flew to the island of Palawan to another of the Alouette Foundation sites, a school in the tranquil, verdant and beautiful rainforest region where abused girls from the shanty towns are given a chance to get an education and relief from urban violence. The girls go from living along a river like this:
To a river like this:
Palawan Island, of course, is world famous as having been one of "National Geographic's Top 20 Destinations in the world for 2011" and is a magnet for tourists wishing to dive spectacular coral reefs, explore incredible caves and trek or zip-line through majestic tropical rainforests.
Palawan draws tourists from all over the world, but we didn't have time to do these spectacular recreations... our "medical biogas mission" was our focus on this trip, and instead of diving into the crystal clear waters, we were diving into 2 meter deep hole we helped dig in front of the kitchen at the girl's school.
Armed with 35 40 kilogram bags of cement Dr. Kories (left below) and Dr. Volkmuth (right below) and I began construction of a Puxin 10m3 biodigestor, using molds that we imported from China.
We had the molds shipped along with a fiberglass family sized (2m3) digestor and biogas stoves, rice cookers, lamps and solar pumps) in a large shipping container that we had to get from China to Manila, then from Manila to Palawan harbor and then from the harbor to the village an hour into the interior of the island. The cost of the two Puxin systems and the appliances was about $8500 including the shipping from China ($5500 for the 10m3 system molds, $1000 for the family size prefab digestor and about $2000 for shipping). But it cost an additional $2500 (and a week of negotiation) to get everything out of customs in Manila and get it shipped and trucked to the girls school.
Word to the wise -- you need an import permit from a local non-profit to even be able to send anything to the country and then you need to spend a week getting tax exemption before you even start the shipping if you want to get the goods in duty free. We ended up having to pay a mere 1% industrial import duty on most of the items, and that is okay (they were going to levy 15% on what they considered "domestic" goods like the biogas cookstoves and food grinders and lamps until I discovered a law that says that "if the highest value base item is taxed at 1% as an industrial or agricultural good then smaller parts that are part of the same system get taxed at the same rate), but the paper work and internal shipping still cost us thousands. For small non-profits like ours this is a giant "Ouch!"
In any event, here is what we brought in to the island of Palawan -- a full set of Puxin molds and gas holders for the 10m3 system, a 2m3 family sized system and the relevant appliances.
In the above photograph, all the metal and fiberglass parts for the 10m3 system are displyed on the lawn in front of the school. The system comes with plates so that you can either build your biodigestor above the ground or below the ground. When you build above the ground you set up two sets of plates and pour cement between them. When you build underground you can let the walls of the hole you dig serve the same function as the outer mold plates you would use above ground to hold the cement; this means you can dig a smaller diameter hole.
In the above photograph we demonstrate that it is valuable to set up your plates like a jigsaw puzzle before you get to building so that you can make sure you have all the parts and so you can label them for quick assembly and disassembly. The beauty of the Puxin system is that once the cement dries in a couple of days (as little as 48 hours) you can remove the plates and use them to build another system immediately.
Above, Dr. Sven Volkmuth from Chance for Growth gets familiar with the molds which he now uses as part of his medical missions to eliminate the root causes of diseases like cholera, typhoid, dysentary and indoor smoke that plague his patients who hadn't previously had ways of dealing with the bad effects of organic and toilet waste caused infirmities and the fire and burn hazards and pollution and deforestation that come from wood and charcoal based fuels.
The Puxin system plates go together in just a couple of hours (most of the difficulty in building a biogas system now that we have the Puxin is simply the amount of time and labor it takes to dig the hole! The rest is simple). The only tools needed to assemble the plates with the supplied metal hooks are some hammers and a crowbar in addition to a supplied steel rod.
Assembling the frame of the fiberglass gas holder is simple. The gas holder is the only part you need to order from Puxin once you have the molds; everything else can be obtained locally. We purchased six 1 cubic meter gas holders, one of which goes on the top of the digestor itself and the others which can be used as extra gas storage chambers for the system so that we can store enough for continuous electricity generation.
We painted the metal plate molds with grease to make it easy to remove them once the cement cured.
And then jumped in the hole to start assembling.
Within a short while we had the main chamber of the digestor ready for cement pouring.
Although Puxin told us that they have constructed thousands of systems without needing any rebar reinforcement, the local masons were concerned about shifting soils and earthquakes in their region and felt it was worth the extra time to put rebar in before pouring the concrete.
Before pouring cement on top of the "cow stomach" we placed 100mm sewer pipe sections where we wanted the feeding and effluent holes to go. We placed the feeding hole near the kitchen and the effluent hole facing the garden so we can direct the resultant fertilizer there. Every time the kids feed the digestor an equal amount of high quality fertiizer automatically goes to their garden to produce nutritious food.
Before we finished assembling the neck/gas holder molds, we started building a wall out of concrete block inside the digestor. This addition is not in the Puxin plans but it is a Solar CITIES innovation, borne out of the idea that biogas bacteria are most efficient when they form biofilms and don't work very well floating in the tank. We want to radically increase the surface area available to the bacteria and at the same time ensure that the methane bubbles are not impeded. Vertical walls work well for this and the holes inside the concrete blocks give not only additional surface area but refuge to bacteria protected from temperature and acidity fluctuations. Meanwhile, the vertical surface enables bacteria to live in all temperature regions of the tank; since the bottom of all water tanks is the coldest area and that is where the sludge granules form, most biogas tanks don't work very efficiently. We want the bacteria to be able to live in the warmest regions of the tank toward the top) without having to do much or any mixing.
With the neck assembled it was a simple matter to finish pouring the cement and then place the gas holder inside after removing the plates 24 hours later (the stomach plates need to wait 48 hours before removal).
The finished 10m3 Puxin digestor in operation, with the gas collector painted by the schoolgirls. The digestor itself is underground and the grass has been replanted over it. Only the feed inlet (left) and the slurry outlet (right) as well as the neck of the gas holder can be seen above ground. In other installations one can dig deeper and bury the whole unit. We chose to put the neck above ground because we hit a lot of rocks below 2 meters.
There was, however, a problem with the installation -- after we left the school builders didn't quite understand the hydraulic pressure concept of the Puxin system and made the feeding inlet and fertilizer outlet to low relative to the height of the gas holder neck of the system. Because of this there was insufficient pressure to push the gas out of the fiberglass dome gas holder. Culhane created this animated gif in GIMP to show what the finished digester should have looked like.
The picture above shows how it should appear now. With the gray feeding inlet raised and the blue fertilizer outlet raised, both to the same height as the gas holder neck, the water will reach the top of all three areas when the gas holder is filled with 1m3 of gas and that pressure will push the gas out to the kitchen.
The Puxin Manual "Puxin Proposal for Household Digesters", which you can find in our facebook group "Solar CITIES Biogas Innoventors and Practitioners" gives the following information:
The working principle of storage tank is performed by the pressure, produced by water inside of tank.
The pressure is caused by the distance between water level of gasholder and water level of concrete tank
The pressure change when storage biogas or using biogas:
1. Change of water level when storaging biogas:
The water level of concrete storage tank is increasing; the water level of gasholder is decreasing at the same time.
2. Change of water level when using biogas:
The water level of storage tank is decreasing; the water level of gasholder is increasing at the same time
The most important point when using the storage system at the first time, is to
push the air in the gasholder out, before storage biogas, in order to avoid the biogas inside of gas holder to explode because of mixing with air and not to burn because of low concentration
The way:
Removing the gas pipe which connects the gasholder, and then feeding water in the storage tank until above the gasholder, showing:
Meanwhile, we had the family size 2.5m3 digestor to set up:
This was a no-brainer because all it involved was having a couple of us carry it and set it in place and then fill it with a couple hundred Kgs of manure. The hardest part was building a place for the PVC balloon gas holder to be protected from getting stepped on by dogs and keep it out of the sun. And that wasn't hard at all thanks to the presence of some orchid mounts.
The finished family system looked like this, with the gray hose carrying the fertilizer to the banana trees. The system came with a sulfur removal cartridge and we made our own water condensation trap out of a discarded soda bottle and a T.
The Puxin system also came with a gas lamp -- a typical pressure kerosene camping lamp (the kind that use a gauze mantel) with a battery electric starter, so that we don't need to use electricity to light the kitchen.
We also brought an Insinkerator Food waste grinder (now lovingly known as a "feedstock preparation device" or "compost companion") to make the "mouth, teeth and jaws of our artificial sacred cow" digestor. We demonstrated that the Insinkerator is so easy to install that "even a monkey could do it! (er... providing it was a genetically engineered monkey with an enlarged cerebral cortex... ! ... but certainly it is so easy that any human child could do it! This business of making biogas at home from food scraps ain't rocket science folks!)
