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Pope: an end to "senseless slaughter", God wants peace in the world
War is the result of men giving into Evil. From Cadore, a theatre of bloody battles during World War I, Benedict XVI launches an appeal for the world to "tenaciously pursue the rule of law, to refute with determination any recourse to arms and the temptation to apply old systems to new realities".
Lorenzago (AsiaNews) – "Never again war!": from the mountains of Cadore, a place of great natural beauty that was transformed into a theatre of slaughter during the First World War, Benedict XVI launched an appeal that the path of peace and dialogue be chosen above conflict. The mountains around Lorenzago where the Pope is spending his vacation this year, still bear the scares of trenches and dig outs, built by the soldiers of the war. Recalling that "Great War" and the appeal launched by Benedict XVI, who in 1917 asked the world to stop the "senseless slaughter", the Pope dedicated the words pronounced before the Angelus prayer in Piazza Calvi, of Lorenzago di Cadore, to the value of peace.
There to hear his words, among the festive crowds of faithful and tourists, was also the Patriarch of Venice, Cardinal Angelo Scola, the bishop of Hong Kong, Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, who had travelled to Cadore with a group of deacons and their families, the president of the Italian bishops conference, Msgr. Angelo Bagnasco, the bishop of Belluno-Feltre, Msgr. Giuseppe Andrich, the bishop of Treviso, Msgr. Andrea Bruno Mazzocato, Edoardo Luciani, brother of John Paul I – whom the Pope described as "my great friend" - and representatives of the lay associations from the diocese of Belluno-Feltre, whom he greeted after the Marian prayer.
"In these days of rest, - said the Pope - I feel even more intensely the painful impact of the news I receive about bloody conflicts and violent events happening in so many parts of the world. This leads me to reflect once again on the dramatic situation of human freedom in the world. The beauty of nature reminds us that we were instructed by God to cultivate and keep this garden that is the earth (Gen 2, 8-17). If men lived in peace with God and with each other, the earth really would look like a 'heaven'".
"Unfortunately sin has ruined this divine project – continued Benedict XVI – generating division and allowing death to enter this world. Thus men by succumbing to the temptations of Evil, make war with each other. The consequence is that in this stupendous garden which is the world, there is now room for hell. War, with its after effects of destruction and death, has always been rightly considered a calamity which contrasts God's project, who created everything to give life and who wants to make mankind one family".
The Pope therefore re-evoked the appeal launched by Benedict XV 90 years ago on August 1st 1917, when he asked the nations at war to put an end to that inhuman conflict which he had the courage to define as a "senseless slaughter". "This expression of his – continued the Pope – is carved into history. It was justified by the concrete situation of the summer of 1917, especially by what was taking place on this North Italian front. But those words 'senseless slaughter', contain a greater more prophetic value and can be applied to the many other conflicts which have cruelly broken countless lives. This very land were we find ourselves, which emanates peace and harmony, was a theatre of the First World War, as many testimonies and some moving Alpine songs still recall today. These events must not be forgotten! We must treasure the negative experiences which our fathers unfortunately had to suffer, so they will never happen again. Pope Benedict XV's Nota did not limit itself to condemning the war; it also indicated, along juridical lines, the ways to build a just and lasting peace: the moral force of law, balanced and controlled disarmament, arbitration in controversy, the freedom of the seas, the reciprocal remission of war costs, the restitution of seized lands and fair negotiations to resolve outstanding issues".
"The Holy See proposal was directed towards the future of Europe and of the world, according to a project inspired by Christianity, but open to all because founded on the rights of the people. It is the same imposition which the Servants of God Paul Vi and John Paul II followed in their memorable addresses to the United Nations Assembly, repeating in the name of the Church: 'Never again war!'. From this place of peace, in which the horrors of 'senseless slaughter' are amplified', – ha concluded the Pope – I renew my appeal to tenaciously pursue the rule of law, to refute with determination any recourse to arms and the temptation to apply old systems to new realities".
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LONDON (SHARECAST) - (Sharecast News) - The auto sector and financials were the main brakes on the market as the week came to an end, while there were gains for bigger pharma and some larger housebuilders.
In the FTSE 350 automobile & parts sector, the two constituents, Aston Martin Lagonda and TI Fluid Systems were both in the red a day after the disappointing results from Jaguar Land Rover and a warning from Fiat Chrysler about US sales, together with fresh worries about trade relations between the US and China.
Indications from President Trump that he wasn't planning on meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping before the trade truce deadline on 1 March, prompted new concerns about trade relations, exacerbated by a report that Trump is planning on signing an executive order banning Chinese telecom equipment from US wireless networks.
Life insurers were in the red, led by Prudential, and many equity investment instruments were trading lower amid falls in Asia and on Wall Street and worries about some funds.
Daily updates were being demanded from funds by the Financial Conduct Authority, the Financial Times reported, as investors withdrew £315m from property funds in December.
After the EU referendum in 2016, a number of funds, including Standard Life, Aviva, M&G, Henderson and Columbia Threadneedle were forced to suspend redemptions from their commercial property funds, cannot quickly sell properties to help fund these withdrawals.
A risk-off mood in many markets was also an influence, with a third consecutive day of losses for the S&P 500 that would be the first such run since the Christmas sell-off, observed market analyst Chris Beauchamp at IG. "After a surge off the lows of December, it is arguably the case that indices have been at risk of a pullback, even if they look primed for more gains over the longer term. Even the losses of the past three days barely put a dent in the current rally, but it is still surprising how a simple 'no' from the world's most powerful leader has prompted a sudden drop in risk appetite.
"Worryingly, with Chinese markets set to return from their bank holiday, we could see the new week begin in bearish fashion, adding to the gloom surrounding equities."
The construction & materials sector was down amid a dividend cut from global construction giant Skanska, which Jasper Lawler at London Capital Group saw as another sign of a weaker global environment.
A mixed pharmaceuticals sector popped up, mainly due to rises from heavyweights AstraZeneca and GSK, after the sector had been under-performing its short- and medium-term average. Earlier this week the sector climbed above its 200-day moving average, having been below this indicator since the first week of the year amid talk of a potentially growing US political consensus about drug price controls.
Other sector players were only slightly higher, with Galliford Try and Crest Nicholson in the red.


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Antibiotic used on food crops affects bumblebee behavior, lab study finds
By Carol Clark Feb. 21, 2022
Carol Clark
A wild bumblebee visits a blossom. The current study involved lab experiments on a different species of bumblebee as a first step to understanding the potential effects of the agricultural use of streptomycin on pollinators.
An antibiotic sprayed on orchard crops to combat bacterial diseases slows the cognition of bumblebees and reduces their foraging efficiency, a laboratory study finds. Proceedings of the Royal Society B published the findings by scientists at Emory University and the University of Washington.
The research focused on streptomycin, an antibiotic used increasingly in U.S. agriculture during the past decade.
"No one has examined the potential impacts on pollinators of broadcast spraying of antibiotics in agriculture, despite their widespread use," says Laura Avila, first author of the paper and a post-doctoral fellow in Emory's Department of Biology.
The current study was based on laboratory experiments using an upper-limit dietary exposure of streptomycin to bumblebees. It is not known whether wild bumblebees are affected by agricultural spraying of streptomycin, or whether they are exposed to the tested concentration in the field.
"This paper is a first step towards understanding whether the use of streptomycin on food crops may be taking a toll on pollinators that benefit agriculture," says Berry Brosi, senior author of the paper. Brosi began the work as a faculty member in Emory's Department of Environmental Sciences and is currently with the University of Washington.
Funded by a U.S. Department of Agricultural grant, the researchers will now conduct field studies where streptomycin is sprayed on fruit orchards. If a detrimental impact is found on bumblebees, the researchers hope to provide evidence to support recommendations for methods and policies that may better serve farmers.
"Production of our food, farmer livelihoods and the health of pollinators are all tied together," Brosi says. "It's critically important to find ways to maintain agricultural production while also conserving the ecosystem services — including pollination — that a biodiverse ecosystem provides."
"I decided to become a bee biologist because I wanted to understand how the natural environment can influence agriculture and vice versa," says Laura Avila, above. Her work spans experiments in both the lab and field.
Based on established evidence, the researchers hypothesize that the negative impact of streptomycin on bumblebees seen in the lab experiments may be due to the disruption of the insects' microbiome.
"We know that antibiotics can deplete beneficial microbes, along with pathogens," Avila says. "That's true whether the consumers of the antibiotics are people, other animals or insects."
Avila is a member of the lab of Nicole Gerardo, Emory professor of biology and an entomologist who studies the co-evolution of insect-microbe systems.
During the past decade, the spraying of antibiotics on U.S. crops has increased exponentially as farmers battle a rise in plant bacterial infections. "Fire blight" can turn the blossoms and shoots of apple and pear trees black, making them appear scorched by fire, and can also kill entire trees. "Citrus greening," also known as "yellow dragon disease," turns citrus fruits green, bitter and unusable and has devasted millions of acres of crops throughout the United States and abroad.
