text:
Federal Pell Grants help pay for college – but are they enough to help students finish?
Greatest legacy of beloved Rhode Island Senator needs more support
Laura Perna, University of Pennsylvania and Jeremy Wright-Kim, University of Pennsylvania
Senator Pell (l.) shakes Reagan's hand as Pell Grant bill is signed into
law (Pell Institute photo)
Grants are one way the federal government helps people pay for college.
During the 2020 to 2021 school year, eligible students can receive up to US$6,345 through the program, depending on where they go to school, how many classes they take and how much money their family makes.
Despite this assistance, students who receive Pell Grants are less likely than other students to graduate from a four-year institution within six years: 51% versus 59% for students who first enrolled in 2010. Six years is the timespan the federal government uses to measure graduation rates.
One reason for this disparity is that Pell Grant recipients tend to go to less selective colleges and universities. Graduation rates are lower for these institutions than for more selective institutions.
For instance, at four-year colleges with open admissions – that is, an institution where just about anyone who applies gets in – only 31% of students who first enrolled full-time in 2011 graduated within six years. At selective schools, which admit only a quarter of their applicants, 87% did.
We are scholars who study why students attend different colleges and other issues of fairness in higher education. One of our recent studies finds that institutions that enroll high numbers of Pell grant recipients also have other characteristics that are linked with lower graduation rates, such as having fewer students live on campus and spending less per student on instruction.
Our findings have implications for policymakers, taxpayers, college leaders and Pell Grant students themselves.
College choice
About a third of the nation's approximately 22 million college students received these grants in 2018. The federal government spent about $28 billion on Pell Grants in that school year.
More than half, 58%, of Pell Grant recipients who are financially dependent on their parents had family incomes below $30,000 in 2015-16.
But not all Pell Grant recipients are young or live with their parents. About half (53%) take care of themselves and 42% were age 24 or older.
Congress first created what is now known as the Federal Pell Grant program in 1972. A primary goal was to address financial barriers to college enrollment for students from low-income families.
Even with the availability of the federal Pell Grant, college enrollment rates continue to be lower for students from lower-income families.
And, simply enrolling in college isn't enough to lift these students out of poverty. They need to graduate. Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce has found that increasingly, "good jobs" – defined as a job "that pays at least $35,000 for workers 25 to 44 and at least $45,000 for workers 45 to 64" – require at least a bachelor's degree.
Structural barriers
In a report we produced with The Pell Institute, a research and policy analysis organization that focuses on low-income, first-generation and disabled students, we found that, at community colleges, 55% of first-year, full-time students got federal grants, including Pell Grants, in 2016-17.
The percentage was even higher at for-profit colleges – 68%.
In contrast, at the nation's most academically selective colleges, only 16% of first-time, full-time students received federal grants.
One reason Pell Grant recipients more commonly attend open-enrollment and less selective colleges is that students from low-income families more often attend K-12 schools with fewer academically demanding courses. Lack of academic preparation reduces their chances of getting into a competitive college. And it contributes to the need to take developmental or remedial education courses.
A 2015 report published by The Education Trust shows that graduation rates are higher for Pell recipients at more academically selective institutions. At institutions enrolling students with the highest SAT scores, graduation rates were 74% for Pell recipients and 79% for non-Pell recipients.
At institutions enrolling students with the lowest SAT scores, graduation rates averaged 37% for Pell recipients and 42% for non-Pell recipients.
Lower-income students who attend the most selective schools also fare as well as their affluent peers in terms of how much money they make after college, according to Opportunity Insights, a Harvard University-based research and policy analysis group.
Supporting low-income students
Much attention has focused on increasing enrollment of Pell recipients in the nation's most selective institutions. While important, we believe these efforts are not enough.
Much more must be done to improve graduation rates at the open-access and less selective colleges in which many more of the nation's Pell recipients enroll. In fall 2015, just 8% of all undergraduates were attending the nation's most and highly selective colleges and universities. By comparison, 37% of all undergraduates were enrolled in community colleges and other two-year colleges.
[You're smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation's authors and editors. You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter.]
Laura Perna, Professor of Higher Education, University of Pennsylvania and Jeremy Wright-Kim, PhD Student, Higher Education, University of Pennsylvania
Topics: Education, Ronald Reagan
What the Trump budget says about the administratio...
Ummm, butter!
Here's the thing...
Stand by to repel invaders
Boomers have a drug problem, but not the kind you ...
Can you get rid of your student loans by filing fo...
How The Coronavirus Has Infected Trump's Presidency
Series on slavery in Charlestown kicks off March 5th
Seriously, how do we prepare for COVID-19 (coronav...
Why we need more "Bad Boy" laws
Charlestown, other South County communities win st...
Federal Pell Grants help pay for college – but are...
People actually LIKE progressive ideas
Blame science and time travel
WPWA still has openings
So how are we doing on COVID-19 (coronavirus)?
It's NEVER too late to quit
Insurance company-driven "fast and loose" treatmen...
Amid the non-stop Trump news, don't ignore the per...
Enshrining Trump's hero
'Sea-level rise won't affect my house'
No cause for alarm
'Cultivate the Possibilities' is theme of URI Mast...
Who is born a US citizen?
Trump can't win in November without foreign help
What happens when Trump shoots a guy on 5th Avenue?
How Trump is protecting us from the coronavirus
No excuses...
Eating disorders are about emotional pain – not food
Guns don't make you happier
Scared of coronavirus?
GOP wants to make 2020 the best election ever
Some words of wisdom from Trump's mom
Cruising for chicks at Mystic
Better access to groceries could reduce food waste...
Surprise! Trump picks corruption-tainted hack as h...
Trump carries on Nixon's legacy
Helpful who's who graphic
Support Trump or die
Money, markets and the politics of energy
Saving whales complicated by their own habits
Yes, Puerto Ricans are American citizens
Trump supporters have little trust in societal ins...
Thinly veiled metaphor
Get tickets now for April event for animal shelter
Warm, wet winter is bad news for local water quali...
Not just about delivering pizza
Hackers could shut down satellites
Oops, US Intelligence tells Congress Putin is inte...
Contrast and comparison, continued
Grammys, guitars and grand concerts
VIDEO: Being copycats might be key to being human
Estimated SAVINGS from "Medicare for All" – 68,000...
Narragansetts receive almost $400K in federal fund...
Stand behind Charlestown firefighter in need
Texting while walking can get you killed
Make freedom of choice less discriminatory
VIDEO: No rules for Donald
Best served orange
What a concept: actually make law enforcement poss...
What is the worth of Rhode Island's trees?
Give top priority to repairing infrastructure
Why we believe disinformation
Acquitted
RI Nature Video Festival to be held on February 22.
February 24 program on the legacy of slavery
Art contest, deadline April 17
RI Health Dept promises "forever chemicals" regs i...
Environment is one of biggest losers in Trump budg...
The Democratic nomination contest so far
Thank you, Senator Collins
Richard III opens at URI on February 20
Eat your brussel sprouts
Trump Treasury Secretary Mnuchin Admits Trump's Bu...
There is no "Great American Comeback"
Election security is sooooo hard
Ah, "do nothing?"
Why we knock on wood
Health insurance bias against women would be banne...
VIDEO: Cancer deaths decline in US, with advances ...
This is how ancient Rome's republic died
What if YOU had your own TV network?
Social Security is not a handout
State program gives banks incentives to loan to RI...
Rhode Islanders need more affordable prescriptions
Democratic plans for raising taxes on the rich
Teachers' union takes on Trump
I guess after Iowa and New Hampshire, the nominati...
For Valentine's Day, inspirational words from Dona...
America's dependence on Chinese pharmaceuticals ad...
Forget about Monday
Mortadella mortality
US could learn how to improve election protection ...
Real pay data show Trump's 'blue collar boom' is m...
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Reconstruction of Boat Ramp at Quonnie Breachway U...


text:
David Adelsheim
Wine Pioneer
Few people in the world know a bottle of Pinot noir as well as David Adelsheim. After meeting several of the first families to plant grapes in the late 1960s, David and his former wife Ginny purchased 19 acres in Yamhill County in 1971, becoming part of the ten families to make wine in the Willamette Valley before 1980.
His French connection began by spending a summer in Burgundy to discover the "secrets" of Pinot noir, but found the real secret is the place itself. He learned while interning in Beaune at the experimental winery, Lycée Viticol, then returned to the Pacific Northwest, taking on roles of a winemaker, a vineyard manager, sommelier (and scientist!). Through it all, he constantly searches, experiments, evolves—finding new ways to help Oregon wines flourish. He helped establish the Oregon Wine Board and rebuild the Willamette Valley Wineries Association, helped push Oregon State University to import clones from Burgundy, and met with scientists in six areas of France and Germany to persuade them to share their clones with Oregon winemakers.
Why We Love David Adelsheim
David's an educator with a curious mind and the heart of a scientist. He's relentless in the pursuit of excellence, that daring figure who isn't afraid to lead the way. It's a philosophy that inspires us to stay curious and constantly seek out new experiences.
"We're proud of our role in Oregon's wine history. Each day we strive to create remarkable Oregon Pinot noir and Chardonnay that connect wine lovers around the world to the spirit and beauty of Oregon."
"Nobody's planted any laurels around here to rest on. It's always been in our DNA to ask what the next great challenge is going to be. What can do we do for our brand, to help the industry?"
6 Questions with David Adelsheim
Why did you get into wine?
I ran into it almost by mistake, with my former wife. We got sucked into it and entranced by it. And then it took over our lives, in the best of ways!
Your Burgundy connection goes back several decades. How did it begin?
After making wine one year in Oregon, I felt I needed to learn the secrets of making great Pinot noir and could only learn those in Burgundy, because Pinot noir comes from there. Of course there weren't any secrets. It was... the place.
How much did your time there play a part in your Oregon winery?
During harvest, we've had interns from all over the world. We feed them and put them up just as if we were in Burgundy and they were doing the same thing. I think the idea of exposing the world – one person at a time – to our winery is something I obviously did learn in Burgundy.
What excites you about visiting Burgundy these days?
It's a place that's unreplicated; it's a Unesco World Heritage site because it's the only one of its kind. And it is the reference that anyone who knows about wine points to for a certain style and a certain grape variety. And there is no other reference like that.
What's this trip about?
It's me visiting with a lot of friends that I've met over the years and also the connections between who they are and what they do and the wines of Burgundy and what I am and what I do and the wines of Oregon. It's an opportunity for others to come along and be a part of that experience and create their own relationships with this pretty amazing place in the world.
What do you think the biggest takeaway of this trip is?
I suspect it will be who the people of Burgundy are, and the common interests they have with the people in Oregon. Not just the wine business. It comes down to a certain humanity people share regardless of where they are. And I think that may be the biggest takeaway of any travel...
Explore Upcoming Trips with our Tastemakers
Oaxaca with Gregory Gourdet
Explore food, art and culture with Chef Gregory Gourdet. Oaxaca packs in so much of the complex, fascinating culture of Mexico and we'll experience it all—at artist studios, ancient ruins, local markets, street-food stands, hacienda hotels. Join us!
Alaska: Deep Backcountry
Seven days of Alaskan wilderness backpacking, limited to just 10 people tpo maximize our backcountry access. Float planes, snowcapped peaks, camping on pristine glacial lakes, and the rare opportunity to spot grizzly bears in the wild. This is the Alaska of your dreams.
Portugal with Jamie Malone
We'll go deep into Portuguese culture and cuisine: azulejo tiles, Fado music, sparkling wines and vintage ports. Explore taverns and markets, vineyards and farms, and sail through the world's most gorgeous wine country.
Subscribe to the MO/AD Newsletter
It's time for a shot of optimism. Join us.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


