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Biografia
Ha iniziato a gareggiare per la nazionale canadese nelle varie categorie giovanili nella specialità del singolo, ottenendo un secondo posto nella classifica finale della Coppa del Mondo giovani nella stagione 2014/15, mentre ai campionati mondiali juniores è giunta sesta a Winterberg 2016.

A livello assoluto ha esordito in Coppa del Mondo nella stagione 2018/19, il 24 novembre 2018 a Innsbruck, piazzandosi al 27º posto nel singolo; ha conquistato il primo podio il 1º dicembre 2018 a Whistler, dove fu terza nella gara a squadre con i compagni Reid Watts, Tristan Walker e Justin Snith. In classifica generale, come miglior piazzamento, è giunta al trentaseiesimo posto nel singolo nel 2018/19.

Palmarès

Coppa del Mondo
 Miglior piazzamento in classifica generale nel singolo: 36ª nel 2018/19.
 1 podi (nelle gare a squadre):
 1 terzo posto.

Coppa del Mondo juniores
 Miglior piazzamento in classifica generale nel singolo: 8ª nel 2016/17.

Coppa del Mondo giovani
 Miglior piazzamento in classifica generale nel singolo: 2ª nel 2014/15.

Altri progetti

Collegamenti esterni


Carbon monoxide (CO) is an invisible, odorless gas. It is a common by-product of incomplete combustion, produced when fossil fuels (like oil, gas or coal) burn. Because you can't see, taste or smell it, carbon monoxide can kill you before you know it's there. Exposure to lower levels over time can make you sick.
Carbon monoxide can be produced by the combustion that occurs from fossil fuel burning appliances like a furnace, clothes dryer, range, oven, water heater, or space heater. When appliances and vents work properly, and there is enough fresh air in your home to allow complete combustion, the trace amounts of CO produced are typically not dangerous. And normally, CO is safely vented outside your home.
Problems may arise when something goes wrong. An appliance can malfunction, a furnace heat exchanger can crack, vents can clog, or debris may block a chimney or flue. Fireplaces, wood burning stoves, gas heaters, charcoal grills, or gas logs can produce unsafe levels of CO if they are unvented or not properly vented. Exhaust can seep into the home from vehicles left running in an attached garage. All these things can cause a CO problem in the home.
Carbon Monoxide robs you of what you need most: oxygen, which is carried to your cells and tissue by the hemoglobin in your blood. If you inhale CO, it quickly bonds with hemoglobin and displaces oxygen. This produces a toxic compound in your blood called carboxyhemoglobin (COHb). Carboxyhemoglobin produces flu-like symptoms, for example: headaches, fatigue, nausea, dizzy spells, confusion, and irritability. Since symptoms are similar to the flu, carbon monoxide poisoning can be misdiagnosed. As levels of COHb rise, victims suffer vomiting, loss of consciousness, and eventually brain damage or death.
Everyone is at risk because everyone needs oxygen to survive. Medical experts believe some people maybe more vulnerable to CO poisoning: unborn babies, infants, children, seniors, and people with heart and lung problems due to higher metabolic rates.
How can I help protect against carbon monoxide poisoning?
Early warning is important: Install carbon monoxide alarm outsides each sleeping area and on every level of the home, including the basement, as recommended by the National Fire Protection Association. Choose a CO alarm that is tested and listed by a Nationally Accredited Lab such as ETL or UL.
Have your appliances checked regularly. Have a qualified appliance technician check all fossil fuel burning appliances, venting and chimney systems at least once a year, or as recommended by the manufacturer.
Inspect the pilot lights on natural gas appliances to ensure that the flame is blue. When a flame is mostly yellow in color, it likely is producing CO.
Clean out the lint and debris that may build up in the clothes dryer vent which leads to the outside of the house.
Only use generators in a well-ventilated location outdoors away from windows, doors and vent openings.
Use barbeque grills only outside and never indoors or in the garage.
Never leave an auto running in a garage, even for a couple of minutes and not even if the overhead garage door is open.
Install a CO alarm outside each sleeping area and on every level of the home, including the basement, as recommended by the National Fire Protection Association. Ensure that the alarms are plugged all the way in the outlet or, if battery operated, have working batteries installed. For better protection go a step further and install CO alarms inside each sleeping area.
First Alert recommends replacing CO alarms no later than every 5-7 years.


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By L.S. Klepp
Updated November 20, 1992 at 05:00 AM EST
This taut, somber novel, the fourth by the Canadian writer Michael Ondaatje, is about eccentric passions, and the eccentric passions are about deserts, theft, bomb mechanisms, and other people with eccentric passions. The English Patient was a cowinner with Barry Unsworth's Sacred Hunger of Britain's highest literary award, the Booker Prize, and it would also deserve to win the Herodotus Prize for Farfetched but Enchanting Stories, if only there were a prize named after the Greek historian who is quoted throughout the book.
Ondaatje is one of those writers who prefer to make their characters reveal themselves through ordeals, not ordinary life. One of the four characters he places in a bomb-ruined Italian villa at the end of World War II has been burned beyond recognition, left with only his English-accented voice and his stark stories of the North African desert where his plane crashed. Another, a 20-year-old Canadian nurse named Hana, has been numbed by caring for dying men but has found a new vocation in her devotion to "the English patient." The third has been given the name of the 16th-century Italian painter who used thieves and prostitutes as models for his paintings of sacred subjects. This Caravaggio is a Canadian. He had been a thief before the war. He has spent the war in the same profane profession, stealing for the sacred Allied cause. The fourth character is Kirpal Singh, or Kip, an Indian who joined the British army and was trained as a sapper, an expert in disassembling the unexploded bombs that litter England and Italy. He is therefore in constant danger of being blown to bits.
Nothing so explosive happens. Caravaggio admits he's in love with Hana. She develops a delicate passion for Kip. But the life of the book is in the desert, where the burned man had been an explorer before the war and where he had fallen into a destructive affair with the wife of a colleague. His stories aren't entirely believable, but they become compelling because the desert comes through with its oases and mysteries intact. The novel finally succeeds as a celebration of the solitude to be found in deserts, dangerous machines, and unrequited love, and as a celebration of the impassioned individuality that seeks such solitude. B+

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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3 Tips for Luxury Brands Marketing on Video-Streaming Platforms in China
Lotus Ruan
Official film still from 'Tiny Times.' Photo: VCG
Skeptics have doubted the appeal of "old-school" video-streaming platforms to luxury brands and predict that the future of luxury brands' marketing lies in live-streaming, smartphone-based micro-film apps such as Meipai, and other innovative social media forms. But recent research suggests that online video-streaming platforms are still favored by many luxury brands. Meanwhile, pre-roll ads remain the mainstay of online advertising strategy in the Chinese market. Given that video-streaming has proven it has staying power, here are some best practices for luxury brands marketing on video platforms in China.
1. When it Comes to Pre-Roll Ads and Dedicated Channels, Content Is King
Chinese Internet users love watching videos online. By July 2016, the overall monthly active users of Chinese video-streaming mobile applications exceeded 800 million. As we wrote in a previous article, many of these video-streaming viewers actively seek out commercials as long as they are creative.
Luxury brands such as Cartier, Chanel and Louis Vuitton began investing in this platform since its early days. The main tip for making pre-roll ads and managing dedicated channels for luxury brands is simple: content is king.
Recommended ReadingChina's 'Sex and the City' Stirs Heated Debate Over Luxury BrandsBy Ruonan Zheng
The fashion powerhouse Louis Vuitton was one of the first to experiment with Youku, launching video ads in 2009 followed by a full brand channel in 2010. Burberry, the British luxury fashion brand, has also included video-streaming platforms in its marketing strategies in China, uploading promotional videos and live-streaming its fashion shows on platforms such as Youku to reach Chinese consumers.
Official film still from 'Tiny Times.' Photo: VCG
2. Seeking the 'Tiny Times' Effect for Luxury Product Placement
Product placement is one of the most frequently used marketing strategies for luxury brands, which have had a lot of success, in recent years, placing products in Chinese movies and television shows.
For example, Ode to Joy, a hit television drama series about five young women making it in Shanghai, one of China's most developed cities, attracted over 50 advertisers including Givenchy, SK-II, Chow Tai Fook and many other luxury brands.
Tiny Times, a film series based on the novels of China's wealthiest writer Guo Jingming—which make luxury items such as Hermès Birkin bags, Celine jackets and Ferragamo cocktail dresses an integral part of the movie—is an example of successful product placement, despite poor reviews from Chinese critics who called the movies "shallow" and "materialistic."
The films broke Chinese box office records multiple times and demonstrated an incredible ability to boost the sales of luxury goods such as champagne.
Recommended ReadingTrending in China: Benefit's New Brand Ambassador, and KOL Mr. Ji Liang's Revealing InterviewBy Ruonan Zheng
Feeding the curiosity of average audiences, fashion bloggers wrote volumes explaining each brand spotted in the films, which further boosted the exposure of luxury brands.
Meanwhile, Chinese mainstream video-streaming sites have invested a lot in producing original online shows in recent years, many of which target Chinese youth and are able to reach a larger audience than traditional television shows and movies. It's an opportunity luxury brands should keep an eye out for.
3. Matching a Show with the Value of a Brand
This is not to suggest product placement is an easy choice or a guaranteed success. For luxury brands in particular, setting is something that needs to be handled with care.
Luxury brand Furla was introduced to Chinese consumers on the television show 'Ode to Joy.' Photo: Weibo
"The worst thing that can happen is that the audience feels like it is watching a commercial," said Leeza-Maria el Khazen, the founder of Lynx Productions, a branding and business development firm. "It can have a very negative effect on the film and the brand because it draws the audience out of the movie. Sometimes it's kind of shocking."
The most recent marketing success with respect to online shows for luxury brands perhaps goes to Supreme, a New York-based skateboarding and clothing brand that has won the hearts of many celebrities. In The Rap of China, a Chinese rap reality show produced by online video platform iQiyi that has attracted over 2.5 billion views, celebrity judge Kris Wu has been wearing Supreme outfits since the first episode in June 2017.
Recommended ReadingInterview with Yang Mi, Michael Kors' New Brand AmbassadorBy Yiling Pan
Even though the brand did not ask to be in the show or pay for this inadvertent product promotion, its frequent appearance in the show has shot the brand to stardom in China. Other luxury brands that have appeared on the show, including Yeezy, Gucci and Off-White, have also experienced a huge spike in interest on the Chinese-speaking internet, not just in how much these items cost but also in the culture and story behind the brands.
According to the entertainment research company EntGroup, if product placement fits with the setting in a show, more than 66 percent of the viewers won't mind watching the ads. Understanding what shows best match with the value of a brand can help build loyalty and appreciation among consumers.
china luxury, ode to joy, product placement, tiny times