"I've seen the struggle of making a living by producing crops, how expensive and difficult it can be to control diseases and pests," says Avila, who grew up in a coffee-producing region of Costa Rica.
Largely untouched forests bordered her family farm. "The diversity all around us fascinated me," Avila says. "I decided to become a bee biologist because I wanted to understand how the natural environment can influence agricultural production and vice versa."
Seventy-five percent of the world's food crops depend on pollination by at least one of more than 100,000 species of pollinators, including 20,000 species of bees, as well as other insects and vertebrates like birds and bats. And yet, many of the insect pollinator species, particularly bees, face risks of extinction.
Previous studies have shown that the antibiotic tetracycline, used to treat pathogens in managed honeybee hives, can alter the gut microbiome of the insects and indirectly increase susceptibility to pathogens and mortality. Exposure to high oxytetracycline concentrations has also been found to have a similar effect on the bumblebee gut microbiome, decreasing their immunity to pathogens. And exposure to high doses of tetracycline have been found to affect honeybee learning, while oxytetracycline slows the onset of foraging in managed colonies.
For the current paper, the researchers conducted lab experiments with managed bumblebees, Bombus impatiens, to test the effects of an upper-limit dietary exposure to streptomycin. Half of the bees were fed on plain sucrose, or sugar water, to simulate nectar. The remaining bees were fed on sucrose dosed with streptomycin.
After two days on this diet, the bees were presented different-colored cardboard strips — one yellow and the other blue. One color was saturated with plain water and the other was saturated with sucrose. In a series of training trials, each bee was presented a single, colored strip until it touched it with its antennae or proboscis.
The researchers measured the number of trials it took for a bee to show a preference for the color strips saturated with sucrose. The bees fed streptomycin often required roughly three times as many trials to make the association, relative to the other bees. The antibiotic-treated bees were also more likely to display avoidance behavior towards either of the stimuli.
Those bees that passed a training threshold were given a short-term memory test five minutes later. Each bee was presented with both of cardboard strips simultaneously and allowed to select one. The rate at which the bees dosed with streptomycin selected the sucrose reward was around 55 percent, while the untreated bees selected the sucrose at a rate of nearly 87 percent.
To assess foraging ability, trials were conducted in a foraging chamber containing an experimental array of artificial flowers that dispensed sucrose or plain water. The flowers were either blue or yellow but were identical in size and shape. Each bee was outfitted with a tiny, ultra-lightweight radio frequency identifier "backpack" to monitor its movements among the artificial flowers, which were each equipped with a short-range antenna and tracking system.
The computer-analyzed results showed that the antibiotic-exposed bees visited far fewer sucrose-rewarding flowers relative to the control bees.
In the spring, Avila and Brosi will launch field studies to determine if broadcast spraying of streptomycin affects bumblebees in pear orchards.
"I was surprised at how strong an effect we found of streptomycin on bumblebees in the laboratory experiments," Brosi says. "That makes it imperative to learn if we see similar effects in an agricultural setting."
The timing of antibiotic application, the amount applied and possible alternatives to the use of an antibiotic may be potential mitigation methods should the field research identify harmful impacts on bumblebees of agricultural spraying of streptomycin, the researchers note.
Co-authors of the current study include Elizabeth Dunne, who did the work as an Emory environmental sciences major and has since graduated; and David Hofmann, a former post-doctoral fellow in Emory's Department of Physics.
eScienceCommons: Natural and social sciences news from Emory
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


I always think that it's a great hassle for me keeping every single business and name card I receive and I normally end up chucking it somewhere or just end up losing it. Yes, my organization skills isn't that good and that's where this iPhone app is a lifesaver for that aspect of my life.
WorldCard Mobile is a business card scanning app for the iPhone which lets you snap a photo of a business card and it'll automatically using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology to input the details from the card into the app. I tried it and it really works. I was pretty surprised that it managed to sort the names, job titles, emails, faxes, website addresses into the correct contact details. That really saves a lot of time instead of manually keying in the details.
The app is pretty simple to use and it comes with a great help section if you need it. There's 2 ways to scan the details in. First you get to either choose a photo from your existing album or you can just take a new photo with your camera. After that, just hit the Recognize button and it'll start scanning and doing its magic. It'll then bring you to the contact info screen where you can change anything if you want but from what I've tested the app has sorted it accurately in the right sections. Click Export and the details is saved together with a nicely cropped image of the business card.
The second method to get the details in is from the email signature. Just open any email in your iPhone and copy the whole signature section. Then just head on back to the app and select the Signature section. Hit Recognize and it'll do the scanning trick again.
WorldCard Mobile supports up to 7 languages:- English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch. It also has iCloud support to backup your precious data from getting lost. This awesome app is a must-have for busy professionals or socialites.


Sang Hyun Yun has become one of the most well-known Asian wakeboarders Coming Up. Having stood atop podiums around the world for both cable and boat riding. At 17 years young, there's no telling where this kid will go, but one thing's for sure, the kid rips…just take a peek at this tasty edit.


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We're proud to announce that Kelly Gibson, partner at Hamburger Company, was named as one of the 2014 Rising Stars by Campaigns & Elections magazine.
The Rising Star awards recognize noteworthy up-and-comers of the campaign world. With more than a decade of experience in the industry, Kelly provides strategic guidance and creates award-winning ads for some of the top races around the country.


Guidelines recommend children and young people participate in at least 60 min of physical activity (PA) every day, however, findings from UK studies show PA levels of children vary across ethnic groups. Since parents play an instrumental role in determining children's PA levels, this article aims to explore parental views of children's PA in a multi-ethnic sample living in a large city in the North-West of England.
Six single-ethnic focus groups were conducted with 36 parents of school-aged children (4 to 16 years) with a predominantly low socio-economic status (SES). Parents self-identified their ethnic background as Asian Bangladeshi (n = 5), Black African (n = 4), Black Somali (n = 7), Chinese (n = 6), White British (n = 8) and Yemeni (n = 6). Focus group topics included understanding of PA, awareness of PA guidelines, knowledge of benefits associated with PA and perceived influences on PA in childhood. Data were analysed thematically using QSR NVivo 9.0.
Parents from all ethnic groups valued PA and were aware of its benefits, however they lacked awareness of PA recommendations, perceived school to be the main provider for children's PA, and reported challenges in motivating children to be active. At the environmental level, barriers to PA included safety concerns, adverse weather, lack of resources and lack of access. Additional barriers were noted for ethnic groups from cultures that prioritised educational attainment over PA (Asian Bangladeshi, Chinese, Yemeni) and with a Muslim faith (Asian Bangladeshi, Black Somali, Yemeni), who reported a lack of culturally appropriate PA opportunities for girls.
Parents from multi-ethnic groups lacked awareness of children's PA recommendations and faced barriers to promoting children's PA out of school, with certain ethnic groups facing additional barriers due to cultural and religious factors. It is recommended children's PA interventions address influences at all socio-ecological levels, and account for differences between ethnic groups.
A lack of regular physical activity (PA) is associated with an increased risk of developing obesity, as well as other metabolic and cardiovascular disease . Guidelines recommend children and young people engage in at least 60 min of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) per day and undertake vigorous intensity activities at least three days per week . Due to the health consequences associated with sedentary behaviours, including increased risk of obesity independent of moderate to vigorous PA levels [3, 4], PA guidelines also recommend reducing total sedentary time and breaking up extended periods of sitting . Recent data from the Health Survey for England showed only 21 % of boys and 16 % of girls meet daily PA recommendations, and average weekday sedentary time (excluding school) is 3.3 h for boys and 3.2 h for girls . Furthermore, findings from UK studies show PA levels of children vary across ethnic groups, with Black and Asian children generally less active [6, 7] and more sedentary than their White counterparts .
A socio-ecological approach to health promotion suggests factors which influence health behaviours occur within a multi-layered context . Influences on children's PA behaviours range from individual (e.g., children's preferences) to interpersonal (e.g., parental support), organisational (e.g., school PA provision) and environmental (e.g., local PA opportunities) levels and act either independently or synergistically to impact on children's behaviour [10, 11]. At the interpersonal level, parents play an instrumental role in determining children's PA levels through their attitudes, parenting practices and own PA behaviours [12, 13]. Cultural factors may influence how children's PA is perceived and supported by parents of different ethnic groups . Qualitative evidence suggests cultural attitudes can act as a barrier to PA, such as over-protection in Chinese parents , an emphasis on educational attainment in Middle-Eastern parents , and cultural expectations of girls from Black Somali parents (e.g., certain sports deemed unsuitable for girls, requirements for female-only physical activities that allow cultural dress ) . Furthermore Bangladeshi and Somali teenagers living in Wales have reported a lack of support from their families to do PA, which boys felt was because of injury worries . The UK Department of Health  provided insight into differences in parental attitudes between ethnic minority groups living in England, showing some groups tended to prioritise educational commitments over organised sport (e.g., Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Black African), whereas other groups allowed their children more freedom to engage in physical activities after school (e.g., Gujarati Hindu, Punjabi Sikh, Black Caribbean).