There is widespread love of Hawaii in Japan. There are Hawaiian decorations, Hawaiian accessories, Hawaiian dance classes and, of course, Hawaiian restaurants. One of said restaurants is "Aloha Table" (website: http://www.alohatable.com/about/) which has a branch in Perie Chiba above the JR station. There is a huge effort to make an ambient atmosphere that channels ideas about Hawaii - lots of wooden furniture and greenery, beating ceiling fans, cute ornaments and many, many flowers. The open windows with the air conditioner on full blast probably make for eye-watering electricity bills, but it does make for a lovely relaxed and pleasantly balmy atmosphere. There is also a terrace outside for when the weather is nice. In short, they have certainly done everything in their power to make their diners forget that they are in a bustling shopping mall above a very busy railway station. Most importantly, though, the food is delicious! I ordered the garlic soft shell shrimp and it was gorgeous, served with fragrant rice, smooth pumpkin salad, smoky pasta salad, a tangy green salad and potato wedges on the side. The menu features a typical variety Hawaiian themed food that appeals to Japanese tastes, with lots of shrimp, loco moco and very fluffy pancakes. The drawbacks to dining here are slight. The price was under 1500 yen, which seems fairly typical for lunch in this particular shopping mall but still a bit more than I'd usually pay personally. Aside from the (slight) price issue, Aloha Table other problems are mostly it being a victim of its own success. The lines to get in are often long and the tables pushed a bit too close together, making it difficult to get in and out of seats and to tune out the noisy conversations of those nearby. I liked it a lot, though I'd probably take some friends if I returned rather than go alone again, as the atmosphere definitely seems more conducive to groups. It's definitely nice if you want some tropical escapism without going far from home. Tips: - This is another restaurant with free Wifi! - Beware the seating arrangements - if you're at one of the sofa-style tables and trying to get out to get to the drink bar, for example, you may run the risk of pushing your backside into someone's lunch - Consider the possible wait time. The place is decent in size and surrounded by competition, but it really is popular and it doesn't take long for people to start lining up. - The terrace is gorgeous but I can only imagine how crowded it gets when the weather is good!


Schedule creation of sitemap with no packet "php5-cli" installed?
I must to schedule my creation of sitemap but I can't install the packet "php5-cli" on my Linux server.
There is an another option? Maybe using Lynx?
Re: Schedule creation of sitemap with no packet "php5-cli" installed?
On my Linux server I have/use PHP Apache Module, so I don't have the PHP command line.
even with PHP running as apache there is always a php interpreter (never seen a linux server without it ).


He's the genius behind all your favourite horror movies.
With Halloween, the hotly-anticipated follow-up to his seminal 1978 slasher flick, er, Halloween, hitting Australian cinemas on October 25, we take a deep dive into the life and career of one John Carpenter: master of horror, noodler of keyboards, and on track to be the most-remade director of all time.
But while big money eluded him for much of his career, the horror auteur is straight-up revered these days. He's one of the most influential genre filmmakers of all time. Kicking off with his debut feature, 1974's sci-fi stoner comedy Dark Star, Carpenter tore through a 20 year run of creative successes, even if the box office receipts and contemporary reviews didn't reflect that.
It's Halloween that stands (masked) head and shoulders above the rest, if we're being honest. Starring a young Jamie Lee Curtis as babysitter Laurie Strode, who has battle unstoppable murder machine Michael Myers (Nick Castle, who went on to direct children's films, trivia fans) on the titular spooktacular holiday, Halloween set the benchmark and the mould for slasher flicks going forward, spawning nine sequels and a remake.
According to Carpenter what makes Michael Myers, with his blank white mask and ever-sharp kitchen knife, such a fascinating villain is his universality.
As a director, Carpenter is a consummate craftsman, and he brings a serious eye to the business of brutal murder. It's not how many babysitters you slice up, after all, but the way you slice 'em up.
Professionalism isn't just something Carpenter embodies, it's something he admires in others, which is perhaps why the same actors keep cropping up in his movies.
Over the years he's built up a small company of repeat performers, including Jamie Lee Curtis (Halloween, The Fog), Keith David (The Thing, They Live), George Buck Flower (Starman, Village of the Damned, and many more), and Peter Jason (They Live, In the Mouth of Madness) — all of them more than eager to sign on for whatever genre weirdness cooked up this time around.
His main man, though, is Kurt Russell, pretty much the Bobby De Niro to Carpenter's Scorsese.
Starting with Elvis, a 1979 TV movie starring Russell as the King (yes, really), the two paired up for five films in total: Escape From New York (1981), The Thing (1982), Big Trouble in Little China (1986), and finishing up with 1996's better-than-you-may-remember Escape From L.A.
A DVD commentary by Carpenter and Russell is a thing of rare beauty, by the way.
One of Carpenter's key signatures isn't visual, though — it's musical.
He wrote the score to almost all his films (The Thing is a rare exception — they got the great Ennio Morricone in for that), and he's back in the saddle to score Halloween 2018 with his regular sidemen, son Cody Carpenter and godson Daniel Davies (son of The Kinks' Ray Davies).
Carpenter's synth-heavy, minimalist sound is not only instantly recognisable, but it's also influenced a whole swathe of electro and synthwave artists, including Carpenter Brut (no shock there), Kavinsky, and Perturbator. It's also led to a second career: while he hasn't made a feature since 2010's The Ward, he's released three albums and is touring regularly, playing film themes and new compositions.
While Carpenter studied the classics, modern genre filmmakers study John Carpenter.
Not only are his flourishes evident in the works of directors like Robert Rodriguez (Desperado, Sin City, the upcoming Alita: Battle Angel) and Adam Wyngard (You're Next, The Guest), a whole heap of his movies have been or are in the process of being sequelised, prequelised, or remade.
The new Halloween from David Gordon Green and Danny McBride is only the latest in a long-running franchise. The thing got a prequel, also called The Thing, in 2011. Assault on Precinct 13 was remade in 2005 with Ethan Hawke and Laurence Fishburne. At the moment, a remake of Escape From New York (to be directed by Robert Rodriguez) and a sorta-sequel to Big Trouble in Little China (to star Dwayne Johnson) are in the works, and the assured success of the new Halloween all but guarantees a follow up.
Travis Johnson is the angry guy in the cinema who glares at you in the cinema when you take out your phone. He writes about movies everywhere, and tweets at @CelluloidWhisky.