The Muriva Cara Trail Bronze Foil Metallic Wallpaper is a great way to add an elegant look to any room this season. This delightful wallpaper is part of the Couture Luxuria Wallpaper Collection and is sure to make a welcome addition to your home. The wallpaper is made of textured vinyl and features a period inspired trail design. It has been brought to life in a fashionable metallic bronze colour scheme.
The Muriva Cara Trail Bronze Foil Metallic Wallpaper is a great choice for either a feature wall or throughout a room. Use it to add character to a living room or dining room.


Most of us have experienced being locked out of our own home, office, or cars. Some of the necessities in our day to day life are safety and security. Therefore, we need to make sure that we give them the most proper security and protection mechanisms by the installation of strong locking systems. Only experienced and skilled locksmiths can provide us the assistance we need whenever we experience a lock issue in an emergency hour.
There is no simple or tough lock problems we can't solve because our firm takes pride in offering different lock services with good results. Our services are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in 365 days. We are completely committed to bestow superior services associated with customer satisfaction. We guarantee customer satisfaction. Our licensed and highly skilled locksmith professional will handle all your locksmith issues. With us, you will never go wrong. We are ready to go the extra mile to get the job done.
Our top priority is protecting the safety and well-being of all customers. Today is definitely the right time to give solution to your issue. It is recommended to do the necessary steps now. Our customer service representatives are ready to provide superior customer service with no wait time. We provide free estimates for all of our services. What are you waiting for? Hire us today and will be in your location in no time.


Another great result for Lightfoot School of Dancing Students a 100% pass result for all students in todays International Dance Teachers Association examination.
all of whom achieved honours status in their examination.
who all achieved Highly commended (above 85%), with Annette Langford, Emily Teague and Samantha Linney achieving highly commended in 2 dances.
Well done to all the students for their hard work in passing their examination today!


A Florida anti-immigration bill with language so severe it could make Donald Trump sound like Hugo Chávez is advancing through the Florida House right now.
House Bill 1095, dubbed the "Prevention of Acts of War," would give Florida governor Rick Scott — or any of his successors — the authority to use military and police force to keep people out of the Sunshine State.
The bill was approved in committee yesterday with a party-line 9-4 vote, with Republicans pushing the bill through the first of three sub-committees.
The bill wasn't even debated because Democrats on the Criminal Justice Subcommittee found it so laughable.
The bill — which would allow the governor to ban immigrants or refugees from any country he deems dangerous — would also prohibit any Floridians receiving any kind of state assistance — including Medicare or welfare, even if they qualify for such programs under state and federal law. The bill's language would also give the Florida Department of Law Enforcement authority to monitor immigrants and refugees who have entered the country and state legally.
Republican Rep. Lake Ray of Jacksonville authored the bill with 12 other co-sponsors, including Florida representative Doug Broxson, whose district includes northern Okaloosa County and Santa Rosa County counties.
House staff acknowledge the bill will have "a negative fiscal impact on state government expenditures," resulting from increased government resources used to enforce such a law.
The bill is just the latest anti-immigration bill headed through the state capitol in this year's legislative session and must pass two other committees before seeing its day in the Florida House. A similar Senate bill (SB 1712) has yet to be scheduled for discussion.


