Issue: Whether the failure of the Secretary, through the intermediary responsible for New Mexico, to provide a pre-deprivation hearing to a New Mexico home health beneficiary, violated a previous court order.
Relief sought: Hold the Secretary in contempt, enforce prior court orders, require monitoring of the Secretary's actions, and provide relief to the individual petitioners.
Status: Defendant opposed the petition to enforce largely on the ground that the failure to provide pre-deprivation hearings was a mistake which had now been corrected. The petitioner received a hearing, and essentially got all the relief which was possible. It was agreed, however, that plaintiffs could take several depositions to determine what had happened and what steps the Secretary would take in the future to prevent the same problem from reoccurring. Depositions of two CMS (formerly HCFA) personnel were taken and depositions of several of the intermediary's employees were held. Using the information from these depositions, plaintiffs filed a reply brief in support of their motion to enforce in February 2002. After the government filed a response in March 2002, the matter awaited a hearing or decision by the court. However, the judge who had had the case for thirty years died in December 2002 without having held a hearing. The case was reassigned to Judge LeRoy Hansen but, in the meantime, petitioner Herrick died, leaving the present status of the pending motion unclear.
On November 9, 2004, 3-1/2 years after the petition to enforce was filed, the district court dismissed the petition as moot, and denied Ms. Herrick's motion for substitution as futile. Petitioners do not intend to appeal, so that the petition to enforce is concluded.


Punjab Seed Corporation Lahore Jobs For Procurement Supervisor Qualification:- matric pass degree & relevant of post-qualification experience in the relevant field & last date for submission of application is 25th Feb 2019.
Procurement Supervisor jobs in Punjab Seed Corporation Lahore, in Pakistan published on Paperpk.com from newspaper on February 08,2019. Job seekers who are already working as can also apply for post of Procurement Supervisor.
This job applying date has expired. So we have removed the newspaper ad image. To see latest jobs in Punjab Seed Corporation the logo.
This job is publised on PaperPk.com in Newspaper. For more Details visit Punjab Seed Corporation 04 Lytton Road Lahore, Pakistan.


text:
Legacy Systems Add To Insurer Costs In World Of Thin Margins
Legacy Systems Add To Insurer Costs In World Of Thin MarginsLondon Editor As margins increasingly are squeezed in the insurance industry, company management is looking ...
By Lisa S. Howard | September 18, 2003 at 08:00 PM | Originally published on National Underwriter Life & Health Magazine
London Editor
As margins increasingly are squeezed in the insurance industry, company management is looking to rationalization of legacy systems as one area to cut costs, according to industry experts.
"We have seen an increased interest and focus on rationalization among our clients over the last year or two, and thats largely being driven by the intense cost focus within the insurance industry as a whole," says Nick Meikle, senior manager with Accentures insurance practice in Manchester, England.
A stagnant equity market, increasing regulatory costs and the spate of mergers and acquisitions over the last five years have acted to put pressure on organizations to look at how they can simplify their IT architecture, he says. "In a world where you have great investment returns and growing business, you dont tend to focus on cost control as much. Were not in that world today."
Global economic conditions, overcapacity and thin margins have created pressures for the insurance industry that can be addressed, in part, by improvements in IT, says Colin Rickard, senior consultant with Kognitio, a system integrator based in High Wycomb, England. A lot of the mergers and acquisitions over the last five to seven years have been completed to bring economies of scale, but then mergers create their own problems with efficiencies, he says.
Mergers have driven a lot of the projects to rationalize IT architecture and legacy systems, says Meikle. "There are many companies that have not just merged, but they are mergers of companies that previously merged," he says. "So you have this cascade effect."
In the United Kingdom, he says, insurers that have merged may have done some rebranding and some cosmetic IT rationalization by putting wrapper systems around old legacy systems. "But many really havent attacked the underlying number of legacy systems in their companies."
Rickard notes that as a result of mergers, there have been instances where customers phone a call center and are asked which company their product is with: company A, B or C?
"The reason for that is that the insurer merged with these three companies a long time ago, but operationally it hasnt merged and hasnt conducted a platform rationalization," he explains. "As a result, it isnt able to present a single new brand to the market."
A group thats the product of mergers between three insurers that had four IT systems may now have 12 systems, although it probably needs only four, Rickard says. It is expensive for the company because an enormous amount of people, machinery and maintenance is required to run multiple systems, he says, adding that it is also bad customer relationship management because "you cant present a single face to your client base."
As a result of these costs, a number of insurers have been forced by economic pressures to embark in platform rationalization of their legacy systems, he explains.
Meikle says there are two broad schools of thought about solutions to the problem of legacy systems.
Some companies will rationalize their existing systems down to a smaller number of systems–to three main policy engines from 12, for example. "Then they choose the one thats best suited and collapse the other two systems on to that one system."
Another solution is to get a newer, leaner system and install it into the organization for new business, and then migrate the legacy systems on to that new platform, Meikle says.
Meikle explains that if a company has three main policy engines and they all have problems that are substantial and enduring, then a company may decide to "clear the decks and move on to something new."
If, however, one of those systems is sustainable in the medium term, the company may decide to rationalize the other systems into the single viable system, he says.
The other possibility is to go from three to one and then one to a new one, he adds, noting that there are different routes a company can take.
In discussing the pitfalls of IT rationalization, Meikle says that some involve the generic problems of any big IT project or change programdoing it on time, doing it to schedule, doing it to quality and managing the risk.
"These are big programs and they need a lot of focus from both your technology and your business operations to get them to work," Meikle says.
So the challenge for a company is to find a way to focus on data rationalization while it undertakes strategic changes in launching new products and new capabilities, he said. "Theres a real conflict in there, which is difficult to reconcile."
As a result, he says, the organization must be committed to updating legacy systems. "The companies I know that have been the most successful at significant and radical rationalization have prioritized it very high on the strategic agenda" and realize it would be extremely difficult to undertake another change program at the same time because rationalization is their number one objective, he says. "Now if the company has spare capacity, it may contemplate doing other projects, but that requires a lot of commitment from very senior people in the organization."
Meikle emphasizes that the IT department wont be able drive such a project. "It needs to be a business-driven change with an executive buy-in and commitment to prioritize rationalization above other things," he says. "The IT department may sponsor it, but without the serious buy-in from management, youll always struggle to get them to buy into why you cannot do all the other functional and strategic changes they want at the same time."
Meikle says that implementation is tricky with major rationalization because the company is making a very fundamental surgical change at the heart of the organization. "Again, if you tackle it purely as a technology project, youre going to miss a lot of activities. Youre going to miss the business training issue, youre going to miss the process issues, youre going to miss the reconciliation and the audit requirements."
This isnt a technology project, he says. "Its a major business change project." He explains that the companys end users in call centers or in operational centers or branch network will be going from working on perhaps three legacy systems to one.
"So all those processes need to be looked at to change in parallel with technology," Meikle says. "This project requires a holistic change that sits significantly outside of the IT department."
"If youre reconciling little systems that sit around the side, it might only hit one or two departments, but if youre really tackling the core, the heart of your business, everyone who touches those systems is going to be affected," he says.
On a more micro-level, Meikle says, there are often problems that develop around detail knowledge, or the level of knowledge that some companies have about their legacy systems.
"What youll often find is, when systems have been in place for 20 or 30 years and theyve grown over time, there are actually comparatively few people who really understand these things cradle to grave," he says. "You will find that typically when you get into the real deep bowels of some of these older systems, youre reliant on a small number of critical individuals who understand how this thing is hanging together," he adds.
"There may be some bits of your systems that may not have been touched for 10, 15, 20 years," he says. This means "you really have to open up something that may not have been opened up for quite a long time," he notes. "Particularly in long-tail business like life and pensions, youve got data that goes back a hell of a long way."
Rickard stresses that another problem with platform rationalization is that it is often relatively easy to move 95% of the data, but there will be 5% left that someone has a question about.
"A company will have to make some tough decisions about whether that rump of business is worth keeping," Rickard says. He notes that some companies might decide to sell off blocks of business that dont mesh with the overall migration of data "just so that the old system can be shut down."
As a result, a company must undertake return-on-investment studies to determine the benefit of platform rationalization projects, he says.
Another problem affecting the IT rationalization can involve the functionality gap between the target and legacy systems, Rickard says. "Maybe in 1981, someone designed a coverage with some special bells and whistles, and these bells and whistles arent incorporated in the target system. So you then have a functionality gap," he contends. "You can either decide to build this functionality into the target system, which has a cost, or you can encourage this business to go elsewhere."
Insurers should be left with legacy systems with five percent of the data "which still costs you an arm and a bloody leg," while migrating 95% of the data onto target systems, he says. "That is such a common problem."
"Most of the effort in these projects is spent on actually cleansing the data and getting it into the right structure to facilitate the ongoing operation," says Gill Wylie, operations director for RoomSolutions in London. "Youve got to determine the right data to retain and move that across [to the new system] to optimize the quality of that data."
At the beginning of the project, its important for the insurer to understand where the ongoing business wants to go, so the system strategy can be determined as well as the data conversion strategy, she says.
"Quite a lot of people pile everything into the conversion project without taking into account the overall company strategy," Wylie says, explaining that some companies will try to migrate too much unnecessary data.
"You should migrate whats required to support your business. Dont spend masses of time on cleansing data that someone never looks at."
As a result, the insurer must determine the scope of the conversion, Wylie says. "What do you want to do with your legacy systems? Do you want to support them for the next 10 years and just run them off? Or do you want to move all the data over to the new system and remove support for the old ones?"
Further, she says, its important in a data conversion project to run a lot of data integrity routines while the project proceeds so that it is quickly ascertained when quality is lacking both from a business and a systems integrity point of view.
"Obviously, when youve got a lot of data problems in these legacy systems, youve got to get to the root cause of those very early on in the project. That maximizes the chance of success," she explains.
Its also important to assemble a team of people in the business that understands the data, which can help fast-track the project, she says.
Meikle says that rationalization of legacy systems is a little bit like going through a merger. "Most companies dont do this very often, so they dont necessarily have the skills and experience to go about it," he explains. "If youre building new systems or new functionality or new products, its something that you do every six months or every year; you have the skills in the organization."
However, many companies have never gone through a significant rationalization exercise and may not have the skills and experience in the organization to begin such a project, he says.
"At the end of the day, you have a small pool of resource," Meikle says. "There are only two ways you are going to grow that pool of resourceby retooling people internally or bringing people in from the outside."
Meikle says he has seen companies successfully complete such projects in-house as well as via outside collaboration.
"I wouldnt say that any one approach will consistently fail or consistently succeed, but you cant tackle it and resource it in the same way as you can probably resource 90% of your technology-driven projects because its a different skill set," he says.
"Its not a design, build, test, implement, run type of project."
How long do most projects take? "The most aggressive I have seen is an organization that has rationalized its business down to two core systems in 12 months," he says. "That is very aggressive and theyve done it by focusing almost exclusively on this program of work. Theyve been very, very effective at doing the program," Meikle notes.
"Typically, for a large legacy system, youre talking six months plus." He says he deliberately leaves the time estimate open-ended because "it really depends on how big and how hairy your architecture is."
Reproduced from National Underwriter Life & Health/Financial Services Edition, September 19, 2003. Copyright 2003 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