Flying Visit, more Onestroke and a New Table!
In between nails, brows and lashes I've been housesitting again as well as practicing more OneStroke designs and having new furniture built for my studio. I've been looking after some beautiful Labradors and a lovely cat, and with the help of my colleague, have been able to run back and forth between appointments!
Spring seems to be on it's way and lots of nails and even a few toes have been gelled this month! Glitter is still being requested, I suppose as an antidote to the awful weather! Lash Lift is again proving very popular and the Cashmere Eyelash Extensions are so soft and light, clients don't know they're wearing them!
L&P scuplted enhancements over badly bitten nails – clients own pic!
Having made prototype nail desks a few year ago, my husband has been busy again – I now have a custom made L shaped nail desk covered in glass with chrome legs. Pics to come once it's finally finished. He's working on conduits for wires and cables to keep me tidy and stop my chair rolling over them and pulling my gel lamps off. Another coat of paint and I'm good to go! My studio is looking sleek – as sleek as it can get in a rural 17th century thatched cottage! New windows and doors are also in the pipeline. This will all give me more room for Nail Classes… still in progress!
I printed blank black nail shapes onto a plain piece of paper then matte laminated it to have a working surface similar to buffed nails. I still haven't got round to doing them on tips yet though a few clients have had some onestroke this month. As a bonus, it's a handy way for clients to be able to choose what's available.
I finally finished the sheet of Onestroke samples.
This entry was posted in Bespoke Nail Art, Eyebrows & Facial Threading, Eyelash Extensions, Eyelash Treatments, Nail Designs, Nails, News, Teaching, Toes and tagged Brillbird, classes, designer, dorset, extensions, eyelash, gel, Gelish, glitter, handpainted, ink, L&P, lashlift, lunulas, nailart, onestroke, pro beauty, proototypw, rural, Shaftesbury, shaftesbury nails, studio, thatched.
This month is all about One Stroke Designs!
It's been a while since I've added to the blog! I've been on holiday but I'm back in the swing now. I had a manic week last week catching up and I now have a little breather. I'm putting together some One stroke samples, tips and nail designs for my upcoming class. I will be holding courses teaching this technique, among others in the very near future. One Stroke or Onestroke? I can't decide!
Onestroke is always popular and such an easy technique to master. The paint brush is double or triple loaded with paint and applied to your surface creating simple leaves and shapes. It is these basic shapes which can be used for all designs. Simple basic shapes can produce the following designs quickly and easily.
Would you like to learn this technique? I will take you through the basics of proper brush loading, brush care and of course the strokes that you need to complete each design. More details to follow.
One stroke samples painted onto a printed sheet. These are Level 1 Onestroke.
A little one stroke flower can add the finishing touches to a manicure. Add in some fine linework and you can create stunning designs with a little practice. Some of the pictures below are from a couple of years ago, I will be adding the new designs and practice sheets as I finish them. I'm finding it very therapeutic!
I practice on many surfaces before committing to nail tips or real nails. Matte laminated sheets are ideal to paint on as the paint grips really well, just like a prepared surface. Parchment paper is another good surface. I prepared some print outs so I can design to basic nail shapes in order to fit the designs in.
This entry was posted in Bespoke Nail Art, Nail Designs, Nails, News, Teaching, Uncategorised and tagged butterflies, courses, designs, donna dewberry, double loading, flowers, foliage, grasses, level 1, lilies, linework, nailart, one stroke, onestroke, petal, poppies, practice sheets, roses, teaching, technique.
It's been a while! I haven't had time to post for absolutely ages but I'm now trying to catch up. I thought I could see the light at the end of the tunnel but now have 5 websites to update as they all need to be mobile and tablet friendly, not to mention Google friendly. I've decided to delete the Mybrowzdorset site as everything is now covered on this Mole End Design site, this will be removed over the next few days.
I've been working on a monster wedding cake, decorating it with onestroke techniques, full blog post to follow. The wedding is today so hopefully will have permission to post the lot! These are the paintings I submitted in order to get the job. It's taken up a lot of my time but it was worth it… I hope!
I've been to Sunderland for a mini break and while there had volume eyelash extensions applied by the brilliant Deb Callaghan at Essential Beauty. She created a lovely glamorous volume set for me, I absolutely love them! I have taken about 50 pics on my phone but cannot get a decent shot! It's on my list to practice more new techniques for the latest looks in lashes. I'm inspired! New offers coming soon for an increased lash menu. I just have to concentrate on one thing at a time!
I also managed to squeeze in another course and am now qualified in full body waxing. I had a great time on the course but wasn't expecting to have to subject myself to another student! Ouch! Learned lots and now making plans for the future!
This entry was posted in Eyelash Extensions, Eyelash Treatments, News and tagged cake, eyelash extensions, google, mole end design, onestroke, pansies, poppies, volume, waxing, wedding.


to smoke marijuana with a bat, which is a small cylinder pipe.
Hey, Jimmy! Is that nugs I see? Let's go up to bat!
Last edited on May 13 2013. Submitted by Doua C. from WI, USA on Nov 29 2001.
Definitions include: to provide marijuana for someone.


Burlingame says that the initial discovery of the phenomenon came as something of an accident as the team was experimenting with organic solar cell architecture in hopes of boosting efficiency. Using a common technique called vacuum thermal evaporation, they layered in a thin film of C60 fullerenes – each made of 60 carbon atoms – on top of an organic cell's power-producing layer, where the photons from sunlight knock electrons loose from their associated molecules. On top of the fullerenes, they put another layer to prevent the electrons from escaping.
Through months of experimentation, they determined that the fullerene layer formed what's known as an energy well – a low-energy area that prevents the negatively charged electrons from recombining with the positive charges left behind in the power-producing layer.
Asteroid Mining: Cleaner Planet & Faster Data!


He gets bored more easily than I do.
Frankly, I usually pick the movies we see.
Animated documentary. An Israli man tries to recall the details of his participation in the massacre of Palestanians that occurred during the first Lebanon war.
She says: I'm not sure what this indicates, but I didn't realize that this was a documentary. I thought all the interviews and such were just a clever way of framing the movie. But, I knew it was based on a real incident, one I knew nothing about. I found this an interesting way to learn about it, with the animated style creating some distance in the disturbing events.
He says: It was all right, but didn't quite hold my interest.
She says: It was powerful, tension-filled, and therefore gripping, though not altogether enjoyable, given the subject matter. We saw it in Blu-Ray, and the sound and cinematography were excellent. As was the acting.
Categories: Movie reviews | Tags: documentary, drama, foreign language, movies | Permalink.
We saw both Waltz with Bashir and The Hurt Locker some time ago and really enjoyed both (always seems wrong to say one enjoyed movies of that nature).
Oh – meant to add: we saw a really great little movie the other night called The Visitor. Got it through Zip. Stars a bunch of people i've never heard of but it's really a perfect little gem of a film. Highly recommend.


text:
Kindle Touch hacked to play video
Not going to appeal to the masses, but there are certain circumstances where it might come in useful.
By Adrian Kingsley-Hughes for Hardware 2.0 | March 27, 2012 -- 07:15 GMT (00:15 PDT) | Topic: Hardware
Think that the slow refresh rate of a monochrome e-ink screen is no good for video playback? A member of the MobileRead forum doesn't think so, and has not only hacked Amazon's Kindle Touch so that it will play a video, but found a perfect video to play on the e-Ink screen - an episode of Simon's Cat.
The project is in the early stages, but the audio and video are well synced, and the playback seems reasonably smooth, taking into account the rough quality of the recording. Given that e-Ink screens were never designed for this sort of usage, regular video wouldn't work, but the cartoon nature of Simon's Cat lends itself well to this sort of screen.
There's still a lot of work to do. Currently, the video player is a command-line tool and there developer plans to create graphical user interface for the application if there is enough interest in the project.
I'm continually amazed by how some people will push technology to do things that it was never intended to do. While playing videos on an e-Ink screen isn't going to appeal to the masses, there are certain circumstances where it might come in useful.
Between the Lines: Amazon to ship Kindle Fire, Touch, Touch 3G early
Amazon's Bezos unveils Kindle Touch, $99; Kindle, $79
The ToyBox: Kindle Touch 3G hitting AT&T next week, $149
Kobo Touch takes on the Kindle with free e-books, ad-subsidized pricing
PCs Servers Storage Networking Data Centers
12 products announced at CES that you can actually buy right now. But should you?
Jason Cipriani and Jason Perlow spent a week scouring the internet -- even asking for advice on Twitter -- to find 12 devices announced at CES 2020 that are available to buy right now. ...
Dell Optiplex 7070 Ultra: Modularity at a price
The Optiflex 7070 Ultra answers a question you didn't know you asked. Namely, is there a place in between an all-in-one and a regular desktop?
5 technology trends for the roaring 20s, part 2: AI, Knowledge Graphs, infinity and beyond
You don't have to be a fortune teller to identify AI as the key trend for the 2020s. But there is nuance regarding AI hardware and software that deserves to be highlighted. ...
How many computers do you use regularly?
Desktop and laptop? Work, home, laptop? More? We asked around and were surprised just how many machines folks are using on a daily basis.
Honor MagicWatch 2 review: Solid on health and fitness, but light elsewhere
Worldwide IT spending to reach $3.9 trillion in 2020
Gartner believes software will be the hotspot area for growth over this year.
Reserve Bank seeks help as it migrates data centre kit to Cisco
The successful supplier will be responsible for delivering compute hardware and associated software to the Reserve Bank of Australia for the next five years. ...
Intel retook semiconductor top spot from Samsung in 2019
Worldwide semiconductor revenue declined 12% in 2019, Gartner says.


Welcome to ITALY Magazine's "Italian American" series, curated by contributing editor Silvia Donati. Born and raised in Italy, Silvia lived many years in the U.S. and still spends several months there every year. She has a passion for all things Italian American and, through this series, she aims to provide a glimpse into the lives and important contributions Italian Americans have made and continue to make to their adopted country.


Outside of the first and last nights we spent in Rome, we stayed the entire weeek in a lovely little apartment inside the walls of a medieval hilltop town – San Gimignano. The town is somewhat insignificant, historically, however by keeping low-key over the centuries it was able to remain structurally intact. The town today is known for it's many remaining towers, and I can't remember anything else about it's history … but they had some great gelato options, wine stores, little shops – what more could a honeymooning couple need?
We stayed in the Fattoria Guicciardini apartments, which were right inside the wall of the town and had a lovely courtyard. The apartment was stocked and the windows (fully equiped with throw-open shutters) looked out into a little road with shops and a small wine bar below.
After seeing that last photo I'm reminded of all the old men who lived in this town. They'd walk around together all day, talking and arguing, then at night they sit together along the side of the road in little huddles eating gelato while they talked.
Here are some photos of the wall that surrounds San Gimignano, some areas around town town, and a few photos from the top of one of their tallest towers – which was the most terrifying of all the tower-climbs we did on this trip (who on earth thought it was a good idea to make the stairs see-through?) but well worth the view from the top!
One night we had a real Italian night, after eating our weight in pasta and drinking enough wine to ensure a great time, we found this group of old men screaming at a soccer game. Perfect setting for eating our nightly gelato and pretending like we knew what was going on around us.
Who needs a nap when you're in Italy? After the Colosseum we just powered through the rest of the day, staying up until the wee hours (maybe 9:30 – wild!) to get in everything we wanted to see. Do I recommend this? No. Would I do it this way again? Yes. After it was all over, it was nice to have said "been there, done that," so we could get on to the more important parts of our honeymoon – wine and gelato.
For some reason I have yet to figure out, Kyle really wanted to see this fountain while we were in Rome. We got lost a handful of times on our way to find it, but once we did it was worth the trek (actually, I was in a haze of starvation and have no idea what it was like)! The Trevi Fountain's legend is that if you toss a coin in, you'll be "ensured" another trip to Rome… we didn't toss a coin in, I was too hungry and angry at Rome for making me walk so far to get here.
After some dinner, I was in a better mood. After getting lost a handful of times (transitioning from a cell phone GPS to using a paper map in Italian is not as easy as we thought it would be) we had finally found the Spanish Steps. It was pretty cool and fun to sit and eat gelato while watching the men trying to sell laser pointers, flowers, and squeaky toys incessantly to anyone and everyone on the steps.
Oh, and this was the first of MANY street cleaners we saw though out our trip. The Italians apparently take the cleanliness of their city streets quite seriously. I appreciate it.
After sleeping like babies, we got up and tried to make the most of our last few hours in Rome before we needed to head out. We had a fantastic breakfast with a view at our hotel, and then went on the rooftop with the camera, a tripod and the super-zoom lens to see what all we could capture of the city.
Across the street from the Colosseum is the Roman Forum, which is where we spent the morning. It was really neat but the entire time we kept asking "why didn't anyone clean this junk up?" (just kidddddddingggggg…. but seriously, anyone else been and thought that too?).
There were some great views of the Colosseum, in case we hadn't gotten enough pictures the day before.
Goodbye Rome! We're off to San Gimignano for the week.
Since our hotel was right next to Vatican City, our original plan was to take it easy on our first day and only see thing in that area (which includes: the Vatican and St. Peter's), but we were so full of adrenaline it was decided that we must first head straight to the Colosseum and then do ALL of our Rome-sites in the next 24 hours, because, you know, it might not be there when we get back… in a week.
First, here are some shots of our first hotel room, at the Atlante Star, it was teeny tiny, but came with window shutters I could literally throw open to a beautiful view – what more could a girl want? Unfortunately Kyle had to deal with me reenacting my vision (where did I get this idea? Beauty and the Beast? Someone help me here).
On our trip there were a handful of things I had always wanted to see, just to find they aren't as impressive in real-life as they were in books and on Rick Steves. The Colosseum though, was every bit as impressive in person as you'd expect. It's huge and it's old, and they let people walk all over it and touch EVERYTHING (seriously, I could sit and touch anything I could reach). Where else can you go and touch something that was built in the first century AD?
Kyle and I were so overwhelmed (and in need of a non-public restroom) we stopped for a beer before going in. In Italy when you order a drink they always bring you a little snack! Sometimes it's just chips or nuts, but often it's both or something else completely.
The line to get into the Colosseum was pretty long, so we skipped it by signing up for a tour – it was definitely worth the extra 5 Euro and learned a few facts we didn't know going into it. One interesting point I remember – gladiators rarely fought to the death, this is just something that's played up in movies/TV.
And, that's it for the Colosseum!