The problem was highlighted by reports of a recent study that claims to show a statistical link between delivery by Caesarean section and risk of autism. This study was reported in several Irish newspapers, with alarming headlines like "C-sections 'raise autism risk'" and in the UK Daily Mail, whose headline read (confusingly): "Autism '23% more likely in babies born by C-section': Women warned not to be alarmed by findings because risk still remains small".
The study in question was a meta-analysis – a statistical analysis of the results of many previous studies – which looked at rates of autism in children delivered by C-section versus those delivered by vaginal birth. Across 25 studies, the authors found evidence of a 23% increased risk of autism in children delivered by C-section – a finding reported by all of the newspaper articles and cited in several of the headlines.
23% increased risk!!! That sounds huge! It almost sounds like 1 in 4 kids delivered by C-section will get autism. It also sounds like it is the fact that they were delivered by C-section that would be the cause of them having autism. In fairness, that's not what the study or the newspaper articles say – in fact, there are any number of caveats and qualifications in these reports that should mitigate against such conclusions being drawn. But they won't.
They won't because most people will only see or will only remember the headlines. It is the juxtaposition of the two terms – C-sections, autism – that will stick in people's minds.
Most people not trained in epidemiology are not well equipped to evaluate the strength of the evidence, the size of the effect or the interpretation of causality from statistical associations. That should be the job of a science reporter, but it was not done in this case. In fact, most of the articles read like (and presumably are) merely a slightly re-hashed press release, the job of which is obviously to make the results sound as significant as possible. They include no critical commentary, no perspective or explanation and no judgment about whether the findings of this study are newsworthy to begin with.
For any study of this kind, you can ask several questions: 1. Is the evidence for an effect solid? 2. Is the effect significant (as in substantial)? 3. What does the effect mean? And a responsible journalist (or scientist thinking of whether or not to issue a press release) might also ask themselves: 4. Could uncritical reporting of these findings be misinterpreted and cause harm?
So, let's have a look at the details here and see if we can answer those questions. In this study, published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, the authors look at the results of 25 previously published studies that investigated a possible link between C-sections and autism. These studies vary widely in size and methodologies (was it an elective or emergency C-section, a case-control or cohort study, were siblings used as controls, were the findings adjusted for confounders such as maternal age or smoking during pregnancy or gestational age at delivery, was autism the only outcome or were other things measured, was C-section the only risk factor or were other factors included, etc., etc.).
The point of a meta-analysis is for the authors to devise ways to statistically correct for these different approaches and combine the data to derive an overall conclusion that is supposed to be more reliable than findings from any one study. The authors make a series of choices of which studies to include, what weight to give them and how to statistically combine them. These choices are all reported, of course, but the point is that different choices and approaches might lead to different answers.
One important thing jumps out – some of these studies have vastly more subjects than others. (For some reason, the numbers in the Langridge et al 2013 study are not listed in the table: it had 383,000 children in total). What should be obvious is that the studies showing the biggest odds ratios (5.60 or 3.11) are the ones with the smallest sample sizes (n = 278 or 146). The biggest studies (with n > 690,000 or >268,000!) show either negative or very small positive odds ratios (0.97 or 1.04).
Now, why you would want to combine results from studies with samples in the hundreds, with those with samples in the hundreds of thousands is beyond me and the way the authors do it also seems odd. In order to combine them, the odds ratios of these studies are weighted by the inverse of the variance in each study. Maybe that's a standard meta-analysis thing to do, but it seems much more intuitive to weight them by the sample size (or just get rid of the ones with dinky sample sizes). When you do it that way, the overall odds ratio comes out barely over 1. (This doesn't even take into account possible publication bias, where studies that found no effect were never even published).
Anyway, all of that discussion is merely to draw attention to the fact that the methodological choices of the authors can influence the outcome. The headline reported 23% increase in risk is thus not necessarily a solid finding.
But, for the sake of argument, let's take it at face value and try to express what it actually means in ways that people can understand. The problem with odds ratios is they represent an increase in risk, compared to the baseline risk, which is very small. So, the 23% increased risk really is not an increase in absolute risk, as it sounds, but a relative increase by 23% of the baseline risk, which is about 1% (so really an increase of 0.23%).
A clearer way to report that is to express it in natural frequencies: if the base rate of autism is ~10 children out of 1,000, you would expect ~12 with autism out of 1,000 children all delivered by C-section. Those are numbers that people can grasp intuitively (and most people would see that the supposed increase is fairly negligible – that is, there's not much of a difference between 10/1,000 and 12/1,000). Certainly nothing newsworthy.
But let's say it's a slow news day and we have this pre-prepared press release describing these findings in front of us and space to fill. What should we say about what this statistical association means? Does such a correlation imply that one thing causes the other thing? Is it evidence that the fact of being delivered by C-section is the cause of an increased risk of autism?
I think most people can see that it does not, at least not necessarily. It is of course possible that the link is causal and direct. But it seems much more likely that the C-section is merely an indicator of obstetric complications, which are themselves a statistical risk factor for autism. (In which case, having the section is likely to reduce, not increase the chances of harm!). Moreover, obstetric complications can arise due to an underlying condition of the fetus. In such a case, the arrow of causation would be exactly opposite to what it appears – the child having a neurodevelopmental condition would be the cause of the C-section.
So, to answer questions 1-3: the findings are not necessarily as solid as they appear, the size of the effect is nowhere near as large as the "23% increased" risk phrase suggests, and, even if the actually small effect were real, it does not imply that C-sections are a bad thing.
Now, for question 4: if this finding is reported, is it likely to be misunderstood (despite a wealth of caveats) and is that misunderstanding likely to cause harm? In this case, for an emotive and already confused issue like autism, the answer to both those questions is pretty obviously yes. It doesn't take much imagination to see the effect on pregnant women faced with the decision of whether to undergo a C-section, possibly in difficult and stressful circumstances. It seems a very real possibility that this perceived risk could lead some women to refuse or delay a C-section, which could actually increase the rates of neurodevelopmental disorders due to obstetric complications.
More generally, the reportage of this particular study illustrates a much wider problem, which is that the media seem fascinated with epidemiology studies. One reason for this is that such studies typically require no background knowledge to understand. You don't need to know any molecular or cell biology, any complicated genetics or neuroscience, to (mis)understand the idea that X is associated with increased risk of Y. That makes it easy for reporters to write and superficially accessible for a wide readership.
Unfortunately, it leads to two effects: one, people will misinterpret the findings and ascribe a high level of risk and a direct causal influence to some factor when the evidence does not support that at all. That has potential to do real harm, as in the case of reduced vaccination, for example.
The second effect is more insidious – people get jaded by these constant reports in the media. First, butter was bad for us, now it's good for us, first fat was bad for us, now it's sugar, etc., etc. The overall result of this constant barrage of rubbish findings is that the general public loses faith in science. If we apparently change our minds on a weekly basis, why should they trust anything we say? All science ends up being viewed as equivalent to epidemiology, which is really not what Thomas Kuhn has called "normal science".
Normal science involves an established framework of inter-supporting facts, which constrain and inform subsequent hypotheses and experiments, so that any new fact is based on and consistent with an unseen mountain of previous work. That is not the case for epidemiology – you could do a study on C-sections and autism pretty much on a whim – that hypothesis is not constrained by a large framework of research (except previous research on precisely that issue). I don't mean to knock epidemiology as an exploratory science, just to illustrate its well-known limitations.
It seems however, no matter how many people ring the alarm bells, it will take a long time before this framework is abandoned.
It doesn't help when you have TV doctors trying to explain health outcomes by "bad diets" and such.
10. Most of all THE PRESS NEEDS TO STOP REPORTING ON FINDINGS FROM THESE TYPES OF STUDIES!


Loblaws is offering Canadians a $25 gift card as a result of overcharging for the cost of bread products in their stores and other grocery stores across Canada. To register to receive your gift card, and to read all the details about eligibility and terms and conditions, please go to LoblawCard.ca .
If you qualify and this will benefit you with your groceries, we encourage you to register today and directly use the funds to support you and your family.
If you know anyone who may need help with groceries and potentially qualifies – please pass along this information.
Many people have also contacted Edmonton's Food Bank asking if we can accept these gift cards as a donation. First of all, thank you kindly to our supporters for thinking of us – we truly appreciate it. Secondly, due to the complexities of this situation, we are encouraging donors to please support our work and consider one of the following means of help.


Design and construction of the full enclosure of an existing pool.
Spantech was awarded the project on price.
Spantech designed a concept for the ADF for a new Health & Wellbeing Centre at Puckapunyal. Read more.
Spantech designed and constructed a partially enclosed building over an existing Olympic swimming pool. Read more.
Construction of a shade structure covering a 25 metre swimming pool which extends over a dividing block wall to also cover a single basketball court. A second high level shade structure was also constructed over the primary school quadrant which is surrounded by existing two storey classrooms. Read more.
Spantech designed and constructed the multipurpose sports and performance facility for this preschool to Year 12 College. The facility includes a 25 metre waveless indoor swimming pool and a 400 seat grandstand. Read more.
Spantech was contracted to design and construct an indoor equestrian centre for Unicorn Park Stud and Equestrian Centre. Read more.
Design and construction of an enclosure over an existing 18 metre learn to swim pool. The structure features counter weighted glass doors which span between concrete buttress supports on three sides of the structure. Read more.
Spantech has been contracted to construct The Parkinson Aquatic Centre at 751 Algester Road, Parkinson for the Brisbane City Council. Read more.
Lismore City Council awarded Spantech a turn-key contract to design and construct the Goonellabah Sports and Aquatic Centre. Mayor of Lismore Councillor Jenny Dowell said it was "the biggest single project ever undertaken by the Council". Read more.
The new curved roof structure is 25 metres wide and 62 metres long. The building includes end-walls made from toughed polycarbonate. This feature wall spreads soft light throughout the entire pool area. Read more.


text:
Converts optimized DSD design sequences into trial matrices. Outputs omnibus structure ('dsdDesigns.mat') and individualized stimulus files for each subject/run ('~/drs/paradigm/input/drs$$$_dsd_run$.txt') w/ per-trial info.

###**makeSVCdesigns.m**
Converts optimized DSD design sequences into trial matrices. Outputs omnibus structure ('svcDesigns.mat') and individualized stimulus files for each subject/run ('~/drs/paradigm/input/drs$$$_svc_run$.txt') w/ per-trial info.

###**optDSDkao.m**
Creates multi-objective optimized designs for DSD task. Condition sequence (i.e., private vs. friend, private vs. parent, friend vs. parent) optimized for contrast detection, counterbalancing, hrf estimation, and frequency of event types according to strategy of Kao (2009).  *add cite/link*

Additionally ordered by comparison type ($=, left$isMore, right$isMore) via inedependently optimized sequence.

Not currently in a loop. It was executed 100 times to generate the 'kaoDSDdesign_{$}.mat' files in GAoutput.