This monkey was rescued by the girls at the Alouette foundation after its habitat had been disturbed. Much of the remaining rain forest is disappearing because the trees are cut for firewood or charcoal and primates and other wildlife are increasingly in danger of extinction just so that we humans can cook and bathe with hot water. Since biogas from food waste can entirely eliminate the need for firewood and charcoal, we wanted to introduce this monkey to the front end technology of its possible salvation. "Brother monkey" Culhane says, "this Insinkerator can help protect your species and the rain forest that you love so much. Won't you join us in turning food waste and monkey poop into biogas?" Not surprisingly the monkey was quite willing to donate everything it produced to the effort! The wacky video below shows the reaction of the monkey to all this ... (note: we were told that if the school hadn't rescued the monkey, it would have ended up on somebody's dinner plate. We tried to convey to the monkey how much better it is is to contribute poop and food scraps to the biogas than his own skin and bones!)
With the Insinkerator in place in the school kitchen (kindly donated by Emerson Electronics Insinkerator corporation to our Public Health and Education project) and the lamp and cook stove and rice cooker hooked up everything was ready for the kids to start generating their own cycle of food-waste-to fuel.
The children were taught how the food scraps they produce every day can be used to create their own biogas and biocompost.
In the video above we explain the health benefits of the Puxin family digestor to the Filipino child responsible for its care and maintenance.
The girls at the school generating more feedstock for their energy production system which works 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, come rain or shine!
The girls, having helped create their own renewable-energy and fertilizer producing system and now responsible for its care, feeding and maintenance, are exciting by the prospect of being scientists and engineers who can discover and implement solutions to their own environmental and economic and health challenges.
The teachers, parents, cooks and other staff, were also given professional development training in Insinkerator-based biogas.
And finally, Solar CITIES and Chance for Growth held the "First International Conference on Biogas Systems in Palawan", holding an event for the community, the social welfare division, and the press.
We discussed with everybody how much useful solar energy is embedded in the huge amounts of food waste we all generate, from banana peels to avocado pits to rotten tomatoes and how we can capture and make use of it...
We talked with women's groups about how kitchens and bathrooms are the new frontiers for environmental improvements and economic opportunity because they consume the most energy (1/3 of all human consumption) and water and produce the most wastes, and we talked about how the women of the world can lead the charge to save our environments because these domains traditionally belong to them.
We demonstrated how using a food waste grinder like the Insinkerator to increase surface area can radically improve the transformation rate of organic garbage into rich compost (with an insinkerator compost can be created in 3 to 6 days rather than 3 to 6 months!) ending soil depletion and soil infertility, and how the Insinkerator slurry in a biodigestor can be turned into liquid fertilizer in 24 hours.
The conference participants, now armed with their Puxin biogas system molds, can now replicate hundreds and hundreds of 10m3 community scaled digestors throughout the island for the mere cost of cement (about $300 to $400 worth per digestor), a gas holder and some plumbing supplies (about $250) and the labor to dig a hole and pour cement. This means that for as little as $750 each in capital costs (let us say $1000 including possible labor and transport), groups throughout the island of Palawan can now, from their 10m3 systems, provide up to 20 hours of cooking fuel (or 5 hours of electricity generation) every day... forever.
Meanwhile, Bernard and the small staff living next to the school, using the 2m3 family systems, can now cook all their meals on what just they produce from their kitchen garbage, showing that there is a biogas system appropriate for everyone at every scale.
And when you have your first biogas meal, and observe the clean, odor-free, smoke-free flame that God helped us create through the power of His first creations, those tiny invisible bacteria who are the alpha and the omega of this island earth, and think about the miracle of how you were able to cooperate with them symbiotically and take something that is often considered a terrible health hazard -- the organic waste that comes from your kitchen and bathroom and routinely contaminate our air, land and water, causing the untimely death and suffering of women and children the world over -- and turn it into life and health giving heat and energy and fertilizer, you might, like us, decide to join the world-wide mission to empower families and communities through biogas-based-development.
Posted by T.H. Culhane at 12:44 AM 7 comments:
Pushing the envelope for providing power with the ...


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Get Ready For A Walking Dead Movie To Hit The Big Screen, Showrunner Says It Will Happen
"The Walking Dead" is far from over, but could there be a big screen movie to wrap everything up when the end is nigh?
Probably, according to showrunner Scott Gimple.
"That question comes up every now and again," the executive producer told ComicBook.com this week. "I'm sure one way or another, one day, it'll happen. I think it would be cool."
But Gimple has high exceptions about getting some big names for the movie versions of the AMC zombie series characters. Sorry Andrew Lincoln and Norman Reedus.
"William Shatner as Rick. We'll get Edward James Olmos as Daryl. Hit all the big shows!" Gimple joked. "Matthew Fox as the Governor!"
The idea of the show eventually becoming a movie is not a new concept to the cast and crew. Lincoln, who plays lead character Rick, also previously expressed enthusiasm for the idea.
"That would be amazing," he told Inquirer.net in 2015. "It's something we've been talking about and dreamt of because it would be cool to see some snow. We were all going, just not to have to film in Atlanta where it gets to 100 degrees! What would be amazing is that you can play with form, time and chronology and maybe also rediscover characters who are no longer in the show. Certainly, with that format, you can do something very interesting and ambitious."
In the age of reboots, remakes, and sequels (see: Mad Max, King Kong, Westworld, etc.), popular properties are inevitably revisited. Sometimes, those properties are revisted after only a couple of years off, such as Spider-Man, who has been subjected to three different portrayals in less than 20 years.
The Walking Dead is hands down the biggest show on cable. Airing on Sunday nights, the show averages over 12 million viewers week after week. No, it isn't showing any signs of ending soon, with Season 8 already set for 2017 and a still-in-print comic book which has already laid the groundwork for what would be Season 11.
However, all good things come to an end eventually but clearly, an end in this day and age of entertainment is only temporary. Showrunner of The Walking Dead Scott Gimple believes as much will be the case for the hit AMC series, as he revealed when ComicBook.com asked whether or not the TV show could become a movie.
"That question comes up every now and again," Gimple said. "I'm sure one way or another, one day, it'll happen. I think it would be cool."
"William Shatner as Rick. We'll get Edward James Olmos as Daryl. Hit all the big shows!" Gimple joked about a potential reboot on the big screen. "Matthew Fox as the Governor!"
It will be quite some time before The Walking Dead would ever make its way to the big screen. The season low in ratings of 11.1 million viewers is still enough to keep it on top of cable and most certainly enough to garner more seasons. For perspective, The Walking Dead's sibling series Fear the Walking Dead earned a third season with only a third of the viewership. That said, the idea of having a ticket stub which says, "The Walking Dead" on it, has to be one which gets all fans of the zombie drama hyped.
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Blog | January 13, 2016
News release: New Partnership To Support Mental Health Of College Students Of Color (The Steve Fund, Jan 12, 2016)
The JED Foundation and the Steve Fund will collaborate to provide a framework of recommended practices for improving support for the mental health of students of color on college campuses.
NEW PARTNERSHIP TO SUPPORT MENTAL HEALTH OF COLLEGE STUDENTS OF COLOR
The JED Foundation and the Steve Fund will collaborate to provide a framework of recommended practices for improving support for the mental health of students of color on college campuses
NEW YORK, NY, January 12, 2016 — Today, The JED Foundation (JED) and the Steve Fund, two leading mental health organizations, announced a joint plan to provide colleges and universities with recommended practices for improving support for the mental health and emotional well-being of America's college students of color. The announcement is accompanied by the release of new data showing the urgency of improving mental health support for this population.
Click the info graphic above to download it full size.
Newly analyzed data from a 2015 national survey conducted by JED, Partnership for Drug Free Kids and The Jordan Porco Foundation reveals an unmet need in providing mental health support, education and programming that caters to the unique challenges faced by America's college students of color. Based on current research, evidence and expert input, JED and the Steve Fund will develop a comprehensive set of guidelines to enable college decision-makers, administrators, professionals, students and families to offer more effective support for the mental health and emotional well-being of students of color, and help them take action to reduce the shame, prejudice, secrecy and stigma surrounding mental health challenges, and prevent suicide among this student population.
"The partnership between the Steve Fund and The JED Foundation will allow us to make significant progress in addressing an alarming deficit in effective, culturally relevant and broadly-adopted mental health programming for students of color in our nation's colleges and universities," said Evan Rose, President of the Steve Fund. "Together, we will provide practical, actionable recommendations to stimulate dialogue and best practices that reduce stigma, build knowledge, and support assistance so that young people of color can thrive in higher education environments."
"We are excited to be collaborating with the Steve Fund to help school communities best support the well-being and mental health of students through specific actions and programs that are meaningful, relevant and effective," said John MacPhee, Executive Director, The JED Foundation.
New data show the discrepancies in the first year college experiences of students of color and their peers.
Caucasian students are more likely than African American and Hispanic students to say they feel more academically prepared than their peers during their first term of college (50% vs. 36% and 39%).
