This is a place for you and your young child to enjoy together.
Inside, you will find many different materials and activities to explore together.
Based on the premise that children learn best through multi-sensory hands-on activities, this environment is designed to provide play-based learning opportunities.
Playgroups here are interactive programs where social, emotional, and communication skills are embedded in our daily interactions.
Children have the freedom to explore & create with the security that a parent or caregiver is nearby.
By attending playgroups, parents will be introduced to developmentally appropriate activities which they can continue to utilize and expand on outside of the playgroups.
Playgroups can also be an avenue for parents to share, connect and develop relationships while learning about other community resources & programs.
The Sandwich Partnership for Families at Forestdale believes that the best programs are those in which both professionals and parents work together to ensure a successful experience for all. Your suggestions and ideas are important to us.
We celebrate all families and welcome the diversity that enriches the culture of our community.
The involvement of fathers is essential to their child's healthy development. We value the participation of men in our programs.
Adult programs are also available on many different topics. Check our website calendar for details.
Please note: hours vary by season and year. Check our website calendar for details.
CANCELLATIONS/CLOSINGS: The Discovery Center follows the Sandwich Public School calendar. On in-service days, playgroups will be held. If school is canceled due to inclement weather, playgroups will be canceled.


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Home > Alberta > Calgary
Mount Pleasant, Rosemont, Tuxedo, Calgary neighbourhoods overview
[ Calgary Neighbourhoods ]
This community lies between 16th Avenue in the south and 40th Avenue in the north, between Centre Street and 14th Street NW. The Mount Pleasant community was developed starting around 1912 and has many older homes mixed with some newer homes. The community has three areas, Pleasant Heights, just north of SAIT, Mount Pleasant, just north of 20th Avenue, and North Mount Pleasant on the south side of Confederation Park. Rosemont is the hilly neighbourhood on the north side of Confederation Park, developed in the 1950s, and has lots of curvilinear streets. Balmoral is the community between Centre Street and 4th Street just north of 16th Avenue. Tuxedo Park is further up Centre Street and is mostly single family detached homes built in the 1920s.
The community is mature and has a full range of schools. There are 5 public elementary, one Catholic elementary and two public board high schools.
There are a number of shopping plazas around the community, at Northmount & 14th, and along 4th Street and Centre Street. The nearest shopping mall is North Hill Centre, west of 14th Street.
The areas recreation is focused around Confederation Park, with its creekside recreational pathways. These pathways connect to Nose Creek to the east, and from there to the Bow River pathway system. The community also has an outdoor pool and an indoor ice arena in Highwood Park.
The community is mostly single family homes, someover 50 years old, with some multi-unit condominiums along 32nd Ave NW, close to and along Centre St, and on the SW corner of 4th St & 40th Ave NW.
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HomeNewsArchivesTropical Depression 4 Forms in East Atlantic
Tropical Depression 4 Forms in East Atlantic
Tropical Depression 4 is expected to be Tropical Storm Colin when it passes some 200 miles or more northeast of St. Thomas and St. John Thursday, meteorologist Brian Seeley at the National Weather Service in San Juan said Monday.
"That's assuming this track continues at its current north-northwest motion for a couple of days before it turns to the northwest," Seeley said.
The exact track is usually a bit uncertain when it comes to tropical systems, but Seeley said the computer models kept it northeast for several days so he's pretty confident the track will remain steady. He said that the intensity and timing — between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. Thursday — are a bit more uncertain.
However, Seeley urged residents to keep their eye on the weather because the storm still has a couple of days to go until it reaches the area.
"There's still the potential for active weather on Thursday," he said.
Whether the territory will get any rain out of the storm remains to be seen, Seeley said.
The depression, which was brewing far out in the Atlantic for several days, got its number at the 11 a.m. update Monday. Forecasters expect it to shortly become Tropical Storm Colin.
As of 5 p.m., Tropical Depression 4 is centered at 13 degrees north latitude and 42.5 degrees west longitude. This puts it about 1,270 miles east of the Leeward Islands.
The wind speed stands at 35 mph, with gusts to 45. It is moving west northwest at 16 mph. The barometric pressure stands at 1006 millibars or 29.7 inches.
With hurricane season still a long way to go until it officially ends Nov. 30, Seeley noted that there are two more tropical systems behind Tropical Depression 4 that bear watching.
"They look interesting," he said.
While the territory was deluged with rain on July 20 and saw even more rain during the days that followed, that system didn't become a tropical depression until it was passed the area. However, it was a wake up call that hurricane season is indeed here.
Mark Walters, who heads the V.I. Territorial Emergency Management Agency, wants residents to always be prepared for any disaster that could occur.
"Being prepared is not just for a specific event," he said.
That said, if residents haven't gotten ready for hurricane season, now is the time to do so. That means getting enough food and water on hand to last at least a week.
"Check the fuel in your vehicles," he said.
Secure your documents and get your personal kits together in case you have to evacuate, he said.
He also urged residents to sign up for VITEMA's V.I. Alert program so they'll be notified if a disaster is in the offing. Visit www.vialert.gov.
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text:
import React, { PropTypes } from 'react';

export default class CheckboxList extends React.Component {
  static propTypes = {
    label: PropTypes.string.isRequired,
    checked: PropTypes.bool.isRequired,
    data: PropTypes.object.isRequired,
    onChange: PropTypes.func.isRequired
  };

  render() {
    return (
      <span>
        <input type='checkbox' onChange={::this.onChange} checked={this.props.checked}></input>
         {this.props.label}
      </span>
    );
  }

  onChange(event) {
    let checked = event.target.checked;
    this.props.onChange(this.props.data, checked);
  }
};

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


More Than Just a Title Agency.
Two Rivers Title Company, LLC was founded in 2003 by Matthew Cohen, Esq. and Leslie Howard, Esq., two experienced real estate attorneys who had a vision to create a full service title insurance company filled with highly experienced professionals who are dedicated to being partners with their clients.
Two Rivers Title promises peace of mind, and we deliver. More than just a title insurance agency, Two Rivers Title is a multi-state title and escrow company that focuses on providing all the services needed to ensure closings run smoothly. Our ability to creatively resolve even the most challenging issues has established our reputation as a high quality agency with outstanding service.
Since its inception, Two Rivers Title has faced many challenges including the introduction of the new TRID, economic instability, and Superstorm Sandy. Through each, Two Rivers Title emerged an industry leader and continues to grow at an ever quickening pace while staying true to its original core values and vision. Today, Two Rivers Title is licensed in 5 states, has some of the most highly regarded law firms as clients, and has been able to attract and retain some of the most experienced title examiners and paralegals in the industry.


ENERGOTEST Kft. has been functioning since 1990 in the field of garage industry as a developing, manufacturing and distributing company. The professional colleagues have got more than 20 years of practical experience in the field of vehicle diagnostics, industrial automation, measurement and data collection and software development. Thanks to a constant and continue growth, today we introduce ourselves to our customers as a leader company on the domestic market, in garage equipment and not only.
Flexible adaption of the constantly changing country-specific statutory regulations concerning vehicle inspection and testing is ensured by our well-skilled engineer team, by the continuous mechanical, electronical and software developments, and by the increasing number of subsidiaries/distributors in several foreign countries.
With our self-manufactured products we offer solutions of quality for technical testing stations and passenger car and truck services in the field of technical testing and car diagnostics.
mobile technical test station in the following categories: passenger cars, trucks.
Certification charter (ISO 9001:2008) by TÜV Rheinland InterCert Kft. which covers the manufacturing also.
Certificate from National Transport Authority (NTA) of Hungary about accepting ENERGOLINE, ENERGOTEST developed software as official software to be used for technical inspections.
We are at our partners' disposal with complete service, we provide Internet support, call-center support, complete training and intermittent qualifications.
View our broad range of products in the " catalouge " and look at our references in the " photo and video box "!
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Do you remember our campaign we did almost 6 months ago in stockholm in collaboration with AEG and their new washer and dryer? if not you can read about it here.
After using both of them every day since that, it is now time to make status on the results!
As you can probably guess, with two adults working in fashion, a dog and a very messy toddler. The machines are almost constantly running in our house. Day and night actually! (thank god they are silent enough to not wake you!!) And pretty much every single piece of garment we own, has been run though the various programmes. From cashmere sweaters, to silk dresses.
First up is my favorite sweater, Probably worn every single day during the cold months, as cashmere silk blend that kept me warm under my jackets. Something that has needed a lot of washes over the past few months. No shrinkage, no little fluff coming off anywhere. test passed!
I guess wool Boucle jackets would be the first thing to pop up in your mind when asked about the things you should definitely NEVER wash in the machine. They are tailored, delicate, and have details that wont mix well with the regular washing machine. This has now been in the wash twice (after a little spaghetti incident, and something with a whole lot of grass and at the playground) As you can tell it is in perfect shape. I must admit even had to take a deep breath before pressing the on button, on the washer. But now im pretty sure the is no garment I wouldn't consider popping in there.
So the results? I guess for us its been making life a lot easier. No trips to the dry cleaners, waiting to clothes to get done, and a big factor i had not even thought about we can wash at night (due to the low volume) Family life made a whole lot easier.
We are finally so far along with the makeover of the kids room, that we are ready to show you, we still need a few more things like a swing, some cushions, and a little table. But overall we are almost there. We switched the Rooms over, so Molly now has our old bedroom and much more space to play around. A full video going trough everything will follow ;) along with a tour of our new bedroom as well, which we have also been working hard on lately. The whole idea is to have a good space for her to play, as well as for her new little brother to eventually move in with her, when he isnt sleeping in our room anymore. When that time comes we will build Molly her own treehouse platform to have her own space in there, but for now its much safer to play on the ground :) We have added as many links as possible but please ask if you want to know where to get some of these things. Hope you like it!
We have gone for a completely gender neutral room, and chosen a color scheme of gold, silver, white and grey. We wanted to invest in some things that the kids would like for longer and could keep for many year, regardles of their later color preferences. We also think it gives it a feeling of calmness. the drawers are made so she can pull them out herself, and they each have three boxes full of toys. so she can take out a box at a time and easilly clean up afterwards. The kitchen is from ikea, but I gave it a complete makeove, and added a new countertop and fitted lots of little other features to make it extra "life like"