At the environmental level, living in Western countries may act as both a negative and positive influence on PA for ethnic minority children. For example, parents and children of Somali origin living in the US have reported barriers to PA in winter months such as lack of transport or lack of resources to buy appropriate winter clothing . However cultural factors can also facilitate PA, as Middle-Eastern parents living in Australia reported how having extended family living in the same street reduced their PA-related safety concerns . In this regard, it is possible the demographic make-up of a city might influence the PA of ethnic minority children. For example, children from ethnic minority groups living in predominantly White-British cities may have different experiences of PA when compared with children living in cities of high ethnic diversity (where non-White British groups represent a substantial proportion of the population). There may be positive influences through being part of a Western culture in which PA is a public health priority but there may also be negative factors, for example less consideration of the needs of Muslim girls in school and fewer appropriate PA opportunities in the local community.
The health inequalities faced by ethnic minority groups may be rooted in social, cultural and environmental factors  and research is needed to understand the influence of these factors on health behaviours such as PA. For sustainable and effective health promotion, it is important interventions are informed by the voices of the communities they seek to help (e.g., low socio-economic groups, ethnic minority groups) [19, 20]. Therefore qualitative methods are required to explore the views of ethnic minority groups to ensure health promotion efforts reflect recipients' knowledge, attitudes and perceptions about PA behaviours. Previous research into parental views of children's PA in England  has focussed on cities with a high ethnic diversity and it is not known how the findings transfer to areas where ethnic minority groups represent only a small percentage of the population. This qualitative study therefore explores parental views of children's PA (knowledge, attitudes and perceived influences) among a multi-ethnic sample living in Liverpool, a deprived local authority in the North West of England  with a low proportion of ethnic minority residents in comparison to the national average . A focus group methodology is used to explore similarities and differences in parental perspectives across six different ethnic groups (Asian Bangladeshi, Black African, Black Somali, Chinese, White British and Yemeni).
This study was part of a larger research project designed to improve the cultural relevance of family-based childhood obesity treatment for ethnic minority groups . Recognising the value of qualitative methodology in formative research , a focus group design was employed to acquire the necessary context and depth to interpret individuals' experiences. The study adhered to the RATS guidelines for qualitative studies  to ensure the relevance of study question, appropriateness of methods, transparency of procedures and soundness of interpretations.
Parents of children aged 4 to 16 years who self-identified their ethnic background as Asian Bangladeshi, Black African, Black Somali, Chinese, White British and Yemeni were eligible to take part. Participants were recruited from a sample of parents who had previously returned a questionnaire investigating their perceptions of overweight in childhood ; thus, ethnic groups were selected based on this earlier research. Purposive sampling techniques were employed to select parents who participated in the previous study based on their proximity to the location of the focus group venue. Letters were sent to parents who had consented to further contact from the research team and were followed up with telephone calls. Where participant numbers were low for particular ethnicities (Asian Bangladeshi, Black Somali, Chinese and Yemeni groups), parents were also recruited through schools and community centres by teaching staff and community workers. As a result, focus groups were conducted with a mix of parents who did and did not have established relationships with other participants prior to the study.
Six single-ethnicity focus groups were conducted, including 36 parents in total (5 Asian Bangladeshi, 4 Black African, 7 Black Somali, 6 Chinese, 8 White British, 6 Yemeni). Social demographics were collected from parents via a short self-report questionnaire (see Table 1). Although parents of both genders were invited to take part, the groups were predominantly female, with only the Black African and Chinese groups including both females and males. Age ranged between 29 and 54 years and 29 participants (80.6 %) lived within the 10 % most deprived areas in England . With the exception of the White British group, only six participants were born in the UK (1/5 in the Asian Bangladeshi group, 1/6 in the Chinese group and 4/6 in the Yemeni group). For those not born in the UK, time living in the UK ranged from ≤5 years to ≥26 years. The participants in three of the groups were of Muslim religion (Asian Bangladeshi, Black Somali, Yemeni), one group were Christian (Black African) and two groups contained a mixture of religious backgrounds (Chinese, White British).
Focus groups were conducted between February and June 2010. All focus groups were held in local primary schools and community centres after school hours or at weekends based on the preferences of participants. Free crèche facilities were provided. A White British researcher (JT) facilitated all groups conducted in English (Asian Bangladeshi, Black African, White British and Yemeni groups). The Black Somali group was facilitated in Somali by a researcher from a Somali background (with JT present) and the Chinese group was facilitated in Mandarin by a researcher from a Chinese background (with JT present). In the Asian Bangladeshi and Yemeni groups, an interpreter provided bi-lingual support for JT as required, though the assistance was minimal due to a good level of English in these groups. All facilitators and interpreters were female, had knowledge of the research project and were experienced in focus group delivery.
Focus groups were conducted using semi-structured topic guides. The semi-structured guides were designed to permit participants to respond freely but also ensured significant topics were covered in detail and allowed for a degree of comparability across the transcripts . The topic guides underwent extensive revision prior to the data collection phase to ensure acceptability of questions across ethnic groups, and input from ethnic minority and bi-lingual community workers, parents, and researchers were instrumental in this. As recommended, questions used in the topic guide were also discussed for semantic and conceptual equivalence in meaning when translated into the target languages . During focus groups, parents were asked about their perceptions of body image, healthy eating and PA during childhood. This article focusses on data related to PA only. Key areas for discussion included understanding of PA, awareness of PA guidelines, knowledge of benefits associated to participating in PA and perceived influences on PA in childhood. Throughout the focus groups, participants were encouraged to air their honest views, even if these were in disagreement with others. Facilitators were trained to use active listening and paraphrasing techniques to help participants feel at ease and check their understanding of participant meaning . Each focus group lasted approximately 1 h.
Ethical approval was granted from the local NHS Research Ethics Committee [ref: 09/H1017/86] and informed written consent obtained from all participants. Participants were given a £10 voucher as a thank you for their time.
Focus group discussions were audio recorded with permission from participants and transcribed verbatim for analysis. This enabled a comprehensive inspection  and avoided inaccurate recollection of conversations . During this process care was taken to ensure the anonymity of all data. Where focus groups were not facilitated in English, recordings were transcribed in the original language and later translated through a one-way method into English for analysis.
Transcripts were imported into QSR NVivo 9.0 and analysed thematically  by JT, with frequent debriefing sessions with PW and RM to discuss, debate and refine emerging themes. Transcripts, audio files and field notes from each group were collated and data were coded; this process involved reading and re-reading text and assigning broad thematic codes, some of which were pre-defined, based on topics covered in the group schedule and the socio-ecological model. Therefore, a combination of inductive analysis and deductive techniques were used to generate codes. All data was coded under at least one broad heading, but notably, some data were coded several times. Subsequently, broad codes were collapsed into higher and lower order themes and descriptive and interpretive summaries were written based on recursive engagement with the data.
In terms of knowledge and understanding of PA and the majority of themes related to perceived influences on PA, there were no observable differences between ethnic groups. Some groups did however cite additional religious and cultural barriers to children's PA. The cross-group themes will be presented first, followed by influences specific to certain ethnic groups.
Parents recognised various benefits to being physically active in childhood; benefits related to health and physical development (the prevention of disease, weight management, body development); psycho-social state (increased sense of happiness, improved well-being, mentality, fit-in with peers); skill acquisition; and establishing healthy lifestyle habits for the future (see Table 2).
PA was defined as anything from "everything that actually involves moving your body" to "like real exercise". Confusion was exhibited regarding the intensity of activity necessary to gain the associated health outcomes. Across groups, some parents recognised that a particular level of intensity within an activity is required to gain the greatest health benefits. These parents referred to "proper" PA, which included "running around" or "like a football session, karate sessions, go swimming". Other parents considered any movement as important.
Generally, parents were unaware of PA recommendations for children and estimated the maximum amount of time children should spend screen watching to range between 30 min and three hours a day. In all ethnic groups parents considered the PA children did at school, during PE classes, at break time and/ or when walking to and from school to fulfil the recommendation on school days.
Parents perceived intrapersonal influences on participation in PA to relate to children's health and overweight status as well as intrinsic motivations. Children who were considered to be overweight or to have health problems were viewed as less able or motivated to participate in PA.
Moreover, parents recognised a lack of motivation, often associated to preferences for sedentary behaviours, to have a negative impact on children's activity levels.