For those of you who might want to make a public declaration of faith and join the Anglican Church as a full adult member, the next step is Confirmation.
We aim to hold a Confirmation service every year. Our next service will be in 2020.
Please speak to Rev Gary or Rev Dorothy if you are interested or would like more details.


Tomatoes are a long time favorite in many parts of the world and are one of the most commonly and easiest grown in back yards across the US. This famous "vegetable" is actually a fruit Native to South America and Mexico. Tomatoes boast nutrition benefits like antioxidants and Lycopene, which is thought to reduce the risk of some cancers. But did you know that Tomatoes were once called "The Apple of Love" in France regarding the myth that tomato seeds could hold aphrodisiac properties.


text:
Soziale Körperpflege, Fremdputzen
oder Allogrooming,
teilweise auch Gefiederkraulen, Lausen oder Einander-Lausen genannt,
ist ein häufiges, wenn auch nicht allgemein verbreitetes Komfort-
bzw. Sozialverhalten bei Vögeln und Säugetieren, das im Gegensatz zum der Körperpflege dienenden Putzverhalten vorrangig der Aufrechterhaltung von Sozialstrukturen dient.
Es wird von den Gepflegten als angenehm empfunden,
erfolgt einseitig, wechselseitig oder gleichzeitig und ist auf die für sie selbst schwer zugänglichen Körperstellen
von Artgenossen gerichtet.

Ursprünglich werden diese Körperstellen durch gegenseitiges Fremdputzen von Schmutz und Parasiten befreit. Die davon abgeleitete, ritualisierte,
soziale Körperpflege wurzelt, wie Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt erkannte, stammesgeschichtlich in der Brutpflege
und ist mit Paarbindung, Gruppenbindung sowie Beschwichtigung und anderen Signalfunktionen verbunden.
Die Putzaufforderungsstellungen und Putzhaltungen sind häufig artspezifisch.

Viele Vogelarten putzen das Gefieder ihres Sozialpartners, bevorzugt im Kopfbereich.
Dieses Gefiederkraulen mit dem Schnabel
hat insbesondere bei manchen Entenvögeln eine große Bedeutung.
Während Pferde sich wechselseitig "beknabbern", ist das Fremdputzen bei Rindern einseitig.
Dabei lecken sie den Partner am ehesten im Nacken, im Gesicht und im unteren Halsbereich, seltener auf dem Rücken und noch seltener an den Flanken.
Bei Primaten ist das Lausen ebenfalls einseitig und ihm kommt eine große Bedeutung zur Gruppenstärkung und zur Ausbildung eines Kommunikationsnetzes zu.
Rangniedere Tiere zeigen mittels Durchkämmen des Fells ranghöherer Tiere mit den Händen Subdominanz an und stecken gefundene Hautschuppen und Futterkrümel in den Mund.

Auch beim Menschen festigt symbolisches Lausen, Über-die-Haare-Streichen und Ähnliches die Bindung.
In der Öffentlichkeit ist dies jedoch in einigen Kulturen verpönt und in der Industriegesellschaft findet in diesem Bereich eine Professionalisierung statt (Beispiele: Masseur, Friseur, Pediküre und Maniküre). Die soziale Körperpflege gilt als wichtige Bedingung im Rahmen der Entwicklung der Sprache, die aus der Gestik hervorging und durch Zurufen auch auf Entfernung bandstiftend wirkt. Für kurze, nicht dem Informationsaustausch dienende Alltagsgespräche mit dieser Wirkung prägte Desmond Morris entsprechend den Begriff grooming talking.

Literatur

Anmerkungen

Verhaltensbiologie
Hippologie

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Blind River representatives, Mayor Sally Hagman, Councillor Betty Ann Dunbar and clerk-administrator Kathryn Scott reported to council on what they learned at the recent Rural Ontario Municipal Association (ROMA) conference they attended from Jan. 27 to 29 in Toronto.
The annual conference offers a trade show, keynote speakers on a variety of municipal issues, and an opportunity to meet with key provincial government officials. This year's ROMA conference attracted 1,200 delegates from more than 400 municipalities.
Hagman, who attended the conference for the first time, reported that Premier Doug Ford gave an address to delegates along with Ernie Hardeman, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.
"I was in awe of the things that happened at this conference," she said.
Hagman referred to a poem by poet Chief Stacy Laforme of the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation read out at the conference.
"We're all trying to define our Blind River and we'll keep soldiering through," Hagman told council at its meeting on Feb. 5.
She said she got a lot of information on downtown rejuvenation that she will take during discussion about the town's downtown business section.
"Over the course of the three days, I attended all of the breakout sessions… and came away from each and every one with new insight on the way our town operates and the responsibility we have to the residents of Blind River," the first-time councillor said. "I certainly gained new respect for how our administrative staff face the challenges of a constantly changing workload.
She thanked council for allowing her to attend as a town representative.


The verdict follows a two-week trial in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles. The case was filed on behalf of the teachers by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), and the Covington and Burling law firm.
Dennis Auerbach, lead attorney on the case from Covington and Burling, praised the perseverance of the Filipino teachers. "We are very pleased with the verdict in this case and proud to have stood by these brave teachers as they finally obtained justice," he said.
The teachers began arriving in the United States in 2007 as part of the H-1B guest worker programme. Administered by the U.S. Department of Labour, the H-1B visas permit foreign nationals with special skills to work in the United States for up to six years. Most teachers paid the placement service about $16,000 USD—several times the average household income in the Philippines—to obtain their jobs.
The vast majority of the teachers had to borrow money to pay the massive recruiting fees. The recruiters referred the teachers to private lenders who charged 3 to 5 percent interest per month. Teachers were forced to pay these exorbitant fees because they had already made substantial investments that would not be returned. The recruiters also confiscated the teachers' passports and visas until the recruitment fees were paid in full.
In addition to paying up-front fees, the teachers were forced to sign away an additional 10 percent of the salaries they would earn during their second year of teaching. Teachers who resisted signing the contracts were threatened with being sent home and forced to forfeit the thousands of dollars they already had paid. Those contracts were declared illegal and unenforceable by the court as part of this case.


text:
Q: What is the difference between absolute and relative xpaths? Which is preferred in Selenium automation testing? What is the difference between absolute and relative xpaths? Which is preferred in Selenium automation testing?
I am preparing test scripts using Selenium and Robot framework.

A: An absolute  xpath in HTML DOM starts with /html e.g.
/html/body/div[5]/div[2]/div/div[2]/div[2]/h2[1]

and a relative xpath finds the closed id to the dom element and generates xpath starting from that element e.g.
.//*[@id='answers']/h2[1]/a[1]

You can use firepath (firebug) for generating both types of xpaths
It won't make any difference which xpath you use in selenium, the former may be faster than the later one (but it won't be observable)
Absolute xpaths are prone to more regression as slight change in DOM makes them invalid or refer to a wrong element

A: Absolute Xpath: It uses Complete path from the Root Element to the desire element.
Relative Xpath: You can simply start by referencing the element you want and go from there.
Relative Xpaths are always preferred as they are not the complete paths from the root element. (//html//body). Because in future, if any webelement is added/removed, then the absolute Xpath changes. So Always use Relative Xpaths in your Automation.
Below are Some Links which you can Refer for more Information on them.