###**optSVCtor.m**
Creates multi-objective optimized designs for DSD task. Condition sequence (i.e., private vs. friend, private vs. parent, friend vs. parent) optimized for contrast detection, counterbalancing, hrf estimation, and frequency of event types according to strategy of Wager (2002). *add cite/link*

In current form, generates GAworkspace, from which the 'torSVCdesign_{$}.mat' files can be found in the variable MM.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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Sketching the future
Washington, D.C. 5
› New York ›
Outer Seed Shadow #01 (OSS#01)
A site-specific art project that materializes the union between plant and human migration tendencies and theories, using different plant species as representatives of social groups.
Outer Seed Shadow #01 (OSS#01) was conceived by Spanish artist Juanli Carrión in 2012 when after years of living in New York he started to consider permanent residence in the US. He wanted to revisit the long-established idea of the American "melting pot" and investigate the new realities of New York immigrant life in 2014.
Carrión conducted a series of on-camera interviews with immigrants living throughout Manhattan about their personal experiences of arrival, with each interviewee ultimately selecting a plant that exists both in their country of origin and in the United States, which represents both them and their community in the public garden.
The 1,000 square foot garden is in the shape of Manhattan and will feature dozens of plants selected by immigrants living in the borough. Placed according to the interviewees' real-life locations on the island, the plants represent the diversity of the city. OSS #01 activates an underused public plaza at the foot of the Avenue of the Americas.
The garden will host a series of free public programs beginning June 7th that includes artist-led tours, lectures, hands-on garden workshops and "Open Garden" days, organized in partnership with various immigrant and educational institutions including City Parks Foundation, The Blue School, Columbia University, El Centro del Inmigrante and Henry Street Settlement, among others.
Sat, June 28 —
Mon, November 10, 2014
Garden at Duarte Square, Northwest corner of Avenue of the Americas & Canal Street, New York, NY 10013
Free and open to the public. Opening hours: 12 noon to 5 pm.
Outer Seed Shadow #01
Supported by NYC Department of Parks & Recreation.
View our team at the Consulate General of Spain in New York.
Also in New York 2
New York debut of Impetus Madrid Baroque Ensemble
Making Marbles: Science & Splendor at the Courts of Europe
Also in Urban Culture 0
There is no other event programmed in Urban Culture.
Competitions & grants
© 2011–2020 Consulate General of Spain | 150 East 58th Street, 30th Floor | New York, NY 10155 | Tel: (212) 355-4080 | Fax: (212) 644-3751


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Guns and Gun Control
How Walmart Helped Make the Newtown Shooter's AR-15 the Most Popular Assault Weapon in America
January 7-14, 2013 Issue
A massive recent spike in gun sales has boosted Walmart's flagging profits, making it the top seller of firearms and ammunition nationwide.
By George ZornickTwitter
When Adam Lanza entered Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday, December 14, inexplicably bent on ending as many lives as possible, he was carrying a Bushmaster AR-15 assault rifle and several high-capacity magazines. Sadly, this isn't the first time the country has had to deal with the aftermath of a horrific shooting spree, nor is it the first time we've encountered an AR-15 in this context: only days earlier, it was the weapon of choice for a shooting at an Oregon mall that killed two people. Five months earlier, it was used by James Holmes in an attack that wounded fifty-eight people and killed twelve in an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater. And several years before that, a man and his teenage accomplice used a Bushmaster AR-15 to terrorize the Washington, DC, area with a series of random shootings.
Although it is not yet clear where the Bushmaster AR-15 used by Lanza (and registered to his mother) was purchased, the model is familiar to many Walmart shoppers. It's on sale at about 1,700 Walmart stores nationwide, though the retail chain pulled the weapon from its website three days after the attack. While the deadly rampage in Connecticut has finally and unmistakably highlighted the madness of making such weapons readily available, it's a concern that many people with a Walmart in their community have been trying to address for years. Several months back, the Rev. Greg Brown had a troubling conversation with two members of his youth group from the northwest side of South Bend, Indiana. "They were honor roll students and little young folks that love the Lord," Brown recounted. "One of the kids came up to me and said, 'Rev, you ain't gonna believe what happened the other day at Walmart.'" The kids went on to describe how, on a recent visit to the big-box store, a man asked them to fill up a gym bag with ammunition and sneak it out of the store for him. They declined.
Walmart's ammunition sales have troubled Brown since at least 2009, when two teenagers shoplifted bullets from the local Walmart, shot at an employee who tried to stop them in the parking lot, and then embarked on a citywide robbery spree in which one man was seriously injured. When Brown headed down to the store to see how easy it would be to steal ammunition, he was shocked. Not only were there bullets arrayed on the unlocked shelves; there were rows of guns as well, including assault rifles.
South Bend has the most violent crime per capita in Indiana and well more than double the national median. Brown was outraged that Walmart was even selling these weapons, let alone that they were unlocked and under the supervision of hourly employees without specific training in firearm handling and sales. (Brown says a former Marine handles the gun sales at a nearby Dick's Sporting Goods.) "It's totally wrong, and it's totally unacceptable," he said. "You look back there and see a dad holding a gun, his son pulling on his pocket. And the son knows the gun is going home. The son's going to know where the gun is."
South Bend isn't the only place where Walmart is stocking guns, including combat-style weapons and gun-related paraphernalia. The big-box chain at one point sold guns in only about a third of its stores, mainly in remote rural areas where hunting is popular. But in 2011, without much fanfare, Walmart expanded gun sales to about half of its 3,982 stores nationwide, including those in more urban areas like Albuquerque and Spokane.
The expansion of gun sales at Walmart came after a five-year slowdown. In 2006, the chain announced that it was rolling back gun sales, citing declining profit margins on the relatively expensive weapons, which even at Walmart can retail for hundreds of dollars. But in 2011, company executives were looking at eight straight quarters of declining sales at stores open for a year or more—the worst slump in Walmart's history.
They must also have noticed that Barack Obama's inauguration had sparked a rally in gun sales, which have steadily increased every year since 2008. The government isn't allowed to track firearm sales, but the FBI does release figures on how many retailers ask it to run background checks—a relatively reliable indicator of total gun sales, although likely a lowball estimate, since a person can buy multiple guns on a single background check, and many gun shows aren't required to perform such checks. In 2007, retailers asked the FBI for just over 11 million background checks; by the end of 2009, 14 million checks were requested—a 27 percent increase.
In April 2011, Walmart began stocking guns in more and more stores, expanding the sales to 1,750 outlets nationwide. By the end of that year, the FBI received 16.4 million background check requests; the number is 16.8 million this year. Overall Walmart sales figures are back on track after the 2011 slump, and executive vice president Duncan Mac Naughton told shareholders at a meeting in October 2012 that gun sales in particular are a staple of the chain's strategy to continue boosting its numbers. He said that over the past twenty-six months, gun sales at Walmart stores open for a year or more were up an astonishing 76 percent, while ammunition sales were up 30 percent. Walmart is now the biggest seller of firearms and ammunition in America.
"This gun thing, it's really just a nightmare," says Bertha Lewis, president of the Black Institute, which has been organizing Walmart workers this year to protest wages and working conditions. Given its aggressive gun sales, Walmart's logo "shouldn't be a smiley face; it should be an automatic weapon," she adds.
Nearly 400 guns are available in Walmart's catalog. And even if your local store doesn't sell a particular model, you can special-order it (assuming you pay half the cost ahead of time). With the exception of its stores in Alaska, Walmart doesn't sell handguns, though it does sell ammunition for them, along with a wide variety of semi-automatic long-barrel weapons. For example, at half the Walmarts in America, you can buy a semiautomatic Colt M4 Ops .22 rifle; it carries a thirty-round magazine, which you can also purchase in the store. Or perhaps a Sig Sauer M400 assault rifle, advertised on Walmart's website as "designed for use in law enforcement, military operations…as well as competitive shooting," which is just one of several AR-15 assault rifles for sale.
In keeping with the store's pitch as a one-stop destination for shoppers, with everything from gas to groceries, gun enthusiasts can also obtain a wide range of gun accessories—including the 360 types of ammunition listed on Walmart's website. You can buy a 555-pack of Winchester hollow-point bullets, which the website advertises as "great for plinking and varmints," but which would cause extensive damage should they enter a human body and expand, as they are designed to do. There are full clips of ammunition for assault rifles, including "quiet ammo" that makes only a quarter of the noise of regular bullets. Laser-pointing sights for handguns are also available, as well as belts for holding shotgun shells (only $4.97 at select stores).
Walmart, which declined to comment for this story, has said elsewhere that its stores will always respect local laws and ordinances on gun sales. But in 2005, Walmart was busted by Bill Lockyer, then the California attorney general, for thousands of state gun law violations—including selling to people that the AG's office had notified Walmart were prohibited from owning firearms; delivering guns to customers before they passed a background check; and sometimes even failing to ascertain a customer's identity. The company settled the suit for $14.5 million.
And, of course, Walmart has contributed to efforts to change state gun laws and make the possession and use of firearms even easier. It was one of the key backers of the American Legislative Exchange Council when the group aggressively pushed "stand your ground" laws in states across the country. (Walmart has since dropped out of ALEC under public pressure.)
In 2008, the store reached an agreement with Mayors Against Illegal Guns to adopt tough new standards for sales above the federal requirements for gun retailers. But even if every regulation is adhered to, the mass sale of weapons and ammunition will undoubtedly contribute to this country's horrifying gun violence problem.
In fact, Walmart is increasingly popping up in court documents. In 2011, on the morning that he killed six people, including a federal judge, and injured thirteen others, including Representative Gabrielle Giffords, Jared Lee Loughner went to two Walmarts in Tucson in search of ammunition. He was turned away at one store for "strange behavior," according to police, but got what he was looking for at the next Walmart. ("We share in the sadness for those people whose lives were ended too soon," the store said in a statement at the time.)
In November, a disturbed 20-year-old in Missouri was arrested for planning mass shootings at a screening of the new Twilight movie and at the local Walmart—the latter because he could reload there. "He decided that he would go and shoot people at Walmart in Bolivar," according to the court documents. "He would walk into the store and just start shooting people at random and if he ran out of ammunition…he would just break the glass where the ammunition is being stored and get some more and keep on shooting until police arrived."
Local news reports are rife with stories of gun thefts at Walmart stores, often apparently because of lax oversight of the weapons inventory. In October, a man and a woman cracked open a display case at a Walmart store in Tyler, Texas, "while a clerk wasn't looking," according to local reports, and stole four assault rifles. The two have yet to be apprehended.
A week earlier, at a Walmart in Missoula County, Montana, a clerk was showing a Sig Sauer semiautomatic rifle to a man who then "grabbed it and ran for the store's entrance," according to the charging documents. The police nabbed him a short time later, after he had tossed the AR-15 from his car. In early November, police in Summerville, South Carolina, were on the lookout for suspects in incidents at two separate Walmarts, where display cases had been smashed with a hammer and the AR-15s and other assault rifles inside them stolen. And these are just a few of the incidents involving guns or ammunition at Walmart in the past two months. Since the start of 2012, there have been at least fifty shootings in a Walmart store or parking lot, incidents tracked on a blog called Walmart Shootings (walmartshootings.blogspot.com).
The possibility that South Bend could end up on that list once again is what has the Reverend Brown so alarmed. For forty-eight years, he has lived with his mother, Bertha, a retired schoolteacher, in a house less than a mile from a Walmart. The neighborhood is a rough one, and he's seen it get worse; Brown said that the locals sometimes call it Babylon, "because ain't nothing righteous."
Bertha, who has lived in South Bend for sixty-five years, says the violence is the worst she's ever seen. "It's real sad, because we've got a lot of young people, and people are getting killed—every time you look, someone is getting shot," she says. "Every time you pick up the paper…. I don't know who's doing it, and they can't seem to catch these people, but the guns are out there."
For four months last summer, Reverend Brown's prayer group, nicknamed the God Squad, walked around town sticking three strips of tape (symbolizing the Father, Son and Holy Spirit) with anti-violence messages onto telephone poles. The group was "praying that we could cease the violence, cease the drama. And it worked in some areas," Brown said. "But I'm going to be honest with you: we're at an all-time high."
So when he saw the weapons for sale at Walmart, Brown took action. He called the chief of police and members of the City Council, who in turn applied pressure on local Walmart managers. In response, the chain promised the city in writing, in June, that it would no longer sell assault weapons in South Bend.
Brown thought the problem was solved. Then, this past fall, his phone rang: "I had a parent call me and say, 'Mr. Brown, they're selling them.'" He went back to Walmart, and indeed, the weapons were still on display—without much in the way of security. "I saw the glass unsecured," Brown said. "The employee who worked there said, 'I only work part-time back here.' He opened the glass…. This guy left the cabinet open and walked away."
This time, Brown came prepared: he'd brought a police officer and a reporter for the local ABC station with him. They took pictures, and the reporter did a story that made waves in South Bend. Walmart apologized and promised to fix the error.
A month later, Brown said he'd heard from a police officer that the combat-style weapons were being sold inside the packed store on Black Friday. He said he'll keep up the fight and plans to visit the City Council again to ask for tougher action. "I'm not against guns; I'm not trying to go against the NRA," Brown said. "But I'm against the way they sell them. You can go in Walmart at 3:30 in the morning and you can't buy a can of beer. But you can walk in there to the ammunition [counter] and buy as many boxes as you want. I have a problem with that."
Other anti-violence activists are disturbed by Walmart's ballyhooed expansion into urban markets like Chicago, Washington, Los Angeles, Reno, Detroit and other cities. That, combined with the increased gun sales, could be a recipe for disaster.
The chain says it won't sell guns at those stores—a condition of approval for a new Walmart in Washington, DC—but Bertha Lewis is wary. Even if that turns out to be true, the guns are likely to be sold at a Walmart somewhere else in the area. "Guns are a scourge in black and brown and low- and moderate-income communities," Lewis said. "And here comes Walmart with Mr. Smiley Face: 'Here, here's a $5 sweater—and, oh, by the way, you can get this gun.'"
Lewis thinks the gun sales will soon be a new front in the activist campaign against Walmart. "You're going to see it more and more and more as folks organize against Walmart," she said. "One of their vulnerabilities is their stance on guns. Don't try to sell me an apple and a gun at the same time. Don't tell me that you're trying to give fresh fruit and vegetables to people so that they can have a healthy life, and then you turn around and on the next counter you have instruments of death."
Also in this issue, the editors say nothing like the Newtown massacre ever needs to happen again and Katherine S. Newman examines "The Roots of a Rampage."
George ZornickTwitterGeorge Zornick is The Nation's Washington editor.
Today 8:00 am
Caroline Shaw and the Shock of the New
David Hajdu
Make America Freight Again
Lance Hansen
Half a Century Before Colin Kaepernick, Jackie Robinson Said, 'I Cannot Stand and Sing the Anthem.'
Peter Dreier
Yesterday 4:45 pm
Racism Is Not a Winning Issue for Trump