What is a QR Code? How to use it? | Why are QR Codes important for small businesses?
Google Chromebooks - Affordable, Web-Based Laptops with No Apps!
Google Chromebook - An Affordable, Web-Based Laptop with No Apps!
Google Squared displays your search results in a table (aptly named squares) rather than within a simple list.
What is Google Voice? An unbelievably cool way to communicate... for FREE!
Do Not Use the Username ADMIN in Wordpress - a highly exploitable login!


Professional photography is an art that comprises the system in which pictures are taken or composed and should be in both balance and of good color quality. To find a professional photographer in Ontario, one has to be sure where to look. There are a number of ways that must be considered before choosing the desired photographer. First, you should look into the background of all the people who are professional photographers.It is also important to distinguish between different types of photographers for your intended purpose. There are commercial who work whose work is in industries of different varieties such as newspapers, photographic studios, publishing, television and an assortment of other fields. Professional commercial photographers who are very talented are the ones who qualify to work in mass advertising and magazine covers. Such photographers are usually contacted through agents and they are required to understand their trade in and out. They should be able to set up perfect shots and as well have the ability to develop the photographs in a lab.
When looking for a professional photographer in Ontario some qualities one should look for are training in; the aspects of lighting, digital photography and should be well versed in computers which is a major component in this industry. He should as well be of credible speed in his work. Educational qualification is advisable and colleges are able to offer good training in this field. Most professional photographers come with extra qualifications and this is usually a plus. They should have their portfolios while seeking employment such as Internet websites, which should feature their best photographs. These photographs are easily sent to employers as samples.
Once he attains enough experience, a professional photographer in Ontario will usually specialize in one particular field ranging from celebrity and fashion magazines to catalogues and brochures. One example of a speciality in professional photography is photojournalism where to tell a story, pictures are used instead of words. This requires skilled professional eyes with an ability of interpreting events or subjects and communicating them through photographs. A photojournalist makes use of pictures as opposed to words when telling a story. For this kind of work, the journalist has to have a knack for spotting professionalism as well as the ability to tell people exactly what happened on the day of the event just by using photographs. He may also make use of words to help explain the pictures he or she has taken. Magazines, books and newspapers normally use their work but they can as well hold exhibitions portraying their work. Professional photojournalists further specialize in particular fields such as celebrities, war, portraits or world events.
It is imperative that a professional photographer in Ontario be flexible in terms of the desirable lifestyle and irregularity of the working hours due to the numerous deadlines to be met. He should also adhere to company guidelines even though it is a tremendously creative career. He should consider options such as teaching at learning centers or running individual studios. There are many opportunities in the vast city that a well talented and professional photographer could use.


I have fine, thin damaged hair. Do you ladies use acv rinses on your hair? I'm not sure what exactlywhat the purpose is , but i noticed many ppl on the board use it and I have some at home so I was curious to try it. I was just wondering if it would be good or bad for my hair type?
I have fine hair with the bottom foot or so that is damaged. I do ACV rinses regularly to help remove product buildup and give my hair more shine. I do the rinse after shampooing and before conditioning. I feel the ACV allows the conditioner to do a better job on my hair.
Some people do vinegar rinses every time they shampoo. Others do it less frequently. For me, I see the best results when I do the rinse about every 4 shampoos.
Hi I have fine hair, though not damaged, and I use a vinegar rinse about once a week. Vinegar rinses can be useful for any hair type. Good luck!
Trisha is right. Vinegar rinses are good for any hair type because they help to remove buildup and bacteria from the hair and scalp.
Like you, I also have fine, thin hair with a little damage. I have used ACV before and it worked just fine for rinses, but I actually prefer distilled white vinegar.
I have used both ACV and white vinegar rinses and have had success with both. I try to use it everytime I wash my hair (about twice a week) as it makes my hair super soft afterwards. If I don't use it, I find my hair is quite oily at the top, even after washing.
I only use a tiny amount of vinegar though, and then fill the rest of a cup up with warm water.
Just did my first vinegar rinse with Red Wine Vinegar and my hair feels fantastic. It's so soft I can't stop running my fingers through it. Didn't like the smell, so I washed it after the rinse. I read that some of you just do conditioner after the rinse, does the conditioner cover up the vinegar smell?
The vinegar smell actually goes away as your hair dries. You don't have to wash it out,but you can if you want to. You can also rinse it out and then condition if you wanted to.
I absolutly love ACV- I apply the vinegar after I shampoo but before I condition- that way there is never a smell.
I also prefer the distilled white vinegar.
Actually, I've switched and have been using ACV this year.
Hi I just use clarifying shampoo. Is that the same thing as vinegar rinses?


text:
Helmut Gustav Franz Winkler (* 3. April 1915 in Kiel; † 10. November 1980 in Göttingen) war ein deutscher Mineraloge und Hochschullehrer in Göttingen und Marburg. Er gilt als einer der Begründer der experimentellen Petrologie in Deutschland und verfasste ein Lehrbuch zur metamorphen Petrologie, das lange Zeit als Standardwerk galt und fünf Auflagen in deutscher und englischer Sprache sowie Übersetzungen ins Französische, Spanische, Portugiesische und Russische erlebte.

Leben
Winkler studierte Mineralogie, Geologie und Chemie an der Universität Rostock, unter anderem bei Carl Wilhelm Correns, bei dem er auch 1938 mit einer Arbeit zur Thixotropie von Mineralpulvern promovierte. Danach leistete er seinen Militärdienst ab und nahm bis 1944 am Zweiten Weltkrieg teil, bevor er auf Veranlassung seines ehemaligen Lehrers als Forschungsassistent wieder in Rostock arbeiten konnte. Durch seine Arbeiten erwarb er sich internationales Renommee, was ihm 1948 eine Einladung für ein Jahr als Gastwissenschaftler nach Leeds einbrachte. Nach seiner Rückkehr wurde er 1949 Direktor des neu gegründeten Kristallographischen Institutes in Göttingen und 1951 erhielt er Rufe auf drei verschiedene Professorenstellen, von denen er dem Ruf auf den Lehrstuhl am Mineralogischen Institut in Marburg folgte. Im Jahre 1962 kehrte er als Nachfolger von Correns nach Göttingen zurück, wo er bis zu seiner Emeritierung 1976 lehrte.

Forschungsarbeiten
Winkler beschäftigte sich in seiner Rostocker Zeit vorwiegend mit der Struktur und den physikalischen Eigenschaften von Kristallen. Sein erstes Buch Struktur und Eigenschaften der Kristalle wurde 1950 veröffentlicht. In Marburg setzte er diese Arbeiten fort, widmete sich aber zunehmend der Untersuchungen von Tonmineralen und ihren Verwendungsmöglichkeiten in der keramischen Industrie. Bei einem Besuch in den USA lernte er neu entwickelte Hochdruckapparaturen kennen, deren Potential zur Erforschung von Mineralien und deren Reaktionen in metamorphen Gesteinen bei unterschiedlichen Drücken und Temperaturen er erkannte. Diesem Thema widmete er sich in der Folgezeit und begründete damit einen neuen Zweig einer experimentell ausgelegten Petrologie. Seine Experimente lieferten den Nachweis, dass sich Granite und verwandte Gesteine bei Bedingungen hochgradiger Metamorphose als Schmelzen aus metamorphen Ausgangsgesteinen entwickeln, womit er die Frage beantworten konnte, weshalb in alten Kratonen Granite so verbreitet sind.

Ehrungen
 Ehrenmitgliedschaft der Geological Society of America
 1966 Mitgliedschaft in der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen
 1977 wird Winkler die Abraham-Gottlob-Werner-Medaille der Deutschen Mineralogischen Gesellschaft verliehen. Im gleichen Jahr erhält er auch die Hans-Stille-Medaille der Deutschen Geologischen Gesellschaft
 ein 1979 neu entdecktes Mineral erhält ihm zu Ehren den Namen Helmutwinklerit.
 1985 wurde der Winklergletscher in der Antarktis nach ihm benannt.