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Families will live the simple life with a touch of rustic charm in this classic design. The cathedral great room, dining room and country kitchen recall the wide open spaces in historic barns. The large master bedroom includes a walk-in closet and a laundry area as well as a full bath with a walk-in shower. The centrally located stairway leads down to the basement and up to a 2nd floor open loft with views of the cathedral areas and views out the gable windows as well. The two spacious 2nd floor bedrooms share a full bath and have oversized closets. This timber frame barn design is both classic and beautiful.


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Phase II single arm open label multicentre clinical trial to evaluate the efficacy and side effects of a combination of gefitinib and methotrexate to treat tubal ectopic pregnancies (GEM II): study protocol
Andrew W Horne1,
Monika M Skubisz2,
Ann Doust1,
W Colin Duncan1,
Euan Wallace3,
Hilary O D Critchley1,
Terrance G Johns3,
Jane E Norman1,
Siladitya Bhattacharya4,
Jill Mollison4,
Michael Rassmusen5,
Stephen Tong2
1MRC Centre for Reproductive Health, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
2Translational Obstetrics Group, University of Melbourne, Mercy Hospital for Women, Melbourne, Australia
3Monash Institute of Medical Research, Clayton, Australia
4Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Division of Applied Clinical Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen Maternity Hospital, Aberdeen, UK
5Mercy Hospital for Women, Melbourne, Australia
Correspondence to Dr Andrew Horne; andrew.horne{at}ed.ac.uk
Introduction Tubal ectopic pregnancy (tEP) is the most common life-threatening condition in gynaecology. tEPs with pretreatment serum human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG) levels <1000 IU/L respond well to outpatient medical treatment with intramuscular methotrexate (MTX). TEPs with hCG >1000 IU/L take a significant time to resolve with MTX and require multiple outpatient monitoring visits. Gefitinib is an orally active epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) antagonist. In preclinical studies, we found that EP implantation sites express high levels of EGFR and that gefitinib augments MTX-induced regression of pregnancy-like tissue. We performed a phase I toxicity study administering oral gefitinib and intramuscular MTX to 12 women with tEPs. The combination therapy did not cause significant toxicities and was well tolerated. We noted that combination therapy resolved the tEPs faster than MTX alone. We now describe the protocol of a larger single arm trial to estimate the efficacy and side effects of combination gefitinib and MTX to treat stable tEPs with hCG 1000–10 000 IU/L
Methods and analysis We propose to undertake a single-arm multicentre open label trial (in Edinburgh and Melbourne) and recruit 28 women with tEPs (pretreatment serum hCG 1000–10 000 IU/L). We intend to give a single dose of intramuscular MTX (50 mg/m2) and oral gefitinib (250 mg) daily for 7 days. Our primary outcome is the resolution of EP to non-pregnant hCG levels <15 IU/L without requirement of surgery. Our secondary outcomes are comparison of time to resolution against historical controls given MTX only, and safety and tolerability as determined by clinical/biochemical assessment.
Ethics and dissemination Ethical approval has been obtained from Scotland A Research Ethics Committee (MREC 11/AL/0350), Southern Health Human Research Ethics Committee B (HREC 11180B) and the Mercy Health Human Research Ethics Committee (R12/25). Data will be presented at international conferences and published in peer-reviewed journals.
Trial registration number ACTRN12611001056987.
This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 3.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt and build upon this work, for commercial use, provided the original work is properly cited. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Protocol of a study to determine:
Is combination therapy with MTX and gefitinib effective at resolving tEP?
Is combination therapy with MTX and gefitinib safe and well tolerated?
Tubal ectopic pregnancy (tEPs) with hCG levels <1000 IU/L respond well to treatment with intramuscular MTX.
tEPs with human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG) levels >1000 IU/L require multiple hospital visits to resolve with MTX and often require surgery.
Novel combination therapy of MTX and the oral EGFR antagonist, gefitinib, could reduce the number of hospital visits required to resolve tEPs with hCG levels >1000 IU/L.
This is a phase II exploratory efficacy trial, and will be the 'first in man' to examine the efficacy of gefitinib and MTX to treat tEPs with hCG levels >1000 IU/L
This is a 'single arm' trial. The data will be used to inform a future large multicentre randomised controlled trial comparing combination therapy to conventional management of tEPs.
The combination therapy described also has potential use in other pregnancy disorders where medical regression of placental tissue could be useful, for example, molar disease and regression of placenta accrete postpartum.
Tubal ectopic pregnancy (tEP) is the most common life-threatening condition in modern gynaecology in both the developed and developing world.1 ,2 tEPs with pretreatment serum human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG) levels <1000 IU/L respond well to outpatient medical treatment with an intramuscular injection of methotrexate (MTX). Indeed, it has been suggested that these tEPs could be managed safely, and equally efficiently by expectant management without medical intervention.3–5 In contrast, single-dose MTX is only cost-effective in women with serum hCG concentrations <1500 IU/L.6 In tEPs with higher hCG levels (>60% of total tEPs), emergency laparoscopic surgical excision (with its inherent risks of damage to visceral organs) remains the most effective treatment. tEPs with higher hCG levels take a significant time to resolve with MTX and require multiple outpatient monitoring visits. There, therefore, exists a need for more effective medical treatments for tEPs with higher hCG levels to reduce the need for emergency surgery and reduce the time to resolution associated with MTX management.
Gefitinib is an orally active epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) antagonist licensed to treat non-small-cell lung cancer.7 In preclinical studies, we found that EP implantation sites express high levels of EGFR and that gefitinib augments MTX-induced regression of pregnancy-like tissue.8 To translate this into clinical care, we performed a phase I single-arm open-label dose-escalation study administering a combination of 250 mg oral gefitinib (one dose (n=3), three daily doses (n=3), seven daily doses (n=6)) and intramuscular MTX (50 mg/m2) to 12 women with tEPs.9 The combination therapy did not cause any significant toxicities, and was well tolerated. We noted that resolution (fall in serum hCG to <15 IU/l) with combination therapy was faster than the median time for tEPs to resolve with MTX alone when compared with contemporaneous controls (21 vs 32 days).
The objective of this trial is to evaluate the efficacy and side effects of combination gefitinib and MTX to treat tEPs (hCG 1000–10 000 IU/L).
Phase II single-arm multicentre open label trial (Edinburgh and two sites in Melbourne).
Twenty-eight women with tEPs with hCG levels 1000–10 000 IU/L.
Study settings
We intend to recruit patients from gynaecology departments within NHS Lothian (UK), and Southern Health and Mercy Health networks in Melbourne, Australia.
We have calculated the sample size using A'Hern's formula for phase II one-stage designs.10 For treatment of tEPs with hCG levels 1000–10 000 IU/L by MTX /gefitinib to be considered effective, we expect a success rate of at least 90%.11 However, a success rate of 70% or less would be considered unacceptable. With 80% power and a 5% level of significance, 28 patients are required to enable us to assess whether the proportion of patients with a successful outcome to treatment is ≤70% or ≥90%. If 24, or more, patients have a successful outcome, we can reject the hypothesis that the true efficacy of MTX /gefitinib is ≤70% and progress to a phase III trial.
Women aged between 18 and 45 years; pretreatment serum hCG of 1000–10 000 IU/L (rising or static); ultrasound diagnosis of definite tEP (extrauterine gestational sac with yolk sac and/or embryo, with or without cardiac activity) or probable tEP (inhomogeneous adnexal mass or extrauterine sac-like structure)12 performed by a clinical team of trained, qualified and experienced ultrasonographers; no clinical evidence of intra-abdominal bleeding; no pallor; no guarding/rigidity on abdominal examination; stable blood pressure and heart rate; haemoglobin on full blood examination at day 1 between 100 and 165 g/L).
Women with a pregnancy of unknown location; evidence of a significant intra-abdominal bleed on ultrasound defined by free fluid above the uterine fundus or the surrounding ovary13; women with a history of any significant pulmonary disease; abnormal liver/renal/haematological indices; significant pre-existing dermatological conditions; significant pre-existing gastrointestinal medical illnesses; Japanese ethnicity.
Participant enrolment