The school environment was considered primarily responsible for children's PA levels (through structured and unstructured opportunities). However, parents also deemed themselves both facilitators and barriers to PA in childhood. Parental encouragement, as an interpersonal facilitator to PA was discussed. In relation, some parents attributed a lack of parental encouragement to not knowing how much PA children should do, and a fear of working children too hard or them becoming too tired.
'We should encourage them really but I didn't know that it had to be sixty minutes a day'.
It was commonly believed that parents had insufficient knowledge of how to increase their child's PA levels. Parents lacked awareness of local facilities available for children to be active, and some ethnic minority parents felt language barriers in the community made it difficult to learn about activities being offered.
Parental lifestyles were thought to impact on children's opportunities to be active. Parents often believed their work and/ or responsibilities within the home restricted activity levels, because parents promoted sedentary activities to keep children occupied in order for them to continue with other tasks.
Nevertheless, informal restrictions were placed on children's screen watching time.
Interpersonal influences extended to the impact of peers on children's activity levels. Peers were considered a facilitator to PA, providing children with opportunities and motivation to be active. Notably, the absence of peers was thought to limit children's PA levels.
Several environmental barriers were cited to child PA, including a lack of local facilities, adverse weather and safety issues related to strangers, heavy traffic and unsafe neighbourhoods.
Some parents lacked transport and/ or financial resources for children to participate in activities outside of the home and felt their home environment made it difficult for children to be active.
The majority of ethnic-specific themes that arose related to perceived religious and cultural barriers to PA. There was one example, however, where ethnic culture was seen to have a positive influence on children's PA. Chinese parents reported to regularly take part in PA as a family due to a cultural requirement to be active. Hence, this cultural ethos promoting PA provided children with positive active role models within the family.
This positive influence of the Chinese culture was however coupled with cultural barriers. Chinese, Asian Bangladeshi and Yemeni parents identified children's timetables as a barrier to PA. Parents from these groups considered children's educational commitments, including homework, faith classes and language lessons relating to ethnic background, to delimit the time they have to be active.
Parental expectations of how children should behave also influenced their PA levels. Mothers from Bangladeshi, Black Somali and Yemeni groups cited traditional gender roles associated to ethnic backgrounds and religious values to impact on the PA levels of children. In particular, Asian Bangladeshi, Black Somali and Yemeni girls had less freedom to participate in activities outside the home and were limited in the type of activities they were able to undertake.
The strong emphasis placed on football participation in England (especially so in the city in which the study took place) was therefore considered to restrict girls' PA levels, and viewed as a potential threat to traditional cultural values among these groups.
A lack of appropriate female-only PA facilities was cited as a barrier to PA by Asian Bangladeshi, Black Somali, and Yemeni Muslim mothers. As a result, Muslim girls were considered to experience greater difficulty in achieving the PA recommendation than boys. The lack of female-only facilities was also believed to restrict parents' own opportunities to be active role models for their children.
Therefore, whilst religion per se was not considered a barrier to PA, it was thought to restrict the PA levels of children living in Western society.
This article explored parental views of children's PA (knowledge, attitudes and perceived influences) across six different ethnic groups (Asian Bangladeshi, Black African, Black Somali, Chinese, White British and Yemeni) living in a socio-economically deprived city in North-West England with a relatively low proportion of ethnic minority residents (when compared with the national average). Common factors were reported by all ethnic groups across intrapersonal, interpersonal and environmental levels. Whilst parents valued PA and were aware of its benefits, they were less aware of PA recommendations and expressed a view that schools provided children with sufficient PA. Barriers to PA included a lack of financial resources, safety concerns, limited accessibility of PA opportunities and adverse weather. Parents also reported challenges of motivating their children to be physically active which was attributed in part to preferences for sedentary activities, and several parents described allowing children to watch TV so they were not interrupted in their household tasks. In addition, specific influences on PA were identified that largely reflected cultural influences associated to ethnic background or religious values. In the most part these cultural influences were seen to act in a negative manner against PA, for example through a competing emphasis on educational attainment (Asian Bangladeshi, Chinese and Yemeni groups) or through cultural restrictions on female PA (Asian Bangladeshi, Black Somali, and Yemeni groups). However Chinese parents spoke also of a positive cultural influence, which was the importance of being active as a family.
Our findings suggest the views of ethnic minority parents living in predominantly White-British cities do not differ markedly from those of parents living in cities with a high ethnic diversity . This could be due in part to the similarity in environments at a neighbourhood level, whereby ethnic minority groups live in ethnically-dense, socio-economically deprived areas, regardless of the city's overall ethnic distribution. The reported barriers to PA reflect those found in other UK studies of parents living in low-SES areas (e.g., [32, 33]). Given the disparities in children's PA levels  and obesity prevalence  between low and high SES groups (whereby low SES groups are less physically active, more sedentary and more overweight), an understanding of the barriers to PA amongst low SES groups is important to inform intervention design. Barriers such as cost and transport may be more predominant in low-SES groups , whilst other barriers (e.g., safety concerns) are reported by all groups, although the nature of these may vary with SES. For example, Rawlins and colleagues  found that children and parents from higher SES backgrounds were most concerned with road safety, and children and parents from lower SES backgrounds were concerned with gangs, violence and dog attacks (factors that were also raised by our participants). Such findings suggest measurement of barriers should go beyond "surface level" to inform PA promotion interventions for children living in low-SES areas.
Whilst the parents in our study were aware of their potential role as facilitators of PA, they reported challenges in supporting their children's PA and spoke as though they rarely intervened to try and reduce TV viewing time. In a study of parents from predominantly medium-high SES backgrounds in Belgium, De Lepeleere and colleagues  found the strategies parents perceived to be effective for supporting children's PA were in line with the theoretical predictions of social cognitive theory  and self-determination theory . For example, parents spoke of using feedback and reward mechanisms, providing children with rationale and choice, and using strategies such as being active with their child or turning a potentially mundane activity (e.g., walking) into something fun (e.g., playing games or singing songs along the way). Therefore it is recommended that interventions targeted at parents from low-SES groups include information about promoting opportunities to be PA and supporting the development of self-determined motivation for PA in their children .
In keeping with findings from the DH's consumer insight summary , we found parents to be aware of the health and psycho-social benefits of PA. On the other hand awareness of PA guidelines was low, as observed in other studies of parents from multiple ethnicities in the UK (Black African, Black Caribbean, Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, White, Other ) and the US (Hispanic, Black, White ), highlighting the importance of communicating PA guidelines effectively to parents . It is notable that a national social marketing campaign (Change4Life,) was in its early stages when this study was undertaken, and may not yet have had chance to take effect. Data published since has shown that Change4Life has improved knowledge and awareness of PA in parents of mixed ethnicities, but this does not necessarily translate to changes in behaviour .
Parents in our study held a belief that children were sufficiently physically active at school therefore they did not always see a need to encourage their children to be active out of school hours. This belief has been reported elsewhere  and is concerning given the low levels of PA achieved during school physical education (PE)  and school recess . Furthermore, local accelerometry data shows Arabic boys are achieving a mean of only 50 min MVPA per weekday  which, although greater than their recorded weekend MVPA (38 min per day), is not sufficient to meet the recommended PA levels . Despite the significance of the primary school environment for providing children with opportunities for PA , few children are meeting PA recommendations  and there are significant variations by ethnic background . Moreover, PA levels decrease further as children reach adolescence . Our findings suggest parents assume children are sufficiently active at school (when they may not be) and are missing opportunities to promote PA out of school. Therefore emphasis needs to be given to promoting PA to children outside of school hours, particularly during weekends which have been identified as a key time for improving PA levels of low-active children .
As well as the general themes already discussed, we observed a number of ethnic-specific barriers to PA. Among Asian Bangladeshi, Chinese and Yemeni parents, time available for PA in childhood was decreased by pressure on children to achieve academically and participate in faith and language classes associated to their ethnic heritage. Emphasis on educational attainment in childhood as a barrier to PA is a recurrent theme in research with particular ethnic minority groups (e.g., Chinese , Middle Eastern , Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Black African  populations) living in Western countries. Given parental concern about education, relating the benefits of PA to improved concentration and cognitive functioning [49, 50] may increase engagement in activities.
Ethnicities where the Muslim faith was dominant (Asian Bangladeshi, Black Somali, Yemeni) cited additional barriers to child PA, particularly for females once they reach puberty (i.e. 10 or 11 years of age). Research with religious scholars and Islamic leaders has highlighted that whilst PA is supported by Islam, exercise recommended by healthcare professionals is associated with showy displays of the body (which is discouraged by Islam), and deemed inappropriate for Muslim women to undertake . In the current study, Asian Bangladeshi, Black Somali and Yemeni mothers considered pervasive types of PA in Western culture (e.g., football) a threat to traditional cultural and religious values for Muslim girls and women. However, adolescent girls themselves may not share this view, since football is one of the activities Somali girls report participating in . Mothers in the current study also reported a lack of appropriate facilities for Muslim girls and a lack of knowledge of how to help children be more active. Therefore practical ideas of how to help children meet the PA recommendations are required that are sensitive to traditional cultural gender roles and religious values.