*

*difference-between-absolute-path

*xpath-tutorial-for-selenium

*choosing-effective-xpath

A: Consider Below Html
<html>
  <body>
    <input type ="text" id="username">
  </body>

</html>

so Absoulte path= html/body/input
and Relative path = //*[@id="username"]
Disadvantage with Absolute xpath is  maintenance is high if there is nay change made in html it may disturb  the entire path and also sometime we need to write long absolute xpaths so relative xpaths are preferred

A: Absolute XPath:
It is the direct way to find the element, but the disadvantage of the absolute XPath is that if there are any changes made in the path of the element then that XPath gets failed.
The key characteristic of XPath is that it begins with the single forward slash(/) ,which means you can select the element from the root node.
Below is the example of an absolute xpath.
/html/body/div[1]/section/div/div[2]/div/form/div[2]/input[3]

Relative Xpath:
Relative Xpath starts from the middle of HTML DOM structure. It starts with double forward slash (//). It can search elements anywhere on the webpage, means no need to write a long xpath and you can start from the middle of HTML DOM structure. Relative Xpath is always preferred as it is not a complete path from the root element.
Below is the example of a relative XPath.
//input[@name='email']

A: We can say mainly there are 3 differences:

*

*Absolute will start with / where as Relative will start with //

*Attributes is not used in absolute where as attribute is used in relative

*Absolute is a complete path where as relative is partial path

Mainly Relative is preferred, Absolute is not preferred because since its a complete path and elements can change because of dynamic nature so there may be breakage of path so relative is preferred.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


This divine highlighting palette with a twinkling trio of seemingly similar shades holds a secret. When applied, each shade magically transforms from white to varying pastel-bright…what a delight!
Like Stila's award-winning Heaven's Hue Highlighter, the bouncy-to-the-touch hybrid cream/powder texture melts into skin for a lightweight, ethereal glow. But truth be told, the seemingly white base is actually translucent and each barely tinted pearl particle contains a colored luminescent core. When blended on skin, the pearl flips to its shimmering underlying color. The effect is three different multi-dimensional shades that glisten, gleam, sparkle and twinkle on skin as it catches the light...and that's no lie!
Color transforming formula adds movement and multi-dimensional sparkle to skin as it catches the light.
All over glossy, glistening illumination - face, eyes, lips and body.
Gossamer-light, bouncy texture allows the formula to adhere to skin for long-wearing, transfer-resistant, non-gritty illumination.
INGREDIENTS/INGRÉDIENTS: POLYMETHYLSILSESQUIOXANE, CALCIUM ALUMINUM BOROSILICATE, PHENYL TRIMETHICONE, DIISOSTEARYL MALATE, MICA, DIMETHICONE, DIMETHICONE/VINYL DIMETHICONE CROSSPOLYMER, PENTYLENE GLYCOL, SILICA, TIN OXIDE, TRIETHOXYCAPRYLYLSILANE, WATER/AQUA/EAU, POLYISOBUTENE. (+/-) TITANIUM DIOXIDE (CI 77891).
Apply with fingers, a sponge or synthetic brush and blend into cheeks, eyes, lips and body. Can be worn on bare skin, over foundation or Heaven's Hue Highlighter.


text:
Home News Iowa State University researcher looks at the future of agriculture
Iowa State University researcher looks at the future of agriculture
By Other News -
AMES, Iowa — Dramatic price fluctuations, increasing demand, the food versus fuel debate and other events of the past year may have food producers wondering which way is up.
Despite these recent uncertainties, 'up' is precisely the direction an Iowa State researcher believes agriculture is headed for at least the next 10 years.
Headed up
Wally Huffman, professor in agricultural economics and Charles F. Curtiss Distinguished Professor in Agriculture and Life Sciences, predicts supply will go up, demand will go up and real prices of grain and oilseeds also will go up.
Huffman presented his research to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris, France. The organization and the Iowa Agricultural Experiment Station supported the research.
An important part of Huffman's study was the long-term trend of corn and soybean yields in Iowa, wheat in Kansas and France, rice in Japan and potatoes in the Netherlands.
Made projections
Huffman examined the trends and then made projections about the next decade. The optimism starts with the producers.
"Prices right now for corn and soybeans are up about 50 percent relative to two years ago, so those are relatively good prices," he said. "That's good news for grain producers."
The impact that the rising demand for biofuels will have on the market for agricultural products is not entirely clear, but grain and oilseed prices will generally be higher than they would be without biofuels.
"Overall, biofuels are probably a good thing for farmers," he said. "However, there will be more erratic variation in grain and oilseed prices than there would be without biofuels," he said.
The main reasons are the erratic components to both supply and demand of crude oil.
While biofuels are pushing demand for grain and oilseeds up, Huffman said the long-term trend in supply of grain and oilseeds is due to new technologies that are being developed by the private sector and marketed to farmers.
"Supply is going up, and demand is going up," he said. "I think they will grow at a similar pace. There will be occasional spikes due to bad weather and abrupt restriction in crude oil production, but prices will come down. When they do, they will come down to similar levels to what they are now in real terms, and those are pretty good prices.
"For the past 100 years, on average, real agricultural product prices have been falling as technology has been allowing supply to increase faster than demand," he said.
But for the past decade, demand has been rising as quickly as supply, he added.
Steadily increasing
Yields for major field crops in major producing areas have been steadily increasing. There is no indication that the rate is slowing and no reason to fear falling crop yields.
Huffman predicts the rate of increase in yields for corn and soybeans in major production areas will rise much faster than it has in the past 50 years.
"In the case of corn, since 1955 the average rate of increase in Iowa crop yield has been two bushels, per acre, per year," said Huffman. "That's an amazing accomplishment starting from about 65 bushels, per acre, per year in 1955, up to about 165 bushels, per acre, per year now."
Future even better
Huffman thinks the future will be even better.
"From 2010 to 2019, corn yields are going to increase quite substantially, maybe at four to six bushels, per acre, per year," he said.
Much of the increase will be due to genetic improvements in hybrid corn varieties associated with new, multiple stacking of genes for insect protection and herbicide tolerance that will permit a major increase in plant populations.
These improvements are the result of corn that has been genetically modified to have certain desirable traits.
Also, better equipment, improved farm management and reduced- and no-till farming will contribute to rising corn yields in the Midwest.
Other commodities have also improved yield and will likely see continuing increases, according to Huffman.
Soybean yields in Iowa also are increasing, although less dramatically than corn, said Huffman.
The trend over the past 50 years is an increase of about .5 bushel, per acre, per year (bu/ac/yr).
That rate of improvement in Iowa soybean yields will continue or possibly increase over the next decade. Current soybean yields are about 50 bu/ac/yr.
Kansas is the leading producer of wheat in the U.S. with yields of about 45 bu/ac/yr. Yields have been improving at about .5 bu/ac/yr since about 1950.
Farmers in France are producing wheat at about 113 bu/ac/yr. Yields are improving at more than 1.5 bu/ac/yr.
France is the leading wheat producer in the European Union, and Huffman attributes much of their production advantage to the French emphasis on wheat advantage. They are also showing faster production improvement.
France often puts their best land into wheat production. Huffman predicts wheat yields may increase faster if genetically modified wheat is more successful.
Japan is a major rice producer. Yields are improving at a rate of .5 bu/ac/yr, and are now at 113 bu/ac/yr compared to around 90 bu/ac/yr in 1960.
Genetically modified rice has been tried, but has not measurably increased yields, according to Huffman.
Netherlands is the most advanced country in the world when it comes to potato production technology.
Yields in the Netherlands have been increasing by about 4.6 bu/ac/yr over the last 50 years and are now at 670 bu/ac/yr.
"Potatoes are a major world food crop and they don't get a lot of attention," said Huffman. "They are consumed in large amounts in Europe and other places, including the U.S., and yields are phenomenal."
Several variables
Several variables will impact the future of crops. According to Huffman, the biggest are:
– Both private companies and government researchers are working on improving production.
– Higher yields as a result of new techniques in breeding crops, including methods to condense decades of breeding and testing into a few years.
– Change in biofuels from corn-based to biomass-based by 2019.
– Genetically modified crops gain more acceptance in Europe.
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Packing items on to card for point of sale display with high clarity Surlyn® film.
Can be used for transit skin packing using corrugated board and polythene based skin film.
Sample skin packs can be produced using your products (subject to product size).
Suitable for use with environmentally friendly "Peel Away"™ peelable skin pack board.
For skin packing items on to cards for point of sale display with high clarity Surlyn® film.
Skin Boards can be manually cut to size by knife or guillotine and euroslot added by manual punch.
Single Phase 16amp 3 Phase 16A/Ph.