All gynaecology consultants within NHS Lothian (UK), Southern Health and Mercy Health (both Australia) will be sent a letter informing them of the study and requesting permission to approach their patients. The clinical research team in NHS Lothian, Southern Health and Mercy Health will approach eligible women, provide them with patient information sheets and offer them the opportunity to discuss the trial, and obtain informed consent. Consent will only be taken once the patient has had ample time to read the patient information sheet and had her questions answered.
Eligible women will be given a single-dose intramuscular MTX (50 mg/m2) injection with seven daily doses oral gefitinib (250 mg). The gefitinib will be started on the same date when the MTX injection is given.
A log with the patients' name and date of birth will be kept along with their unique study number in a separate file. All the data generated from the study will be stored in an anonymised form in a bespoke database, which will also be password protected. Only anonymised information will be stored on this, and participants will only be identifiable by their study number. All paperwork will be kept in a locked filing cabinet in a locked office. All data will be stored on university server (University of Edinburgh) on a password-protected computer with limited access to the research team, in accordance with the Data Protection Act (UK).
A member of the research team will carry out a screening visit to assess eligibility. All data will be recorded on a case record form and transferred to a secure database.
Participant log
The clinical research team will keep an electronic log of women who fulfil the eligibility criteria, women who are invited to participate in the study, women recruited and women who leave the trial early. Reasons for non-recruitment (eg, non-eligibility, refusal to participate, administrative error) will also be recorded. We will attempt to collect reasons for non-participation from women who decline to take part after previously providing contact details. During the course of the study, we will document reasons for withdrawal from the study and loss to follow-up (figure 1).
Flow chart of participants involved in the study.
To monitor treatment response, we will follow protocols used clinically for medical management with MTX. Serum hCG levels will be measured on days 4, 7 and 11, then weekly until hCG levels drop to non-pregnant levels (<15 IU/L). Medical management will be discontinued and patients will undergo surgery based on their response to MTX and clinical picture (eg, clinical evidence of intra-abdominal bleeding) following standard clinical paradigms documented by the assessing clinician. Participants will be contacted at 3 and 6 months post-treatment to document return of menstrual cycles and any subsequent pregnancies. To monitor safety and tolerability, women will be assessed clinically (history) and biochemically (haematological, renal and liver function tests) on days 4 and 7 (or if elevated, until return to normal physiological levels).
Our primary outcome is resolution of tEP without requirement for surgery. Resolution is defined by serum hCG levels (the current clinical marker to monitor treatment response) falling to non-pregnant levels (hCG <15 IU/L). We have selected our primary outcome based on the data from our phase I trial where two patients recruited with pretreatment hCG levels >1000 IU/L required surgery and previously published data.14 We are using a cut-off of <15 IU/L, which corresponds to a negative urinary pregnancy test using the most sensitive assays.
Secondary outcome
Time to resolution (categorical variable) compared with historical controls of similar pretreatment serum hCG levels (identified by an individual blinded to the study).
Safety and tolerability as determined by clinical and biochemical assessment. Both MTX and gefitinib have the potential to affect haematological, renal and liver function.
Proposed analyses
Given this is a single arm efficacy trial, the majority of the data will be expressed as descriptive statistics.
Ethics and dissemination
Ethical approval has been obtained from the Scotland A Research Ethics Committee (LREC 12/SS/0005) (UK), the Southern Health Human Research Ethics Committee B (SH HREC 11180B) and the Mercy Health Human Research Ethics Committee (R12/25) (both Australia). Data will be presented at international conferences and published in peer-reviewed journals. We will make the information obtained from the study available to the public through national bodies and charities (eg, Ectopic Pregnancy Trust).
Participants will collect information about adverse events in their treatment diaries. However, they will be instructed to contact the clinical research team at any time after consenting to join the trial if they have an event that requires hospitalisation or an event that results in persistent or significant disability or incapacity. Any serious adverse events that occur after joining the trial will be reported in detail in the participant's medical notes, followed up until resolution of the event and reported to the ACCORD Research Governance (http://www.accord.ed.ac.uk) and QA Office based at the University of Edinburgh, or the Southern Health/Mercy Health Human Research Ethics Committees and Therapeutic Goods Administration of Australia's Office of Scientific Evaluation immediately or within 24–72 h.
If effective, we believe that this combination (gefitinib and MTX) could become standard of care for stable tEPs. The combination also has potential use in other pregnancy disorders. There may be other important conditions where medical regression of pregnancy tissue could be useful, for example, women with complete molar pregnancies and persistent molar disease and women with placenta accrete postpartum (to avoid hysterectomy).
Regarding the safety of gefitinib, data from post marketing surveillance representing over 92 000 patients exist and have shown that EGFR inhibitors are well tolerated and largely free of serious side effects (Food and Drug Administration (FDA) report).15 Of note, the data on tolerability are based on patients taking gefitinib daily on an ongoing, indefinite basis, after primary treatment of cancer. Diarrhoea and skin rash are the most common side effects (20–30%). The skin rash, described as acneiform, can be severe, but is generally self-limited. Skin rashes occur within a month of initiation of treatment, but rarely in the first week. Interstitial lung disease (ILD) is a very rare but a serious side effect of gefitinib. It is a thickening of the lung parenchyma that can be fatal in a third of cases. Of the 31 045 patients in the USA who took gefitinib (reported to the FDA), 84 developed ILD (0.3%). We plan to administer seven 250 mg gefitinib tablets, one daily for only 7 days, in addition to MTX. This is an extremely short duration of treatment compared with gefitinib's current marketing indications and existing data usage. We would not expect this short course to have an adverse long-term effect on fertility but we will be assessing participants 3 and 6 months posttreatment to document return of menstrual cycles and any subsequent pregnancies.
We do not anticipate that this will be the final trial to determine whether further exploration of combination therapy with gefitinib and MTX is worthwhile. We hope that the study will generate sufficient 'signal' that gefitinib and MTX may be effective and safe, to support a funding application for a larger trial with a comparative group. Such a trial could be designed as an 'equivalence' trial in terms of treatment efficacy between conventional management and the gefitinib/MTX comparison. It would aim to test the hypothesis that gefitinib/MTX was superior in a range of outcomes prioritised by consumer groups and clinicians. We anticipate that these outcomes could include: time to resumption of normal activities, SF-36 at intervals after treatment and patient satisfaction scores. Outcomes of a subsequent pregnancy are also important but would require long-term follow-up studies. We anticipate that focus groups and surveys of patients and clinicians would be required to define the outcomes (other than efficacy) of these studies.
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Sridhara R,
. United States Food and Drug Administration drug approval summary: Gefitinib (ZD1839; Iressa) tablets. Clin Cancer Res 2004;10:1212–18.
Contributors AH and ST were involved in research, contribution of original material, editing and approval of final manuscript; AD and MS were also involved in contribution of original material, editing and approval of final manuscript; MS, MR, CD, EW, HC, TJ, SB, JM and JN edited and approved the final manuscript.
Funding This work is supported by an NHMRC Grant (#1008276) to ST, TJ and EW, and an MRC Centenary Award (G0802808) to AH. The funders will have no role in the study design; collection, management, analysis and interpretation of data; writing of the report; and the decision to submit the report for publication.
Competing interests AH is funded by an MRC Clinician Scientist Fellowship and MRC Centenary Award (G0802808) and holds grants from the Chief Scientist's Office Scotland (CZH/4/688) (HC coinvestigator) and Well-being of Women. HC holds an MRC DCS Grant (G003611), an MRC Centre Grant (G1002033) and research collaboration funding from Bayer Pharma AG. UN, TJ and ST are joint holders of patents that relate to the use of EGFR inhibition in treating ectopic pregnancies.
Ethics approval Ethical approval has been obtained from Scotland A Research Ethics Committee (MREC 11/AL/0350), Southern Health Human Research Ethics Committee B (HREC 11180B) and the Mercy Health Human Research Ethics Committee (R12/25).