Good vibe! Was my first time trying CrossFit so didn't know what I was doing but can seriously feel the workout!
Richard was great but it was my first CrossFit class and I didn't realize a lot of class is standing around and getting your equipment together, which is pretty standard CrossFit apparently. I prefer classes where you're doing stuff the whole time.
lol they kicked our collective asses, in a good way!!
Awesome class. They advertise that they have showers but they dont.
I havent done CrossFit in a year or so and I just started to get back to my training. The amenities, the people and the instructor, Chris is super professional and friendly at the same time. I had so much fun working out and it definitely kicked my b*tt. The kind of training that works for me! I didnt do so well for my first because I was still sore and recovering from my kickboxing session the day before but definitely coming back again! Looking forward to my progress! God bless!
Amazing! First time and it went better than expected! It can be intimidating but the Trainer/Coach is encouraging and the energy of the regulars is welcoming and fun! You can go at your own pace but dont slack!


Nintendo DS Lite - How Can You Live Without It?
Touch screen technology, dual screens, and wireless communication: that is how Nintendo DS Lite is described by the gamers.
Nintendo DS is the leading gaming station in the United States, with the company located in Rockefeller center in the city of New York. It even surpasses the number of gaming units which SONY sells.
The interaction between the gamers and the games has got a new definition by Nintendo DS Lite's free Wi-Fi connection. You can now compete with the gamers all throughout the world. Distance is no more the factor now.
Two unbelievably and extraordinarily brilliant LCD screens offer you the most revolutionary game play technologies ever advanced! Say no to 2-D! The new advanced LCDs can produce a perfect 3-D view with remarkable 3D renderings to surpass the images displayed on its own Nintendo 64.
Are you ready to take the world on? Nintendo Wi-Fi connevtion lets you connect to any gamer playing anywhere in the world wirelessly. Now, play and chat at the same time. All what you need is a Wi-Fi ready game and not to forget the most important, Nintendo DS. What more? The service is totally FREE!
No need to rely on buttons to shift point of views or to move your characters. The lower screen of Nintendo DS Lite offers a new feature which surpasses all the other gaming stations: touch screen technology. So, now you can steer the menus and access the items in the inventory with just the touch of your finger.
But watch out! Nintendo does not monitor the Nintendo DS Lite wireless communication along with the Picto-Chat and hence it is NOT private. So, beware before revealing any of your individual information or fixing a meeting with a stranger!
What are you waiting for? The new Nintendo DS Lite is all there, waiting for you. Get Set Go and take on the world.
Whether you are looking for a DS Lite Nintendo Pink or a DS Lite Nintendo Onyx, you can't go wrong with a DS lite Nintendo gaming system.