WorkforceHUB™ includes TimeSource Plus, TimeSimplicity, and TimeWorks Mobile. We've just added onboarding, benefits enrollment, performance reviews, and employee engagement! WorkforceHUB™ is designed for busy employers like you who need to streamline scheduling, automate time and attendance tracking, maintain regulatory compliance, and decrease labor costs.


text:
Business and Technology News
What to Know : In AFC Championship ,Titans are Chiefs
Chiefs comes at Kansas City
The Tennessee Titans will confront the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Championship after the Chiefs whipped the Houston Texans 51-31 out of a divisional season finisher game Sunday.
Kansas City tied with New England for the second-best record in the AFC at 12-4 and earned the No. 2 seed for the end of the season games. It's the most elevated residual seed on the AFC side after Tennessee wiped out No. 1 Baltimore 28-12 on Saturday.
It will be the second postseason experience in three years between two of the first AFL establishments, just this time the stakes will be higher. Tennessee won 22-21 at Kansas City in a 2017 special case game.
Here are a few things to think about the last group that stands between the Titans and Super Bowl LIV:
Second time around: The Titans and Chiefs met during the normal season, and Tennessee's walk to the end of the season games started decisively that day. A 35-32 triumph Nov. 10 at Nissan Stadium was the beginning of a four-match dominate streak and the first of four in which the Titans' scored 35 focuses or more. That exertion incorporated a bobble return for a touchdown by linebacker Rashaan Evans.
That is the uplifting news. Houston and Kansas City met during the customary season also. The Texans won that one 31-24, which was not actually a see of what was to come in Sunday's divisional season finisher matchup.
Max throttle into halftime: The main quarter was an essential territory of worry for the Titans against New England and Baltimore, the two of which were quick starters during the ordinary season. For each situation, Tennessee was ahead toward the finish of the initial 15 minutes.
With Kansas City, the subsequent quarter is an ideal opportunity to be on full caution. The Chiefs arrived at the midpoint of an association high 11.1 focuses per game in the second quarter during the ordinary season and outscored their adversaries by a normal of 6.9 focuses per game in that period. Their 177 focuses scored in the second were the most by any group in any quarter in 2019.
Houston discovered the most difficult way possible Sunday exactly how great Kansas City around then of the game. The Texans drove 21-0 after the first yet trailed 28-24 at halftime.
Air it out: Of the NFL's 12 season finisher groups, just three endeavored more goes during the customary season that Kansas City with 576, and no season finisher group ran it less frequently than the Chiefs, who did so multiple times.
K.C. might have tossed it significantly more than it did had quarterback Patrick Mahomes not missed two games in October with damage. Mahomes' first game back was the misfortune to the Titans, and they endeavored a season-high 50 goes in that one.
Run over: Of the NFL's 12 season finisher groups, Kansas City was the most noticeably terrible when it reached halting the run. Rivals found the middle value of 128.2 surging yards per game and 4.9 yards per convey. Six distinct backs scrambled for superior to anything 100 yards against the Chiefs yet none fared superior to anything Derrick Henry (imagined), who scrambled for 188 yards and two touchdowns on only 23 endeavors in the November matchup.
His 68-yard touchdown run in the second from last quarter was the longest surging play Kansas City permitted and the longest scoring play against its protection all season.
Been quite a while: The Chiefs won Super Bowl IV following the 1969 season yet have not been returned to the major event since. This will be only their third appearance in the meeting title game from that point forward, however their subsequent straight.
Kansas City lost to New England 37-31 with a Super Bowl billet in question a year ago. Its solitary other AFC Championship appearance was in 1993.
Gabriel Fetterman
Gabriel Fetterman has been writing since an early age. When in school, he wrote stories plagiarized from what he'd been reading at the time, and sold them to his friends. This was not popular among his teachers, and he was forced to return his profits when this was discovered. After finishing his university studies with a B.S. in English, Gabriel took a job as an English teacher. During this period, Gabriel began a number of short stories. Recently he starts to write news articles. Gabriel publishes articles on infusenews.com as a free lance writer.
Latest posts by Gabriel Fetterman (see all)
Google Doodle Celebratesthe " Anna May Wong " - January 22, 2020
Until Changing your Diet 3 Things to Know related Plant-Based Keto - January 18, 2020
Innovative Car Technology for the Great Future - January 14, 2020
By: Gabriel Fetterman
In: Sports
Tagged: AFC Championship, AFL, Kansas City Chiefs, Super Bowl IV, Tennessee Titans, Titans and Super Bowl LIV, Titans are Chiefs in AFC Championship
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Google Doodle Celebrating the 'Sawaddee'
Spread the love This day Google Doodle celebrates sawaddee, the Thai method to welcome companions and outsiders the same. An exclusively received on this day in 1943, this greeting is given a wai: a supplication like posture conveyed working together with a bow that goes with the declaration of sawaddee.
Google Doodle Celebrates the " Anna May Wong "
Spread the love The present slideshow Doodle praises the main ever Chinese American famous actor in Hollywood, Anna May Wong, on the 97th commemoration of the day The Toll of the Sea went into general discharge, which was her first driving job. Highlighted in the Doodle slideshow are scenes from
DoT talks intense on cutoff time, telecom organizations are seat on the baricade : AGR Remaining
Spread the love Telcos talk about giving January 24 cutoff time a miss The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) will start giving notification to telecom organizations after the January 24 cutoff time for installment of AGR (balanced gross income) duty, set by the Supreme Court, passes, a senior authority said. This
Researchers finds : Immune cell that stop most Cancers
Spread the love "Previously nobody believed this could be possible." A newfound insusceptible cell could prompt the production of a widespread malignant growth treatment — a "Holy Grail" treatment that would work for all tumors, in all individuals. The treatment use T-cells, a sort of white platelet that helps our
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Last weekend I went to a charity coffee morning, dedicated to the MS Society. Everyone had a slice of cake and enjoyed a lovely cup of coffee or tea.
When I had to think of what dessert to make and bring over, I figured everyone likes vanilla and berries, so I went ahead and made a delicious combo of these two ingredients.
The cake by itself is amazingly delicious but when topped with the crumb topping it's definitely taken to the next level!! The crunchiness of the topping goes really well with the moist cake, which is perfect when enjoying it with a cup of coffee.
All I can say is that this was an absolute winner and people kept coming for more. Make it the next time you have visitors over... I promise you won't regret it!!
- Preheat your oven to 190 C degrees and grease a spring form pan.
- In a bowl mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
- Take two tbs of this mixture and toss with the blueberries to ensure they stay all over the cake, otherwise they'll drown to the bottom. Then, set aside.
- In another bowl mix the butter, sugar, eggs, milk, sour cream and vanilla extract.
- Add the dry to the wet ingredients, mix well and then carefully fold in the blueberries. Pour this mixture in the greased pan and set aside.
- In a small bowl, add all the crumb topping ingredients and mix them well together. Sprinkle on top of the cake batter. Bake for 60min, let cool completely end enjoy!


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Google Maps traffic information
Google Maps has just rolled out an exciting new traffic feature, that provides traffic data for major interstates and freeways.
If your route shows red, you're looking at a stop-and-go commute; yellow, you could be a little late for dinner; green, you've got smooth sailing.
Glad they've made it so technical. Gray, then, means info unavailable? The Traffic data comes courtesy of a new Traffic button next to the Map, Satellite, and Hybrid buttons on the top row of the map. Of course, it's not that traffic info is new to the internet - hell, even Google Maps Mobile has had traffic details since last August - but if Google Maps is your go-to internet map, it's great to see traffic info baked-in. Thanks Sugar Daddy!
Google Maps Mobile adds traffic details
If you liked previously-mentioned Google Maps Mobile, you may be excited to hear that the program…
Stuck in traffic? [Official Google Blog]
Ben Zvan
They've had this on Google Maps for mobile for a while now and it is awesome. The level of accuracy and detail is remarkable. Unless you're not in a city. Then it's not so good. 'Cause it's not there.
Speaking of which, anyone know why GMaps stopped working on my Tréo 600 on T-Mobile? It hasn't worked since the 23rd.


