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Disability Hunting Information for the Disabled
Author: Disabled World
Synopsis: Information on hunting with a disability including locations to hunt and obtaining hunting permits.
People with disabilities are involved in many areas of recreation, including hunting.
Powerfish'n Hybrid Electric Reel for Anglers with Disabilities
BOINC Projects to Help Health Science and SETI Projects
Interactive Map for Oregon Anglers with Disabilities
FULL LIST of Related Hobbies Publications
Each year there are more people with disabilities enjoying nature. Government; on Federal, State and local levels, is providing easier access to thousands of acres of trails, parks and wilderness areas. There are organizations and clubs with programs for persons with disabilities who want to participate in hunting activities. A number of volunteers donate many thousands of hours each year so that others can enjoy areas that were once thought to be unreachable.
The Missouri White Tails
One organization for people with disabilities who are involved in hunting is MissouriWhitetails.com. Rick is a member of their team, and is an accomplished hunter, as well as an avid outdoors-man. Rick has an extensive knowledge of the sport and is passionate about inspiring other people with disabilities to extend their lives through getting back to nature. Rick, who has adopted the nickname, 'Chairman,' is a moderator of the organizations, 'Hunting with a Disability,' topic on the organization's forum where there is a lot of good information available and people to interact with. You can find Missouri White-Tails at: www.missouriwhitetails.com/hunting_with_a_disability.htm
The Physically Challenged Bow-hunters of America (PCBA)
The Physically Challenged Bow-hunters of America is a nonprofit organization that was founded to help persons with disabilities who want to participate in bow-hunting training confessions. The UN has called for the abolition of this system and compliance by Japan with internbow-hunting or archery. They invite people with physical disabilities who want to participate to join. The PCBA provides newly injured and inexperienced sports-persons with information and services through its organization and members, demonstrating how to shoot a bow and hunt, regardless of a person's impairment.
The PCBA also serves as a national clearinghouse on the opportunities, techniques, and adaptive equipment for archers with disabilities. They provide information to individuals, organizations, manufacturers, and archery dealers at no charge upon request. The PCBA promotes fellowship through promoted social events and hunting opportunities. They continuously seek the assistance of manufacturers, hunting and archery organizations, as well as from experienced hunters, so that they can work together in order to improve the quality of life for persons with disabilities through bow-hunting. The PCBA works with rehabilitation facilities and hospitals and the people who work in these institutions in order to introduce bow-hunting in a positive manner. You can visit the Physically Challenged Bowhunters of America website at: www.pcba-inc.org/
The United Bowhunters of Pennsylvania
Another organization serving people with disabilities interested in hunting is the United Bowhunters of Pennsylvania's Disabled Hunters Program. Ernie Kramer began the idea for The United Bowhunters in 1999 and presented his idea to the UBP leadership, gaining approval to move forward with it. He was encouraged by David Sullivan of Buckmasters Disabled Hunter Services, and they agreed to supply a hunt if Ernie could raise the funding required for the transportation. The Physically Challenged Bowhunters of America (PCBA) (www.pcba-inc.org/) and Buckmasters (www.buckmasters.com/bm/) provided the applications for the first year, each year the program grew, and before too long a dedicated committee was created. Every year the United Bowhunters of Pennsylvania has a fundraising banquet which has become one of the premiere sportsmen events in the area, commonly selling out each year. You can find the United Bowhunters of Pennsylvania at: www.ubpdhp.org/about.php
The South Dakota Department of Game, Fish & Parks
The South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks has purchased various tracts, referred to as, 'Game Production Areas (GPA's),' across the state which are open to public access for both hunting and wildlife viewing. Four of these GPA's have been designed and modified as areas for individuals qualifying as, 'hunters or outdoor enthusiasts with disabilities.' These areas include:
Badger GPA (1,160 acres) in Lawrence County near Spearfish. This area is located 3 miles west and 2 miles south of Spearfish. Outdoor enthusiasts may enjoy the areas scenic beauty and seek deer, elk, and turkey.
Carpenter GPA (1,209 acres) in Lyman County near Chamberlain. This area is adjacent to the Missouri River (Lake Francis Case) 1 mile west, 1 mile south, 2 1/2 miles west, and 3 miles south of Oacoma. The area has a combination of row crops, grassland, shelter-belts, and river breaks. Outdoor enthusiasts may enjoy the areas scenic beauty and seek deer, pheasants, grouse, and coyotes.