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What Caused The Civil War: Slavery Or States' Rights?
12 Aug, 2005 by	John Hawkins
Just for the heck of it (It's kind of a slow news day), I thought it might be worth taking a moment to address an argument that seems resurgent of late, that the Civil War wasn't really about slavery. Instead the claim is that it was really a states' rights issue.
The reasoning here goes that if the North had respected the right of the Southern states to secede, there would have been no war. Therefore, the Civil War was all about states' rights. Incidentally, when you run across people who say Lincoln was a tyrant and a rotten guy, instead of one of the greatest American Presidents, it's likely that they view the Civil war in states' rights terms, and given that, believe Lincoln started an unconstitutional war that led to hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths.
But when you get right down to it, the debate turns into sort of a, "which came first: the chicken or the egg" type of argument.
In this case, while I'll grant you that had both the North and the South agreed on the question of slavery and whether the states could secede from the union, there would have been no war; clearly slavery was what led to the Civil war.
The "Bloody Kansas" battles didn't occur over states' rights issues and that lunatic John Brown and his followers didn't go on a bloody rampage because they believed in a more centralized government. It was about slavery.
Furthermore, the aristocratic leadership of the Southern States chose to withdraw from the Union because they feared the balance of power was going to shift against slave holding states and that the practice would be ended (although I should note, the overwhelming majority of people in the South didn't own slaves and fought primarily to defend their homes and families from attack).
So, the split was over slavery, not states' rights. To say that the Civil War was actually about states' right is like saying WW2 was fought because the Axis and the Allies had different opinions about how much "living space" a nation was allowed to have. Of course, if both sides looked at it the exact same way (i.e. Germany could do whatever it wanted) there would have been no WW2, but to try to claim that was the root of the conflict sidesteps the real issues.
The same principle applies to the Civil War.
Most of the men fighting for the South may have been good and decent folks who just wanted to defend their homes and families. Moreover, many Southerners may have genuinely believed they had a right to secede from the Union. Yet and still, what brought the North and South to each others' throats and caused the war was the issue of slavery, not states' rights.
My pal Rachel Lucas got a question from one of her readers that read, I'm a former liberal who's made a difficult transformation to a conservative...I'm ...


text:
Who is Frank Dux – the main character from the movie Bloodsport?
In the mid-1980s, screenwriter Sheldon Lettich, who was gaining increasing fame in the profession, was introduced by his friend Richard...
Why Stephen King wrote under the pseudonym Richard Bachman?
In 1977, Stephen King's career flourished. His first three books, Carrie, Salem's Lot and The Shining, had become worldwide bestsellers,...
Is RRR Based on true story?
Are the characters shown in the RRR movie real? Yes, but most of their on-screen adventures are fiction. The authors...
Who is Alan Smithee?
Several "talented" artists may contend for the title of the worst-ever filmmaker. There is Uwe Boll, an expert in failed...
The Thing 1982 – Interesting facts about John Carpenter's film
Thanks to good acting, a suspenseful story and great special effects John Carpenter's "The Thing" is without a doubt one...
Why did Michael Jackson's skin get whiter as he got older?
Michael Jackson was a true pop music legend. Unfortunately, much of his musical accomplishments are now overshadowed by numerous scandals...
What is the Mozambique drill?
Mozambique drill (also known by its alternative name "failure drill") is a close range shooting technique in which the shooter...


text:
Q: how to get top 5 food in this sql query cannot get top 5 food for this query. count top 5 food in that restaurant.
<?php
header('Content-Type: application/json');
require('config.php');

$sqlQuery = "SELECT top 5 fd.name as res_name,(SELECT  count(*) from review re where re.favorite_food=fd.id and re.res_id='1' ) AS count FROM  food fd ";

$result = mysqli_query($connection,$sqlQuery);

$data = array();
foreach ($result as $row) {
    $data[] = $row;
}

mysqli_close($connection);

echo json_encode($data);
?>

occurs error

A: SELECT fd.name as res_name, count(*)
FROM food fd
JOIN review re ON re.favorite_food = fd.id
WHERE re.res_id = 1
GROUP BY fd.name
ORDER BY count(*) desc
LIMIT 5

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


At the meeting, Deputy PM Hue commended the results recorded by the northern province in the past year and urged Lai Chau to continue implementing comprehensive measures so as to realise the goals set at the provincial Party congress. He elaborated that the province needs to further restructure its agriculture and attract more investment in the sector, and to pay attention to forestry development and increase forest coverage. The Deputy PM added that Lai Chau province should focus to capitalise on the Ma Lu Thang border checkpoint to increase border trade. At the meeting, Hue also instructed the ministries and agencies concerned to arrange resources for investment in mountainous and ethnic regions. The Ministry of Transport was specifically required to work with Lai Chau to soon finalise the procedures to start constructing a highway connecting the Noi Bai-Lao Cai Expressway and the province. On the same day, Deputy PM Hue also visited Sin Suoi Ho border guard station and a cultural tourism village in Phong Tho district.


BETHANY, N.Y. – Authorities say a New York state man whose license expired 33 years ago was charged with driving while intoxicated after he drove a van 11 miles without one of its tires.
The Genesee County Sheriff's Office says another motorist reported seeing a tire falling off a van weaving on a road in Bethany late Monday.
Deputies later arrested 61-year-old Duane Bush at his home in Bethany, southwest of Rochester. Deputies say the van traveled 11 miles through the town without a rear right tire.
Bush has been charged with aggravated DWI and unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle. Deputies say his blood-alcohol level was more than three times above the legal limit of 0.08 percent.
Police didn't know whether he had a lawyer, and there is no phone listed for Bush.


 The participation in the exhibition "Chemspec"
NewsThe participation in the exhibition "Chemspec"
On 18-20 of June 2014 the exhibition Chemspec will take place in Budapest, where the company "Hungarian Silicones" Kft. intends to participate in order to present their products in the section "Special Chemistry".
In the first days of the exhibition our foreign colleagues, including technical specialists and chief engineer will join to our team.
To appoint a meeting with us, please contact us by any way available in the section "Contacts"of the site.


ScanGuard versus Avast Avast is among the most favored antiviruses, which has been all-around for several years. AVG AntiVirus's dreary plus environmentally friendly major interface gives a speedy breakdown of the protection standing, time of your previous diagnostic scan and update, a quick-scan key, plus a fairly unobtrusive ad just for AVG's paid-for World wide web Reliability application and many non-active control keys of which spotlight characteristics you'll receive when you pay for it. The best anti-virus program wouldn't merely discover threats, but in addition actively runs every bit info stepping into your current product. The true secret element of any anti-virus application is the detection motor, which will runs on the combination of known signatures associated with malevolent computer software plus heuristic evaluation of the software or file's personality in addition to actions to establish if it could possibly dangerous.
We now have incorporated check effects regarding AVG's various other goods involving similar engine within our examination from the overall performance results from key anti-malware analyze labratories. Yes, it really is wonderful, and everything the particular ScanGuard ant-virus ratings could make sure. In AV-Comparatives' real-world viruses subjection lab tests, it looked after against 99% associated with viruses with no incorrect advantages. Prepare yourself a list of your own 'must have' features to be able to narrow down your options, therefore get the anti virus software program of which best suits your financial budget. AV-Comparatives accounts same exact results, by using AVG Free finding 99. 5% involving real-life or spyware selections.
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Throughout its latest two-month examine period, AV-Test noticed that AVG products protected against 99. 2% associated with real-world zero-day spyware episodes via world wide web plus e-mail and even 99. 2% of a large pair of guide samples within the initially calendar month, in addition to completely associated with hazards both in groups during the next. Instantly upgrade appsOur Automated Program Program updater feature searches on-line for posts to the most favored apps on your PC then puts these people quickly to help prevent reliability weaknesses. A significant percent of shoppers that get anti-virus computer software do not understand the particular operate of this accessible capabilities.
AVG Absolutely free gives you crucial real-time coverage, plus scheduled together with on-demand deciphering. Your current interaction together with Google Lookup as well as other Bing goods. A settings menu delivers access to some sort of record of occurrences including reads, up-dates and detections; quarantined data; internet websites, data files in addition to websites that you want to don't include by deciphering that is great for software builders who also don't need their own unfamiliar fresh data files for being flagged seeing that possible dangers. In addition , anti virus computer software automatically information to it is company mainly because it relationships unfamiliar destructive and in some cases not cancerous documents.


text:
Michael Gove to strip Doncaster Council of children's 'services'
Thu 2:53 pm +00:00, 11 Apr 2013 1
Hi Tap,
My comment regarding 3 month agency social workers on 9th April was in relation to the Guardian article below. Can you add the article on. It wasn't to do with the day old baby video.
http://the-tap.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/psychopaths-masquerading-as-human-beings.html
I hope I am making sense.
Vicky Haigh
Michael Gove threatens to strip Doncaster council of children's services
Education secretary says council has failed to overcome 'serious and long-standing failures' in child protection
Michael Gove said he had ordered a review of Doncaster council's social services for children. Photograph: Jonathan Brady/PA
The education secretary, Michael Gove, has threatened to strip a council of its children's services responsibilities after consistent failures in its social services performance.
Gove said Doncaster council had failed to overcome "serious and long-standing failures" in its child protection services despite heavy criticism in the wake of the notorious Edlington incident in 2009, when two brothers with a history of family violence sadistically tortured two other young boys.
In a letter to the Doncaster mayor, Peter Davies, Gove said he had ordered Julian Le Grand, a professor at the London School of Economics and a former policy adviser to Tony Blair, to carry out a review of the council's social services for children.
The review will assess whether Doncaster can deliver a "sustainable and significant improvement in services" under existing arrangements and whether an "independent organisation" should in future deliver children's services.
Although Le Grand will not deliver his report until the end of May, Gove has ordered the council in the meantime to hire external support to build up its child protection capacity and raise standards.
"I believe these steps are the ones required to establish the best possible chance of the very significant and sustainable change required in Doncaster," Gove wrote.
http://m.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/mar/26/michael-gove-doncaster-council-children
The Tap Blog is a collective of like-minded researchers and writers who've joined forces to distribute information and voice opinions avoided by the world's media.
One Response to "Michael Gove to strip Doncaster Council of children's 'services'"
And the government covering up all of the pedophiles that have worked within government for years means our own government is complicit in child abuse and needs stripped of any involvement in our childrens lives.
Corrupt incompetent pedophiles at work here again.