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Danforth Mental Wellness group set to begin peer-to-peer meetings
Jason Balgopal is the founder and organizer of both the new Danforth Mental Wellness group and the more established Beaches Mental Wellness Group.
By Rushanthi Kesunathan
A new free mental wellness group will start meetings this week on Danforth Avenue.
The peer-to-peer support group, Danforth Mental Wellness (DMW), will begin holding meetings starting on Thursday, Jan. 17 at 6 p.m. The expansion to East York (Danforth Mental Wellness) comes after demand for the service grows. The Danforth group is an extension of the Beaches Mental Wellness group, and will run in the same fashion.
"We are now having enough people attend the Tuesday night meetings of Beaches Mental Wellness that the need justifies additional space. It seemed like a good idea to host the new service where the demand is rather than forcing people to attend a distant location," Jason Balgopal, founder and organizer of DMW said.
The one-hour meetings will be held at Neighbourhood Link Support Services, 3036 Danforth Ave., just west of Victoria Park Avenue. The Beaches group meets at Community Centre 55, 97 Main St., on Tuesdays from 7 to 8 p.m. Both the Danforth group and the Beaches group operate at no cost to members through the generosity of donated meeting spaces.
"Mental wellness issues are increasing faster than the health care system can cope with and people often do not have sufficient funds or private insurance in order to access the needed health care services," Balgopal said.
"Thus, this free, peer-to-peer group offers a way for people to access services and like-minded people in a non-threatening venue," he said.
Peer facilitators ensure the groups meet on a weekly basis. Those facilitators are members who have dealt with, and are still dealing with, their own mental wellness issues.
"This group provides a safe, supportive, non-judgmental environment for people to share their challenges, personal experience, knowledge of resources and, most importantly, their achievements and successes," Julie Richard, a member, wrote in her Letters to the Editor in the Beach Metro News on Jan. 23, 2018.
For more information, contact admin@mentalwellness.help
Police search for man who fled East York accident scene
Crow's Theatre to bid farewell to managing director Monica Esteves


I have deployed an application via ftp and whenever I start the app on my mobile, I get this error' there was an error writing to the data source. There was an error communicating with the SQLite database' and then the application restarts and still allows me to proceed. Also when I want to start the entry, I receive this error-Case ids "" duplicate an existing case! Case ids must be unique. I then proceed to enter a vague password for the interviewer,cluster and able to proceed. Can I be helped kindly on how to do away with the error.
I have upgraded my .dat files to .csdb as am using the csweb.
I responded to your case IDs inquiry by email.
Regarding your screenshots, can you provide more detail? After installing the application and restarting CSEntry, do you still get this message, or is this a one-time message? Have you checked that you are opening the correct files (open your .pff and check that the file paths are correct)? Try deleting the data files and see if this happens again.
This is an unusual message that I haven't seen before.
That other message, 11001, should be coming from your application, so you'll want to look at your logic to try to figure that out.
Hi Gregory, The error on SQlite only comes once when starting the application thereafter it doesn't appear.
"Try deleting the data files and see if this happens again."


1896: the birth of an Eva McKinnon was registered in the June quarter of 1896 in Gateshead district (10a921).
1911 census: living at 28 Hyde Park St, Gateshead, with mother, step-father, siblings, step-sister, and half-brother. Her age is 14, and place of birth is Gateshead.


text:
whirl
=====

A state-of-the-art Slack killer.

Install
-------
Requires: Python 3.4+, Tornado 4.3.

Create and activate a virtualenv:

    pyvenv venv
    source venv/bin/activate

Install dependencies:

    pip install -r requirements.txt

Create a configuration file from the sample:

    cp server.conf.example server.conf

Run & enjoy:

    python whirl.py

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Posted5/23/2019 12:25 PM
Erica Cupuro named Des Plaines' Central Elementary principal
Erica Cupuro will become the principal of Central Elementary School in Des Plaines, beginning this fall. Courtesy of District 62
Norrine Twohey
• With over two decades of experience in District 62, Des Plaines resident Erica Cupuro will become the next principal of Central Elementary School this fall. Cupuro was formally approved at the May 20, board of education meeting.
Currently the student services coordinator, Cupuro has held various roles in the district including that of building psychologist, psychology department chairwoman and curriculum coordinator. During her time in District 62, Cupuro not only completed her internship at Central school, years later she served as the psychologist for the school.
Cupuro earned a bachelor's degree followed by a specialist's degree in school psychology from Illinois State University. After working for 10 years, she completed her administration certification in educational leadership from National Louis University, and most recently received an endorsement for Director of Special Education from Aurora University. In addition, she was trained in curriculum-based measurement with Dr. Mark Shinn at the University of Oregon and worked under Dr. William Pelham at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic on behavior modification for students with Attention Deficit Disorder.
Joseph Doner
• Joseph Doner, a graduate of Prospect High School, was selected by the US-UK Fulbright Commission to experience the United Kingdom on a three-week summer program. The Fulbright Scotland Summer Institute on Technology, Innovation and Creativity is hosted by the Glasgow School of Art and the University of Strathclyde. Students will be led by faculty from both institutions and senior figures from the private and public sectors.
Participants explore Scotland's culture, history, and creative and technological industries. The Summer Institutes form part of the US-UK Fulbright Commission's work to promote leadership, learning and empathy between nations through educational exchange.
The US-UK Fulbright Commission selects participants through a rigorous application and interview process. In making these awards, the commission looks not only for academic excellence but a focused application, a range of extracurricular and community activities, demonstrated ambassadorial skills and a plan to give back to the recipient's home country upon returning.
Katherine Blakeley and Kelly McGee recipients of a Carol Stream Woman's Club $1,000 college scholarship. - Courtesy of Carol Stream Woman's Club
• The Carol Stream Woman's Club recently awarded $1,000 college scholarships to Katherine Blakeley of Glenbard North High School in Carol Stream and Kelly McGee of Bartlett High School. Both girls have impressive academic history, exceptional community service records, extracurricular activities and work commitments.
Katherine and Kelly both plan to attend University of Iowa. Katherine will double major in human physiology and music performance, while Kelly will double major in accounting and finance.
Alex Cappello, finance director at Sedgebrook in Lincolnshire. - Courtesy of Sedgebrook
• Alex Cappello of Hoffman Estates joins Sedgebrook in Lincolnshire as finance director. Cappello, who is replacing the retiring Barbara Smolenski, most recently worked with Exelon.
"His accounting and finance background set him above other candidates, and his warm and compassionate nature was something that appealed to us right away," said Dan Harrington, executive director of Sedgebrook in Lincolnshire.
"We're happy to have someone with Alex's talent to continue leading our finance department," said Harrington.
• Submit your 'Neighbor in the News' items to Norrine Twohey at ntwohey@dailyherald.com.
Twohey, Norrine
Prospect High School
Des Plaines District 62


The following is an excerpt from The Bad Catholic's Guide to Wine, Whiskey, and Song, which can arrive gift-wrapped in time for Christmas if you order today.
It's obvious that any tome whose authors hope will be carried into bars and used as a songbook must include a heartrending love song. While it's true that the human heart is often moved to music by other matters, such as love of country, friendship, faith, and early 20th century Irish political squabbles, the best reason of all to launch into song is because you're in love. From Ovid's Ninth Elegy, "He Compareth Love to War," to Kiss's immortal power-ballad "Beth," the heartstrings of Western man and teenaged girls have resounded to the melodies of eros. Indeed, the great Thomistic philosopher Josef Pieper entitled one of his most eloquent books, a treatise on beauty, Only the Lover Sings. And of course, sitting smack dab in the middle of Divine Revelation is the Song of Songs, a celebration of the sensual pleasures of marriage—which Christians have learned to see as also an allegory of Christ's marriage with the soul. So we really couldn't let this book go to press without a love song; people might think we were prudes.
Of the thousands of love songs which have come down through the ages, the most enduring melody is surely "Greensleeves," whose tune you'll recognize from the beloved Christmas hymn "What Child is This." That tune always brings tears to our eyes as we kneel before the Knights of Columbus crèche, as it pipes out of the tape machine securely fastened behind the change box. The Knights leave the manger empty from the First Sunday of Advent through Christmas Eve, and there's nothing quite so poignant as the sight of the Virgin kneeling, the shepherds staring, the eyes of the plaster ox fixed, on a vacant cradle. It helps make up for those pre-Christmas sales which now begin on Nov. 1—and in 20 years will start with the 5th of July.
Should the chance that this is true ruin our appreciation of the song? Should we hate Billy Joel's "Just the Way You Are" even more than we already do—if such a perfect hatred were possible this side of Hell—just because the singer who made his fortune with this paean to his wife promptly dumped her for Christie Brinkley? These are thorny questions, but as firm artistic formalists we must say no. Some great works of art have been born in squalid contexts, churned out for ready money, or conceived for evil purposes—such as popularizing Bolshevism, extolling the "Master Race," turning kids on to heroin, or promoting vegetarianism. But that can't ruin the art work for us—any more than the best of intentions can turn something shoddy into a masterpiece. We really don't care how sincerely pious was the person who painted that mural in Manhattan's Immaculate Conception Church—apparently by using various colors of Crest toothpaste—which depicts the angels of the Book of Revelation as doe-eyed flower children waiting for Sergeant Pepper to come command the Yellow Submarine. We're not his spiritual directors. We're his victims.
"Be Not Afraid." This nasal, repetitive drone is too simplistic to accompany the Teletubbies, much less the Eucharist. While its message is apparently intended to be reassuring, NIMH clinical trials have shown that it reduces seriotonin levels in the brain's frontal cortex, mimicking the short-term effects of cocaine withdrawal or clinical depression. For this reason, we suggest its use is indicated on patients suffering from the manic phase of bipolar disorder, to normalize mood swings and render them compliant with hospital staff.
"Here I am, Lord." This hymn depicts a human soul responding to the call of Christ—but the music is whiny and grim, evoking in most people's minds a can of rancid potted meat, being slowly spread by windshield wipers across a plate of dirty auto glass. You hear Christ calling, all right—but you feel like He's some hobo who's tapping at your window at 4 a.m. to wake you from a sound sleep so He can ask you directions to Dunkin' Donuts. You don't so much want to answer Him as clock him with a slipper. Sung in a sleepwalking, zombie rhythm, its use at Communion time produces a strikingly cinematic effect, which film critics have dubbed "The Church of the Living Dead." Here again, we have a chance to bring good out of evil: In preliminary tests, use of this song by military interrogators has proved a successful, slightly more humane replacement for water-boarding.
"Hosea." A bland, saccharine adaptation of a stirring Old Testament story—a prophetic humdinger in which the relationship of God and His people is presented as a marriage, and human unfaithfulness compared to prostitution. Stern stuff—here reduced by banal lyrics and anile music to a warbling monologue from a straight to video chick-flick starring Eric Roberts. What is more, one of the song's lines is unintentionally obscene. When the cantor drones "Long… have I… waited for your… coming," it's impossible for any Catholic above age 11 to avoid conceiving of certain conjugal—difficulties. If you're experiencing such problems, you surely hear about them often enough; they shouldn't assault you in church. Being helpful souls, we have searched out a positive use for this terrible, evil song: Many Catholic husbands who love their wives have attended closely to the injunction of Pope John Paul II, who noted in Love and Responsibility that "the woman's excitement grows more slowly than that of the man. The man must take this difference between male and female reactions into account." If you're one of those husbands trying to take that difference into account, this song is for you. Hum it slowly to yourself, at crucial moments. There's no more potent buzz kill known to man.
Reviewing the well-meaning output of the past 30 years of Catholic musical creativity is enough to make one nostalgic for a hymnist like Henry VIII.