Werke (Auswahl)
 Petrogenesis of Metamorphic Rocks. 5. Auflage, 348 S., Springer-Verlag, New York, Heidelberg, Berlin, 1979. ISBN 3-540-90413-1
 Viel Basalt und wenig Gabbro – wenig Rhyolith und viel Granit. Beitr. Mineral. Petr. 8, 222–231 (1962)
 Struktur und Eigenschaften der Kristalle: Eine Einführung in die geometrische, chemische und physikalische Kristallkunde. 2. Auflage, 314 S., Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Göttingen, Heidelberg, 1955.

Literatur
 Karl-Heinz Nitsch: Memorial Helmut G. F. Winkler, April 3, 1915–November 10, 1980. American Mineralogist 67, S. 410–412, 1982 (engl.; PDF; 325 kB), abgerufen am 31. August 2011

Weblinks

Einzelnachweise

Mineraloge
Deutscher
Hochschullehrer (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen)
Hochschullehrer (Philipps-Universität Marburg)
Mitglied der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen
Geboren 1915
Gestorben 1980
Mann

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Weather – Click on the gold weather link and type in any City in the search box to see what is happening in that area!
Mortgage Calculator – Need help calculating your mortgage payment. Contact me for a more detailed payment.
Mortgage Financing – Need help finding a Lender for a Home Mortgage Loan?
Atlanta Calendar of Events – Want something to do? See what is going on in Atlanta GA.


Touring her current and very aptly titled show The Secret of Life finds the indefatigable Marilyn Maye is fine form and as fresh and current as a spring breeze. Maye, who turns 91 this April must have discovered her own secret to life and from the tenor of her song collection, one of the main components must be love.
Using smart arrangements by musical director/pianist Ted Firth and solid jazz virtuosity by locals John Wiitala on bass and David Rokeach on drums, Maye deftly works her magic on tunes like "What the World Needs Now is Love" (B. Bacharach / H. David), 1940's "Let There Be Love" (L. Rand / I. Grant) and an extended medley that included Rodgers and Hart's "My Funny Valentine" and "My Romance" alongside "I Would Still Choose You" (W. Mitchell / A. Green).
The gorgeous ballads are delivered with what I call her 'bold nuance', a confident authority over her craft with the sophisticated subtleties and intelligent shading of her modulation. Remarking on how Johnny Mercer always put the right lyric on the right note after singing "Come Rain or Come Shine", Maye threw in a passing reference to her much sought-after Master classes. Every time I see this woman is a Master Class. At 90, she's at the top of her game, able to grab an audience by their lapels and demand your interest in the gentlest of ways.
A My Fair Lady medley included the jazziest "On The Street Where You Live" you've ever heard. In a nod to her 76 appearances on The Johnny Carson Show, Maye sang Johnny's favorite request of her, Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke 's "My Rainy Day Is Here". Maye works wonders with Murray Grand's wry take on adultery, "Guess Who I Saw Today", then segueing into Billy Goldenberg and Alan and Marilyn Bergman's poignant "Fifty Percent", about a widow rediscovering romance.
Maye is a true thoroughbred, gaining speed and energy as the set progresses. By the time to hit the medley of the optimistic "Secret of Life" and the finest ode to longevity and wisdom in "Here's to Life" (A. Butler), you kinda got the feeling you're seeing true greatness. To hammer home Maye's relevance and connection to the present moment she encored with Jerry Herman's "It's Today". When she sings: "I know that this very minute has history in it, we're here! It's a time for making merry, and so I'm for making hay. Tune the grand up, dance your shoes off, Strike the band up, It's today!", you know she means every word.