Caucasian students also are more likely than African American students to feel more emotionally prepared than their peers (35% vs. 23%).
African American students are more likely than Caucasian students to say that college is not living up to their expectations (57% vs. 46%).
African American and Hispanic students are more likely than Caucasian students to say that it seems like everyone has college figured out but them (52% and 49% vs. 41%).
African American students are more likely than Caucasian students to say they tend to keep their feelings about the difficulty of college to themselves (75% vs. 61%).
Over the coming months, the teams will be conducting new research, analyzing existing studies and programming, and working closely with college leaders and mental health practitioners with the goal of developing an integrated and comprehensive set of recommended practices to support the mental health needs of college students of color.
The Steve Fund and The JED Foundation have also co-produced an infographic illustrating the new data. It can be downloaded at http://settogo.org/the-research.
The survey was conducted online within the United States by Harris Poll between March 25 and April 17, 2015 among 1,502 students who met the following criteria: 17-20 years old, graduated from high school, currently attends a 2-year or 4-year college in the U.S., currently a first year student/freshman in their second term, and currently attending at least some of their college classes in-person. Data are weighted where necessary by age within gender, race/ethnicity, and region to bring them in line with their actual proportions in the population.
About The JED Foundation
The JED Foundation is a leading nonprofit working to protect the emotional health of teenagers and college students. Our programs are inspiring a new national dialogue on mental health, encouraging millions of young people to speak up and take action, and changing the way academic institutions create healthier campus communities and prevent substance abuse and self-harm. These programs include: The Campus Program, a groundbreaking self-assessment and feedback program that helps colleges create more comprehensive solutions to support their students; ULifeline, an online resource that helps students understand and address mental health conditions like depression and anxiety disorders; the Half of Us campaign, with MTV, which uses online and on-air programming to share stories and encourage help-seeking; the Love is Louder movement that helps individuals, communities and schools build resiliency, create connectedness and promote acceptance; Transition Year, an online resource for parents aimed at helping to ensure a smooth, healthy transition into college life; and a portfolio of resources that helps campuses promote emotional health and protect at-risk students. Learn more at www.jedfoundation.org. Follow us on social media: Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | LinkedIn
The Steve Fund is the nation's only philanthropic organization focused on promoting the mental health and emotional well-being of young people of color. It prioritizes students transitioning into college, those enrolled in college, and young people transitioning from college into emerging adulthood. The Steve Fund uses programs, research, thought leadership, strategic partnerships, technology innovations and communications to stimulate dialogue and best practices that reduce stigma, build knowledge, and support assistance to its target group of young people. Enhancing the effectiveness of higher education institutions around the emotional and mental health of students from diverse families and communities is critical to the mission of the Steve Fund. Visit https://www.stevefund.org/programs/ to view the JED and Steve Fund webinar series for college mental health and student services providers on a set of critical themes related to the mental health of college students of color. Learn more at https://www.stevefund.org. Follow us on social media: Facebook | Twitter
Marc Fest, (305) 604-9500
fest@atlanticpoint.com
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The Steve Fund is dedicated to the mental health and emotional well-being of students of color. Right at this moment, there are students of color who are failing academically, suffering emotionally and/OR in some cases are facing serious risk, because population-specific factors influencing mental health are too poorly understood and not acted upon. We are taking action. Learn more.
Text STEVE to 741741
Are you a young person of color? Feeling down, stressed or overwhelmed? Text STEVE to 741741 and a live, trained Crisis Counselor will receive the text and respond to you quickly to provide support. The volunteer Crisis Counselor will help you move from a hot moment to a cool moment.
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Wellness in Color & Reflections from Students
Wellness In Color: A Young, Gifted @Risk & Resilient Pre-Conference Gathering for Students Many students know how difficult it can be to navigate the social systems of college life, more »
CBC Emergency Taskforce on Black Youth Suicide and Mental Health Releases Final Report
Steve Fund announced as a 2019 Twilio.org Impact Grant Fund Recipient
We're thrilled to announce we've been chosen as a 2019 Twilio.org Impact Fund Grant Recipient by the team at Twilio. With their help, we'll be able curate more expansive and more »
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In the global market, where competition is high there is the need of direct and correct strategies, trying to cope with increasingly high demands on performance.
Strong customer focus, product quality and service provided get consolidated in the year 2001 with the achievement of the quality certification UNI EN ISO 9001.
The effort towards the safeguard of the environment has been recognized with the achievement in the 2002 of the UNI EN ISO 14001 certification.
The SAFETY of the operators and whomever gets in contact with our company and with our products it has always been our top priority: in the year 2005 we have obtained the OHSAS 18001 certification.
In the year 2006 the Certifications Authority awarded FIDEA with a certificate of EXCELLENCY, a recognition given only to those companies that have integrated with efficiency the three Management Systems.


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Volcano Theatre (Toronto) / Originally co-produced with Tarragon Theatre
JAN 07–19, 2020 | Historic Theatre
A surprising, funny, and revelatory new play about love, sex, and math. The cynical, skeptical daughter of a theoretical physicist and a composer, Sarah Jean's clinical approach to love meets with little success. In this absorbing drama infused with science and classical music, three exceptional minds collide like charged particles in an accelerator. Sarah Jean's hugely talented, yet severely dysfunctional, family will learn that love and time itself are connected in unimaginable ways. From award-winning playwright Hannah Moscovitch; featuring two of our country's most esteemed actors, Jonathon Young and Amy Rutherford; with original music by visionary composer Njo Kong Kie.
"The play makes you feel as much as it makes you think." —NOW Toronto
90 minutes, no intermission
Jan 7, 7:30PM: Preview
Jan 8, 7:30PM: Opening
Jan 9–11, 14–18, 7:30PM
Jan 11–12, 18–19, 2PM
Post-show Artist Talkback:


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DC to Re-Release STAN LEE's JUST IMAGINE Series
Home » COMICS HISTORY » DC to Re-Release STAN LEE's JUST IMAGINE Series
Posted By Dan Greenfield on Nov 1, 2019 | 6 comments
Featuring Dave Gibbons, Jerry Ordway, Jim Lee, Joe Kubert, John Buscema and Kevin Maguire…
When Stan Lee died in 2018, naturally the vast majority of the focus was on his co-creation of the Marvel Universe and his spectacular impact on global pop culture.
But a lot of fans overlooked the fact that Lee also dipped his mustache into the world of DC with a series of one-shots dubbed Just Imagine that had Stan the Man re-invent the biggest stars of the Distinguished Competition, along with some of the best artists in comics.
The stories, which launched in 2001, have been collected before but have been out of print for a number of years — and DC is bringing them back in March 2020 with Just Imagine Stan Lee Creating the DC Universe: Book One, according to a listing on Amazon.
Check out the official description, along with placeholder art:
JUST IMAGINE STAN LEE CREATING THE DC UNIVERSE: BOOK ONE
A new collection of the 2001 event in which Stan Lee reinvented DC's greatest heroes. Back in print following the comic book legend's passing in 2018.
Stan Lee, the writer who co-created Marvel's greatest super heroes, reimagines DC's greatest heroes.
Collects Just Imagine Stan Lee with Dave Gibbons Creating Green Lantern #1, Just Imagine Stan Lee with Jerry Ordway Creating JLA #1, Just Imagine Stan Lee with Jim Lee Creating Wonder Woman #1, Just Imagine Stan Lee with Joe Kubert Creating Batman #1, Just Imagine Stan Lee with John Buscema Creating Superman #1 and Just Imagine Stan Lee with Kevin Maguire Creating Flash #1.
A couple thoughts:
— A lot of fans believed that Just Imagine was little more than a publicity stunt, that Lee had little to do with the production of the stories. Well, Dave Gibbons can tell you just how much Lee had to do with the series: Click here for Gibbons' guest column on Lee that he wrote for 13th Dimension last year when the comics impresario died at 95.
— Caveat: The paperback, which lists for $34.99, has yet to be officially solicited by DC, so things can change. Either way, keep your eyes peeled.
— A VISIONARY: Comics Pros on STAN LEE and His Legacy. Click here.
— Dig DAVID MACK's Marvelous Tribute to STAN LEE. Click here.
matte41
Really? There's so much great stuff that DC refuses to reprint, but we get this? No thanks.
Paul Sondersted
Ok. So you're not a fan of Stan Lee. That's cool.
I am, so I hope this sells well.
I'm a big fan of Stan Lee; just not this stuff. There is tons of better material that DC should reprint before this.
Perhaps, but how many other titles can DC publish that would serve to honor Stan Lee?
Wayne Lippa
These were not Stan Lee's best stuff. I got them all when they came out, and I remember thinking that the dialogue was pretty terrible. Like matte41, I question why DC would reprint this lacklustre series yet again when they have so much other, better stuff in their past to reprint.
Whether or not one is of the opinion that this was Stan Lee's best or not is irrelevant.