text:
Джон Ґудрайк (; 17 вересня 1764 — 20 квітня 1786) — британський астроном, член Лондонського королівського товариства (1786).

Життєпис
Народився в Гронінгені (Нідерланди), названий на честь свого діда, сера Джона Ґудрайка, більшу частину життя мешкав в Англії. У ранньому дитинстві через скарлатину втратив мову та слух. Здобув освіту в академії Томаса Брейдвуда — школі для глухих в Единбурзі, з 1778 по 1781 навчався у Воррінгтонськой академії.

Повернувшись до маєтку батьків у Йорку, Ґудрайк познайомився з Едвардом Піґоттом — сином Натаніела Піґотта, власника приватної обсерваторії. Едвард зацікавив Джона астрономією.

Роботи Ґудрайка поклали початок систематичному вивченню зоряної змінності. 1782 року відкрив періодичність змін блиску Алголя (β Персея), визначив величину періоду (2 дні 20 ч 45 хв), яка відрізняється від справжнього значення всього на 4 хвилини. 1784 року уточнив період (2 дні 20 ч 49 хв 9 сек). Висловив припущення, що причиною змін блиску є затемнення зірки великим тілом, що обертається навколо неї. Це припущення залишалося гіпотезою до 1889, коли Г. К. Фогель і Ю.Шейнер відкрили спектральну подвійність Алголя. Ґудрайк відкрив також змінність двох інших яскравих зір — β Ліри (1784) і δ Цефея (1784), які згодом стали прототипами двох класів змінних зір.

Медаль Коплі Лондонського королівського товариства (1783).

На його відзнаку названа сучасна обсерваторія в США — обсерваторія Ґудрайк—Піґотт.

Примітки

Посилання
 И. Г. Колчинский, А. А. Корсунь, М. Р. Родригес. Астрономы (Биографический справочник). — 2-е изд.  — Київ: Наукова Думка, 1977
 (1912) «John Goodricke» The Observatory 12 (12): 435—436

Британські астрономи
Члени Лондонського королівського товариства
Нагороджені медаллю Коплі
Померли від пневмонії
Астрономи-аматори