text:
Posted inHigher Education, News, Universities, Inc.
More high school grads than ever are going to college, but 1 in 5 will quit
New data show little progress in retaining students, despite efforts to plug the leak
by Jon Marcus July 5, 2018 April 8, 2021
The line between Texas and Arkansas in front of the bi-state federal building, which straddles both. Texas A&M University at Texarkana has one of the lowest retention rates of public higher-education institutions; 55 percent who started in 2012 were gone by 2016. Credit: AP photo/Jeannie Nuss
TEXARKANA, Texas — New buildings are shooting up around the sun-baked grounds of the Texas A&M University System's northernmost outpost here.
This story also appeared in The Texas Tribune
There's a $32 million glass-fronted complex near completion that will house the nursing program and administrative offices, and a new $11 million recreation center that will also have a lab to study kinesiology, or human movement.
TAMU-Texarkana may be the smallest of the system's 11 campuses, but it's been growing steadily. Enrollment at the beginning of the academic year just ended was up 13 percent from 2014, to 2,038.
While the number of students has been rising, however, so has the proportion who begin as full-time freshmen but fail to come back for a second year. Fifty-five percent who started in 2015 were gone by the following year, the most recent period for which the figures are available, according to U.S. Department of Education data analyzed by The Hechinger Report. That's up from 44 percent two years before.
"There are some people who have situations, who get pregnant or financial things change," said Caleb Sparks, a double major in biology and electrical engineering hanging out between classes in the air-conditioned student center.
"I know of people who have left because they didn't want to be in college," added Amber Spence, who earned her undergraduate degree here and is now a graduate student. "Their parents made them go." And even on a small campus where students greet each other by name, she said, "There are still individuals who feel lonely and isolated."
These and other challenges mean that, at a time when growing proportions of high school students have been successfully encouraged to go on to college, more than one in five full-time freshmen nationwide fail to return for a second year, according to the data.
That, in turn, contributes to the fact that more than a third of students who start college still haven't earned degrees after six years, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reports, often piling up loan debt with no payoff. Those who disappear for good cost colleges and universities — including taxpayer-supported public ones like TAMU-Texarkana — billions of dollars in lost tuition revenue.
Related: Embattled colleges focus on an obvious fix: helping students graduate on time
Students who are the first in their families to go to college are the most affected. Three years after enrolling, one-third had quit, compared to about a quarter of students whose parents have a university degree, the Education Department reports.
Yet even as attention has begun to be focused on this problem and its massive cost, the numbers are barely improving, The Hechinger Report found. At some types of institutions, they're flat or getting worse, according to the data.
"It's not just about getting them in the door. It's about making sure they come back from one year to the next," said Eboni Zamani-Gallaher, a professor of higher education policy, organization and leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign College of Education. "That's the conundrum we still haven't gotten figured out yet."
In a trend that has been widely lauded, the proportion of high school graduates who go straight to college has increased from 63 percent in 2000 to 70 percent now, the Department of Education says.
The proportion of high school graduates going on to college has been rising, but the proportion who stay once they get there is flat or down, new federal data show. Credit: Photo by Ben Smith for The Hechinger Report
But the proportion of full-time, first-time students who return for a second year, either full- or part-time — a measure called retention — has improved only slightly at public four-year universities, where it is up by 2.6 percentage points since 2011, the federal data show. At private nonprofit colleges, it's eked up by just 1.3 percentage points. And at private for-profit colleges and universities, more than 44 percent of students leave before finishing, a figure that is eight-tenths of a percentage points worse than it was in 2011.
In all, more than a million students a year quit college, according to the consulting firm ReUp Education, which helps universities with the time-consuming and expensive process of trying to find and re-enroll them. Some may transfer and finish somewhere else; the federal figures don't track that. But many are assumed to have dropped out.
Rates at which full-time freshmen return to college for a second year, either full- or part-time.
All schools 78.5% 80.8%
Public 78.6% 81.1%
Private not-for-profit 80.2% 81.6%
Private for-profit 56.5% 55.7%
Source: Hechinger Report analysis of data from the National Center for Education Statistics. Four-year institutions only, from the most recent period available.
"It was my job to get student enrolled, and if you didn't enroll them your job could be on the line," he said. There was no such incentive for retention, he said. "So philosophy follows finance rather than the other way around." New realities are conspiring to make higher-education institutions try to finally fix this. One is that legislatures and governors in many states are tying university budgets to such things as retention. At least 32 states now make funding contingent on success rates, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, including the number of degrees awarded and student progress toward degrees.
Another: Employers are impatient for qualified graduates to hire. "People are talking about shortages in the workforce," said Zoë Corwin, a researcher at the Pullias Center for Higher Education at the University of Southern California. "I'm optimistic that there's been a national shift in awareness in how we think of this, so that's promising."
Related: States use direct mail, money to get more of their residents back to college
But the biggest reason for the new focus on preventing students from leaving is that colleges are starting to run out of them.
While a larger percentage of high school graduates are going on to higher educations, their actual numbers have declined dramatically, and the number of older-than-traditional-age adults on campus is also down as more are drawn back into the thriving labor market.
These trends together mean that there are nearly 2.9 million fewer college students than there were at the most recent peak, in 2011, the National Student Clearinghouse reports.
And that makes institutions "a little more sensitive to retention," Zamani-Gallaher said.
After all, the plummeting number of prospects makes it much harder to replace dropouts than it was when there was a seemingly bottomless supply of freshmen.
"There's a growing notion that we need to change the business model, and the reason it needs to change is there's not a never-ending flow of high school graduates," said Bruce Vandal, senior vice president at Complete College America.
Students who leave are also costing colleges significant amounts of money in forgone tuition — $16.5 billion a year collectively, according to a review of 1,669 institutions by the Educational Policy Institute, or $13.3 million for the average public and nearly $10 million for the typical private college or university. Those are big hits for campuses already struggling to close budget shortfalls.
Related: Transfer students start getting more of the credits they've already earned
Yet colleges remain focused on recruitment, "which they already know how to do," said Andrew Nichols, senior director of higher education research at The Education Trust. "It's harder work to retain students."
They may no longer be able to avoid it.
"I know of people who have left because they didn't want to be in college. Their parents made them go."
Amber Spence, graduate student, Texas A&M University at Texarkana
While state higher education funding in Texas doesn't consider institutions' retention rates, the TAMU System makes them glaringly public in an online dashboard.
"The world of higher education has really changed about this," said Emily Fourmy Cutrer, president of TAMU-Texarkana, where student persistence is the lowest of the system's 10 campuses. "We are under more pressure for retention and graduation."
Reminders have popped up all around the campus about a website called Degree Works, which tells students which requirements they've satisfied and what's still left to do. "Not sure you're on the right track for graduation?" it calls out to passersby from among notices on bulletin boards advertising class rings and intramural ultimate Frisbee.
There are also tutoring centers and a program called Personal Achievement Through Help, or PATH, to keep black male students on track. While college enrollment for black males is up, according to the U.S. Department of Education, black students in general graduate at lower rates than others, the College Board reports; at a third of colleges and universities studied by The Education Trust, graduation rates for black students have been flat or falling and men of all races graduate at lower rates than women except at for-profit universities.
"They have all these safety nets — tutoring, advising," said Camryn Davis, a TAMU-Texarkana sophomore majoring in biotechnology. "We actually do get flags when the advisor forces you to come and see them." Those kinds of reminders happen "pretty much all semester," said Hailee Witten, a senior education major. "There's posters, there's emails. They hag you." Witten stopped to reflect on whether she just made up that word, but then described it as a combination of "hassle" and "nag."
This aggressive response has helped lower the dropout rate at the Texarkana campus back to 44 percent, according to still-unreleased figures, the university says. Between the fall and spring, it said, only 11 percent of students left, a record low.
Related: More Hispanics are going to college. The bad news? They're still behind
"We have interventional advising, and that's not a bad thing," said Cutrer, who wears an eagle pin in honor of the university's athletics mascot. She said supporting students has become a top priority. "Woe to the faculty member who says, 'My class is a weed-out class.' That is not a thing any more."
But making further headway is stymied by the nature of the problem. Colleges don't always know someone is in danger of leaving until he or she stops showing up. It's also difficult, under a federal ban on tracking individual students, to know if they enrolled or finished somewhere else.
Dropouts cost colleges a collective $16.5 billion a year in forgone tuition revenue, one study found.
Nor are academic problems necessarily the major reason students quit. More than 40 percent who leave have grade-point averages of at least 3.0, or a solid B, according to the education consulting company Civitas Learning. A separate report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce estimates that 500,000 top-scoring high school graduates spanning all races and income levels never earn degrees, most of them because they start but then give up on college.
"It would be great to do an exit interview," Zamani-Gallaher said. "But we don't have the benefit of knowing in advance that a student is leaving. We have this lag time in realizing they're not here."
Or, as one undergraduate who quit put it, "Leaving was weird. Nobody noticed."
That comment came in response to a rare endeavor by a higher-education institution: a survey emailed to 10,555 of them in 2014 by the University of Washington to learn why some students left before graduating.
Many of those who answered — fewer than one in five, in spite of a chance at a $200 gift card — said they ran into financial problems or worried about falling too deeply into debt. Forty-one percent said they felt isolated or alone and 39 percent that they didn't think they were getting their money's worth. Racial and ethnic minority students were particularly likely to report that their scholarship money ran out or was not renewed, that their families needed them or that the university wouldn't let them continue because they fell behind in their payments.
Many students balance college and jobs. Cutrer, who teaches a freshman seminar, said six students in her class of 20 told her they worked 40 hours a week, eight worked 30 or more hours and the rest worked at least part time.
"If it's between earning money and going to class, I'm going to earn money because I have to support people," said Seidman, author of the new book Crossing the Finish Line: How to Retain and Graduate Your Students. Students "don't understand the cost-benefit of going to college" — the typically higher wages earned by degree-holders — "and we do a bad job of explaining that."
"It's not just about getting them in the door. It's about making sure they come back from one year to the next."
Eboni Zamani-Gallaher, a professor of higher education policy, organization and leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign College of Education
Another huge problem is poor preparation that requires remedial education, usually in math or English. At least half a million students a year are placed into such courses, The Hechinger Report has found, and many of them give up in frustration, according to the advocacy organization Complete College America. This, too, hits nonwhite and low-income students hardest; 44 percent of black, 37 percent of low-income and 35 percent of Hispanic students are diverted into remedial classes at four-year universities and colleges and significantly larger percentages at two-year ones.
Black and Hispanic students also disproportionately enroll at community colleges and regional public universities that can't afford to provide the level of support that better-funded private colleges and public flagships can, a new report by the Center for American Progress shows.
"Access without success is not really solving the problems we need to solve, especially for the most disadvantaged," said Vandal.
The new federal data about retention generally confirm a close connection with graduation rates, especially for nonwhite students.
In Ohio, for example, three of the seven regional Ohio University campuses — Chillicothe, Eastern and Lancaster — have dropout rates of 46 percent, 48 percent, and 44 percent, respectively. Only 36 percent, 32 percent and 31 percent of their white students graduate within six years, and 50 percent, 25 percent and 5 percent of their black students. (All three campuses enroll comparatively low numbers of Hispanics and Chillicothe and Eastern small numbers of blacks.)
Related: A program helps low-income parents graduate at twice the rate of other community college students
Eastern's numbers are improving, though Chillicothe's have gotten worse and Lancaster's are essentially flat, said Bill Willan, the system's executive dean for regional higher education. Those figures don't capture the many students juggling families and jobs who take more than six years to finish, he said, or who enter school planning on bachelor's degrees but change their minds and get lower-level associate degrees or certificates that also are available to them at Lancaster and Chillicothe.
"If they achieve that credential, that's a success," said Willan.
Still, the system has started working with beginning students to declare their majors more quickly, since commitment to a major has been shown to improve retention, Willan said. It's also bought new software that alerts advisors to students who miss classes or assignments and is expanding career services and helping students figure out what courses they'll need to get their desired jobs.
"We do have a number of folks who will start with us who for whatever reason are not focused," Willan said.
Among other reasons, he said, is that rural Ohio, where the regional campuses are located, has very low proportions of people with degrees.
At public Kent State University at Trumbull, 46 percent of students leave, down 17 percentage points since 2006; only 62 percent of white and 1 percent of black students finished with degrees in six years.
That school faces issues including high levels of opioid addiction in the area it serves, said spokesman Bill Burgess; it's hired a mental-health counselor, added a program this spring to keep students focused on their academics, has teamed up with the nonprofit Gardner Institute to improve retention and is creating an app that will connect struggling students with classmates who can offer them advice and encouragement.
At private, historically black Lincoln University in Missouri, 53 percent of students drop out, the data show. That's up 4 percentage points since 2006. Only 41 percent of white and 18 percent of black students finished with degrees in six years. The university did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
In general, said Willan, "Attitudes are changing. It used to be there was sort of a feeling that it was up to the student. Now when we look at a student and we see that there's a challenge for them to overcome, we're more prone to want to help them overcome the challenge."
Additional reporting by Dana Amihere.
This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up here for our higher-education newsletter.
As economy rebounds, state funding for higher education isn't bouncing back
OPINION: These big universities put rivalries aside to raise graduation rates for low-income students
Minnesota has a persistent higher-ed gap: Are new efforts making a difference?
Tagged: 2016 Election, Adult learning, Betsy Devos, for-profit education, Graduation and dropouts, Higher education access, Higher education affordability, Higher education completion, Investigations, Law and policy, Solutions
Jon Marcus
jmarcus@hechingerreport.org
Jon Marcus writes and edits stories about, and helps plan coverage of, higher education. A former magazine editor, he has written for The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Wired, Medium.com...	More by Jon Marcus
Brad C Phillips says:
This article focuses on the challenges of improving success and enrollment—problems that are not just occurring now, but will likely be a trend. In his book Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education, Grawe (2018) predicts reductions in enrollment through 2025. Other recent publications have noted similar trends accompanied by dire warnings (e.g., Chronicle of Higher Education (2018) The Future of College Enrollment, "U.S. colleges are expected to see a steady decline in their enrollments and this could threaten their continued existence").
It important to study colleges that have turned this situation around and have increased both student success and retention and, in turn, revenue. As reported by Tinto in Leaving College (1993), students leave because they do not feel connected to the institution; but that can be successfully addressed. In our work with colleges we have found that faculty and staff can have considerable positive impact on student retention with just a few simple behaviors, intentionally conducted. These behaviors assist faculty and staff to connect with students as people in their classes and student services. The results are astounding.
One college's in-class retention rates for all student demographic groups has reached 96% and there are no equity gaps. Course success rates have soared to 81%, up more than 11 percentage points, term-to-term persistence has increased by 15% and is now over 80% for all student subpopulations, and three-year graduation rates increased by 110% in three years.
At a second college for first-time-in-college students, term-to-term persistence rates increased 24 percentage points to 83%; and year-to-year persistence (Fall 2016 to Fall 2017) increased 26 percentage points to 68%.
At a third, considerable gains have been made in closing the achievement gap. Historically, their three-year course success rate average ranged from 71% to 92% across ethnic subpopulations. After only one year of implementation course success rates increased for all groups and the range diminished to only four points: from 90 to 94 percent.
Clearly, to successfully keep students in the system and moving toward success we need to get beyond the academics and treat them as we want to be treated, not merely as FTE.
Dr. Brad C. Phillips, President
Institute for Evidence-Based Change
Bruce William Smith says:
The challenge is in developing qualified students who should be admitted to higher education: far more than one in five of those who are not qualified students will quit, and institutions enrolling them should be forced to vary their federal student loan interest rates so that the risk to the taxpayer of students defaulting on repaying those debts is factored into their financial aid. Access and affordability remain weak spots in America's otherwise top quality higher education system, and they stem from social weaknesses in its secondary schools, which are extraordinarily out of date in their basic design, being still derived from the Committee of Ten of 1892. European nations like Switzerland are doing much better here: more than 90 percent of Swiss who enrol in higher education graduate, and the majority of Swiss youth who choose otherwise and enrol in vocational training are generally employed in satisfying jobs since their vocational qualifications earn them starting wages of around $20 per hour.
Jane Arnold says:
Some of the reasons for students not finishing their degrees are right there in your article.
As a community college teacher in three communities for 25 years, I can say that many students who drop out didn't want to be in college anyway. In more affluent communities, it's "my parents said I had to go"; in others, it's "they told me that if I didn't get a college degree, I'd work at McDonald's all my life." These students are as likely to flunk out as drop out. The fortunate ones—and I know several—realize after one or two semesters that college is not for them, at least not right now, and get training as LPNs, HVAC mechanics, or welders. Those people earn a living, are happy, and some (like the LPN) may eventually return to college. In fact, this is an excellent use of community college—I tried it, I hated it, I found something better for my life.
You point out that transfer students aren't tracked—so they count as drop outs and "failures." In fact, now students who take "too long" to finish a degree are also considered failures, so the student I knew who transferred to a four-year school 17 credits short of a degree with a 3.78 average (and earned a BA) is a failure; the grandmother who was involved in her church, edited the literary magazine, was a peer tutor and who took 8 years to complete her associate's degree (six credits each semester, maintaining a 4.0 average) is a failure. Oh, yes, and so am I; I earned an honors bachelor's degree from Harvard University Extension. It took me 12 years.
In other words, the statistics are flawed. But no one says so.
Some students are able to work 20 or more hours a week and go full time, but many aren't. The responsible (and often older) student refuse to take on more than they can handle and go part-time. But colleges are under tremendous pressure to get students to graduate "on time," so many students take too many courses ("the counselor told me I had to go full time"), fail them, take too many again, fail again, and drop out.
Many students do come unprepared, but of course, the current thinking is that they are just "unlucky," and can be rushed through courses much too hard for them. (The college from which I just retired told an illiterate student who failed remedial reading to "just ask for a waiver—don't waste your time retaking the course." He's the one now doing welding, union job, very happy.) As a result, some use up all their financial aid money failing and failing until they drop out. Or until some unreasonable teacher in second semester comp fails them for plagiarism when half the paper is cut and pasted from a web site.
I question the assertion that "comunity colleges . . . can't afford to provide the level of support that better-funded private colleges and public flagships can." The community colleges where I worked had extra-ordinary support services, and, more important, small classes. Transfer students would come back to tell us how much better the community college was than the big schools with lecture classes of several hundred students. We provided a different level of support—basic tutoring in nearly every subject, help with finding resources to deal with abuse, divorce, addiction (student or family), layoffs, psychological problems, etc. We weren't writing letters of recommendation to graduate schools (as I did as a teaching fellow at a private university), but I worked with extraordinary people who spent hours of extra time helping students with studies and life issues, sometime providing supplies, money, transportation, and temporary housing.
And speaking of support services: You know the saying about the horse and drinking? No matter how good the support service, if the students don't use it, it doesn't make a difference. Some students simply don't have the time (work, family, etc.) or the transportation (those who make elaborate car pool arrangements). Many have been burned by being previously stuck in a "resource room" and no amount of evidence will persuade them that the tutoring services are different. Some aren't realistic about how much studying they need to do, as they have always had a last-minute reprieve in high school or when they plagiarize. Someone found a way for them to graduate, and surely these college teachers don't really mean they will fail. Some assume that tutoring services mean the tutor will do the work for them, not help them learn how to learn.
To summarize: College focus on forcing students through a curriculum as quickly as possible in order to achieve external goals set by people who don't teach. No provision is made for circumstances that might make it necessary—or even preferable—for someone to take longer, or transfer.
Students arrive at college under- or unprepared and college don't want to "waste time" preparing them (nor should they have to).
Students are coping with external stresses—making a living, supporting families, dealing with addiction and mental problems—that interfere with their ability to complete their classes.
Students don't understand what it means to study. "Two to three hours outside of class for evey hour you spend in class? Oh, no, they don't really mean that."
I retired three years earlier than I intended because I was burned out. It wasn't the students—I still work with some of them and, indeed, with some of their children—it was the administration, the "advisors" who knew nothing about the classes or the students, and the obsession with shoving students through, whether they had the skills, the knowledge, or the desire, just to fill in the "achievement" boxes.