As I imply above, DC apparently wished to honor Stan Lee's memory & this is all they have in their archives to do so.
I don't see it being a big seller, and I can't logically see that as a major motivating factor to publish this.
It's being made available for fans of Stan Lee & I don't see it "getting in the way" of publishing other things.


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AEW's Matt Hardy & Private Party Appear On IMPACT Wrestling
AEW Files To Trademark "Too Sweet"
Gabe Sapolsky Files Motion To Dismiss Candy Cartwright Lawsuit
Alberto El Patron's Trial To Begin Next Week
Mike Chioda On WWE's Mark Carano: "He's The S**ts"
10 Things We Learned From WWE Survivor Series 1998
Lists -
The Rock, Corporate Champion…
By Justin Henry
9 November, 2018 10:00 PM
The 1998 Survivor Series flies in the face of modern standards for what a good/great wrestling show is supposed to be. It's only got about two matches that would meet the loftier expectations of pay-per-view quality bouts, but of course - what does that matter when, story-wise, the show is about as complex and multi-layered as something off of Metallica's And Justice For All album? Though 1999 would mostly see WWE present shock value for the sake of it, 1998 saw finer tuning in the main event scene. Survivor Series 1998 sees some of that neater focus.
The 14-man tournament for the WWE Championship is beset with scheming and rigging from the corporate lever-pullers, with a sense of unpredictability hanging in the air. Give me that over two "great workers" that spend 23 minutes giving us the moves they always do, before spending the next 90 seconds giving us whatever finish needed to justify the samey rematch.
People who say that the Attitude Era isn't about the wrestling sometimes overlook genuinely great standalone matches, but Survivor Series 1998 exists to prop up their argument. It's the sort of story-driven madness with carefully-executed twists that gets all of us older fans feeling so damn rosy about yesteryear.
10. Breaking From Tradition
The 14-man tournament for the vacated WWE Championship was going to occupy all of the kingfish on the roster. Stone Cold, The Rock, The Undertaker, Kane, Mick Foley, and others were going to be far too busy to duke it out in those classic Survivor Series elimination bouts. But then again, *what* Survivor Series elimination bouts?
The only "eliminating" was going to come in the confines of the tournament, because 1998 would be the only Survivor Series without those anticipated battles among teams. Technically, 2002's show didn't have any "classic" elimination matches, but a three-on-three elimination table match fulfils the idea of a team elimination match, at least. The 1998 show did away with the idea of trios, quartets, and quintets duking it out in battles of attrition altogether.
9. Loaded Show
If WrestleMania IV taught us nothing else (aside from Bob Uecker being an absolute ace at being accosted by drunken fans), it's that putting a one-night, multi-round tournament on a pay-per-view means to expect a lot of matches, many of them at least somewhat abbreviated. The 1998 Survivor Series was assuming the same burden, along with a couple of non-tournament title bouts, and some pre-show skirmishes.
Counting a dark match, three Sunday Night Heat bouts, and the pay-per-view feast itself, the 1998 Survivor Series presented 18 matches that night in St. Louis. The dark match pitting Too Cool and The Hardy Boyz doesn't have a listed duration, but of the other 17 bouts, nine of them ran four minutes or less (including The Rock pinning Big Boss Man in an opening round match in three seconds).
8. The Game Continues On
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Contrary to the gritty rap-rock and nu-metal that was taking a stronger hold of professional wrestling's soundtrack at the time, the theme song for Survivor Series 1998 was something entirely different. A Jim Johnston-composed track called "Deadly Game" came equipped with soulful vocals, downbeat funk, and an uneasy sense of impending doom. It's rather unlike much of WWE's musical fare from over the years.
Weirdly enough, the song would be resurrected more than seven years later, for another WWE pay-per-view. The 2006 No Way Out pay-per-view was backed by a cover of the theme, performed by Canadian rock band Theory of a Deadman. Theory captured a bit of the original's bleakness, albeit in electric rock form, naturally. The band also did a cover of Vince McMahon's "No Chance in Hell" for the Volume 8 CD that, near I can tell, has never been heard otherwise.
7. The Streak Begins
It was quite a hoot seeing legendary prelim guy Duane Gill show up Mankind's pushover opponent in the opening round. Even funnier was Vince McMahon's sterling introduction for Gill, noting that he once jumped to WCW to seek competition "of his own caliber" (Ha!). The masterstroke was Gill's Titantron video, which showed the journeyman being laid out by the finishing moves of more successful wrestlers. It was absurd brilliance at its best.
This shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, but after so many years of being on WWE events in some capacity, this was Gill's first ever pay-per-view match. An appearance in the 1999 Royal Rumble would follow, neither showing lasting longer than taking a few puffs of nasal spray.
6. A Rough Patch
One of the more eclectic competitors in the tournament was Steven (not yet William) Regal, at the time absurdly costumed in flannel and a hard hat as the Real Man's Man. Regal had a serviceable match with X-Pac in the opening round, going to a double countout with the then-European Champion. Unfortunately for Regal, this WWE tenure would draw to a close shortly after.
Regal's past battles with addictions have been well documented, and only days after Survivor Series, Regal was sent home by the company, found to be in "no condition to perform," per Dave Meltzer. Regal checked into rehab in early 1999 to deal with an addiction to pain medication. He would find his way back to WWE in 2000, aided by a cleaner, healthier lifestyle, and an impressive performance against Chris Benoit at that year's Brian Pillman Memorial Show.
5. Hampered Hunter
The original brackets for the WWE Championship tournament listed Triple H as The Rock's first-round opponent. Helmsley had been sidelined with a knee injury since mid-September, and said injury necessitated him vacating the Intercontinental Championship. The injury looked to sideline him for some time, though WWE continued to advertise Helmsley up and into the pay-per-view.
As noted earlier, Rock would actually end up wrestling Big Boss Man in the first round, presented under the guise of a corporate power play. It's interesting that WWE continued to advertise Helmsley as being an active participant for the show, especially given the nature of his injury. He would, however, return to the ring a couple of weeks following the pay-per-view, so it's possible that the Boss Man match could've been a last minute idea, if WWE expecting Helmsley to be healthy in time for the show.
4. One For The Women
The other notable title change at the 1998 Survivor Series would see Sable defeat Jacqueline to become WWE Women's Champion. The belt had only been reinstated about two months earlier, won by Jacqueline over Sable in something of a half-assed top contender's match on Raw. With Sable, the division (if that's what you wanna call the 1998 version of it) had a true star on top, someone whose name could garner interest in PPV bouts.
The Sable/Jacqueline match marked the first defense of the WWE Women's title on a pay-per-view since Alundra Blayze lost the gold to Bertha Faye at SummerSlam 1995. Blayze regained the belt two months later on an episode of Raw, and would hold onto the belt before her firing later in 1995. Then she went onto Nitro and...well, you know.
3. Mick's Faulty Memory
Just as the WrestleMania IV tournament final pitted two men who had never before held a World title, so too did the Deadly Games final match, as The Rock and Mankind would square off for the vacant WWE Championship. An entire DVD could be made of the best matches and moments involving Dwayne Johnson and Mick Foley's shared exploits, and this match would definitely be among them. But it wasn't looking good early on.
According to Foley, partially due to exhaustion from his prior matches, he had drawn a complete blank the moment he and Rock locked up. Unable to remember any ordained ideas, or simply where to go from that first collar-and-elbow, the two had to resort to an early resthold, where they could discreetly figure out some upcoming spots.
2. High Comedy
In the early days of the Attitude Era, WWE would run post-PPV shows on the Home Shopping Network, odd as that may sound. The idea was that wrestlers would cut post-event promos referencing their night's involvement, while also hawking their merchandise to potential customers. It's actually a pretty clever concept, and it did give us a rather funny moment after Survivor Series 1998.
The New Age Outlaws were being interviewed by Michael Hayes and they, well, were kind of on another planet in their behaviour and antics. They made some disparaging remarks about The Rock, who would alter respond in kind. After dressing Billy Gunn down as a perpetual failure, Rock began to insinuate about Road Dogg's "recreational" hobbies, before wisely cutting himself off and pressing onward. If nothing else, he may have explained why the Outlaws were a little silly in their earlier gabfest.
1. Money To Survive
WWE's 1998 seemed to be graced with the Midas touch to end all golden streaks, as ratings were through the roof, and pay-per-views did bigger business than ever. SummerSlam set an all-time buyrate record for events bearing the name, and WrestleMania XIV almost did as well. Survivor Series would join SummerSlam in setting a mark that no event of its chronology has equalled before or since.
The 1998 Survivor Series would rake in the big bucks with 478,000 pay-per-view buys, which is, as noted, the most for any Survivor Series in history. It was only the second Survivor Series to reach the 400,000 buy mark, after the 1990 event hit that number, approximately. People just couldn't get enough of WWE in that glorious year, and the metrics all reflect that max interest.