There isn't a person in New Zealand whose heart beats, who has a functioning brain, who understands the value of empathy and support in hard times who wouldn't agree that the citizens of Christchurch have endured and will continue to face the most difficult situation experienced by New Zealand citizens in the modern history of New Zealand.
Harder than the Great Depression? Harder than the influenza epidemic in 1918? The Erebus disaster? The sinking of the Wahine? The Napier earthquake? The earthquakes and the ongoing aftermath in Christchurch seem somehow to eclipse all of this. That might be because time dulls pain and moves on and us with it. It might be because the media have an "in your face" presence in it all that wasn't present in a less technological age.
But the re-organisation of schooling in Christchurch is playing out in the media in a fashion that raises many questions about the nature of professionalism and leadership in such times.
The use of school students, many very young, to man the barricades must have a huge question mark placed next to it. If the issue was the seashore, human rights, housing in New Zealand, the 1981 Tour we would have no difficulty in being hesitant in keeping the little ones out of it.
And the scale of the issues is not reflected in the coverage. The issue is the future of a relatively small number of schools in a city which has been badly knocked around, schools and school sites damaged and a quite understandable decline in student numbers. Not only does this represent an urgent need to respond to this situation but also an opportunity to do so in a manner that moves the education system forward. And this at a rare time – there is money to achieve it.
There would be little point in rebuilding the system exactly as it was in the manner that St Petersburg was restored after the 900 day siege during World War 2. Here is an opportunity to provide a group of children with new and better ways of working.
Most principals in New Zealand can attest to the difficulty of getting capital works underway – there are simply no resources for it. And yet I speak with many teachers and principals who have great ideas for working differently, many not a lot different from those being proposed in Christchurch. The MOE Report Directions for Education Renewal in Christchurch makes good reading when read at a distance not with the overlays of emotion and self-interest that we would all bring to it had we personally been affected. Other areas are thankful that they have not had that catastrophic impetus for such a report but might also be wondering if such a "renewal" approach would be a good thing in their area.
It therefore doesn't surprise me that I am told that opposition to what is being proposed in Christchurch is balanced with a good deal of support. There are schools and principals and teachers who warm to the idea of working differently, in new structures and in facilities that simply do not replicate the old.
But support is not what the media seeks – John Campbell rides to new levels in the ratings on the back of the negative stories from Christchurch schools and Novopay (helped also to a large extent by the laughable but not funny television programme that the other crowd have started in his time slot).
The layers of emotion that the media have dished up in the discussions in the Christchurch education stories have also not been helpful. The community sees a lot of tears on television, what is needed in education stories is a bit more grunt about professional issues (consultation has possibly been one but you can't rewind those films) and clear evidence about student achievement and learning. An inconsolable principal might be greatly sought out by the media but no argument is not advanced by it. The wearing of politicised apparel, the making of protest banners (some of which have simply been a lesson in rudeness and disrespect) and the access that the media has had to children all raise questions.
The key professional issue that has been buried by the media in all this is that the kinds of changes proposed are ones that might profitably be spread throughout the entire education system. Where are the plans for the development of a new system that groups students in more effective ways, provides teachers with the spaces and tools that would enable them to teach to the high levels to which they are capable? A legacy for Christchurch might be that it led the way – education for the 21st Century might be to Christchurch what Art Deco is to Napier.
One thing we can be certain of is that when the dust settles the media will have moved on to another story in another place with a different group of protesting people, teachers and students will still be there doing good work, unnoticed and looking back and wondering about it all.
If you heard about an education conference called "The Character and Resilience Summit" would you be inclined to rush to register?
The All-Party Parliamentary Group recently completed a report which it called "7 Truths about social mobility." In a country so irretrievably characterised by social class and the divisions which it imposes on pretty well every aspect of social, educational, and political life, this is a bold move – not simply to tackle the issue but to have confidence that the process had discovered the "truths" of the matter.
university is the top determinant of later opportunities therefore education achievement pre-18 is the key.
Now all of these are either well-known or platitudinous – the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Social Mobility will not be known for having pushed back the frontiers of knowledge.
personal resilience and emotional wellbeing are the missing link in the chain.
Quite right they have claimed and immediately have called for schools to start teaching "resilience" and "character". What do they mean? The old British stiff upper lip? The bash them on the bums? Cold showers?
I have seen hundreds of students who will never know the advantages gained by others through social status and class who have demonstrated tons of resilience and have character in abundance that shows high moral quality and strength. It is largely a conclusion that can only, underneath the platitudinous gabble that they bring to the discussion, really believe that they have access to the perks of social class because they are better people. People with resilience and character.
Producing a curriculum for character will be a challenge. But not so much for resilience. Schools already offer opportunities for developing both character and resilience through leadership opportunities, sports / music / cultural activities, school camps, education outside the classroom and so on.
It is not resilience and character that will provide opportunities for social mobility for those who come from the lower status strata in our communities. No, it is the early development of those skills and attributes that happen significantly in the first three years of life – language (especially), peer and social skills, understanding of symbols and numbers, vision and hearing and emotional control. This has been "discovered" by many in this country and nicely brought together by Dr Peter Gluckman in his recent report. But is it really capturing both our attention and the resources?
This has led to the summit on resilience and character being talked to by teachers from Eton. There is no doubt that the teaching at Eton is of a very high standard, I have visited the school and sat in many English classes where the teaching in the senior classes was certainly well into what one could expect at a university here.
But it isn't your normal group of students sitting in the room. They have all the attributes that you would expect of the social class they come from not only high competence in all the skill areas backed by a fierce commitment to study but also an unshakeable belief in their right to the privileges they enjoy and a total confidence that they will go on to be important people, and rich people. Yes, whatever you mean by it they have a resilience and the character they have is unmistakeable.
If those who are disadvantaged in our current system cannot quite see themselves acquiring a country seat or two, finding parents who work in the colonies or in the government or in the city, and mixing with quite a different class they had better settle for something much more sensible. They will have to settle for learning language(s) well, getting basic skills in place and taking advantage of each and every opportunity that comes their way for expanding their experience and the set of leadership qualities that they have. Teachers will have to ensure that they are "high quality" in their trade.
Most importantly, we need to do everything that we can to see that parents are supported to provide that critical environment for the development of those young brains. If suggestion and self-help don't work then intervention might be the only way.
St Valentine's Day – a day of romance, love, the joy of hope, the euphoria of positivity.
Just like yesterday when the Education and Science Select Committee started hearings on the Education Amendment Bill which among other things give the warrant for Charter Schools (now known as Partnership Schools Kura Houora). As could be predicted the submissions did not require even the hearings for their content to be known.
Except for the Ombudsman who drew attention to what surely was a mistake in the drafting of the Bill – of course any sort of school should be subject to ombudsman scrutiny. Then I wondered – are independent schools subject to ombudsman inquiry? Must find out! Integrated schools? Surely!
The ombudsman's reported comments simply said that in the education cases she dealt with, it seemed mostly to be about stand-downs and expulsions that schools had "cocked up" and "cocked up big time". This, I hope, was an exaggeration which flowed from the moment rather than a calm assessment of the workload.
But calm assessment seemed from the reports to have been something a little light on the ground at this first day of hearings.
I am amazed that education which ought to be identified with reason, with evidence and with scholarly discourse, prefers to present itself as something else.
No survey study of charter schools anywhere has found that they are without exception, a "bad thing". Generally the evidence is that there are good charter schools, middling charter schools and poor charter schools. It is clear that there are good state schools, middling state schools and poor state schools – we aspire of course to have good state schools. An interesting piece of the charter school evidence is that the proportions of good to middling to poor reflects closely the proportions of good to middling to poor schools in the respective state system.
Would anyone set out to create a middling or a poor Partnership School Kura Houora? Of course not. Therefore blind opposition can only be ideological rather educational in origin.
It surprised me that there was so little reported commentary on the general issue of school success and failure or of disengagement and truancy as key education issues that any new development must address. If a new development does not engage in activity that will deliver higher levels of success and lower levels of disengagement it would be probably not worth doing. This might have formed part of the submissions. If it was, then it has failed to make an impact on the media.
In our peculiarly Anglo-Saxon education system (and in our peer systems of Australia, the UK, the US and parts of Canada) the key issues in education are the levels of success and failure in the education system, levels of disengagement from it and professional support for teachers working in it.
It is therefore good to see that the Education Amendment Bill ties educational achievement to the responsibilities of the Board of Trustees. The key role of governance bodies such as Boards of schools is to provide returns to the shareholders and increase the value of the operation. In schools this is less about money but very significantly about the success that is brought into the homes of tax payers who support the schools through their investments of time and work.
Issues of health, housing, youth justice, for instance, have their solution in education. Not that schools should attempt to directly address health issues directly other than by playing a proper educative role and perhaps working closely with health providers, nor should they attempt to address hunger which is a role of central government – Finland feeds everyone in schools, the US and UK means test eligibility for lunch while we struggle to put on a little breakfast in the odd place.
Getting the focus clearly and back on achievement is perhaps the matter in this Education Amendment Bill that has the potential to make the biggest difference.
As for Charter Schools – New Zealand, building on its long experience with charters for all schools, might be able to show others that with focus they can become another way of working. Of course working differently has never been very popular in New Zealand – that is a problem which often hides a solution.
We need lots of educational red roses!
"Coming Ready or Not!" was the cry whenever we were playing hide and seek or "tiggy" as it was known back then.
And it has become something of a familiar cry at the start of each year as cohorts of about 35,000 all move up one class. Back then when tiggy was popular, the final line on a final school report for the year was "Class for next year ____. It was at that point that it was known to child and parents whether the student would proceed onward and upward or whether it was thought to be in their interests that they remain in the level they were in.
This is because we have little idea of what constitutes readiness for the big transitions (home to ECE, ECE to primary, primary to secondary) let alone the transitions that take place within institutions at year's end.
In 1989 President Bush in the fervent excitement that no child would be left behind declared that "by the year 2000, all children in America will start school ready to learn." The only problem was that there was no shared understanding of what that meant. But parents perhaps intuitively do have a sense of readiness for you often hear a parent say that their child is "ready for school". I wonder sometimes if they mean that they are ready for him/her to go to school!
What has to be understood is that transitions are a process and not an event and that the three parties to the process – the group from which the young person is farewelled, the group into which the young person is being received and the student/ caregivers from home – each have a vital role to play in this process.
The Receivers need to help the other two groups understand what they mean by "being ready" while the Farewellers need to reflect on what that means for them in the provision of a programme that will achieve a substantial number of the skills, aspects of knowledge and dispositions that have been identified.
This is no easy task, that is probably why it hasn't been done. But it is arguably the most important way of helping everyone give meaning to their respective roles in the process called a transition.
Excellent work is coming out of the United States in the area of College and Career readiness. David Conley has developed a useful overview of the process and what we learn from that work is that readiness is not a single dimensional factor but rather a collection of features that develop and mature at different rates. Some of these characteristics spike early while others take more time – and the good news is that it varies from student to student.
National Standards perhaps had the potential to be helpful in leading people to an understanding of at least curriculum levels that are appropriate but all that got lost in the noise. But a readiness statement will encompass more than just academic preparation standards, although they are important.
And agreeing on them is no easy task. When they set out to do this in the US for the start of schooling there were some clear differences between parents and teachers.
physically healthy, rested and well-nourished.
It is not at all clear just what readiness statements could helpfully look like. But unless we start working on them we shall never know!
Before I went to school this was how many a morning started when my mother had the radio on and listened to Aunt Daisy while completing all those chores that mothers have when they have pre-schoolers. Aunt Daisy was a broadcasting phenomenon in the 1950s and in that era before the cult of celebrity took grip on New Zealand, she was a widely known and greatly loved figure.
Not only did she broadcast her daily programme, she wrote a cookbook or two, a book of "Handy Hints" which I have and which is encyclopaedic in its scope. Above all she was a character.
Then there were others, Selwyn Toogood comes to mind. An effective broadcaster across radio (quiz shows, hit parades, general programmes and so on), he made the transition to television with both quiz shows and "handy hint" panel shows.
There were many others including Colin Scrimgeour (before my time!) who were greatly famous for their role – in his case in having the government jam his radio station when he was thought likely to be about to urge listeners to vote for the Labour Party.
None of these kinds of broadcasters can be summed up in terms of comparisons to broadcasters of today. The way they worked, the technology they had (or didn't have!), the stiff formality of all media in those days, the respect for people's privacy and dignity, the concern for high standards of language use – all these factors circumscribed the way they worked on the media and the kinds of people they were.
All this has come to mind as the media over the past several months has tracked the tragic decline from good health through to the too early death of Sir Paul Holmes. When the media become concerned about one of their own they know no limits and one simply excuses the excesses as emotion over-rules normal practice.
He has been described as New Zealand's greatest broadcaster of all time and I wonder about this. He certainly was a remarkable character with as much confidence as he had talent across a wide range of things. But the claims are a little over the top. Like all people who enjoy success, they do so on the shoulders of those who went before. He came to talkback radio and was able to mould the "breakfast session" traditions, well established by people like Phil Shone and Merv Smith with the still relatively new talk back radio potential pioneered by the likes of Gordon Dryden, Eccles Smith, Geoff Sinclair and Tim Bickerstaff and Sir Bruce Slane. I think that the last one there, Sir Bruce Slane, a well regarded legal figure actually used a pseudonym since some practices of the past still prevailed and it was not totally acceptable for a lawyer to be doing this.
Then there is the issue of current affairs. Sir Paul Holmes was not only the brightest star in the current affairs constellation over quite a period of time but, for the past ten or so years, pretty well the only one. Radio has been better in this regard than television. A serious discussion with him at the helm was a serious discussion. Well informed, well prepared, quick on his feet and faster with his tongue, he stood alongside those he interviewed and it was often good television or radio. But the last twenty years of current affairs barely bears comparison with the previous twenty years when a stable of commentators seemed to make television the go-to place for intelligent discussion of what was happening in New Zealand. Of course the success of Muldoon and Lange and their governments handed them plenty to get stuck in to and they did this with energy and at the time a ferocity that was there with Paul Holmes but with no-one else.
A mark of greatness is perhaps the ways in which a gap is filled when such people move on. There has been no explorer / adventurer / philanthropist to replace Sir Edmund Hillary and there might never be one of his ilk again. The wisdom of a Sir Paul Reeves is badly missed in these fractious times. There aren't many to step up to fill the gap left by Sir Paul Callaghan, a rare talent.
To be sure, Sir Paul Holmes left large gaps when he moved on. Mark Sainsbury never captured the magic that sustained the eponymous Holmes Show, Mike Hoskings suffers by comparison in the breakfast slot while Jack Tame is a very poor out-of-depth substitute on Saturday morning radio. And Seven Sharp just beggars belief – not current affairs, not adult, not intelligent, low level humour…. Children's' television? No, it can't be, children demand more intelligence and better humour.
Holmes was one who took the cliché out of being "a hard act to follow'.
We have people who do well, athletes, rugby players, musicians (some of who would be considered "great") and lots more but our sense of proportion in our judgments is often distorted by the media that wallows in its power to create greatness. Does not the extent to which the weekly magazines immerse themselves so deeply in the trivial and with people who are famous simply because we are told they are famous, somewhat astonish? Greatness is not a crowed place and the media might reflect a little more on who might already have got there before they dish out the accolades.
Reflecting on the past, not just the last few minutes relatively speaking, is not a bad thing. Perhaps perspective requires this. Do we get this right in education? Could we name our great teachers and educators? The ones who really made a difference? It would be worth giving this some thought at this time when the media is obsessed largely with the negative when it comes to education. The agenda will be set by them if we do not set a different one.