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Floyd Mayweather, Jr. and Manny Pacquiao will fight on May 2nd at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. I can't wait, and guess what: y'all can't wait too.
I know a lot of y'all are mad that this fight too five years too long to happen. It was supposed to have gone down when both fighters were in their prime.
Mayweather was schooling boxers in the ring with his defensive wizardry and speed. Pacquiao took out fighters with his unique blend of power and speed.
It was only a matter of time that fans would clamor for both fighters to get in the ring and settle the "Best Pound-for-Pound" debate once and for all.
However, a one thing got in the way: the method of drug testing in the lead-up to the fight. Mayweather demanded random blood and urine testing and Pacquiao declined to accept the specific protocol Mayweather wanted.
As a result, the deal fell apart. Pacquiao also sued Mayweather for defamation for accusing him of using performance-enhancing drugs; the case was eventually settled out of court, but the bad blood remained on both sides for years.
But on February 20, 2015, the fight that boxing fans young and old had been clamoring for had finally materialized.
Props to Mayweather for not budging off the May 2nd date and working with Pacquiao to ensure that the fight would become reality. Props to Pacquiao for staying aggressive to force Mayweather to set the fight up and for being humble to negotiate and accept the terms. And perhaps most importantly, props to promoter Bob Arum for staying the hell out of the way.
This fight may have been five years too late, but one thing is for certain: both Floyd and Pacquiao are STILL the two best pound-for-pound boxers in the world. And deny it all you want: most of y'all are going to at least tune in to that fight on May 2nd.


text:
SKRG steht für:

 Flughafen Rionegro in Kolumbien als ICAO-Code
 Saarländisches Krebsregistergesetz

SKRG

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Q: How does the mapping between WinRT and managed works? I heard that the new WinRT is an unmanaged framework and it is based on COM, but somehow they figured out something to make mapping between WinRT and managed code easier. I would like to know how this mechanism works?

A: The Windows Runtime represents all APIs in metadata, which the various language projections (C++, JavaScript and C#) read.
Because the API shape is described in metadata, the language runtimes and compilers can reason about the APIs and know how to generate code for those APIs.
For the CLR, the job is a tiny bit easier, since the metadata format is ECMA 335, which is the CLI metadata format used by the CLR - thus the translation is slightly easier for the CLR.
But in general, the translation is straightforward given that you have a machine readable representation of all the APIs present on the machine.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text: Q: Restreaming live stream with Python + OpenCV I have a script that uses CaptureFromFile to get frames from a live stream, then does some work on it. Now I would like to annotate that stream and restream it - what would be the easiest way of accomplishing this? Would it be possible to somehow use the in-built VideoWriter to make a live stream as opposed to just making a video? (The resulting stream does not need to have any audio.)


"Congratulations @enzo05! You have received a personal award!
"Payout from @tipU 💲(previous payout: 48.0 hours ago) | Total @tipU profit: 802.201 SBD | Your current share: 0.000150% | Your profit: 0.001 SBD | Auto reinvested: 0 STEEM, reinvest ratio at 0% | Your investment: 0 SP delegated + 1.717 SP invested out of 1135966 SP total | | Thank you! |"


text:
package de.unistuttgart.iste.rss.bugminer.model.entities;

import java.time.Instant;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Collection;

import javax.persistence.CascadeType;
import javax.persistence.Column;
import javax.persistence.Entity;
import javax.persistence.JoinColumn;
import javax.persistence.ManyToMany;
import javax.persistence.ManyToOne;
import javax.persistence.OneToMany;
import javax.persistence.Table;
import javax.persistence.UniqueConstraint;

import org.springframework.context.annotation.Scope;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;

import com.fasterxml.jackson.annotation.JsonIgnore;

import de.unistuttgart.iste.rss.bugminer.model.BaseEntity;

/**
 * A bug report imported from an issue tracker
 */
@Component
@Scope("prototype")
@Entity
@Table(uniqueConstraints = @UniqueConstraint(columnNames = {"issue_tracker_id", "key"}))
public class Bug extends BaseEntity {
	@ManyToOne
	@JsonIgnore
	private Project project;

	@ManyToMany
	private Collection<Label> labels;

	@OneToMany
	@JoinColumn(name = "bug_id")
	private Collection<Event> events;

	@OneToMany
	@JoinColumn(name = "bug_id")
	@JsonIgnore
	private Collection<LineChange> lineChanges;

	@OneToMany(cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
	@JoinColumn(name = "bug_id")
	private Collection<Classification> classifications;

	@OneToMany
	@JoinColumn(name = "bug_id")
	private Collection<BugParticipant> participants;

	@ManyToOne
	private IssueTracker issueTracker;

	private String key;

	private boolean isFixed;

	private String jsonDetails;

	private Instant reportTime;

	private Instant closeTime;

	private String title;

	@Column(length = 1000000)
	private String description;

	/**
	 * Creates a new empty {@code Bug}
	 */
	public Bug() {
		labels = new ArrayList<>();
		events = new ArrayList<>();
		lineChanges = new ArrayList<>();
		classifications = new ArrayList<>();
		participants = new ArrayList<>();
	}

	public Project getProject() {
		return project;
	}

	public void setProject(Project project) {
		this.project = project;
	}

	public Collection<Label> getLabels() {
		return labels;
	}

	public void setLabels(Collection<Label> labels) {
		this.labels = labels;
	}

	public Collection<Event> getEvents() {
		return events;
	}

	public void setEvents(Collection<Event> events) {
		this.events = events;
	}

	public Collection<LineChange> getLineChanges() {
		return lineChanges;
	}

	public void setLineChanges(Collection<LineChange> lineChanges) {
		this.lineChanges = lineChanges;
	}

	public Collection<Classification> getClassifications() {
		return classifications;
	}

	public void setClassifications(Collection<Classification> classifications) {
		this.classifications = classifications;
	}

	public Collection<BugParticipant> getParticipants() {
		return participants;
	}

	public void setParticipants(Collection<BugParticipant> participants) {
		this.participants = participants;
	}

	public IssueTracker getIssueTracker() {
		return issueTracker;
	}

	public void setIssueTracker(IssueTracker issueTracker) {
		this.issueTracker = issueTracker;
	}

	public boolean isFixed() {
		return isFixed;
	}

	public void setFixed(boolean isFixed) {
		this.isFixed = isFixed;
	}

	public String getJsonDetails() {
		return jsonDetails;
	}

	public void setJsonDetails(String jsonDetails) {
		this.jsonDetails = jsonDetails;
	}

	public Instant getReportTime() {
		return reportTime;
	}

	public void setReportTime(Instant reportTime) {
		this.reportTime = reportTime;
	}

	public Instant getCloseTime() {
		return closeTime;
	}

	public void setCloseTime(Instant closeTime) {
		this.closeTime = closeTime;
	}

	public String getTitle() {
		return title;
	}

	public void setTitle(String title) {
		this.title = title;
	}

	public String getDescription() {
		return description;
	}

	public void setDescription(String description) {
		this.description = description;
	}