WWE Reportedly Made Offers To "At Least Three" Top Japanese Stars
10 Ways The Women's Revolution Has Improved WWE
Written by Justin Henry
In addition to writing lists and commentaries for Cultaholic, Justin is also a features writer and interviewer for Fighting Spirit Magazine, and is co-author of the WWE-related book Titan Screwed: Lost Smiles, Stunners, and Screwjobs.
Jon Moxley Talks About Winning The AEW World Championship At Revolution
NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion Nick Aldis Reveals Why He Hasn't Signed With AEW
Matt Hardy Elects Not To Re-Sign With WWE; Announces That He's A Free Agent
NWA Star Nick Aldis Wants The "Fetishizing" Of Japanese Wrestling To End
WWE Acknowledges "Ongoing Discussions" Regarding Coronavirus And WrestleMania 36
Nick Aldis Reveals He's Writing A Memoir Chronicling The Rejuvenation Of The NWA


According to the World Economic Forum's Global Shaper Survey, which polled over 1,600 people between the ages of 18 and 35, 58 percent of youth in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) expect to experience significant changes to their working and daily lives as a result of technological change brought on by the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Fifty-two percent believe that studying and learning will also be affected by it.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution is described as a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, and impacting all disciplines, economies and industries. The movement has been characterized as the "second machine age", in terms of the effects of digitization and artificial intelligence (AI) on the global economy, following the Third Industrial Revolution that took off during the 1980s, when the internet and personal computers emerged.
Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, is convinced that we are at the beginning of the revolution that is fundamentally changing the way we live, work and relate to one another, which he explores in his book, The Fourth Industrial Revolution. Schwab sees as part of this revolution "emerging technology breakthroughs" in fields such as AI, robotics, IoT, autonomous vehicles, quantum computing and nanotechnology.
In his book, Schwab explains how previous industrial revolutions liberated humankind from animal power, made mass production possible and brought digital capabilities to billions of people. This Fourth Industrial Revolution is, however, fundamentally different, he says, as it's characterized by new technologies that are causing disruption and merging sectors.
The resulting shifts and disruptions mean that we live in a time of great promise and great peril, Schwab explains. The world has the potential to connect billions of people to digital networks, dramatically improve the efficiency of organizations, and even manage assets in ways that can help regenerate the natural environment, potentially undoing the damage of previous industrial revolutions.
As attitudes about technological innovation continue to shift in the MENA region, so too are attitudes towards living in a future alongside robots. The World Economic Forum survey found that 23% of respondents either agree or strongly agree that they would trust a decision made by a robot on their behalf. The study also found that 21% of respondents would be willing to have an implant inserted under their skin or in their brain to increase their capabilities.
The survey questions were said to be inspired by topics of discussions and workshops from the Annual Meeting of the Global Future Councils that took place in November 2017 in Dubai, UAE. Council members reportedly grappled with challenges such as redesigning labor markets that support inclusive societies in an age where intelligent machines are increasingly present in the workplace.
The UAE has openly embraced the Fourth Industrial Revolution, announcing in January 2018 plans to open a Fourth Industrial Revolution Center in the country. The new center will be an expansion of the World Economic Forum's first San Francisco-based center erected in March 2017. Projects at the center cover multiple areas of technological innovation, including autonomous mobility, AI, blockchain, drones, precision medicine and IoT.
In cooperation with host governments and key companies, affiliate centers also being established in Japan and India will build on the work underway in San Francisco to close the gap between emerging technology and policy, the World Economic Forum said in a statement. The centers are poised to bring together business leaders, governments, start-ups, civil society, academia and international organizations.
The UAE's Mohammad Abdullah Al Gergawi, Minister of Cabinet Affairs and the Future, and Klaus Schwab, were present at the signing at the 2018 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) whereby the UAE will establish a center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) is the first UAE government utility to join the Fourth Industrial Revolution Center in San Francisco, the organization announced in March this year. DEWA is the first utility in the Middle East and North Africa to establish an investment in the center, alongside the likes of Microsoft, SAP and ABB.
"At DEWA, we work in line with the vision and directives of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice president and prime minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to anticipate the future and innovate and use state-of-the-art technologies to achieve the best results," said H.E. Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, managing director and CEO of DEWA.
"The areas that we will be involved in include artificial intelligence, internet of things, blockchain technologies, autonomous mobility and drones," he said. "We will also participate in the development of international policies and criteria related to Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies. This supports our vision to become a sustainable innovative world-class utility," added Al Tayer.
The UAE's largest telecommunications provider, Etisalat, has also come on board supporting the Fourth Industrial Revolution, earlier this year touting its pre-commercial fifth generation (5G) telecommunications network that has been deployed in certain locations within UAE including Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
This initial deployment of an advanced 5G system will be a major enabler for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the company said, and will create new business opportunities for Etisalat partners in the UAE including Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), autonomous cars, smart health and education, among others.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has also embraced the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which is expected to add over $266 billion to the Saudi economy, with $240 billion coming from indirect wholesale, retail and manufacturing contributions, according to analysis by global consultancy A.T. Kearney. The Kingdom is focused on how to benefit from advances in technology to diversify and strengthen its economy away from oil dependence.
Saudi Arabia has been investing heavily in a number of sectors to diversify its economy away from oil dependence, but technology is of utter importance, says Mauricio Zuazua, partner at A.T. Kearney. In fact, the Kingdom saw spending on telecommunications and information technology services in 2017 reach more than $36 billion, according to the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) in Saudi Arabia.
The telecommunications and information technology services sector contributed around 6 percent to Saudi Arabia's gross domestic product (GDP) and 10 percent of its non-oil GDP, with significant investments from both the private and public sectors, said an Arabic statement by the Communications and Information Technology Commission sent to Reuters.
Social media site Facebook and online retail giant Amazon have both expressed interest in entering the Saudi market, as well as other international companies looking to invest in cloud computing, Abdul Asis-Ruwais, governor of the CITC said in the statement. The Kingdom's $45 billion technology investment fund with Japan's SoftBank will also generate more revenue for the sector, exploring how robotics can be used to benefit society.
The Middle East's more advanced economies appear to be surging ahead with plans to utilize technology and welcome the Fourth Industrial Revolution with open arms. But Schwab has warned that the movement won't come without its challenges. Governments could fail to employ and regulate new technologies to capture their benefits, he explains in his book, and inequality may grow as societies fragment.


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Q: Once-off run a program with command line options from shortcut Is there any program that will let me run a shortcut, but add additional arguments to the command line? Ideally, I would like this as an option in the right click menu.

A: Open++ Can do that with hard links, but I haven't been able to get it working with short cuts.
You can right-click, choose "Run with parameters" and manually add your parameters, or you can customize your own entry with its own name, and its own parameters.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Beatrice Lacey Artist
Beatrice Lacey is a digital artist and painter; whose work addresses the use of photography and film which are also perfect mediums for investigating aspects of time and place experience. Depicting movement creates an archive of thoughts about the body and the space it occupies.
Past exhibitions include:
Beatrice Lacey is an English painter and printmaker, who has spent most of her adult life in the South of England.
Founder of the Memorial Art Gallery, Hastings,
Beatrice is also known for the wide variety of artistic drawing styles developed and explored around ideas about the body and the space occupied by the body.
It was in London that Beatrice attended the Oval House theatre school and studied improvised theatre as well as Jazz voice with Maggie Nichols; she loved the spontaneity of jazz improvisation and the expression of free fringe theatre.
"My inspiration stems from an interest in capturing the aesthetic qualities of the human form. To this end, my current images combine a contrast between form and spirit, offering the reminder that all formations of being are transient."
Beatrice Lacey
Beatrice Lacey (b.1957).
I was awarded a Bachelor of Fine Art Degree from Goldsmiths College, University of London. 1987 – 1990 and a Masters Degree in Fine Art from UCA Canterbury
Rye Society of Artists group- show;
Stables Theatre Hastings Art Gallery one- woman show;
Brixton Art Gallery one- woman show;
Hastings Museum group - show; 'The Pie Factory'
Margate pie factory group - show;
Memorial Art Gallery Hastings one - woman show;
Weekend Gallery Hastings one - woman show.
Pure Arts, autumn arts fair 2012,
6 by 12 Bexhill.
4 play 1066 Academy Battle
Body and movement, may 2013 1066 Academy Battle
Photo fusion group show, 2013
Kortars Muveszzeti Kozpont, eger Botanic Art 2017
Salt mother , Hodgson Loom Gallery, Isle of Man, 2018
Stables art gallery ,Hastings, Contra Punctal June 2018
all works are viewable at the memorial art gallery in Hastings, by appointment
Beatrice grew up in South London, and now lives and works in Hastings, East Sussex.
She earned a BA (Hons) in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College, University of London;
and a Master of Fine Art at the U C A Canterbury.