Although parents have an important role to play in promoting children's PA [12, 13], the extent of cross-group similarities we observed suggests parental attitudes alone cannot account for differences in PA levels between ethnic groups. There is evidence to suggest a combination of cultural and environmental factors may limit the PA opportunities of ethnic minority children living in Western countries . For example, families may lack the finances to purchase appropriate clothing to be active in adverse weather , there may be a lack of accessible PA structures in the low SES neighbourhoods where ethnic minority families live  or a lack of female-only facilities for PA pursuits . These barriers may have a significant impact on the PA behaviours of children from ethnic minority groups who experience high levels of income poverty .
It is recommended that children's PA interventions address influences at all levels of the socio-ecological model, and account for religious and cultural factors that present additional barriers to PA. At an intrapersonal level, parents could be educated with parenting strategies that will help support children's self-determined motivation for PA, for example through providing a rationale, positive feedback and taking part in activities with children . At an interpersonal level, the focus might be on educating parents about PA recommendations, and the importance of supporting their children to achieve these during evenings and weekends. For example, parents could be signposted to free opportunities such as local parks or active transport . Awareness raising amongst Asian Bangladeshi, Chinese and Yemeni groups might focus on the educational benefits of PA. At an organisational level, schools need to increase the opportunities for children to be physically active through PE, during recess and throughout the extended school day . For Muslim girls of secondary school age, it is recommended that female-only PA sessions are provided in appropriate school and community settings, girls are permitted to wear cultural dress for exercise, and girls are offered a choice of activities that are deemed culturally acceptable. Finally, at an environmental level, intervention is needed to create PA opportunities in low SES neighbourhoods that are safe and accessible to children from all ethnic backgrounds.
The primary purpose of this study was to explore parental views of children's PA among a multi-ethnic sample, rather than draw between-group comparisons. It is recognised sample sizes of each ethnic group are small and therefore where disparities have been discussed caution must be taken in drawing conclusions. Whilst saturation was reached in terms of cross-group analyses, only one focus group was conducted with each ethnic group therefore it is possible further ethnic-specific subthemes might have emerged if a larger number of groups were conducted.
Despite attempts to recruit parents of both genders, the majority of our participants were mothers. Therefore it would be insightful to conduct research with fathers and extended family members, particularly in Arabic groups (e.g., Asian Bangladeshi, Black Somali, Yemeni) where a strong patriarchal culture dominates and extended family members play a central role in child upbringing. Parental roles in PA promotion may also differ, as shown in a study of African-American girls who perceived their fathers as co-participants and their mothers as facilitators . Whilst parents with children aged 4 to 16 years were eligible to take part in the study, we did not collect data on individual children and are therefore not able to draw comparisons of parental views according to the age of their child. As noted above however, age was a factor that emerged when discussing girls' PA in the Muslim groups (Asian Bangladeshi, Black Somali, Yemeni). We used postcode data as a proxy for SES, but acknowledge this may not always be synonymous with education level, nor does it provide any indication of the SES status of participants when they were living in their home countries. Therefore findings must be interpreted within the context of the UK living circumstances of the ethnic minority parents in our sample.
Collecting data in one language and analysing it in another has implications for the validity of results but is recognised as a necessary component of cross-cultural research [28, 57]. To help overcome this concern, the quality of translation, including the translators' linguistic competence and knowledge of cultural issues , was given important consideration. To overcome any language difficulties for non-native English speakers, attempts were made to recruit bi-lingual trained researchers who were familiar with the research topic and able to conduct the focus groups in the participants' native language. However this was possible only for the Chinese and Black Somali groups, therefore the Yemeni and Asian Bangladeshi groups were conducted in English with bilingual support from an interpreter as required. The limitations of using multiple facilitators is acknowledged, for it is possible the facilitator's characteristics (e.g. ethnicity, status) influenced the participants' level of ease, understanding and the data that emerged. Similarly, the group dynamics may have been influenced by the fact some parents were already known to each other and others were not. To ensure procedures were standardised as far as possible, all facilitators followed the same interview schedule, the Black Somali and Chinese group facilitators were trained by the lead researcher [JT] and JT was present during both these groups.
This article explored parental views of children's PA (knowledge, attitudes and perceived influences) within a multi-ethnic sample living in Liverpool, where there is a low proportion of ethnic minority groups in comparison with populations investigated in previous research .
We found many similarities in parental views across ethnic groups, including a lack of awareness of PA recommendations, challenges of supporting children's PA and a perception that children receive sufficient PA whilst at school. Our findings also shed light on how parental views might act as barriers to children's PA levels, most notably in those cultures with a strong emphasis on educational attainment (Chinese, Yemeni, Asian Bangladeshi) or with a Muslim faith (Asian Bangladeshi, Black Somali, Yemeni). It is recommended children's PA interventions address influential factors at all levels of the socio-ecological model, and reflect the cultural and religious needs of different ethnic minority groups.
We would like to thank the schools, care services, places of worship, community centres and GOALS team (Getting Our Active Lifestyles Started!) for their assistance with this research, as well as the parents who participated.
This study was supported by the Liverpool Health Inequalities Research Institute under Grant MBRP007.
JT conducted the study as part of her doctoral degree and drafted the manuscript. PW managed the project as principal investigator. JT, RM, NC, GS and PW made substantial contributions to the study design, interpretation of data and editing the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Scholes S, Mindell J. Physical activity in children. In: Health survey for England 2012, Vol 1, Chapter 3. Health and Social Care Information Centre. 2013. http://www.hscic.gov.uk/catalogue/PUB13218 Accessed 14 August 2015.
Eyre EL, Duncan ML. The impact of ethnicity on objectively measured physical activity in children. ISRN Obes. 2013; doi:10.1155/2013/757431.
Dwyer GM, Higgs J, Hardy LL, and Baur LA. What do parents and preschool staff tell us about young children's physical activity: a qualitative study. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2008; doi:10.1186/1479-5868-5-66.
Cleland V, Venn A, Fryer J, Dwyer T, Blizzard L. Parental exercise is associated with Australian children's extracurricular sports participation and cardiorespiratory fitness: A cross-sectional study. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2005; doi:10.1186/1479-5868-2-3.
Brophy S, Crowley A, Mistry R, Hill R, Choudhury S, Thomas, NE, et al. Recommendations to improve physical activity among teenagers - A qualitative study with ethnic minority and European teenagers. BMC Public Health. 2011; doi:10.1186/1471-2458-11-412.
Rawlins E, Baker G, Maynard M, Harding S. Perceptions of healthy eating and physical activity in an ethnically diverse sample of young children and their parents: the DEAL prevention of obesity study. J Hum Nutr Diet. 2012; doi: 10.1111/j.1365-277X.2012.01280.
NHS Change4Life. Available at: www.nhs.uk/change4life.
Croker H, Lucas R, Wardle J. Cluster-randomised trial to evaluate the 'Change for Life' mass media/ social marketing campaign in the UK. BMC Public Health, 2012; doi:10.1186/1471-2458-12-404.
Molaodi OR, Harding S, Leyland AH, Ellaway A and Kearns A. Area deprivation, ethnic density and fast food outlets, supermarkets and physical activity structures in England. J Epidemiol Community Health. 2010; doi:10.1136/jech.2010.120477.


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Police: 2nd grader brought loaded handgun to St. Louis school
ST. LOUIS — Police are investigating after a second-grader brought a loaded gun to Pamoja Preparatory Academy in St. Louis.
Second-grader Kylie Vardiman said she was playing with her friends when the unidentified student showed them the gun during recess Friday afternoon.
"I was shocked, and I just wished I had my phone so I could call my mom to tell her," said Vardiman. "We were like, 'We don't want to see that!' We told somebody to go tell the teacher."
Top Story: 'We need justice!' – Family of Metro bus driver pleads for help following shooting
Investigators said a teacher managed to grab the gun and call the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. The pistol belonged to the child's parents and is normally kept safe in a lockbox, according to a police report.
While no one was hurt, parents and students said the incident is concerning. Vardiman's mother, Lakita Robinson, said the district sent an email explaining the situation to parents on Friday. She also has a kindergartner who attends the school.
"I read the email and I instantly called my daughter's father, Just to make sure everything was okay," said Robinson. "I was scared because there are too many school shootings going on, and especially with my kids being so young if anything would've gone down, it was just so scary for me."
St. Louis Public Schools communications director George Sells released the following statement to FOX 2:
"The investigation is on-going. In the meantime, we are asking parents, guardians and caregivers to please check on any firearms in the home, secure them and store them out of reach of children. The safety and security of our children and staff are top priorities in our District and, it must always be our shared responsibility as a school community."