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Bart Stupak to Retire
Sarah Pulliam Bailey| April 9, 2010 09:34 AM
Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Michigan), who led an amendment to block federal funding for abortion in health care but alienated pro-life groups when he voted for the Senate version of the bill, will retire at the end of his term.
Earlier, Family Research Council Action planned to spend $500,000 and Susan B. Anthony List planned to spend $150,000 on ad campaigns targeting Stupak and other Democrats who voted for the health care bill. Stupak, who served in Congress for 18 years, told the Associated Press that attacks from groups on abortion did not influence his decision and that he wanted to spend more time with his family and start a new career.
In a Wall Street Journal column last month, William McGurn suggested the end of pro-life Democrats.
Update: FRC sent a press release praising Stupak's pro-life stance, blaming the Democratic Party for his legacy.
It is a shame that he will leave Congress remembered more for his vote on the Obama health care bill, the largest abortion promoting piece of legislation ...
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I received the following email from a student.
"I just received notification about my grade "Activity X"— I received a "T" out of 2 and I am not sure what that means. can you please explain?"
This student should have received 2 out of 2 points, and this is what was entered as I used speedgrader. Why is he seeing his grade as a "T"?
Not sure why I didn't check before, but per this guide - How do I use the icons and colors in the Grades page? - the T represents the "text icon - Text entry submitted, not graded."
I've never heard of a "T" showing up for a grade in Canvas. I'd ask for a screen shot of what the student is seeing and if it is a T then I'd have them click on the Help link in Canvas (from where they are seeing the T) and Report a Problem.
Yes the problem was resolved. Thank you for checking!
Would you mind sharing what the issue was or what was done to resolve the issue?
I believe it just denotes that it is a 'Text Entry' if the student submitted the answer in the text entry box instead of uploading a file.
I just had an instructor ask this same question and on investigating and hovering over the grade field it prompted that it was a text entry submission.


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Remembering When Runners Drank Champagne as an Energy Drink
At the 1908 Marathon in London, athletes hit the bottle mid-race.
by Katherine Alex Beaven June 19, 2018
In This Story
Marathon du Médoc
This French marathon has regular stops for wine, cheese, and oysters.
Dorando Pietri is helped across the finish line while holding a cork in his hand. Public Domain
On July 24, 1908, the London Olympic Marathon went down in history as one hell of a race. Summer heat had plagued the city, and a newly resurfaced track stretched hard as rock under the runners' feet. At the last minute, the course was extended nearly two miles, forever setting the official marathon length to an arbitrary 26 miles and 385 yards.
So much drama unraveled under these harsh conditions that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (of Sherlock Holmes fame) was inspired to write a recap for The Daily Mail. "I caught a glimpse of the haggard, yellow face, the glazed, expressionless eyes, the long, black hair streaked across the brow," he wrote of the eventual winner. Fifty-five runners started off from Windsor Castle, but only 27 made it to the finish line. The majority of runners quit before the halfway mark.
For a badly needed boost, a number of competitors turned to unlikely, but common-at-the-time sources: brandy, glasses of bubbly, and strychnine (best known now as rat poison).
Wild as it may seem today, people once believed alcohol and strychnine cocktails were performance enhancers. The drinks were doled out like Gatorade or energy gels to endurance athletes. According to Dr. Matthew Barnes, Senior Lecturer and Deputy Head of the School of Sport, Exercise, and Nutrition at New Zealand's Massey University, plying athletes with alcohol started in Ancient Greece and Imperial China.
Modern use of alcohol in sports can be traced back to the competitive foot races of the 19th century. Essentially very long walks of dozens or hundreds of miles, these events captivated Great Britain. Contending "pedestrians" were advised to down lots of champagne during competition. Years later, marathoners were often given boozy boosts by trainers or assistants who followed their runners in cars or on bicycles.
Competitors run past shops on the route between Windsor Castle and the White City Stadium. Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Common substances included various alcohols and dangerous drugs—from strychnine to heroin or cocaine—which were meant to mask pain, increase aggressiveness, or gain a quick energy boost. Trainers often had their own secret cocktails, and people didn't stop using heroin and cocaine as performance-enhancing additives until the 1920s, when the drugs became prescription-only substances. And athletes boozed during competition all the way into the '70s and '80s.
Alcohol as a whole was celebrated for its stimulative effects and high sugar (energy) content. Champagne was a favorite thanks to its supposedly rejuvenating effervescence. And, since strychnine's use as a pesticide had not yet been discovered, low doses were believed to reinvigorate tired sportsmen.
At the time, it seemed to work. In 1896, at the inaugural modern Olympic Games, Greek marathon runner Spiridon Louis famously knocked back a glass of cognac with six miles left to go in the race. Refreshed, he went on to win the gold. The 1904 St. Louis Olympic Marathon runners battled sweltering 95-degree heat and borderline inhumane track conditions. Throughout his victorious run, Thomas Hicks regularly sipped near-deadly cocktails of strychnine, brandy, and sulfate in egg whites. In 1908, the winner of the Chicago Marathon, janitor-turned-runner Albert Corey, credited his win a steady supply of champagne.
At the 1908 Olympic Marathon, at least a handful of runners imbibed alcohol or strychnine cocktails during the race—including the first four to cross the finish line.
Thanks to his recent record-breaking win at the Boston Marathon, Canadian runner Tom Longboat was the favorite at the London Games. Unfortunately, he never finished. After plodding his way into second place, the 20-year-old runner fell victim to the brutal heat. At mile 17, likely dehydrated and exhausted, Longboat slowed to a walk. Searching for energy, he turned to champagne. Two miles later, he collapsed and was out of the race.
South Africa's Charles Hefferon also imbibed. Unlike most of the runners, he seemed to cope well with the inhospitable conditions. By mile 15, Hefferon had a two-minute lead. Nine miles later, he had doubled his lead time, leaving the gold medal within a few minutes' reach. Or so it seemed. But two miles from the finish line, Hefferon "accepted a draught of champagne," an act he later admitted cost him the race. The drink caused intense stomach pains, and Hefferon was forced to slow and watched two runners pass. Once a shoe-in for the gold, Hefferon finished third.
Swedish runner Gustaf Törnros competed in the 1908 marathon. Swedish Olympic Committee/Public Domain
At the finish line, Arthur Conan Doyle and 80,000 spectators waited for an "exultant victor." Instead they spied Italian pastry chef Dorando Pietri, a "little man, with red running-drawers" (in Conan Doyle's words) who "reeled as he entered and faced the roar of the applause." In the last quarter mile alone, an exhausted and dazed Pietri had collapsed five times, had run in the wrong direction, and even had the area over his heart massaged by concerned medics.
In a now-famous photograph of Pietri crossing the finish line, a hollowed cork wedge can be seen in his hand. Clenching cork wedges helped endurance runners relieve strain on their hands and fingers, but when hollowed-out, they acted as vessels for wine, brandy, and other questionable energy drinks. In the end, concern for Pietri's life resulted in the runner being supported across the finish line by a doctor, causing his eventual disqualification and a redistribution of the race's medals. Some attribute Pietri's physical downfall to being drunk, while others believe both he and Longboat were subjected to strychnine poisoning.
Not all of the boozed runners fared poorly. De facto gold medalist Johnny Hayes admitted to an energizing gargle of brandy during the race, and bronze medalist Joseph Forshaw also turned to brandy in order to treat a stubborn side stitch. He claimed he "felt fine" after, and was able to carry on in the final leg. Around that same time, it was believed that dehydration was better treated with wine than water. In fact, the 1924 Paris Games infamously stocked its rehydration stations with glasses of wine.
Thanks to later studies on the effects of alcohol on muscle groups and hydration, trainers no longer offer athletes strychnine cocktails or glasses of bubbly. However, alcohol is still an option for runners looking to enhance a race along other dimensions. At the Marathon de Médoc in French wine country, 23 different glasses of wine (and other gastronomic goodies) await runners along the 26.2-mile route. But thankfully, no one believes it will actually help them win.
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