Presently works as artist in residence for restaurant designers and consultants Cooper8 ltd where she contributes as a concept consultant for interior design.
Beatrice has exhibited her artwork in Hungary, Berlin, London and France. Her videos and installations have been screened in both art galleries and art exhibitions.
Beatrice has taught drawing workshops and privately on a one to one basis from her studio in Hastings.
Beatrice Lacey`s work investigates traces of being, where she considers the accidental mark left behind.
A reminder of storytelling and ghosts, shadow self and things forgotten that the accidental mark making uncovers in its own visual code.
Using photography and painting as a basis of her work, she investigates the poetics of capturing the female-identified body its shadow and past. Photography captures the human body in motion--when confronted with a moving form, the camera generates incomplete images—Beatrice deliberately converts this innately damaged data into the form of prints, videos and paintings. As a result, the works become spectral series that draw inspiration from older and past art genres.
The psychological underpinnings of Beatrice's work are based upon the artist's personal history and memoirs.
In all her series, the human body is de-materialized, separated from the physical, and then re-materialized into a vastly altered form in her paintings.
© 2021 Beatrice Lacey, Lacey Fine Art ,all rights reserved


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August 2007 (#78)
TI Australia August 2007 Newsletter
The International Trade Integrity Bill 2007
Australian Public Sector Anti-Corruption (APSAC) Conference – 23-26 Oct 2007
ATO Guidance on Foreign Bribery Risks
Australian Integrity Commissioner Appointed
2007 TI Progress Report on OECD Convention Enforcement
Latest News from the Transparency International Newsroom
Membership?
The August 2007 edition of the TI Australia Newsletter has been released. The leading article by TI Australia Chairman, Frank Costigan, focuses on the Commonwealth Integrity Commission, discussing inadequacies in its resources and jurisdiction. Other key articles:
Progress Report on Enforcement of the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials
Integrity Co-Ordinating Group � WA
Corruption Amongst the Judiciary
New Lobbyists Code
07 August Newsletter
On 9 August 2007 the Australian Senate will debate this Bill, which is a response to the report of the AWB inquiry. The Bill also serves to strengthen the anti-foreign bribery provisions of the Criminal Code and those provisions which deny deductions in the Income Tax Assessment Act as recommended in the OECD Phase 2 report of January 2006. TIA has made submissions to the Senate Committee to the effect that monetary penalties should be increased and whistleblower protection strengthened.
Australia�s leading anti-corruption agencies the Independent Commission Against Corruption (NSW), the Crime and Misconduct Commission (QLD) and the Corruption and Crime Commission (WA) have developed a conference program that will be delivered by leading senior practitioners, social commentators and academics to both inform and challenge delegates.
The APSAC Conference 2007 will enhance the knowledge and understanding of corruption risks by public officials and other external stakeholders. Delegates will be provided with relevant and up-to-date information to improve their capacity to respond effectively to these threats.
The four-day event (a two-day conference and two days of workshops) at the Hilton Sydney will also give participants the opportunity to network with an anticipated 600 delegates who work across a variety of institutions, including government agencies, local authorities, law enforcement agencies and universities.
Australian Public Sector Anti-Corruption (APSAC) Conference
An important new guide, Bribes and Facilitation Payments: a guide to managing your tax obligations, has been issued by the Australian Tax Office, warning that close attention will be paid to suspicious payments made by Australian companies doing business in high-risk countries.
The federal Attorney-General has appointed an Integrity Commissioner, Philip Moss, whose task will be to monitor and, if necessary, investigate corruption in federal law enforcement agencies such as the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Crime Commission. His term of five years began on 23 July. The Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity (ACLEI), established at the end of 2006 will provide support to the Integrity Commissioner. An independent body, ACLEI has been given Royal Commission and telecommunications interception powers. By regulation the ambit of ACLEI coverage could be extended to other agencies such as Customs and the ATO.
The 2007 TI Progress Report on OECD Convention Enforcement shows that more than half of 34 parties to the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials are not enforcing the Convention or keeping their commitments. Signatory countries account for about two-thirds of world exports of goods and services. At the same time, there is now significant enforcement in 14 countries compared with 12 in 2006 and 8 in 2005.
Recently released articles include:
Southeast Asia Regional Meeting of TI Chapters � Meeting Declaration
Major exporters continue bribing abroad
Transparency International welcomes Garda investigation into suspected deals with Saddam
If you or your organisation are not already a member of TI Australia we would appreciate your interest in becoming one. TI Australia�s Directors work on a pro bono basis, but we need funding to cover our expenses.
Why Join TI Australia?
TI Australia Membership Form
13 September 2007: Corruption Prevention Network Conference in Sydney titled Corruption Disasters: Retrospect & Recovery. Includes input on Arthur Andersen�s swift fall from grace, Leichhardt Council�s �Rats in the Ranks� and The Bad Guys are Winning? � how some are fighting back.
2 October 2007: UK Anti-Corruption Forum is holding a Conference in London titled �Preventing Corruption in Infrastructure�. The Conference will examine what is being done to prevent corruption in the UK and international infrastructure sector, whether these measures are fair and effective, and what more should be done.
7-13 October 2007: the University of Passau, Germany, offers its annual program �The Economics of Corruption – A University Training on Good Governance and Reform�. This international event continues to be offered on a pro bono basis. It joins the world of research with the world of practice, attracting graduate and post-graduate students in the social sciences and anti-corruption policymakers and practitioners. The program consists of training modules, lectures, workshop sessions, case studies, and poster and keynote presentations. For applications and the full program click here.
23-26 October 2007: inaugural Australian Public Sector Anti-Corruption (APSAC) Conference to be held in Sydney (conference days are 24-25 October). The APSAC Conference is being held by the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), the Queensland Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) and the Western Australia Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC). TI Australia is a conference sponsor.
Corruption Prevention Network Conference
�Preventing Corruption in Infrastructure�
�The Economics of Corruption – A University Training on Good Governance and Reform�


text:
Shawnee Gains 100 New Jobs Next Month
ServiceMaster DSI Selects Shawnee
Kansas for Headquarters Offices
NEWS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Ann Smith-Tate, President | CEO
Shawnee Chamber of Commerce
913.631.6545 or asmithtate@shawneekschamber.com
Shawnee, Kansas (March 26, 2018) – The Shawnee Economic Development Council (SEDC) announced ServiceMaster DSI will relocate the headquarters for the company's national large loss division ServiceMaster Recovery Management (SRM) to Shawnee in April 2018. In addition, it will also be the regional headquarters for DSI which will serve Missouri and Kansas.
The offices will be located at 8450 Cole Parkway in Shawnee and will include the Executive Management and Administrative support staff of the company's locations nationwide. ServiceMaster will initially transfer 100 jobs and plans to hire an additional 100 new employees in the future with an average salary of $67,000.
"DSI is extremely excited to move to the great City of Shawnee, Kansas," said CEO Kim Brooks. "We have spent nearly two years looking for the right fit. We needed a location that was close to a major interstate to ensure speedy delivery of service. We needed a facility which enables us to consolidate other smaller locations putting everyone under one roof with room to grow. We needed a City partner who was business friendly and willing to help make us part of the community. At long last we have now found what we were looking for with the City of Shawnee. This will be our new home for a long time to come and we can't wait to get started."
ServiceMaster DSI's decision to move to Shawnee, Kansas, has generated a positive response across the state. "It is great when a national company such as ServiceMaster evaluates its options and chooses Kansas for a division headquarters," said Kansas Governor Jeff Colyer, M.D. "Kansas has a strong tradition of helping our fellow Americans when disaster strikes. We are excited to be chosen by ServiceMaster and look forward to their continued success."
Shawnee City officials are also pleased with this news. "We are excited that ServiceMaster DSI decided to make Shawnee its new home," said Mayor Michelle Distler. "They will be a great fit in our community and we look forward to the new employees who will become part of our workforce."
About Service Master DSI
ServiceMaster DSI provides disaster restoration and cleaning services for businesses and individuals. The company is the first line of defense for disaster restoration and cleaning services. ServiceMaster DSI is a recognized leader in performance, service, and quality in emergency restoration and cleaning services.
About Shawnee Economic Development Council
The Shawnee Economic Development Council (SEDC), a division of the Shawnee Chamber of Commerce Corporation, works collectively with the City of Shawnee and the Shawnee Chamber to drive business growth and development. The Shawnee Chamber of Commerce Corporation, a 501 (c) (6), includes the Shawnee Chamber of Commerce, the Shawnee Economic Development Council and Visit Shawnee.


Former Siemens chief Klaus Kleinfeld is back with a bang. Just half a year after his involuntary departure from US company Arconic he's now in charge of one the world's most spectacular infrastructure projects.