Trial underway for wife in death of Missouri snake breeder
'We need justice!' – Family of Metro bus driver pleads for help following shooting
@MSUDenverMBB's Tyrei Randall hits the 3/4 court buzzer beater to win it in overtime over Colorado Mesa!!!! 🤯🔥🤯🔥🤯
Looks like a @SportsCenter Top 10 play to us…👀🤷😏#GetRowdy🔴🔵 pic.twitter.com/o8q1kKbO8M
— MSU Denver Athletics (@MSUDenverSports) January 15, 2022
Tyrei Randall nailed five 3-pointers for Metro State University of Denver on Friday, but his final one was the most memorable.
Down 84-82 with seconds remaining in overtime to Colorado Mesa in Grand Junction, the 6-foot-6 junior guard snagged a rebound from a missed free-throw attempt by Mavericks guard Georgie Dancer. Randall took a dribble to the left and heaved a from three-quarter-court prayer that banked off the backboard into the net to steal the victory for the Roadrunners.
Randall, who starred at Rangeview High School in Aurora, finished the game with 15 points.
MSU Denver (12-3) ended the weekend with a lost on Saturday night to Westminster in Salt Lake City. Colorado Mesa (14-6) bounced back on Saturday, beating Colorado Christian University, 101-66, at home.
Democrat gubernatorial candidate-in-waiting Maura Healey ought to invite President Biden to her announcement ceremony.
After getting stiffed in Georgia by Stacey Abrams, who is also running for governor, Biden could use a hug.
The Stacey diss came when the Georgia Democrat, once on Biden's short list of vice-presidential candidates, declined to attend Biden's speech in Atlanta last week.
It would do Healey a lot of good among Democrats, liberals and progressives to host Biden. It would show that while Biden is down and out in the polls, he still has his base of support in Massachusetts
A warm Boston reception would stand in stark contrast to the cold shoulder many Democrats, including Abrams — once a strong supporter — gave Biden in Atlanta.
Once there Biden delivered a weird speech on voting rights, comparing opponents of the Democrat-sponsored voting rights bill to racists.
Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the speech was not only "profoundly unpresidential, but it also "was incoherent, incorrect and beneath his office."
Abrams claimed her absence was due to a scheduling conflict. Biden went along with the excuse. And nobody believed either one of them. You drop your schedule when the president of the United States says he is coming.
More realistically Abrams did not want to appear on the same platform as Biden, who has fallen so deep into a hole that it would take a cave rescue team to find him.
So, forget the Bulldogs, go Minutemen.
Although Attorney General Healey has not officially announced her candidacy for the Democrat nomination for governor, she will automatically become the favorite once she does.
She is a progressive who is far better known than her two opponents, has a two-term record as attorney general, has raised a ton of money and could become the first woman and openly gay governor elected in Massachusetts.
Currently the other two Democrats running are state Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz of Boston and Harvard professor Danielle Allen.
With Healey in the race, it is likely that they would eventually drop out of the race the way former state Sen. Ben Dowling of Pittsfield did. Dowling, the first to get in the race, was the first to drop out.
So, Healey has nothing to lose and a lot to gain by inviting Biden to come to Massachusetts. She is a well-established Trump antagonist, having filed some 50 lawsuits against Trump when he was president. Most went nowhere but they helped weaken Trump, which was the point.
And despite his train wreck of an administration, Biden still has three years left on his term, so it makes good sense for a governor to be on good terms with him.
As all but crowned as the Democrat nominee, Healey would face conservative Republican Geoff Diehl, a Trump supporter, in the November election, which could make for an interesting race.
Healey, a good progressive Democrat, is a solid Biden supporter who is already campaigning against Trump.
No sooner did Biden give his speech in Atlanta, than Healey was out with a statement praising Biden and echoing what he said, even the parts that were untrue.
"Did you hear President Biden's speech in Atlanta today?" Healey asked in a fundraising email to potential campaign donors. "He traveled to the cradle of the civil rights movement to outline the urgent need to protect our constitutional right to vote and the integrity of our elections.
"There's no question that our democracy is under threat. One year ago, armed insurrectionists launched a deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol," she said.
"The former president and his cronies are still spreading lies about the integrity of our elections and initiating sham audits.
"Republican legislatures across the country are passing dangerous restrictions on the right to vote that disproportionately target black, Latino and Indigenous people," she said.
"One of my top priorities this year is advocating for voting reform. We need legislative action to prevent election sabotage and protect the freedom to vote" as "a first step toward healing our democracy."
Joe Biden could not have said it any better.
Healey, as the new leader of the Democrat Party in the state, may not be able to heal our democracy, but she sure could help heal old Joe.
And unlike Abrams and Georgia, Healey could welcome Biden and give the sad and confused old guy a much-needed hug.
Peter Lucas is a veteran Massachusetts political reporter and columnist.
CANTON — By now, every hockey player, coach, parent and Zamboni driver in Massachusetts is well aware of the fact there will not be a Super Eight tournament this season.
So, as a way to recreate a similar atmosphere, the Catholic Conference and its member schools decided to get a little creative, and host a "Showcase," with three games taking place back-to-back in the same facility.
Based on how things shook out at the Canton Ice House Sunday, it looks like they made the right choice. In the opening showdown of the afternoon, which also featured some late-game controversy, Catholic Memorial ended up skating to a heart-stopping 1-1 draw with rival Xaverian.
"(It was) really fun," said Xaverian coach David Spinale. "Lot of energy in the building. Chris Kuchar from Malden, it was his idea. We all supported it, and we just said: 'Let's find a location, where we could do kind of a game to game to game (structure),' like this."
Despite the frigid temperatures, hundreds of fans made their way to Norfolk County to take part in the events, and they were treated to a defensive stalemate in the first game.
Both Catholic Memorial (6-1-1) and Xaverian (7-1-1) struggled to get anything going offensively for the entirety of the opening period, with quality chances coming few and far between.
This held true until the latter stages of the second stanza, when Finn Burke found himself in possession of the puck behind the Xaverian net. As he scanned the ice for a teammate, the defenseman spotted Connor Fryberger skating alone in the slot, and fed a pass his way.
Fryberger proceeded to slap a shot into the lower corner of the cage, giving Catholic Memorial a 1-0 edge with 5:38 to play in the period.
Desperately needing an equalizer later on in the third, Xaverian drew even behind the efforts of junior right winger Joe DiMartino, who registered his fourth goal of the season with 8:43 remaining in regulation.
Although Catholic Memorial was whistled for a critical tripping penalty with 2:49 left, Xaverian was unable to capitalize on the man-advantage as the Knights forced overtime.
Neither program managed to strike in the extra session, at least, not until there were about 6.5 seconds remaining, when Nick D'Olympio started one final 2-on-1 rush. The Rockland native fired a shot off the pad of Xaverian goaltender Brendan Flanagan. The puck then bounced over to Fryberger, who tipped it home for what appeared to be a game-winning goal. However, the referees waved the play off, saying it came after time had expired.
"It hit off (the goaltender's) pad, and I batted it out of the air," said Fryberger. "It could've been a buzzer-beater, but it was too late… I thought I had it in time, adrenaline pumping. I don't know."
Braden O'Hara and Max Lockwood were credited with assists for Xaverian.
"I couldn't really tell," Spinale said when asked about the final sequence. "I thought I heard the buzzer, then it went in. But again, I'm biased."
On a day where the Knights were missing multiple key players, Tyler Hamilton stood out for Catholic Memorial, as he notched an assist.
"We showed up today with guys that play hockey and we played hockey," Catholic Memorial coach Larry Rooney said. "We played a good game of hockey, and I'm proud of the guys."
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RFP | SSRC Religion, Spirituality, and Democratic Renewal Fellowship
The International Dissertation Research Fellowship (IDRF) Photo Competition is offered every year to IDRF recipients. Prizes are awarded for the best single photo, the best self-portrait, the best photo essay, and the best video following a vote by IDRF fellows and staff.
by Isha Tendolkar June 30, 2020
The 2020 Photo Competition was open to IDRF fellows in the 2019 cohort who wanted to share their favorite and most captivating photos—showing the life they have been witnessing and living every day, up to and including our Covid-19 quarantines. This year there were five categories for submission: Single Photo, Self Portrait, Quarantine Photo, Photo Essay, and Video. We are pleased to announce the winners of the 2020 competition.
Single Photo Competition
IDRF Fellows Pick: Abdul Aijaz
"The Archive": This is the main entrance of the record room of district Sahiwal, which houses all the land tenure records for the entire district. The district office complex was built in 1865, when this town was known as Montgomery and was an important new British colonial outpost in the recently annexed Punjab. In the record room, which overflows into the story above (accessible via ladder pictured), documents are bundled in cloth and indexed by numbers written in chalk on the iron girders—imported from London by the colonial builders—that make up the shelves. The documents are arranged according to a miniature map of the villages they pertain to, organized by the same colonial system of labeling and numbering these canal-colony villages according to their position along the water distribution systems that were built—number 24, 33, 17, left, right, lower, upper, and so forth. Photo taken in district of Sahiwal, Pakistan.