The Town of Smiths Falls did not receive MTO Connecting Links Funding for 2018/19, according to Brandy Duhaime, Regional Communication Co-ordinator with the eastern region of the Ministry of Transportation.
The preliminary cost construction of eligible roadworks, in the first phase of redevelopment of the Downtown Core (Beckwith St. – Chambers to Russell), including eligible engineering and contingencies would have been $1,745,722.09 (net of HST). If the Town had been successful in the application, up to 90 percent of this amount, or $1,579,249.88 would have been funded by the province. The remaining balance of $175,472.21 would have been funded by the municipality.
The Connecting Link Program supports over 350 km of roads and 70 bridges along connecting links in 77 municipalities across Ontario.
Duhaime says the MTO has encouraged the Town to re-submit next year.
Troy Dunlop, Director of Public Works and Utilities, says the Town will be announcing the "outcome" at Committee of the Whole Monday March 26.
So we are not inculded in the 8 billion of new debt and then, we are not in a LIBERAL riding either. Go figure! The depth of this Liberal gov't is even lower then our pot holes.


text:
CNL, AECL and Ontario Tech University Partner to Pursue Collaborative Research
Leading research organizations sign Memorandum of Understanding to collaborate on health and environmental sciences, clean energy and nuclear safety
November 28, 2022 15:15 ET | Source: Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL)
Chalk River, Ontario, CANADA
CHALK RIVER, Ontario, Nov. 28, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL), Canada's premier nuclear science and technology laboratory, and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), Canada's nuclear Crown Corporation, are pleased to announce that they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Ontario Tech University to pursue collaborative research opportunities. The MOU represents the second agreement signed by CNL and AECL in recent weeks that is designed to encourage closer working relationships with Canada's academic community, and establishes a framework between the organizations to advance collaborative research in health and environmental sciences, clean energy and nuclear safety.
As part of the new agreement, the organizations will work together to facilitate joint research programs, foster the professional development of highly qualified personnel, develop academic and non-academic programming, and encourage shared access to specialized infrastructure. Overall, the MOU is intended to build a closer working relationship between the research organizations, enable knowledge mobilization, spur innovation and the development of intellectual property, and advance solutions to address both national and industry challenges.
"CNL has made it an organizational priority to work closer with Canada's academic community, and this MOU with Ontario Tech University is one of a series of agreements that will formalize these really important relationships," commented Dr. Jeff Griffin, CNL's Vice-President of Science and Technology. "Working in partnership with Ontario Tech University enables us to pool our financial resources, accelerate early-stage research, facilitate the transfer of knowledge, and work together to address the needs of the nuclear industry and the federal government. Most importantly, this MOU helps create dynamic and tangible professional growth opportunities for the next generation of Canadian scientists, engineers and technical professionals, all of whom will be needed to address the many challenges of tomorrow."
"AECL is proud to announce its partnership today with Ontario Tech University, an engaged partner that attracts the best and brightest students and researchers," says Dr. Amy Gottschling, Vice-President, Science, Technology & Commercial Oversight, AECL. This is an exciting opportunity which helps fulfil our mandate at AECL - to enable nuclear science and technology in a strategic and programmatic way and in close alliance with strong academic partners like Ontario Tech. As part of our growing nexus, AECL, CNL and Ontario Tech will tackle our nation's greatest challenges."
"Ontario Tech University is excited to enter this dynamic and expanding collaborative phase with both AECL and CNL in strategic areas that include small modular reactors, hydrogen, and integrated energy systems," commented Dr. Les Jacobs, Vice-President of Research and Innovation at Ontario Tech University. "Through our strong history of energy and nuclear research expertise and programming, Ontario Tech plays a unique energy industry role as a developer of future talent and business solutions creator."
A key focus identified in the agreement is the development of highly-qualified personnel, a shared interest for all three parties. As the only university in Canada with an accredited Nuclear Engineering undergraduate program, which is the third-largest in North America, Ontario Tech plays a critical role in training the next generation of nuclear scientists, engineers and operators. Together, the organizations will explore opportunities to develop undergraduate and graduate learning experiences in the form of co-op and internship placements; encourage mentorship and networking programs for students; establish employment mechanisms for graduates and alumni; and facilitate the development of research chairs and research teams. The agreement also prioritizes shared access to some of the most advanced nuclear laboratories and research facilities, which includes the Chalk River Laboratories, as well as Ontario Tech's research institutes and centres, such as the Brilliant Energy Institute, the International Atomic Energy Agency Collaborating Centre and the Centre for Cybersecurity and Resilient Systems.
The recent agreements also align with AECL's mandate to enable nuclear science and technology in Canada as well as CNL's new corporate strategy, Vision 2030, which was launched earlier this year, and which identifies what CNL views as its central role within the future Canadian nuclear landscape. Serving as a national resource to all levels of government, the nuclear industry, the broader private sector and the academic community, CNL aims to work in concert with other organizations to help advance innovative Canadian products and services towards deployment, including carbon-free energy, cancer treatments and other therapies, non-proliferation technologies and waste management solutions.
To learn more about CNL, including its research projects and programs, please visit www.cnl.ca. If you would like to learn more about Vision 2030, please visit www.cnl.ca/vision2030.
About CNL
As Canada's premier nuclear science and technology laboratory, and working under the direction of AECL, CNL is a world leader in the development of innovative nuclear science and technology products and services. Guided by an ambitious corporate strategy known as Vision 2030, CNL fulfills three strategic priorities of national importance – restoring and protecting the environment, advancing clean energy technologies, and contributing to the health of Canadians.
By leveraging the assets owned by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), CNL also serves as the nexus between government, the nuclear industry, the broader private sector and the academic community. CNL works in collaboration with these sectors to advance innovative Canadian products and services towards real-world use, including carbon-free energy, cancer treatments and other therapies, non-proliferation technologies and waste management solutions.
To learn more about CNL, please visit www.cnl.ca.
About AECL
AECL is a federal Crown corporation with a mandate to drive nuclear opportunities for Canada. AECL enables nuclear science and technology, owns the Chalk River Laboratories and other sites, and manages the Government of Canada's radioactive waste responsibilities. It directs and evaluates CNL's work through contracts.
In business since 1952, AECL designed and developed the fleet of CANDU nuclear reactors that serve Canada and five other countries. It also delivered more than one billion isotopes worldwide to detect and treat cancer. Today it delivers value for Canadians through supporting 14 federal departments and agencies, as well as the global nuclear industry.
For more information on AECL, visit www.aecl.ca.
CNL Contact:
Patrick Quinn
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/dc083f4b-987e-484d-af4e-dd89fd28dacc
CNL, AECL AND ONTARIO TECH UNIVERSITY PARTNER TO PURSUE COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH Representatives from AECL, CNL and Ontario Tech gathered to formalize a long-standing partnership. T...