text:
Features Applications Other
Cascading organics
August 4, 2009 by Tony Kryzanowski
The use of manure as fertilizer is an essential ingredient of organic farming, and certified organic farming is definitely trending upwards in North America as consumers worldwide become more conscious of how their food is grown.
The security of a consistent supply of manure for fertilizer is helping Cascade Agronomics build its customer base among both organic and conventional farmers. Submitted photos
The Research Institute of Organic Agriculture and International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements report that almost 5.4 million acres are managed organically in North America, representing just over 12,000 farms. The U.S. organic industry grew by 21 percent in sales in 2006, and is forecast to experience 18 percent sales growth each year between 2007 and 2010.
Over 64,000 acres were managed organically in Washington state in 2007 and it was ranked second in the value of farm gate sales at about $160 million, second only to California.
Washington-based custom manure applicator Cascade Agronomics Inc. has grown right along with the trend toward more organic farming. The company was established in 2002 and now has 40 employees. It applies about 300,000 dry tons of manure per year, in addition to providing products and services related to commercial fertilizer, chemicals and seeds to the agriculture industry.
Cascade Agronomics' TerraGator nutrient management system units give the company precise control over its dry manure application service.
Manure from feedlots is processed through a McCloskey trommel screen to remove rocks and debris before it is applied to farmland by Cascade Agronomics.
Cascade Agronomics applies manure to about 50,000 acres of farmland annually, and 5,000 acres are for organic growers.
Trucks with manure spreader boxes provided by FSI Fabrication are an important component to the Cascade Agronomics custom manure application fleet.
It applies dry manure to about 50,000 acres per year, with 5,000 acres being organic farmland. While the company has found a niche, it takes more than just being in the right place at the right time to achieve business success. Passion and knowledge are also important ingredients.
"The reason I feel pretty good about what we are doing is two things," says company owner, Todd Hines. "We are saving our customers money along with improving the soil health, and secondly, we are eliminating contaminants in the stockpiled (cattle manure) area. That makes me feel good as a person. I am trying to make a difference for the environment."
Because the company has been able to demonstrate good results in terms of nutrient intake from its manure application service, more of its customers are using manure as a commercial fertilizer replacement.
"I have actually crossed over from the organic to a lot of our commercial growers," Hines says, "because of the benefits I have seen from the manure on our organic crops, the health of the soil, and all the benefits of applying manure."
He says a client will typically use manure on one cropland circle one year, more acreage the second year, and the entire field or all of their fields by the third year.
"Our customers are actually excited about the difference they are seeing in their soil health, crop responses, and increased water holding capacity," says Hines. "There are a number of benefits our growers are realizing. I think that it has been a win-win situation for both our company and our customers because the cost of the manure has actually been less to obtain the same nutrients when factoring in the cost of commercial fertilizer over the last two years."
Customers are also feeling more comfortable about manure as a fertilizer, knowing that there is a local inventory when faced with volatile commercial fertilizer prices, shortages and delivery issues.
Hines is an agronomist with a bachelor's degree in crop management from the University of Idaho. His business is headquartered in the Moses Lake area, about halfway between Seattle and Spokane.
Common crops grown in the area include potatoes, onions, green peas, carrot seed, onion seed, alfalfa and wheat. There are also a lot of fruits, such as apples, cherries, and wine grapes, grown in the region. This has motivated Hines to expand into certified compost production for use in orchards.
The service provided by Cascade Agronomics essentially boils down to taking a soil sample, discussing an application plan with customers, deciding on the type of manure, finding sources of manure to meet customer needs, screening it through a McCloskey 621 trommel screen (in the case of cattle manure), and then applying the manure according to the customer's nutrient management plan. The company applies both chicken and cattle manure, with the vast majority being the latter, given the number of intensive livestock operations in that area of Washington. Some of his suppliers are large feedlot operators like El Oro Cattle Feeders near Moses Lake as well as Beef Northwest Feeders. Cascade Agronomics also takes on contracts with individuals who have old feedlots that need cleaning up.
"Most of the guys we deal with are focused on their animal performance," says Hines. "Obviously, if we get the manure out of there, they are going to have enhanced animal performance. It also looks better for the general public to have a clean feed yard versus one that has stockpiled manure everywhere."
He adds that his contract suppliers also appreciate that they have someone who is going to be available on a consistent basis to purchase the manure, so it is one less concern on their plate.
There is a definite difference between applying chicken manure versus cattle manure.
"I only use the chicken manure on our organic crops," says Hines. "That's primarily because we are going after the nitrogen content in the chicken manure, which is roughly at 50 to 70 pounds of nitrogen per ton. Our use rates are typically in the five to seven ton per acre range."
With cattle manure, he says they typically spread between seven and 30 tons per acre using screened material, but in that case, customers are primarily trying to capture the phosphate and potassium.
The company's experience in terms of application rates and results is a valued service that keeps customers satisfied and coming back.
"We use different rates for different crops," says Hines. "I have figured out what they are by trial and error, quite honestly. Based on that knowledge, I can make a recommendation based on the soil and what the crop use will be."
Sometimes, it means going that extra mile to keep a customer happy. For example, to ship organic products to the European Union (EU), it was decreed that organic farmers cannot use manure from confined livestock operations. So, the company has to source cage-free chicken manure just so those customers can maintain access to the important EU market.
Cascade Agronomics' fleet consists of two Ag-Chem 9205 TerraGator nutrient management system (NMS) units, a TerraGator 3244 with a nutrient management system, and a 3104 TerraGator nutrient management system unit. The company also has five 10-wheeler trucks with beater boxes supplied by FSI Fabrication – located in Sunnyside, Wash. – on the back to spread manure.
Hines says he chose the Ag-Chem TerraGators because of the consistently uniform application quality he achieves with these purpose-built units. The systems within the manure applicators are highly integrated, from the load cells to the auto-steer feature to the rate controller.
"The TerraGators come equipped with the Falcon VT Rate Controller," says Hines. "If we wanted to, we could do variable rate application."
While the TerraGators are built for manure application, Cascade Agronomics also offers a lime application service and is able to use the TerraGators for this service as well. In this case, the company does use the variable application rate feature.
Hines says having this level of precision is what has helped to differentiate his business from his competitors.
"There are a few guys that have pull-type spinners that they use," he says, "but to my knowledge, they don't have anything with load cells on them and I don't think the uniformity of the application is as good as what our machines do."
For example, he says that to make sure they don't have overlaps or skips, they have auto-steer on all their machines. The operator simply sets a line when he starts the field, hits a button, and the TerraGator steers itself going through the field.
Hines adds the TerraGators also deliver outstanding performance when applying the chicken manure, which he describes as sometimes having the sticky consistency of Play-Doh.
"As far as the really wet chicken manure, there is no other spreader that I have seen that will do the kind of the job that the TerraGators with the dry NMS on them will do," says Hines.
Their busiest time of year is in the autumn, before fall tillage or if any top dressing is going to be done on alfalfa or grass crops. Applying at this time gives the customer an opportunity to run water over the manure so that the nutrients penetrate the soil before winter.
The busy fall season has also factored into the company's expansion plans, as it is a fairly short application window. Cascade Agronomics plans to purchase another TerraGator 9205 with NMS to meet demand and to expand its service area.
The company also has expansion plans into certified organic compost.
"Part of the reason behind that is for tree fruit," says Hines. "It goes back to growing organic and the EU. They want growers to have certified compost on certified organic crops, so that is why we are adding it to our business."
Manure application PR
Canada helping turn waste to energy
Grass gets greener
Manure applicators urged to slow down, be careful
Editorial: Let the beetles do it
Woman develops waste-to-water system