Fellowships Office Pick: William Matczynski
"'Ga Sɛɛ Gbɛ Dzi Gbɛ,' All Roads Lead to Accra": Obonu royal drummers perform music associated with Ga chieftaincy during a festival street procession, part of the entourage of one of the important family clans in Accra. Accompanied by the firing of muskets, revving motorcycles, and singing Asafo military companies, Obonu drums are carried aloft past the iconic Jamestown lighthouse, built overlooking the sea by the British colonial government in the 1930s. Photo taken in Jamestown – Accra, Ghana.
Self-Portrait Competition
IDRF Fellows Pick: Liang Wu
"An Uphill Battle": Field researcher Liang Wu climbs up the 80-degree gangway of a mega container ship to carry out another ship visit and interview working seafarers. Such a physical hurdle was already among the easiest of the methodological difficulties he had been experiencing. He would soon learn that he was only in the first state of emergency during his dissertation research year—the escalating social unrest and violence in Hong Kong before the outbreak of the global coronavirus pandemic that has destabilized international supply chains, and exacerbated seafarers' and his own precarity and immobility. Photo taken in Port of Hong Kong.
Fellowships Office Pick: Grace East
"Cikin Kasuwa (At the Market)": This photo was taken at a dear friend's shop in the heart of Nima Market, one of Accra's largest grocery markets. The folks pictured along with me have been close friends for nearly three years and I wouldn't have been able to succeed in my research without them. We took this photo on one of my final days in Accra after I had found out I would be forced to leave suddenly due to the Covid-19 outbreak. We were trying to make the best of one of our last days together and decided to take a picture as a memento. Please note that the use of this photo was enthusiastically consented to by those pictured and subscribes to IRB ethical parameters. Photo taken in Nima Market in Accra, Ghana.
Quarantine Photo Competition
IDRF Fellows Pick: Adri Kácsor
"Yoga à la Marx and Lukács": Thanks to my privilege to work from home during the quarantine, I have developed a new kind of Yoga practice, which is quite literally based on Marxist and Lukácsian thinking! I never imagined I would be this much grounded on the overtly heavy and thick collections of writings by Karl Marx and György Lukács, but seemingly this is what happens when the world turns upside down during a pandemic, and I am in lockdown alone with my books… Photo taken in Budapest, Hungary.
Fellowships Office Pick: Stephanie Leitzel
"Camping Out the Quarantine": When the Italian government announced that it would close its border in mid-March, the State Department had me evacuate the country. In the last-minute rush back to the United States, as all the flights out of Italy were being canceled, the only quarantine I could arrange was a neighbor's camper, parked in my parent's driveway. I stayed here for three weeks! Photo taken in Detroit, Michigan.
Photo Essay Competition
IDRF Fellows Pick: Gana Ndiaye, "Covid-19 and the Informal Economy in Porto Alegre (Brazil)"
"Street Vending in Downtown Porto Alegre": As in most parts of the world, municipal authorities in Porto Alegre, Brazil, enacted social distancing measures. They ordered nonessential businesses to close from March 18 until April 30 before extending the order until May 6, 2020. By early April, however, food carts and fruit vendors, who had deserted the streets in previous weeks, had resumed their activities in the center of the city. That loosening of social distancing rules is due in part to the difficult decision many have to make between going hungry while observing social distancing measures and risking one's life by going out to earn a living. Most street vending is ordinarily illegal in the center of Porto Alegre. As a move to prevent the phenomenon, city officials had built a "Centro Popular de Compras," a popular shopping center locally known as "Camelódromo," and ordered street vendors (camelôs) to move there in 2009. To enforce the decision, there are special police called fiscaliação that hunt street vendors who do not adhere to the rules and seize their products, sometimes violently. During this Covid-19 shutdown, I have been struck by the contrast between the closed businesses and the relative ease with which the informal economy operated weeks before authorities decided to ease social distancing measures. Many of the camelôs are migrants from other parts of Brazil but also from Senegal, Venezuela, and Bolivia. This photo shows what Andradas Street in downtown Porto Alegre looked like on May 2 at around noon, while a shutdown order was still in place. Photo taken in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
"A Senegalese Camelô": This Senegalese camelô sells watches, sunglasses, and jewelry. He is sitting in front of a closed Renner store in downtown Porto Alegre. Renner is one of the largest fashion retailers in the country. Photo taken in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
"Water for Sale": This Brazilian street vendor who sells water also uses the closed windows of a retail store as hangers for his products. The fact that he is not wearing a mask and may be considered part of the vulnerable population also struck me. Photo taken in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
"Face Masks": Handmade face masks are popular products these days. This photo of a street vendor who sells them but is not wearing one properly illustrates how difficult it is to avoid contamination while working as a street vendor. It is hard to communicate with clients while wearing a handmade face mask. Photo taken in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
"Time to Read": This Bolivian vendor of masks sits reading in the historic center of the city while waiting for clients. Photo taken in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
Fellowship Office Pick: Yessica Porras, "Layers of Memory"
"Red and Gold Resplendor": Golden rosettes and angels shine over red wooden planks and adjacent paintings of sacred figures that showcase the spiritual and economic power of the convent of Santa Clara la Real in Tunja, Colombia, during the eighteenth century. This was the first convent established in Nueva Granada (1571), as a response to the need to regulate "uncomfortable women": unmarried, widowed, mistresses, among others. Under these wooden structures dwell layers of mural paintings, which embody the convent's historical changes and of the women that inhabited it. Photo taken at the Convento Santa Clara la Real in Tunja, Colombia.
"Cherubs and Flowers": Visitors to the church of the Convent of Santa Clara la Real are welcomed by a painted architectural feature that extends from the wall toward the viewer, dated 1613. This close up of the retablo's corner is a simultaneous view of an early monochromatic organic pattern traversed by two-dimensional red and yellow outlines echoed in the figures of floating cherubs and flowers; above these murals is a fragment of the wooden red and gold ornamental stage. Photo taken at the Convento Santa Clara la Real in Tunja, Colombia.
"Palimpsestic Chorus Memory": The chorus of the Convent of Santa Clara la Real is an example of a private space where only the inhabitants of the convent have access. The dynamism of the space is embodied by juxtaposing incoherent painted fragments of visual historical interventions like written palimpsests, intersecting the past and the present through ornamental figures. Photo taken at the Convento Santa Clara la Real in Tunja, Colombia.
"Painted Discoveries": Many of the mural paintings at the convent of Santa Clara la Real have been found only recently. The fragment of a painted cross was found by the students of Fundación Escuela Taller de Boyacá (2005) during the restoration process of one of the former nun dormitories. Many of the mural paintings throughout Latin America have been found due to the structural decay of the buildings, which reveal their hidden visual history in fragments. Photo taken at the Convento Santa Clara la Real in Tunja, Colombia.
"Modern Painting Impulses": The history of the convent was almost lost with the partition of the convent's building. In 1965, the former living space of the nuns of the Poor Clares in Tunja was transformed into student dormitories for the Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia. Although the walls were covered by white plaster, the impulse to paint on the walls continued with the students. Without knowing of what lay underneath, students personalized their spaces with drawings and texts like the nuns that formally inhabited these rooms. Photo taken at the Convento Santa Clara la Real in Tunja, Colombia.
IDRF Fellows Pick (only 1 winner for this category): Gana Ndiaye
The Baay Faal: A Sufi Group from Senegal: The video shows some of the religious activities of a group of Senegalese Sufi immigrants in Brazil: the Baay Faal. Video filmed in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.
Previous photo competitions: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015.
Isha Tendolkar
Isha Tendolkar is a program associate for the International Dissertation Research Fellowship (IDRF) and Fostering Liberal Arts Knowledge and Connections (FLAKC) programs. Tendolkar graduated from Rutgers University with a BS in public health, focusing on health disparities. Prior to joining the SSRC, she worked at a political advocacy nonprofit assisting on projects related to clean water legislation, environmental justice, and health equity. Her primary interests include humanitarian law and the interactions between both civil and human rights and health.
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Home/News/GE research shows disconnect between digital outlook and company readiness
GE research shows disconnect between digital outlook and company readiness
GE unveiled new research highlighting an emerging gap between executive outlook for digital transformation and initiatives that companies have put in place. The survey of information technology (IT) and operations decision makers found that while companies see the industrial internet of things (IIoT) as presenting significant opportunities for future growth and competitiveness, the vast majority are not taking the actions required to benefit from those opportunities.