text:
Why Would Anyone Want to Be a Cop?
https://www.cordico.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/why-would-anyone-want-to-be-a-cop.png 700 1200 David Baker https://www.cordico.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/CORDICO®-2019-www.cordico.com_.png David Baker2023-01-25 07:00:372023-01-25 08:31:40Why Would Anyone Want to Be a Cop?
Financial New Year's Resolutions for First Responders
https://www.cordico.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/financial-new-years-resolutions.png 700 1200 David Baker https://www.cordico.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/CORDICO®-2019-www.cordico.com_.png David Baker2023-01-18 08:00:172023-01-17 20:07:41Financial New Year's Resolutions for First Responders
The Best of 2022: Top Wellness Articles from Cordico
https://www.cordico.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/top-wellness-articles-of-2022.jpg 700 1200 David Baker https://www.cordico.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/CORDICO®-2019-www.cordico.com_.png David Baker2022-12-22 08:00:332022-12-21 15:38:56The Best of 2022: Top Wellness Articles from Cordico
Facing Adversity — It's How You Respond That Matters
https://www.cordico.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/overcoming-adversity-firefighter.jpg 700 1200 David Baker https://www.cordico.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/CORDICO®-2019-www.cordico.com_.png David Baker2022-12-14 14:58:452022-12-14 15:32:29Facing Adversity — It's How You Respond That Matters
Scars — The Legacy of a Firefighting Career
https://www.cordico.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/firefighting-emotional-scars.jpg 700 1200 David Baker https://www.cordico.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/CORDICO®-2019-www.cordico.com_.png David Baker2022-12-07 10:49:302022-12-07 10:49:30Scars — The Legacy of a Firefighting Career
First Responders and Alcohol — How Much Is Too Much?
https://www.cordico.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/first-responders-and-alcohol.jpg 700 1200 David Baker https://www.cordico.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/CORDICO®-2019-www.cordico.com_.png David Baker2022-11-30 09:27:052022-11-30 09:27:05First Responders and Alcohol — How Much Is Too Much?
Taking Care of Your Mental Hygiene as a Firefighter
https://www.cordico.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/firefighter-mental-hygiene.jpg 700 1200 David Baker https://www.cordico.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/CORDICO®-2019-www.cordico.com_.png David Baker2022-11-23 10:18:002022-11-23 10:18:00Taking Care of Your Mental Hygiene as a Firefighter
How to Avoid Becoming Desensitized as an EMT
https://www.cordico.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/desensitized-as-an-emt.jpg 700 1200 David Baker https://www.cordico.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/CORDICO®-2019-www.cordico.com_.png David Baker2022-11-09 08:00:072022-11-03 15:09:45How to Avoid Becoming Desensitized as an EMT
Basic Estate Planning for First Responders
https://www.cordico.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/estate-planning-for-first-responders.jpg 700 1200 David Baker https://www.cordico.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/CORDICO®-2019-www.cordico.com_.png David Baker2022-11-02 10:18:182022-11-02 10:26:25Basic Estate Planning for First Responders
Can You Hear Me Now? Preventing Hearing Loss for Firefighters
https://www.cordico.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/preventing-hearing-loss-for-firefighters.jpg 700 1200 David Baker https://www.cordico.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/CORDICO®-2019-www.cordico.com_.png David Baker2022-10-19 13:11:152022-10-19 13:14:28Can You Hear Me Now? Preventing Hearing Loss for Firefighters


Hubble, Edwin Powell (1936). The Realm of the Nebulae. New Haven.
Hubble, Edwin Powell (1937). The Observational Approach to Cosmology. Oxford.
^ Gale E. Christianson (1996). Edwin Hubble: mariner of the nebulae. University of Chicago Press. p. 362. "Grace heard that Enrico Fermi and Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, both members of the Nobel Committee, had joined their colleagues in unanimously voting Hubble the prize in physics, a rumor later confirmed by the astronomers Geoffrey and Margaret Burbidge after speaking with "Chandra"."


My name is Victoria Zavala. I live in the city of Lancaster California. I am 36 years old and have a 4-year-old daughter. I suffer from systemic Lupus and degenerative disc disease. I think I have had it for a long time but I was actually diagnosed in 2006 a year after my daughter was born. I went through a lot of treatments and therapies, and a lot of pills. And started to realize that they were not working.
I started using Hemp and Omega products, hemp seeds, oatmeal's, and hemp milk and it started to really helping me. I was a patient prior to me getting pregnant in 2005 and the medicine was working because I had an injury. I had a back injury in 2002 and from the back injury I gained a lot of weight. I took a lot of prednisone, and steroids. So unfortunately got me really, really big, I weighed 325 pounds. I decided to get gastric bypass surgery.
From the bypass surgery things were working really well. 18 months later I got pregnant. Something I had not been able to do prior to that due to a lot of infertility problems that I had, but in having little medical issues prior to <getting pregnant>. I kept going, didn't see what was really going on.
After the bypass surgery and having my daughter the reason I had to look for alternatives, 3 months after I had my daughter, I couldn't breast feed any more. I got real sick. I couldn't find out what was wrong, I had all kinds of blood tests. They thought I had Celiac Disease, so I had to do a different diet. Then they though I has Wilson's disease, so I had to watch all kinds of blood work and different medications. Then they thought I had a bleeding ulcer.
It continued and continued with all kinds of pills and the pills weren't working and I couldn't work. I was very disabled. It was difficult. I started feeling a little better so I went back to work in the medical field. I was a first responder; I have experience as a nurse. So I went back to work. And I realized I couldn't keep up my duties physically. I couldn't lift up a patients leg to do an irrigation, smells really made me sick, I would get cold in the office, my fingers would start to cramp up and hurt, sitting down at the desk for long periods, standing up, doing vitals, pushing the blood pressure cuff.
There were days I would come home and I couldn't play with my daughter. I would have a headache, I couldn't eat, and I would throw up a lot. But every day I would go to work. And I started realizing maybe the clinical was too much for me. So I started working customer service, data entry but that didn't work either. I was having a hard time.
When I realized that I was, my mother asked me what were you using before your daughter was born, what were you using because it was working. And I finally admitted to her that I had been using cannabis before. That I had smoked marijuana. And my pain was going away and I felt better. She said why don't you try it again.
Well I didn't know quite what was wrong with me. So when I got diagnosed in 2006, in the summer. I knew that I was on my way to treatment and therapy. Time went on and I started getting treatment and the treatment almost killed me. The treatment was to the point that to this day, I still feel pain in this arm from receiving treatment. From putting putting poisons into my system that was supposed to get me better.
When I went into anaphylactic shock on my last treatment. That was the biggest scare of my life, because as a former first responder I knew what was happening to me. I knew that my body wasn't handling it anymore, that my body was rejecting it. And that was the day I said "I can't do this to myself, I gotta find my own way." And it took me a week or two, and I followed up with a doctor, I checked my hemoglobin's. My levels went up a little bit higher, but not too much.
So I told him that I'm going back to cannabis this what was working for me and he was an oncologist and a hematologist. And he said go ahead. So I did, and I said I'll see you. It took me about a month to detox my body before I tried the cannabis. I had to use the hemp products. I had to get off the Fentonol patches, the Oxicontin, the Morphine, the Soma, the Ultram, the steroids, the beta-blockers. Anyone who knows about lupus, knows the pills I'm talking about. Knows about the steroids, knows about the swelling that happens. Knows about how the sun just aches. Knows about the feeling of your veins, the cramping. Your stomach, what it endures off the pills. You find your self taking that pill to cure that problem, and you find that pill has a problem.
Pill after pill, patch after patch. You gotta cleans your body. You gotta get your mind back. It's more than just your body, your wellness, your health. It's your mind, your spirit. Your will to live.


text:
Corruption-accused President of Guatemala given reprieve by Congress
Trócaire 12 Sep 2017
Jimmy Morales was voted President of Guatemala in 2016.
He campaigned on a platform of honest governance, after the previous President Otto Pérez Molina was stripped of immunity and prosecuted for corruption.
Morales came under scruntiny last month following a request by the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), who had previously investigated President Molina, to remove Morales' presidential immunity so that he could potentially be prosecuted for alleged illegal campaign financing.
Yesterday, 158 members of Congress voted in favour of Morales retaining presidential immunity, while just 25 wanted it lifted.
Presidential immunity can only be lifted with the backing of at least two-thirds of the vote, equivalent to 105 Congress members.
Morales' backers claim that their vote in favour of his immunity was done in the interests of stability for the country.
"Democracy isn't built by changing the president every two years," said Congressman Raul Romero, head of the Fuerza party, referring to the corruption cases that led to the resignation of Otto Pérez Molina.
The International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) is a unique institution created in 2007 by an agreement between the UN and the Guatemalan government.
The CICIG seeks to support Guatemalan institutions in researching, prosecuting and ultimately dismantling networks of criminality and corruption that operate in the country and hinder the justice system.
It is an independent research entity that operates under Guatemalan law and works alongside the Guatemalan justice system.
CICIG's role, particularly under the leadership of Ivan Velazquez, has played an extremely important role against organised crime and corruption structures under adverse conditions and threats against his life and the institution he represents.
In August, Ivan Velasquez and chief prosecutor Thelma Adana announced they were seeking to have Morales' immunity stripped.
Two days later, on Sunday 27 August, in an unprecedented presidential communication, Jimmy Morales declared Ivan Velazquez a 'persona non grata' and requested him to leave the country immediately. This demand was overturned by the Constitutional Court.
The allegations against Morales relate to some $825,000 in funds he managed as secretary general of the conservative National Convergence Front (FCN) party he led from 2015 to 2016.
The president's son and his brother are both currently under investigation for corruption.
Prior to yesterday's immunity vote, Guatemalan people had taken to the streets to protest against Jimmy Morales, but most of all against corruption and a system that they feel does not represent them or their needs.
We will see in the coming days how the nation reacts to this Congressional vote.