	public String getKey() {
		return key;
	}

	public void setKey(String key) {
		this.key = key;
	}
}


text:
The plunge
Posted by Sean at 06:59, January 3rd, 2006
Since Atsushi and I managed to yum-yum our New Year's rice cakes* right down without choking to death on them, it seems you're stuck with me for another year.
For that matter, in a few weeks' time, Atsushi will have been stuck with me for exactly five years. Not even by being transferred to another island has he managed to escape.
And–I don't know what precisely jogged my memory of this, except possibly the general reflections one does on the passage of time during the holidays–it's ten years ago today that I came out to my parents.
They were still officially living in their old place, the little rented townhouse they'd moved into after marrying in 1971 and were about to move out of now that my little brother was ready to start college.
The house they'd finally been able to put up a down payment for was a fixer-upper three or four miles down the road. It had been abandoned by tax evaders and left vacant for a few years, during which time someone had broken in and defaced it. The master bath was sooty with the remains of a fire in the shower. There were holes punched or hacked in some of the walls. And others had been spraypainted: "This is our house." "Satan lives in this house." The former message made my parents say that the malefactors had probably been the former owners' much-tried children. The latter message, which was accompanied by a point-up star inside a circle, made a college friend of mine [from McKean County] roll her eyes and say, "Trust rural Pennsylvania Satanists not to be able to draw a freakin' pentagram right."
I was home from New York for the New Year. My parents were full of talk about wallpaper patterns and rented floor sanders and other sweat equity stuff. Dad makes wooden furniture as a hobby, so Mom was coming up with all kinds of elaborate cabinets that could be contrived for this or that odd space. I'd been dating a man for over a year and out to myself, in that final way, for a few months. My only vague thought about telling my parents had been that it might be a good idea after I'd been in grad school for a few years, when I was twenty-five or twenty-six and my having lived in the City for a while had gotten them used to the idea that my life was not going to be the return to the hometown that they'd envisioned for me. After all, lots of gay men and women with conservative Christian families found ways not to break their parents' hearts without lying to them.
And then some time during those last few days of December, the thought creeped up on me that I had an opportunity that wouldn't come up again. The house was a project that would be occupying my parents for at least a good year; it was something ready to hand that they could throw themselves into if they were feeling distrait. The room I'd slept in for eighteen years before college wouldn't be down the hall every night. Everything at the house on Broad Street was going to be packed away and removed, anyway; if they decided they had to cut off contact with me, I could get whatever stuff I needed and leave without its being the only such Event going on.
I also knew that they were not the sort of parents to go to their grave resolutely believing that their son wasn't a homo but just a workaholic who hadn't found the right girl. I'd had the usual frictions with them as a teenager, but we'd always gotten along well and communicated frankly. Eventually, I'd be thirty-five years old and home for dinner, and Mom would deposit the platter of Swiss steak on the table with a clunk and demand to know just what was up with me and that long-term roommate of mine. Or Dad would hand me a cup of coffee one morning and ask, once I had a good mouthful, whether I really expected them to believe I'd been sleeping on a couch for six years. My parents have a talent for delivering a zinger when you least expect it.
Of course, this was going to be my zinger, and I knew that if I started trying to plan it, thinking about all the possibilities–I should probably have bus money in my pocket in case they throw me out right then and there–would make me lose my nerve. So I decided to wait for a good break in the conversation and improvise, but not to think too much about it until then. (That actually wasn't all that hard; we were really busy entertaining friends and running around and stuff. I was too exhausted at night to lie awake being anxious.)
Straight readers may find this surprising, but I honestly don't remember clearly how the actual conversation went. Not really. Not the way, with my lit-major brain, I can often replay other memorable scenes word for word in my head for years afterward. I know I said everything I thought I needed to say, without being halting about it they way I'd been afraid I'd be. I know they assured me they weren't going to disown me and then, after the inital shock wore off, qualified that by suggesting all the things you can imagine conservative Christian parents' suggesting.
And a few days later I was back in New York, and my parents were moving. And things were okay. That much I do remember clearly.
* お餅 (o-mochi: sticky rice, often cut into cakes of approx. 1 cm * 4 cm * 5 cm that are toasted and eaten wrapped in sheets of pressed seaweed). The Japanese can make deadly foods out of not only poisonous fish but also rice–that's how bottomlessly resourceful they are. It fills you with a kind of awe.
Added on 4 January: As a friend just pointed out to me, o-mochi is also often served in soup, which makes it more stretchy.
Posted by Sean at 01:28, January 1st, 2006
It is now the Year of the Dog in Japan. Japan follows the Chinese zodiac, but it celebrates the New Year on 1 January of the Western calendar. (The whole thing is very disorienting if you're studying classical poetry, because you have to keep straight the Western calendar, the solstices, and the traditional lunar calendar by which months and seasons were actually named. Happily, I don't have to contend with that right now, unless I decide to translate a poem at the end of this post.)
The personality typology you hear discussed the most here is by blood type, but the year of your birth gets a lot of play, too. When Atsushi and I began to date, it was considered very auspicious that he was a Monkey and I was a Rat–no wiseacre comments from the peanut gallery, okay?–two signs that are held to be compatible. (Of course, my last boyfriend had been a Dragon, and our supposed celestial compatibility hadn't seemed to help all that much.) With its preponderance of snakes, dogs, wild boars, and monkeys, the zodiac can start to sound like an extended lawyer joke, but none of the descriptions is negative in the main, of course.
I was born in March, so I'm a Rat according to both Chinese and Japanese measurements. As with all such things, you read your typology, and some of it is so dead-on it's kind of spooky…
One of the Rat's biggest fault is that they try to do too much at once. They often scatter their energies and get nothing accomplished.
…and some of it is so off the mark it makes you laugh.
They are very appealing. They have a bright and happy personality, and this keeps them busy socially. They love parties and other large gatherings.
In any case, those who are thinking about having a child may want to hurry things up so it's born by the end of this year. The traits associated with the Year of the Dog aren't bad at all:
People born in the Year of the Dog possess the best traits of human nature. They have a deep sense of loyalty, are honest, and inspire other people's confidence because they know how to keep secrets. But Dog People are somewhat selfish, terribly stubborn, and eccentric. They care little for wealth, yet somehow always seem to have money. They can be cold emotionally and sometimes distant at parties. They can find fault with many things and are noted for their sharp tongues. Dog people make good leaders. They are compatible with those born in the Years of the Horse, Tiger, and Rabbit.
Notice how every sign is described as being eccentric, BTW? And I guess most parents wouldn't be crazy about that "cold emotionally" part, though given the potential for heartache in life, it might come in handy later on.
Child, how can you see with all that light?
No, I'm not drinking crushed dried plums in boiling water because I have a hangover.
And if, just theoretically, I were drinking crushed dried plums in boiling water because I had a hangover, it wouldn't be because I was with friends carousing until 6 a.m.
That racket. Please, you have to stop the racket.
Of course, some people's headaches are just beginning:
Looking beyond discredited architect Hidetsugu Aneha, police are now focusing on the companies that likely pressured him to fake his quake-resistance reports, sources said.
Kumamoto Prefecture-based Kimura Construction Co. and Tokyo-based Huser Co., both named as central players in the wide-reaching scandal, are apparently soon to face criminal charges.
The sources said a joint team of Metropolitan Police Department and Chiba and Kanagawa prefectural police investigators plan to hold Kimura Construction criminally responsible in the falsification of structural strength reports to cut costs.
Aneha has told police that Akira Shinozuka, the former Tokyo branch head of Kimura Construction, pressured him to reduce the amount of steel fortification in his designs.
All parties in the scandal have denied any wrongdoing, apart from Aneha.
Huser is known to have sold condominium units even after it learned in October that they might have had substandard quake resistance.
The Real Estate Business Law prohibits firms from signing contracts that intentionally withhold pertinent information from buyers.
Substandard earthquake resistance is, you know, kinda pertinent here.
Since Huser ordered the construction of the complexes, it can also be held in violation of the Building Standards Law.