"The industrial internet is already having a profound impact on industrial companies of all sizes. We know this because we are seeing real benefits with our customers and across GE," said Bill Ruh, CEO of GE Digital. "At the same time, a gap is emerging between outlook for the IIoT and actions. We are working to close that gap by partnering with customers to accelerate change and guide companies of all sizes along their digital journeys."
According to the study, presented at GE's Minds + Machines conference on 25 October, optimism among industry executives for the potential of the industrial internet is striking. A total 80% believe the IIoT will or could be transformational to their companies and industries. Even more consider digital industrial transformation to be important to their competitiveness. At the same time, only 8% of those executives say digital transformation is ingrained in their businesses, and 10% do not have a digital transformation plan in place.
GE Digital Industrial Evolution Index
Based on the research study, GE created the GE Digital Industrial Evolution Index to track the real progress of digital transformation – from outlook on the IIoT to readiness to transform. The inaugural index reflects a total score of 63 on a scale of 100 and indicates that while outlook for the industrial internet is very strong, scoring 78.3 out of 100, company readiness significantly lags, scoring 55.2 out of 100. This disconnect between outlook and company readiness presents both a challenge and opportunity for companies seeking to benefit from the IIoT. Additional survey findings included:
Digital transformation critical to growth and competitiveness: 86% believe digital industrial transformation is important to the competitiveness of their companies, with the majority (76%) rating the ability to provide higher quality services as the foremost outcome of digital industrial transformation.
Connectivity and industrial apps most critical for IIoT: IT and operations decision makers (IT/OTDMs) overwhelmingly cited connectivity (63%) and industrial applications (58%) as the primary technologies required for digital transformation.
IIoT platform, apps and analytics priority investments: Respondents view an IIoT-ready platform (22%), industrial applications (14%) and big data analytics (14%) as the most important technologies to invest in.
Cost matters: Most respondents cited investment costs (42%) as the leading barrier to digital transformation, followed by system security (32%) and data privacy (32%) concerns.
Digital transformation will require organizational change: 54% of IT/OTDMs believe their organizations need to transform to enable digital transformation. Further, 66% believe data analysts will need to be integrated into all departments/units; 61% believe IT functions will need to become part of the central operating function of their company; and 55% believe their companies are responsible for ensuring the workforce is ready for the IIoT.
Advancing digital industrial transformation
GE Digital is working to close the gap between opportunity and reality by making the industrial internet accessible for companies at every stage of the transformation journey. The company is helping customers realize real and immediate benefits from the IIoT by providing new partnerships, industry-leading tools and applications designed to drive efficiencies and growth. Examples of customers already harnessing the power of the IIoT include:
Exelon, a Fortune 100 energy company, is working with GE to develop and deploy Predix-based software solutions across Exelon's electricity transmission and distribution network of six utilities. The implementation of machine learning-based analytics will increase reliability, availability and efficiency of the electrical grid for more than 10 million customers.
Qantas, Australia's largest domestic and international airline, and GE Aviation developed a new flight data application, FlightPulse, which provides pilots with data to help them fly more efficiently and help reduce carbon emissions. FlightPulse, the first fully commercialized product to be developed with mobile services from GE's Predix platform, uses recorded aircraft data and smart analytics to enable pilots to securely access their individual operational efficiency metrics and trends. In its last financial year, Qantas saved more than 30 million kg of fuel, supported by the work done with GE. In this financial year, since launching FlightPulse, Qantas is now close to doubling its fuel savings compared to this time last year.
The Australian Rail Track Corp (ARTC) is applying GE Transportation's Movement Planner solution as the key technology enabler for the ARTC Network Control Optimization (ANCO) program. Movement Planner provides real-time rail traffic planning and optimization to enable freight to move more efficiently, and will serve as the foundation for the digital transformation of the train control function – a key feature of the ANCO project.
Invenergy, North America's largest privately held renewable energy company, and GE recently announced a 2,000-megawatt windfarm, called Windcatcher, that will be the largest in the US and second-largest in the world, once operational. Invenergy plans to implement GE's Digital Wind Farm – including Asset Performance Management and Operations Optimization software as part of the project. The company has also partnered with GE for cyber security across the entire fleet.
Rumo, one of the largest rail-based logistics operators in Latin America, will deploy GE Transportation's Trip Optimizer solution to improve efficiency across more than 2,000 km of rail in Brazil in 2018. Trip Optimizer, which runs on GE Transportation's GoLINC on-board computing platform, is a software-based energy management system that analyzes data to optimize train fuel efficiency.
KBC, an independent oil and gas consulting and process simulation software company, and Baker Hughes, a GE company, have entered into a preferred partnership that will provide a combination of process simulation, asset performance management and operational software solutions to the oil and gas industry. Leveraging GE's Predix, the platform for the industrial internet, to deliver one unified view, this partnership extends KBC's Petro-SIM process simulation modeling further into the full-stream oil and gas value chain, and provides connectivity between operations, assets, people and business processes for end-to-end optimization.
JPMorgan Chase is in its second phase of an ongoing collaboration with GE's Current, a company that sells energy management systems, to install new energy management and digital technologies that will increase the energy efficiency of roughly 4,500 Chase branches across the US. To date, approximately 3,000 branches have been retrofitted with LED lighting, helping cut lighting energy consumption by 50% – the equivalent of taking nearly 27,000 cars off the road.
The industrial world is complex and creates a unique set of technology challenges. IIoT requires multiple technologies – connectivity, control systems, cloud computing, data ingestion and management, analytics and machine learning, security, data governance – across a variety of different users and scenarios. GE Digital is applying its expertise and experience to make the IIoT more accessible, actionable and impactful for companies of all sizes – providing a blueprint they can adapt to get more out of their industrial assets, measure ROI and improve business returns.
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EVAL: European Plant in Antwerp becomes the world's largest EVOH production site
EVAL Europe N.V. has completed the manufacturing capacity expansion of its EVAL™ ethylene vinyl-alcohol (EVOH) copolymer resin plant in Antwerp. Total capacity of the site is now 24,000 tonnes per year, overtaking Kuraray's American EVAL™ production site to become the largest EVOH plant in the world. Mechanical completion was completed in September, 2004. Expanded EVAL™ resin production began on 18th October. The additional manufacturing capacity represents an investment of approximately 80 million euro.
EVAL™ resins have the highest gas impermeability rate of any plastic (approximately 10,000
times that of ordinary polyethylene). The primary application for EVAL™ EVOH copolymer resins is food packaging, where EVAL™resins provide excellent gas barrier properties and resistance to odour and flavour permeation. Another high growth market for EVAL™ resins
is as a barrier layer in plastic automotive fuel systems. EVAL™ resins help to protect the environment by minimising harmful fuel vapour permeation from fuel tank, line and filler pipe, allowing fuel systems to conform to strict international emission standards. EVAL™ is also
used to make pipes for floor heating systems, and in other residential, cosmetic, medical and appliance-related applications.
Kuraray became first the world to develop and commercialise the high-performance EVOH resin EVAL™ in 1972. EVAL Europe N.V., established in 1997, is a fully owned subsidiary of
Kuraray Co., Ltd. The plant started production in September 1999 with an annual capacity of 10,000 tons, quickly expanded to 12,000 in 2001. In addition to EVOH resin production, the EVAL Europe N.V. site includes sales, technical service and administrative offices. Linked to the capacity expansion, EVAL Europe has constructed a new processing and development
hall for their European EVAL™ Technical Centre, which serves customers in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. This will both accelerate and increase the amount of EVAL™ EVOH research and product development done in Europe.
The new capacity ensures Kuraray's position as the leading manufacturer of EVOH resins and demonstrates its continued confidence about the future growth of EVOH markets worldwide.
The average annual growth rate of demand for EVAL™ EVOH copolymer resins is expected to be 10% over the next decade. Growth is centered in Europe, North America and Japan., but new demand growth is predicted in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, South
Africa, Asia and Latin America where lifestyles and standards of living are changing.
Kuraray is the world's leading manufacturer of EVOH resins. Kuraray supplies its customers world-wide with EVAL™ EVOH copolymer resins from plants in Pasadena, Texas, USA (23,000 tonnes per year, previously the largest EVOH facility in the world), Okayama, Japan
(10,000 tonnes per year) and Antwerp, Belgium. With the expanded EVAL Europe plant, Kuraray's total world-wide capacity for EVAL™ resins now exceeds 57,000 tonnes per year.
The USA plant (EVAL Company of America) announced on August 2, 2004 its plan to
expanded its manufacturing capacity by 24,000 tonnes per year, scheduled for completion in March 2006. This new planned expansion will bring the total EVAL™ capacity to 81,000 tonnes per year. The capacity expansions in Europe and the USA position Kuraray to
continue to support its customers' increasing EVOH requirements and demonstrate Kuraray's global commitment to new application development.
This entry was posted on Thursday, October 28th, 2004 at 12:00 pm and is filed under News - General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.