There's a lot of uncertainty today and whether you're worried about your job, don't like your job or just want to work from home for reasons such as health or raising your children... developing entrepreneurial habits are important for us too.
Is Social Owl a Scam?
Please note, I am not an affiliate for Social Owl. This review has been researched with information and testimonials that are available online in the public domain. Any conclusions drawn by myself are opinions.
Social Owl at it's core is a social media management tool.
The Social Owl franchise opportunity however, is a plug-and-play business-in-a-box that enables you to sell social media services to local businesses.
Founded in 2015 and located in Portland Maine, the founders have tapped into a unique sector of the online business industry.
While most online businesses are built around things like eCommerce and affiliate marketing... which can also be good opportunities, Social Owl has created a business model that applies a similar skill-set and platform to helping local clients.
If working with local clients doesn't sound appealing, you can also make some extra money online doing surveys on sites like surveyjunkie.com. You can also make money watching videos, searching the web and visiting websites with Swagbucks.
Of course, those sites might provide some extra spending money but if you're looking for a full-time income that's completely online rather than building a local customer base, there are other opportunities to do that.
You may not have the time or resources to find clients which is understandable.
If you're stuck at work all day or unable to get out and meet potential clients, an online business you can build at your own pace is what you want. Something you can do in your spare time from home is what you need in order to get what you want.
That doesn't mean Social Owl does't have potential, which I'll talk about more in moment. It's just that not every opportunity is one-size-fits-all.
Social Owl is not a scam, although I must admit that I found that some moments during the introduction webinar reminded me of many scams I've run into.
I think that's just the nature of webinars today. They're a valuable tool that's been exploited over the last few years by scammers to get you excited so you'll pull out your credit card.
Social Owl is definitely legit, and to be honest... the webinar did get me a little excited. For the right person there's a significant opportunity here.
Also, Social Owl is accredited by the Better Business Bureau and currently holds an A rating.
After filling out a quick request for information form, I was given immediate access to about 75 minutes of introduction videos. There are 5 in total.
If you're like me, the cost of an opportunity usually determines whether or not I'll look further into it.
There are two prices given here and to be honest, I'm not sure which one is current.
At the time of the first video, there was a time limited price of $149/month or $1500 for the year. If you missed out on that price, the regular cost would be $249/month or $2500/year.
There's no date on the video though, so I don't know if that price will be current at the time you're reading this. I watched another webinar where the $149 price had been extended... and I also received an email from Social Owl that says the same. But again... I'm not sure how long that price will be available.
In addition to your monthly cost, there is a reseller fee... which only applies when you sell access to the software.
The franchise opportunity describes itself as a social media services business, but there are actually two ways you can make money with Social Owl.
Manage the social media needs of local businesses.
Resell the Social Owl software to others.
Your monthly cost covers the 1st way of making money, and as mentioned a moment ago, the reseller fee only applies when you resell the software... which is $50. Not bad considering the resale price averages $100-$200 (a 100% - 300% profit margin).
The price is one thing... but what are they actually selling?
As it turns out, quite a bit actually. As I mentioned earlier this is a business-in-a-box. To start, you get access to the software, which I'll explain more about in a moment.
Assessment forms (to help determine your client's specific social media needs).
Samples and templates for business cards, flyers, contracts and power point presentations.
Despite all of the goodies listed above, the Social Owl platform is what you're really paying for.
You don't actually need Social Owl to start your own social media management business. You can just go out and do it on your own, and there are other social media management tools out there.
However, Social Owl's software makes the task a lot quicker and easier, and in the long run you'd save money by freeing up time to acquire and manage more clients.
I'm still undecided on whether to purchase Social Owl myself, but if I decide to set up a business like this for my daughters... It'll definitely be Social Owl that I use.
Their software allows you to easily set up accounts, curate and post content (image above), add client banners to that content, set up social shopping carts and utilize things like sweepstakes, coupons and deals to collect customer information and build a social community for your clients.
You also get your own branded website. This is what your pricing page would look like, which is customizable (you can set your own plans/pricing) and your logo would go where the SocialMadison logo is in the image below.
For a demontration of the softare you can check out this video. Please note... I don't necessarily endorse the following video, but it is one of the better demo's I've seen.
So... what exactly does a social media manager do?
Manage their social media accounts and post content.
Grow their audience and engage with followers.
Reputation management helping them with positive and negative reviews (on Yelp for example).
Set up "shopping carts" so they can sell their products online.
Run promotions, sweepstakes, coupons etc. to collect customer emails for future follow up and promotions (which you can manage as well).
Help with new business acquisition and retention (specific to social media).
Prepare reports and analytics that show measurable results.
Aside from the cost, the big question I had was if they had a strategy to get new clients. None of this works if you don't have customers... so where do you get them?
And that's where Social Owls differs from most online business opportunities that keep you at the computer. You get new clients by putting your shoes on and "pounding the pavement".
With 10+ years of outside sales experience, my enthusiasm for this is mixed. I have zero interest in doing another sales call (having done tens of thousands)... but at least it would be familiar territory for me.
If knocking on doors isn't your thing though... there is an alternative.
You can charge your clients a set-up fee and use that to hire a commissioned sales rep... which is a normal expense most of your competitors will likely charge.
With a $100 - $200 set-up fee, you can use that to pay your sales rep $100 - $200 for every new client they acquire.
In addition you can a offer your reps a retention bonus. This would be a percentage of each client's monthly fee... and incentive to call on them regularly, build a relationship, sell additional services... and most importantly, keep them as a client.
And... the Social Owl software has a Sales Agent management tool that does just that.
If you're not ready to build a local client base... you can start making some extra money doing simple surveys on sites like surveyjunkie.com and swagbucks.com.
As mentioned earlier, you can also create a full-time income from home if you're motivated to start an online business.
Just about any business you can think of would be a potential client. Of course... most large businesses will already have a social media manager and strategy, but it's the small and medium businesses, as well as professionals that would be your primary market.
Attorneys, accountants, dentists, realitors, insurance agents, personal trainers and tradespeople are all potential clients.
Businesses like spas, salons, bars, restaurants, gyms, coffee shops, pet services, automotive repair, wholesalers, hotels, and retailers would be on your prospect list.
You're definitely not limited to a specific industry and among the list are countless people who know they need a social presence, but don't have the time or desire to learn.
Your income potential is high, but it depends on how hard you hustle... Some are going to sit on this and do very little while others hit the ground running and never look back.
Your per-client revenue will likely range between $200 - $400 per month, so if you had 10 clients, you'd be earning between $2000 and $4000 before expenses.
About 15 years ago I worked for a company that required us to make 25-30 sales calls per day (in-person visits, not phone calls) ... so I know first hand those numbers are possible.
But on average, 30 new clients per month for someone who hustles is not unreasonable.
And we haven't even talked about the reseller program yet.
So... even if you think my numbers are crazy and impossible to maintain, someone who treats this like a real business should still be able to generate 20-30K/month in revenue within 6 - 12 months of hitting the pavement.
There are a couple listed at the Better Business Bureau related to the product or customer service...but no details are given and both have been resolved.
Experience and technical know-how are not required.
Set your own plans and pricing.
You're creating a residual monthly income and the software makes each client account easy to maintain.
Cold calling on local businesses.
Social Owl limits the number of licenses they grant for a given territory. It's either that or the potential for over-saturation. This policy is both good and bad, depending on whether you already control your territory.
I don't want to criticize the cost because it's more than fair, but it could be a little high for some people... especially if this is their first entrepreneurial adventure. Having said that... one client should cover your monthly cost.
Social Media sites don't like it when you use third-party tools to perform automated tasks. Their policies are always changing and over the years I've had a few tools become useless because they no longer worked on the social sites they were designed for.
I'm still undecided on Social Owl... for myself. Even if I were to set it up so my daughters could earn some money, it would either be me doing the cold calls, or I'd have to hire a sales rep... neither of which I'm interested in doing right now.
But that doesn't mean this isn't a good opportunity. It's not for everyone but if you're looking for a good side hustle that can turn into a full-time thing... Social Owl might be for you.
The important thing is that you find something you enjoy doing. What good is being an entrepreneur if you're still unhappy and waking up everyday to do something you hate doing.
Turning your passions into a business is what you want and a strategy that allows you to make money in any niche you choose is what you need to get what you want.
I'm going to give you a free step by step beginner's guide to making money online in any niche which you can get by clicking HERE.
You can also check out my list of 201+ work-at-home jobs and side hustles or earn some quick cash doing surveys with surveyjunkie.com or watching videos, searching the web or visiting websites with swagbucks.com (who even gives you $5 bucks just for signing up).
I hope my review has been helpful and if you have any comments, questions, or experience with Social Owl, please share in the comments section below.
Hi Crystal, glad to help 🙂 Thanks for taking a moment to share your thoughts.