But unlike Kimura Construction, which drew up the design blueprints, Huser merely ordered them, so its intent to falsify data must be proven for it to be held criminally responsible, sources said.
We can now look forward to months, perhaps years, of "Oh, yes, you did"…"Oh, no, I didn't."
The good news is that we seem to have gone a few days without the discovery of yet another substandard building. The number is almost certain to break ninety at some point in the new year, though.
You got to give for what you take
Posted by Sean at 17:21, December 31st, 2005
Michelle Malkin links to a graphic from a Georgia teenager (via Q and O) who responded to an Atlanta Journal Constitution editorial cartoonist's rhetorical question about the Iraq invasion.
No Comments » | misc | Permalink
I search for the time / On a watch with no hands
Posted by Sean at 18:26, December 30th, 2005
Atsushi is now on a plane. He will land at Haneda at around 9:30, arrive at our door at around 11:00, and leave for his parents' place at around 14:00. That gives us three hours together (sort of) to celebrate New Year's Eve, Japan's major holiday. Given how we'll have to shoehorn things in, I'm at least trying to make the house as close to spotless as possible, in the hopes that the effort will convey a celebratory air. Accompanying music by Heart. No, not the 70s stuff that we're all supposed to admire for creating a distaff Led Zep–sorry, Mom and Dad–but the 80s stuff that was out when I was in high school. You know, after the Wilsons looked at each other and said, "Millions of kids shell out for albums at mall record stores every day. Dammit, WE WANT THAT MONEY. Where's Diane Warren's card?" There's something very satisfying about lovingly, tenderly, soothingly moving a dusting glove over your favorite vases while shrieking "Who Will You Run To" along with Ann.
I don't know whether I'll be back between now and tonight's party. If I'm not, everyone have a happy and safe new year.
Japan odds and ends
There have been some updates to ongoing stories here:
The president of JR East has reportedly hinted that he will resign. It kind of seems a shame, because for once, we may be looking at a genuine freak accident:
The sources said the Construction and Transport Ministry's Aircraft and Railway Accidents Investigation Commission believes a microburst may have caused the accident mainly because an anemometer placed near the accident site had recorded winds of only 72 kph at the time an express train on East Japan Railway Co.'s Uetsu Line derailed.
A microburst produces winds of 252 kph or greater in small areas with a radius of only several hundred meters to two kilometers.
According to investigations by the commission and other parties, a cold front was passing through the Shonaimachi area, generating thunderclouds at the time of the accident. Thunderclouds are thought to cause microbursts–a phenomenon in which cool air rushes to the surface in an intensely localized area, resulting in strong downdrafts.
Aviation weather experts have paid more attention to the sudden gusts, as they have led to fatal airplane crashes during takeoff or landing. But because a microburst is locally formed and does not last long, they prove difficult to predict.
There seems to be evidence that the bridge and artificial embankment were constructed in such a way as to force the air through in a sort of wind-tunnel effect; but at the same time, the driver was going well below the speed limit for that stretch of rail in those reported conditions. It's good to see JR East talk about installing new meters in the area, but if we're talking about something akin to wind shear in airline flights, perfect safety is going to be impossible to achieve.
It's a bit late in the game, but two DPRK agents with major involvement in the 1970s abductions of Japanese citizens from beaches have been identified:
Two North Korean agents have been identified as the perpetrators responsible for abducting two couples who have since been repatriated to Japan, sources said Friday.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il said some people in the intelligence agency "fell into blindly motivated patriotism and heroism," when he admitted in September 2002 that North Korea was responsible for abducting Japanese.
However, police authorities suspect that some of the abductors held important positions that could influence the agency's decision-making, because Sin, who was arrested in South Korea in February 1985 and then transferred to Pyongyang in September 2000, has been treated as a hero at home.
According to Hitomi Soga, 46, who was repatriated along with the couples, Sin served as a tutor for her and her fellow abductee Megumi Yokota. Soga and Yokota were forcibly taken to North Korea in August 1978 and November 1977, respectively.
Hitomi Soga, of course, is the wife of US Army deserter Charles Jenkins.
The man whose wife and two sons were killed by toxic hydrogen sulfide gas at an Akita Prefecture hot spring resort area has died. He never regained consciousness.
Oh, and I don't think I mentioned this yet, did I? The government is freaking because the population of Japan has begun to decline earlier than had been projected:
The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications on Tuesday confirmed what could be the start of a prolonged crisis for Japan: The nation's population is already shrinking.
The ministry released provisional figures that show the population on Oct. 1 was about 19,000 fewer than the estimated 127.776 million of October 2004.
Populations in 32 of the 47 prefectures fell since the last official count. Nine prefectures–Nara, Fukui, Nagano, Ishikawa, Yamanashi, Ibaraki, Miyagi, Gifu and Gunma–recorded gains between 1995 and 2000, but this time around, all nine prefectures saw population decreases. Akita Prefecture had the biggest drop, at 3.7 percent from the level five years ago.
The census results showed a trend toward population shifts to major metropolitan areas.
Tokyo had the biggest population gain, at 510,000, a 4.2-percent rise over the last census. Kanagawa Prefecture recorded a gain of 300,000, or 3.5 percent more, and Aichi Prefecture an increase of 210,000, or 3 percent more people.
Other prefectures boasting larger populations were Okinawa, with a 3.2-percent rise thanks mainly to a large number of births, and Shiga, with a 2.8-percent rise because of an increase in commuters to the Osaka and Kyoto areas.
The country gained 2.47 million households in the period, or 5.2 percent, to reach a total 49.53 million.
While there were more households in all 47 prefectures, the average number per household fell to 2.58, from 2.7 in the 2000 census.
The increase in metro area populations is actually rather interesting; given the much-publicized J-turn phenomenon of the 90s, it likely means not that people are moving into urban cores but that they're moving into bed towns that are part of contiguous areas of high population density.
No Comments » | J-abductee, misc | Permalink
偵察
From the Japan Defense Agency:
The Japan Defense Agency and the Self-Defense Forces are adding muscle to their defense preparations designed to respond to a hypothetical attack by the PRC's People's Liberation Army on, for example, Ishigaki Island or the Senkaku Islands in Okinawa Prefecture. In January, the Ground Self-Defense Force will conduct its first joint remote island defense training with with United States Marine Corps. The Maritime Self-Defense Force will set its hand to developing Advanced Lightweight Torpedos in order to boost its response capabilities toward Chinese submarines.
The G-SDF will dispatch 125 personnel from the Western Army infantry regiment [link] (Sasebo City, Nagasaki Prefecture) to San Diego, CA, from 9 – 27 January. It will conduct reconnaissance training to facilitate landing and information gathering on a remote island that could conceivably be occupied. In addition to studying swim-based reconnaissance at the USMC reconnaissance school, the G-SDF will undergo ground training and acquire know-how for planning on-land assaults that incorporate complex conditions such as climate.
For its part, the SDF has (at least as of 2004, presumably the last year for which finalized records exist) increased the amount of assistance–supplies, equipment, transportation–it gives to the US military:
The number of cases in which the Self-Defense Forces provided supplies or support for the U.S. military more than tripled in fiscal 2004 from the previous year, the Defense Agency said.
The increase stems from a 2004 revision to the acquisition and cross-servicing agreement (ACSA), enabling the SDF to provide such assistance to the U.S. military even during routine training drills.
The agreement was originally intended only for U.N. peacekeeping operations or joint training drills.
But Tokyo and Washington have become increasingly interdependent in terms of military cooperation. In addition, enhancing Japan's role in logistics support for U.S. troops is part of an interim report on U.S. military realignment.
According to the Defense Agency, the SDF provided goods and services to the U.S. military in response to requests 212 times between April and December 2004.
For all of fiscal 2003, the figure was 67.
BTW, specifically regarding PRC-Japan relations, the latest conflict is over the suicide of a Japanese consul stationed in Shanghai. The Japanese government says Chinese officials pressed him to reveal information about Japan's policies regarding disputed islands. That incident was not, BTW, a factor in the results of a recent cabinet poll:
Fewer Japanese than ever feel well disposed toward China, with a Cabinet Office survey finding only about one-third of respondents had positive feelings about the country and a record-high 63.4 percent did not, according to the poll released Saturday.