With half a trillion US dollars (420 billion euros) at his disposal, Klaus Kleinfeld has been tasked with creating an artificial megacity in the Saudi desert. He calls his job in charge of the NEOM project "a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity." Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman praises him as having been at the helm of "some of the most dynamic, advanced and efficient enterprises in the world."
In Germany, Kleinfeld is known above all as a former head of the Siemens conglomerate. The Bremen-born manager started working for Siemens in 1987, and within a few years was promoted to head the projects division. As of 1998, Kleinfeld restructured the loss-making medical appliances segment and helped it turn a profit. After that, he helped loss-making US subsidiary Siemens Corp. return to positive net cash flow.
When he was appointed head of Siemens Group, he initiated a lot of reforms - one of which was to get rid of the telecommunications division. Siemens's mobile phone segment, which had missed the trend toward multimedia smartphones completely, was integrated in Taiwan's BenQ in a joint venture. After BenQ pulled the plug on funding, the brand completely disappeared, leaving thousands of ex-Siemens workers jobless.
Siemens also integrated its struggling fixed-line telephone business into Finland's Nokia, which in the end also meant drastic job cuts.
In 2007, Kleinfeld's work at Siemens ended prematurely after a corruption scandal was made public, involving bribe payments to secure overseas infrastructure contracts and support an employee organization, AUB. In addition, the European Commission slapped a 419-million-euro fine on Siemens for large-scale price collusion in the energy division.
Kleinfeld wasn't in the investigators' crosshairs at the time, but he decided to quit anyway, to allow the company to make a fresh start. There was no golden parachute; Kleinfeld didn't get any compensation on leaving. On the contrary, he contributed 2 million euros to settling damages in 2009.
In August 2007, Kleinfeld moved to US aluminum company Alcoa as chief operating officer, and soon went on to become the firm's CEO in May 2008, as well as chief executive officer of metal engineering specialist Arconic, an Alcoa spin-off.
He had to part with Arconic in April 2017 after losing a fierce power struggle with Paul Singer, head of hedge fund Elliot Management.
The investor had for months criticized Kleinfeld for what he believed was unsatisfactory performance on the part of Arconic. Kleinfeld wrote a letter to Singer which eventually cost him his job. As became known later, the letter contained a raft of cryptic allusions accusing billionaire Paul Singer of misbehavior during the 2016 Soccer World Cup in Germany.
Singer's lawyer interpreted those accusations as a blackmail attempt, while Kleinfeld's employers said the German had shown poor reasoning. So Kleinfeld had to step down, but this time, his departure was sweetened with $50 million in compensation money.
The many empty seats at a high-profile investment conference in Riyadh appeared to suggest the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi might hit Saudi Arabia where it hurts most. But €40 billion will soften most scruples.
A three-day international investment conference has started in Saudi Arabia to help the nation overcome its dependence on oil revenues. The meeting got off to a bumpy start amid a major Saudi image crisis.
Saudi Arabia has announced it's aiming to build a mega international business zone, which will have its own tax and labor laws. It's yet another attempt to reduce the kingdom's dependence on oil exports.


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'''[[Wikipedia:roguelike|Roguelike]]''' is a genre of games characterised by key gameplay elements pioneered by the 1980 game, ''[[Wikipedia:Rogue (video game)|Rogue]]''. ''[[Spelunky]]'' is not a 'pure' roguelike. It is a cross-genre game (also known as a 'Rogue-lite' or 'Roguelike-like') that is partly defined by roguelike elements, but differs from the genre in certain aspects. ''Spelunky'''s roguelike elements include: * Permanent death — games can't be saved/loaded, and death means you must start from the beginning of the game. * Procedurally generated levels that are wholly unpredictable. * Relatively high difficulty, with frequent deaths and short runs. * It's a [[Wikipedia:dungeon crawl|dungeon crawl]], which takes place by progressing along rigidly defined 'levels' of the cave. Ways in which ''Spelunky'' differs from traditional roguelikes include: * It's a side-scrolling platformer, rather than a top-down Dungeon Crawl. * Events are displayed graphically, rather than described by text. * Gameplay takes place in real time, rather than being turn-based. * Few RPG elements, limited to [[Health|hit points]] and a rudimentary inventory. ==External links== The original game [http://www.hexatron.com/rogue/ Rogue], free to play in-browser. [[Category:Articles]]
Return to Roguelike.
Retrieved from "https://spelunky.fandom.com/wiki/Roguelike"


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After the dream to make the world's best rum, in 1929 Julián Barceló, a 25 year old Spaniard, arrived to Santo Domingo and founded Barceló & Co. He soon began producing its first rums and promoting them around the country.
In 2006, after having been present in 25 international markets, Ron Barceló SRL fully acquired the Ron Barceló brand. The Barceló Diaz family and the García family remain on the board of directors as its third generation.
In that same year the company, pointing to the future, initiated the bottle redesign of Ron Barceló Imperial, Gran Añejo and Añejo. Thus began a new stage in which the brand, already consolidated, worked tirelessly to continue to offer consumers new ways to enjoy the best Dominican rum.
At present, Ron Barceló SRL continues to produce only and exclusively Ron Barceló. The company has a presence in more than 50 countries and is positioned as the fourth largest exporter of rum globally.
Is one of the leading producers and distributors of spirit in Poland. CEDC is particularly knows as the producer the world famous Zubrowka vodka.
Żubrówka Bison Grass Vodka is the world's best known Polish vodka, with more than 500 years of tradition and history. Żubrówka's exceptional and natural character is emphasized by a bison grass blade placed in every bottle.
Located in Domfront, Normandy, the "chais du verger normand" , in collaboration with the Drouin family, produce some of the greatest Domfrontais Calvados, along with Cider, Poiré and Pommeau de Normandie.
Apples and pears are distilled together to produce an unrivalled collection of Domfrontais Calvados vintages.
FAIR. is an independent spirits brand, dedicated to high quality products that are sourced ethically and sustainable.
FAIR. believes in treating all people fairly. Their vision have taken them all over the world to source the best ingredients for their high quality spirit.
Then everything is carefully shipped to the famous region of Cognac in France, where the Master Brewer / Distiller, Philip Laclie, with generations of French 'savoir faire', has perfected his techniques to make this incredible line of spirits.
Corralejo is the true brand of Mexican Tequila. It is the only one whose heritage proves it. The product maintains its original values, as evidenced by an artisanal bottle filled with 100 % agave liquor and made from the tireless work of the Mexican people.
Los Arango is a tquila which is made using only blue agave whose maturation process takes a minimum of 8 years, during which Mexican growers personally care for the agave plants until they mature. Only under certain climatological conditions the agave of unparalleled quality and height can be grown, which is used to produce this fine premium tequila.
Heaven Hill Distilleries, Inc. was originally established as a Bourbon distiller in 1934.
the 51 open rickhouses, situated throughout Kentucky in the heart of Bourbon Country.
Williams and Rev. Elijah Craig.
Hine has existed as a Cognac House, since 1817 where Thomas Hine gave name to this house that had been making cognac since 1763. Since his arrival, six generations of the Hine family have succeeded one another at the head of Thomas Hine & Co.
The tasting rooms at 16 Quai de l'Orangerie have seen it all, from the Great French Wine Blight to local conflicts, world wars, first bottlings, international incidents, economic booms and slumps, legendary river floods, connoisseur parties and exalted blends. Today, under the watchful eye of sixth-generation member Bernard Hine, a dedicated team of twenty people strive to preserve and act upon 255 years of spirited history.
Jean-Gabriel's son, Jean Monnet, succeeded his father at the head of the House during the interwar period before embarking on an illustrious political career. A man of talent and vision, he went on to play a foundational role of his own, as chief architect of the European Union and one of the founding fathers of Europe.
With unrivalled heritage, and provenance dating back to 1761, Quintessential Brands Group was established in 2011 by Enzo Visone, former CEO of Gruppo Campari, and investment banker and entrepreneur, Warren Scott.
Quintessential Brands have an award-winning portfolio of world class brands. Especially the gin portfolio consisting of Greenall's, Opihr, Bloom, Thomas Dakin and Berkeley Square have been winning medals and awards on a continuously base.
Roustam Tariko. Russian Standard Vodka is Russia's number one premium vodka, and you can find it in more than80 countries around the world. But Roustam never rests. His relentless pursuit of perfection – vodka perfection – is what drives the people and the production of Russian Standard Vodka.
When Sebastian STROH made his first schnapps in St. Paul in Carinthia's Lavanttal in 1832, he set the stage for an Austrian success story that has now lasted more than 180 years.
At that time – in the days when the spirits industry in Carinthia was only just beginning to develop – the young man with the good nose for hard liquor made pioneer work, not only on his own behalf. The family business STROH grew steadily and soon the products had an excellent reputation. At the World's Fair in Paris in 1900 STROH received the "Great Gold Medal" and at least since then the triumph of STROH was unstoppable even abroad.