The favorable response toward China fell 5.2 percentage points from the previous survey in 2004 to 32.4 percent, marking its lowest level since such questions were first asked in 1978.
The percentage of respondents who did not have positive feelings about China was up 5.2 percentage points from the 2004 survey, surpassing the 60 percent line for the first time.
A Cabinet Office official commented, "It may have been affected by large-scale anti-Japanese demonstrations across China and disputes between the two nations over the development of gas fields in the East China Sea and other issues."
The survey was conducted on 3,000 people aged 20 or older nationwide in early to mid-October. The response rate was 58.5 percent.
Concerning Japan-China ties, 71.2 percent, up 10.2 points from last year, said relations were not good, with 19.7 percent, down 8.4 points, saying relations were positive.
Figures for the ROK dropped also, but they remained above 50 percent.
Finally, apropos of nothing: the compound that means "torpedo" is 魚雷 (gyorai: "fish" + "thunder"), which I think is just about the coolest thing ever. Land mines are known as 地雷 (jirai: "earth" + "thunder").
Eric cites LaShawn Barber, who in turn is reacting to this Kathleen Parker column, about blogger conduct:
But unrestrained power coupled with little to no accountability is a dangerous thing. As a blogger who's been the subject of nasty and false statements made by bloggers and in comment sections by anonymous cowards, I know what people are capable of saying when they get caught up in online anonymity. When you're not man or woman enough to stand behind your words using your own name, high ideals like accountability and responsibility are mere afterthoughts.
I'd soften that just a little. There are people whose political positions would threaten their jobs if known at the office, or who feel that blogging under their full names would compromise not just their own privacy but their families'. I don't see why they should have to absent themselves entirely from the public debate. But what the anonymous bloggers who are honorable and civil understand is that they are under different constraints from the named. If you're anonymous, you get less leeway if your criticisms start to drift over the line from stern to insulting. You also get less credence if you're asking readers to accept your unsubstantiated account of something and have to do an extra-methodical job of laying out your case. Here's how Eric puts it:
If only the world of opinion consisted of verifiable facts! But it doesn't. Even the distinction between fact and opinion can be tricky. Many people believe what they want to believe despite evidence to the contrary. This leads to assertions of being wrong, of lying, and of being stupid or evil. In general, people who are willing to acknowledge that they have said what they said and are willing to defend it in a sincere manner are less likely to resort to insulting ad hominem attacks, they are more accountable, and less like the kids in Lord of the Flies.
BTW, that goes quadruple for gay bloggers, though I know Eric wasn't thinking specifically in those terms (and I'm approximately 110% certain that Ms. Barber wasn't thinking in those terms when she was writing that paragraph above). There are all kinds of good reasons not to post under your own name, but you're only inviting honest folks to laugh aloud at you if you sign yourself Jason the Raving Invert so you can stay closeted at your cushy I-banking job…and then freely take potshots at others and go on and on about what a daring truth-speaker you are.
Parker, for her part, is worried that a lot of blogs are all potshot and no truth-speaking because there's no one playing official referee:
What Golding demonstrated–and what we're witnessing as the Blogosphere's offspring multiply–is that people tend to abuse power when it is unearned and will bring down others to enhance themselves. Likewise, many bloggers seek the destruction of others for their own self-aggrandizement. When a mainstream journalist stumbles, they pile on like so many savages, hoisting his or her head on a bloody stick as Golding's children did the fly-covered head of a butchered sow.
I've frequently enjoyed Parker's columns since 9/11. She can be sharp and intelligent in a plainspoken, unfussy fashion. However, she also has a weakness for cutesy metaphors that aren't as clever or, more importantly, telling as she thinks. The Lord of the Flies reference has emotional appeal, but what it fails to convey is that unearned power doesn't have to arise from a free-for-all. I don't think that even the screechiest, most self-important bloggers believe mainstream journalism is populated by loose-running willful tricksters like Jayson Blair and Janet Cooke. They think it's populated by conscientious, by-the-book mandarins who nevertheless don't recognize their own biases and are often out of touch with the people whose interests they're claiming to serve. (And their writing can be just as adversarial as that of bloggers.)
My blog is too small-scale to be one of those that Parker is thinking of, but for my part, I'm perfectly willing to acknowledge that reporters do a lot more work writing their stories that I do translating and linking to them. But I also know from ten years of adulthood that many Western journalists fall back on cheap, easy, and unilluminating clichés about Japan; that articles about gay topics will frequently cite two or three extreme, grabby opinions by activists as if they represented the full range of what gay people believe about very complex issues; and that pieces about working-class life tend to strike a tone that evokes an anthropologist who's just returned from doing field work on Pluto. I dare say that most journalism that gets knowledgeable readers exercised isn't really inaccurate on a sentence-by-sentence basis; it just gives a distorted overall picture by emphasizing some factors at the expense of others. Blogging, with its variety of commentators, can help to correct that. It hasn't solved the problem of rampant incivility in society, but then, neither has anything else anyone's tried.
15 Comments | misc | Permalink
The Red Cross isn't looking so inefficient now
And here's the other post that got dropped.
You knew this was coming, didn't you (via Gaijin Biker)?
Up to about a third of the $590 million U.N. fund spent for the Indian Ocean tsunami relief may have gone to pay for overhead. The Financial Times says its two-month investigation showed the money appears to have been spent on administration, staff and related costs. The $590 million was part of the United Nation's $1.1 billion disaster flash appeal.
The newspaper said details of that appeal it obtained from U.N. agencies such as the World Health Organization and the World Food Program showed 18 percent to 32 percent of the expenditure related to staff, administration and other costs.
Some UN agencies aren't making good on their promises of transparency in allocating funds. You know, I derive quite a bit of amusement from slagging off the UN. The pharisaism that pours reliably from its every agency makes criticizing it pretty much a guilt-free operation. But we're not talking here about whether cronyism was involved in the appointment of some dumbass who's job is to hector us about smoking. We're talking about the aftermath of a natural disaster that was, for the regions it affected, epochal. It was exactly the sort of multi-national, Third World emergency that the UN's humanitarian divisions are supposed to be ideally positioned to deal with. And what we get is around US$18 million spent on overhead.
Over 73 million served
Okay, Chris at Powerblogs says that the posts lost yesterday were still in the mailing list, so, even though I realize that not every word I've ever typed needs to be preserved for posterity, I'll repost them. Here's the first one.
Since Simon went group blog, he doesn't post as much of his own commentary, which–no offense to his co-bloggers–is a shame. A few days ago he gave a good pummeling to a piece in the South China Morning Post (presumably in the print edition, since he doesn't provide a link). The headline is "Still an inspirational leader."
Guess who it's about.
Assuming you've put down your coffee–no, really, please–here's the first paragraph:
Almost 30 years after the death of Mao Zedong, many are still trying to define the controversial leader. But, like China, Mao defies simple classification. And his name still evokes deep respect amonst many Chinese.
That Mao, he stayed refreshingly unhampered by attempts to pigeonhole him, he did. You gotta love him for that. Respect him, too. Assuming you're still alive, that is. Simon says:
The latest estimate is Mao was responsible for more than 73 million deaths. In case you're wondering, that's a record.
To make an omelette, you apparently have to break a WHOLE LOT of eggs (just to bring in yet another loathsome mass murderer). The SCMP piece also quotes an ethnic studies professor at–where else?–Berkeley (Jeff, can't you do something about these people?):
Ling-chi Wang, a professor of ethnic studies at the University of California at Berkeley, said that while Mao's wrongdoings cannot be discounted, he "made an important contribution to Chinese history, as a leader who instilled a great sense of self-reliance and pride in the people."
I've heard some Iranians say that about Khomeini, too: "He brought in an oppressive government that made life hell for many of its citizens, but he stood up to the West and revived our pride in Persian culture." It's always struck me as taking the effort to make the best of adversity just a smidgen too far. The trade-off involved in giving even grudging respect to a leader who champions national pride while committing acts of world-class shamefulness is of dubitable ethical value. Anyway, "Mao sucked" is not an opinion that, in 2006, should have to be supported with all kinds of evidence as if it were controversial, but Simon does a patient, deadly job of it.