Today STROH is still the leading spirits brand from Austria, which is sold in about 40 countries around the world. If Sebastian STROH could take a look at the internet today, he would be very surprised to see his products selling everywhere.
Tito's Handmade Vodka is America's Original Craft Vodka. In 1995, Bert "Tito" Beveridge obtained the first legal permit to distill in Texas and created Tito's Handmade Vodka. Tito's batch distill their corn-based vodka using old-fashioned pot stills and the vodka is naturally Gluten-Free.
Tito's Handmade Vodka is distilled and bottled by Fifth Generation Inc. in Austin, Texas on the very same land where the whole venture started. Today Tito's is the second most sold vodka in the US.
TOM OF FINLAND VODKA celebrates the life and art of Touko Laaksonen, the world-famous artist known as Tom of Finland. He was the original, the pioneer who 50 years ago single-handedly dreamed and drew what the gay culture is today.
Tom of Finland is widely regarded as one of the 20th century's most influential artists for his revolutionary representation of the male figure. His work has had a ripple effect throughout gay and straight culture influencing lifestyle, political tolerance, design, fashion and art unmatched by virtually any other artist.
United Drinks is a Danish family owned liquor company, which was established in 1999. The portfolio of brands consists of GA-JOL, FISK and SOUR FISK.
As a company they are driven by progress and put efforts into improving existing brands and developing new exciting brands for the international liquor market.
Founded in Glasgow in 1844. Made in Scotland. Celebrated around the world.
The founders James Whyte & Charles Mackay – impresarios, businessmen, entrepreneurs – first identified an opportunity to produce a superior Scotch Whisky for the vibrant city of Glasgow.
Today Whyte & Mackay continue in their spirit that proudly promotes a premium spirits portfolio from Scotland to the world. Including several award winning Scotch Whiskies, such as Whyte & Mackay blended as well as the single Malts; The Dalmore, Jura and Fettercairn.
DO YOU KNOW CHARLES HEIDSIECK?
THE CHARLES' WINE represents a world of elegance and indulgence.
It is beautifully balanced and captivatingly complex. The quality demands meticulous attention.
A fine-tuned dose of unconventional decisions at each step of the champagne production process.
Founded in 1883, Viña Concha y Toro is Latin America's leading producer and occupies an outstanding position among the world's most important wine companies, currently exporting to 140 countries worldwide. Uniquely, it owns around 11,300 hectares of prime vineyards in Chile, Argentina and United States. The Concha y Toro Group comprises a wide range of successful brands from the top of the range Don Melchor and Almaviva to the flagship brand Casillero del Diablo, in addition Fetzer/Bonterra from California. The Company has 3,169 employees and is headquartered in Santiago, Chile.
El Coto is the favorite Rioja wine. The premier choice, the one that never fails. But above all, el Coto de Rioja is a wine that is within everyone's reach. Because of its excellent quality/price ratio, its international distribution and because since our very beginning that has been our primary concern.
Besides excellence and the highest quality, the passion with which El Coto do their work every day is an endeavor to be able to offer our wines to the greatest possible number of people. It's as simple as that.
Passion for own land, respect for traditions and, at the same time, innovation, research and extreme attention to quality, promotion and distribution of products.
These guidelines and principles are always present and confirmed in over 150 years of company history. Gancia began its activity in the corner of Piedmont and now addresses, with the authority that derives from its credibility, to the whole world.
Carlo Gancia was born in Narzole in 1829 and, in 1848, moved to Reims where he spent a few years, engaged in learning the techniques of processing Champagne, and then returned to Italy in 1850. The same year Carlo Gancia, with his brother Edoardo, founded the "Fratelli Gancia" in Chivasso.
By exploiting and reworking the concepts learned in France and applying them to the Moscato grapes, typical of its area, Gancia created in 1865 a new type of Champagne, which he called Spumante Italiano.
Thus Carlo became the depositary and the author of the official rules of the first Italian Classic Method, the same ones still followed today. The current success of the Gancia range is due to the experiments and intuitions of 150 years ago.
Since 1836 la MAISON GUSTAVE LORENTZ owns a 33ha vineyard in Bergheim including 13.5ha for the Grand Cru Altenberg de Bergheim and 1,5 ha for the Grand Cru Kanzlerberg.
Since 2012, our estate has been inspected and certified Organic Agriculture by Ecocert, a guarantee of our production methods.
A passion for the business drove Charles LORENTZ Father to focus on excellence by developing his vineyard on the ALTENBERG hillside in BERGHEIM.
Historically, the harvests from these hills with exceptional potential are vinified separately. Thus Riesling, Pinot-Gris, Gewurztraminer and other Muscats native to this Altenberg express this region's unique character from vintage to vintage. The result of this persistent obstinacy was the classification of the vineyard to the rank of Grand Cru in 1983.
The second of the Grands Crus owned, more modest in size, is the KANZLERBERG.
A rich heir to a long history linked to the Knights of St John and the Order of the Templar, it allows, on its gypsum marl soil, expression of the complex finesse of the Riesling, and more recently the Pinot Gris.
Creating a wine is an art that Portugal have been perfecting for centuries.
Rarely is a good wine the result of chance. A wine reflects the nature of the earth from which it is born and of those who produce it.
Creating a wine is an art, nowadays reinforced by systematic, documented knowledge and improved methods.
Skill, experience and technology enable Joao Portugal Ramos to improve, with a high level of precision, the different factors that influence the personality of a wine.
The Pio Cesare winery was founded in 1881, by Cesare Pio. He was a very successful entrepreneur and was inspired to produce a small and select quantity of wines from the hills of Barolo and Barbaresco for himself, his family, friends, and customers. Cesare Pio was dedicated to the terroir of the Piedmont region and to producing wines of the highest quality..
RAVOIRE & FILS is an independent family-owned company specialized in wines from the Rhône Valley and Provence regions of France. Heir to secular savoir-faire, today the establishment exports to approximately 50 countries.
A few centuries ago: toward the middle of the 14th century the Provence region and neighboring counties suffered from overpopulation, which entailed famine and an outbreak of plague. Within a few decades the combination of the two scourges caused the population to dwindle by half. This was followed by nearly a century of extreme poverty and it was only in the second half of the 15th century that peace returned and the villages were repopulated. As a result, the local authorities naturally turned to the neighboring regions and countries and welcomed families coming from Italy and the Savoy region. In 1471, the Ravoire family – known at the time as 'La Ravoyre' – was among the immigrants from Savoie who settled in the Comtat Venaissin near Carpentras (the same year King René left the region of Anjou for his land in Provence).
The wines are fruity, aromatic and lively with a freshness of colour and taste. High quality, strict controls and sustainable farming approach in the vineyards make Reh Kendermann's wines extra special. With Black Tower we can be proud of having the most successful export wine brand from Germany as part of our unique wine portfolio.
The Symington family, with Scottish, English and Portuguese ancestry has been present in the Douro for five generations — since 1882 — and through the current generation's great grandmother, the family's links to the wines of the Douro span 14 generations, to the mid-17th century and to the very beginnings of the history of Port.
The family has 2,461 hectares of land in the Douro Valley across 26 individual estates. These properties, known as quintas, encompass more than 1,000 ha of vines, the vast majority of which are planted on terraces, and amount to the most significant vineyard holding in the region. Generations of Symington winemakers have planted and cared for these estates, accumulating knowledge that they have employed in the making of some of the finest Ports and Douro wines. These vineyards are at the heart of the family's wines.
Symington Family Estates is an entirely family-owned and managed company and is one of the leading quality Port producers, responsible for the making of approximately 32% of all premium Port categories. Five of the family, Paul, Johnny, Rupert, Dominic and Charles work together maintaining the vineyards and making the wines of their four historic Port houses: Graham's, Cockburn's, Dow's and Warre's. The family also own Quinta do Vesúvio, one of Portugal's greatest vineyard estates.
Tommasi viticoltori is located in Pedemonte, a small village in the heart of the "Valpolicella Classico" region, in the northwest part of Verona.
From grandfather Giacomo Tommasi's tiny vineyard, the Tommasi estate has grown steadily over the course of years and today it extends over 195 hectares of hillside vineyards blessed by Mother Nature for its perfect suitability for grapes.
The family owns vineyards on the most prestigious hills: La Groletta", "Conca d'Oro" and "Ca'Florian", where the grapes for the incomparable Amarone Classico, Ripasso, Valpolicella Classico Superiore and Recioto della Valpolicella wines are cultivated.
The most important and prestigious wine is the stately Amarone, one of the great wines of the world. Tommasi has specialized in the production of this "Divine Nectar" for decades, and has deservedly become one of its principal ambassadors to the world.
At present, Williams & Humbert is comprised of the central installations (Europe's largest wine cellar) and the vineyards.
Bodegas Williams & Humbert now sell their products in over 80 countries and they are developing an ambitious diversification project in the sector of high-quality food products.).