text:
Орляк е село в Североизточна България. То се намира в община Тервел, област Добрич.

История
Създадено преди 600-700 години от турци.

През Османския период, след Освобождението и по време на румънската власт над Южна Добруджа селото носи името Трупчилар.

Според запазени свидетелства в печата в края на Румънската кампания през Първата световна война оттеглящите се румънски окупационни сили отнемат от населението в района на селото едър и дребен добитък, товарен инвентар и зърнени храни.

Със заповед МЗ № 2191/обн. 27 юни 1942 г. селото се преименува на Макензен, а с МЗ № 7552/обн. 22 ноември 1947 г. започва да носи името Орляк.

Външни препратки
 Радио и телевизия в Орляк

Източници

Села в област Добрич
Населени места в община Тервел


text:
What the latest WikiLeaks release reveals about bin Laden
WikiLeaks' latest release is classified military documents that detail information obtained from Guantanamo detainees. What do they reveal about Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda?
Documents describe bin Laden's moves
More about WikiLeaks
CNN's national security analyst Peter Bergen, author of "The Longest War," weighs in on what the WikiLeaks documents reveal about bin Laden that the world didn't know a few days ago. Here's an edited transcript:
I think we have a little bit better sense of where he was in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.
I think overall, these WikiLeaks documents about Guantanamo remind me a little bit of the WikiLeaks documents we had about Afghanistan and Pakistan from the U.S. military. They don't really add anything seismic to our general understanding of what happened. They're filling in details. They will be very interesting for future historians.
These are not top-secret documents. They're secret. So they're not the crown jewels. The fact that bin Laden was hard up for cash I think is pretty interesting, but that sort of accords with something we already knew, that bin Laden didn't have millions of dollars when he was in Afghanistan. Even though he's the son of a billionaire, money was tight during this time period.
It's interesting now we have confirmation that the operational commander of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was watching these events unfold live on TV in Karachi, Pakistan. But again I think that's something, if we didn't know for a fact, we certainly probably thought was true already.
Filed under: Osama bin Laden • WikiLeaks
Good ole CNN
Cnn loves wikileaks... anything they can do to undermine america....right ccn?
July 6, 2011 at 10:05 pm | Report abuse |
Riza...too bad you weren't there in Abbattabad too...idiot.
Heather B.
I think you're thinking of Islam...not Hinduism. Bin Laden is not Hindu... In fact, he's not even an orthodox Muslim. He considers any who disagree with him a heretic and has killed scores of Muslims too. Your post makes no sense.
Do they really find it surprising that a guys imprisoned for months (years?) when he did nothing wrong turns again the people that imprisonned and mistreated him (possibly even tortured him).
Guantanamo isn't just illegally detaining terrorists it's creating new ones.
And can we really blame them? If I was imprisoned, abused and tortured for months with no good reason and no hope for a fair trial, I don't think I would be prone to forgive either.
They all should have been judged a long time ago. Detaining people ad vitam without trial is not only illegal but also appalling. It goes against evering democratie stand for.
Osama is stupid defaming the name of Islam
April 27, 2011 at 6:04 am | Report abuse |
collins61
Yes, it had such a stellar reputation before.
hahahhaha LMAO PMSL 😛
it wasn't that bad before either but you have a point.
To be honest, Bush started it, so we should not blame Obama or any other president.
Past is past, think about future 😉
Guys just try your best not to eat each other 😛
April 27, 2011 at 6:03 pm | Report abuse |
he said OSAMA not OBAMA you fool
griffithinsider
Am writing a thesis on Public Trust in WikiLeaks, the Media and the Government and need to know what your opinions are. The online survey is multiple choice and will take approximately 10 minutes to complete. Please follow the link: http://www.kwiksurveys.com/?s=ILLLML_9669e09d. Would be great if you would encourage others to do the survey also.
You really have to hand it to Assage – he is a true entrepeneur. Governments have something they want no one else to have. That makes it Valuable. He created a new way to market and realize this "value". I wonder how long he will live?
If something is going to happen to Assange, we all know who are responsible.
Andrew Lubin
How can a man who most probably has been dead for the last 8 or 9 years be short of cash? I guess that the MIC needs this man to scare the public into supporting this obscene war!!!
"and the americas and the west are being used by hindu sanatan pharisees'?
What do you mean the West is being used by hindu sanatan pharisees? We should have never intervened, but also what do you mean this was pre-planned by both sides?
alaskanpoet
in the era of WikiLeak no secret is secure
way it should be as our government's motives are rarely pure
The leaks from gitmo should cause us all trouble
infighting, breach of law, jailers befuddled
innocent kept, guilty freed to return
for their one way trip to the virgins to earn
justice may hold the scales and be blind
but we need the open eyes to watch and find
acts of torture we as a country should have long since left behind
accolades to WikiLeaks as this gitmo mess slowly unwinds
Not since the Pentagon Papers have we uncovered such dirt
Tarnishing our standing, laying on a big time hypocritical hurt
April 26, 2011 at 11:48 am | Report abuse |
Division inside Afghan people is facilitating the wars in their country betwen foreign nations. ALQaeda original goal was to overcome Mubaraq in Egypt and to contrast US military presence in S.Arabia. Afghanistan was involved just when Osama went there and Clinton started bombing before 9/11. I heard a news that ALQaeda has nuclear bomb in the west ready to explode if Osama was captured. Surely he was a problem for Afghan people like all other foreigners.
I have read a bunch a fiction in the "news" as well. Whether this allegation is true or fiction or something else remains to be seen. It is a wonderful treat to hear you feel OBL is a threat not only to Afghanistan but to others. Have you read the rest of the news lately? People are rising up against their suppressors throughout the middle east. Imagine that.....something I have been saying for years. People do have the power to change their destiny. So when the Taliban had a strangle hold around Afghanis they had it within their power to do something about it. They had it within their grasp to rise up and do something about OBL. Abstaining is also a vote, not an excuse. (Clown:-)
April 26, 2011 at 12:33 pm | Report abuse |
OBL is a threat, but the US are a bigger threat. Unfortunately the USA has always supported the suppressors in the m.e, from Mubaraq, to Saudi monarchy, to Saddam, to Reza Palevi. AlQaeda planned to overcome Mubaraq, and so started the contrast with US. About Afghanistan, there is no real ethnic difference from Taliban and Afghans. They are mostly Pashtun.
Additionally Taliban were trained by the US and Saudi Arabia to fight the Soviet. They liberated the country, they ARE important part of the Afghjan people and even those who do not support them like the RAWA org. are even more against the US occupation.
AQ plotted to overthrow Mubarack. Good. Perhaps they should take a lesson on how it should or can be done. Read the news, not the history books. Besides, What does a irrate bunch of Bomb throwing maniacs have to do with Egypt? Not even a bunch, a very small few. God gave them the task of "cleansing" world politics? One man, one vote – not one or a hundred bombings. There are effective ways to send your message and effective ways to start a war. And now we see the results of the latter.
Hey, when Coalition forces pull back and hand over responsibility to Afghan militias, police, etc., Please explain why these facilities are bombed and attacked? How in the world do you think this is furthering a withdrawal from your country? By throwing into further chaos? No. It is to make the news and spread hate and discontent – for what, not even they know or can explain. The Soviets withdrew, and the Taliban grew strong. Power corrupts (ask Karazei). The Taliban apparently think the world should live like them. Probably more like as they say, not as they do. Whatever. I would be very happy to allow the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and whatever other hate mongering organization you can name to live as they desire within the confines of their country and human decency. As with the Kurds, or Pakistanis and Indians or you name the conflict, the leaders of the world (and their subjects) can only add to the problem and be a part of it, rather than do what it takes to be a part of the solution. Why? Because we love to hate, no? We have little true understanding what it means to Love to Love.
Napoli – you are a confused clown, as somone called you. Democracy is an oxymoron and cannot really exist. Mubaraq could be removed only using violence. Nothing has really changed in Egypt after his departure. Actual leader can be eliminated only by AlQaeda.
Afghan militia is an illegal repressive force that must be removed using violence. This is why Afghan people are supporting Taliban, even if just a few are fighting.
Salareno – Confused Clown – Thanks. I never thought of myself as being funny. Democracy is not in question here,. so if you please, try to stay within the relm. Mubarack was removed, yes with voilence but also in a democratic manner, by freedom of speach. Violence was a result, not a means. Does that make it better? Sure it does. AQ has no claim to nationality yet pretends to. They carry one as if they were some super power trying to impose their sensless will on others with voilence as a means. That is not how the world works. Taliban (the leaders of the "innocents") had their chance but choose the path of war and destruction. Government is for and by the people. Therefore, Afghanistan choose the path of death and destruction. The country was attacked and occupied to remove the government. That part was easy, making it stick is a bit more sticky. The Taliban lost their country and teh war – plain and simple. It must be the mountian goats that have them beleiving their remains a chance to get it back. Local populations can probably care less who is in control unitl they come knocking on the doors and disfigure tjheir children, kill, and maim. But they should because by then it is too late. Because that is when someone will come with a bigger stick and beat the crap out of the country (hum, sounds familiar, no?).
Even for American is difficoult to change their destiny. They are ruled by few rich and powerfull families financing the politicians and the media.
Perhaps. But not impossible, if so desired.
The only politician who appears going against the estabilishment is Ron Paul and it seems running for president too. We sahll see if he, once elected, will mantain his promises, differently from Obama. I like him not just because he is against the wars, but even in his economical policy: low taxes, free economical system, return to the gold standard, less power to the Fed (and banks).
The lesson to take home is it is okay if things do not go your way. Sure, the US has had its share of people who wanted to change thjings and run the country their way, most have failed, but very few in deed, have resorted to suicide bombings.
Overall, the west is basically content with how their governments work. What is really needed is a new way forward or new model of government. You can poke holes in every form of modern government. They all have their faults, some worse than others. Until that day when someone proposes a new model you will not see any great changes in the west. You may find people discontent with corruption, unemployment, economy, etc. but not with the basic form of government until that new idea is presented.
Politicians are all of the same gene pool. In the democracy, it is not one man one vote, rather one vote per unit of money
Hum....I thought i read recently OBL was financing Al Qaeda.....guess not, it seems. At least not with his own money....after all, even his money has limits. So, this begs the question, Where is AQ getting it's money?? Charities, Nato Contracts?
Napoli Osama and Obama are two faces of same coin. Both use same currency dollars and both for the last three decades killing Afghans and Pakistanis for their global designs. This is human tragedy and a challenge to human conscience as it is not just a killing of these poor and innocents in this region but it is also a risk for world peace. No doubt for MIC contractors this war is a business matter but for Americans as a nation it is a matter of life and death.
Well put,BANGASH. Thank you.
Obama has been on a Killing spree for the last thirty years???
I would enlarge your scope and say it is a matter of life or death for the World, not just the US. Mad men need to understand and accept the fact there are varying points of view that need respect. People of the middle east have not demonstrated to me, at least, the capacity to agree to disagree and live in harmony with a disagreement.
You are right -it is a shame there are innocents who have become pawns in this struggle. The Battle Field, however, was not chosen by the US, rather leaders of these "innocents".


With Tenor, maker of GIF Keyboard, add popular Whoop De Doo animated GIFs to your conversations. Girlfriend finally made me get one. So you got a tank, big whoop, wannabe fight about it.
I was too nervous to do anything but say hi and sneak a photo.
Whoop de doo abc bfd rachel griffiths whoop dee doo. Not true, Jim said from his seat next to Leonard, packing his backpack. I asked if I could take a picture of her and she seemed so excited. Thank you and have a wonderful weekend. Tap Gear icon located at the top right corner on the screen.
Pendleton Ward was awesome enough to show up early and talk for a bit with the fans waiting outside.
Well, apparently they run this fcking place. Reaction GIFs Say it with a GIF. I did attend the convention this year, but I couldn't remember where he was from. Personalised Name Silver or Gold Star Bauble Xmas Tree Decoration.


text:
Business News›Industry›Services›Retail
Future Retail signs bond deal with Axis Bank
By Sangita Mehta & Kala Vijayraghavan, ET Bureau | Dec 22, 2015, 04.00 AM IST
The company will reward the bank for holding the bond till maturity by paying a higher premium on the principal amount.
MUMBAI: Future Retail, India's largest modern retailer, has signed a unique bond deal with Axis Bank, from which it raised Rs 300 crore recently. The company will reward the bank for holding the bond till maturity by paying a higher premium on the principal amount.
The company will pay a coupon of 10.10 per cent on the bonds on a quarterly basis. However, the bondholder will receive a premium on the face value of the bonds at the time of maturity, resulting in a higher payout of 10.75 per cent, said officials familiar with the deal.
Future Retail, which is refinancing debt to take advantage of falling interest rates in the country, raised the bonds in two tranches — Rs 120 crore and Rs 180 crore — with tenures of five and six years, respectively. The bonds have put and call options at the end of three years.
Future Retail declined to comment on the deal. In a response to a mail from ET, an Axis Bank spokesperson said, "As a matter of policy, we do not comment on individual client transactions/investments."
Senior bank officials who did not want to be identified said companies would prefer to enter into such transactions if they expect cash flows to improve after a few years, enabling them to pay more.
Since the bonds were raised to repay high-cost loans, they will not result in any additional debt on the books, said officials from the company who requested anonymity.
Future Retail, the operator of stores such as Big Bazaar, e-Zone and HomeTown, had outstanding debt of about Rs 4,000 crore on revenue of Rs 10,341 crore and net profit of Rs 74 crore in 2014-15.
Earlier this year, the company raised Rs 1,600 crore through a rights issue and used the proceeds to retire high-cost debt. The company has also been swapping its loans with non-convertible debentures, which are raised at rates lower than those paid on loans. Future's interest burden fell to Rs 135 crore in the quarter ended September fromRs 172 crore a year earlier and Rs 151 crore in the quarter ended June.
In May 2015, the Future Group acquired Bharti Retail in an all-stock deal, valuing the latter at Rs 500 crore.


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