Long Lake GPA (358 acres) in Jerauld County, near Wessington Springs. This area is located 7 miles west and 6 miles north of Wessington Springs. Outdoor enthusiasts may seek deer and waterfowl.
Mydland Pass (Lynn Lake) GPA (1,470 acres) in Day County near Webster. This area is located 9 miles west and 2 miles north of Roslyn. Outdoor enthusiasts will be able to view a great variety of waterfowl, shorebirds, and song birds during their yearly migration periods. Hunters may seek deer and waterfowl in the area. If you would be interested in fishing, the lake is known for its crappie and walleye fishery.
These four designated, disabled access areas permit access with all-terrain vehicles (ATV's), or other vehicles on designated trails and roads for persons with a disabled hunter permit. The trails have been selected for ease of access, adequate pull-off areas, and they are located in areas where a person is more likely to have an opportunity to view a number of wildlife species. Hunters in these areas are responsible for judging their own access abilities.
The South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks department also has a unit for the West River firearms deer season, Unit 358D - Stanley County in central South Dakota, for persons with disabilities who use wheelchairs. The hunt takes place on a specified weekend in November. The department allows successful applicants to hunts with volunteers from blinds in a forested area below the Oahe Dam. You can download an application for this hunt at: www.sdgfp.info The application deadline is the first Friday in August. You can visit the South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks website at: www.sdgfp.info/wildlife/Disability/DisabilityIndex.htm
For many people with disabilities, the opportunity to either become involved in hunting or remain involved is one that is not only recreational, it is one that builds bonds between friends and allows for contact with the natural environment. The social events surrounding disability hunting help to build community and establish friendships as well. To many people with disabilities, hunting is much more than just a sport.
Disable Hunt S.A.
The mission of Disable Hunt S.A. (www.disablehuntsa.co.za) is to identify farms that are disabled friendly and assist these game farm owners in order for them to make their farms more user friendly to people with disabilities & special needs.
Disabled World is an independent disability community established in 2004 to provide disability news and information to people with disabilities, seniors, and their family and/or carers. See our homepage for informative reviews, exclusive stories and how-tos. You can connect with us on social media such as Twitter and Facebook or learn more about Disabled World on our about us page.
Cite This Page (APA): Disabled World. (2009, April 7). Disability Hunting Information for the Disabled. Disabled World. Retrieved January 17, 2022 from www.disabled-world.com/entertainment/hobby/disability-hunting.php


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BoostInno
InFocus on Facebook
InFocus on Twitter
Gen-Y City on Twitter
BoostInno on Twitter
Kick-off meeting in July (Wroclaw). Transnational meeting in November (Barcelona).
Transnational meetings in March (Baia Mare) and November (Paris).
Transnational meeting in January (Milan). Final event in April (Gdansk).
City of Bilbao
Plaza Ernesto Erkoreka nº1. 48007 Bilbao. Phone +32 944 204 200
City of Poznan
plac Kolegiacki 17,
Westmisnter City Council
Phone +44 020 7641 6500
City of Gdańsk
5 prof. Witolda Andruszkiewicza St.
The work developed by the cities of this Action Planning network has proven that social innovation is not just a trend, but it could also be qualified as a fundamental change in the management of cities, in the management of impact and in the relations cities uphold and develop with their inhabitants. Some would describe this change as an equivalent of the industrial or the IT revolution: up until now, one of the basic assumptions of urban policy was that citizens were to accept what is decided, planned and built. Recent years have shown that it is often the citizens who make the city, in a collaborative perspective.
Boosting social innovation
Länsstyrelsen Skane
CHANGE!
Kick-off meeting in September (London). Transnational meeting in November (Amarante).
Transnational meetings in April (Gdansk), September (Aarhus) and November (Dun Laoghaire).
Final event in March (Eindhoven).
In times when personal sacrifices are much needed to tackle burning societal issues, fostering and enabling collaboration at local level of public administration is of the utmost importance. The partners of this Action Planning network had the opportunity to reflect upon social design, a process to think over alongside local stakeholders how to co-design their social public services towards a more collaborative service. This means to create an urban strategy that somehow engages volunteers to improve communities and public services, reducing costs at the same time.
People powered public services
Dún Laoghaire Rathdown
Civic eState
Kick-off meeting, Naples (IT)
Mid-term meeting, Iași (RO)
26-28 May 2021, Final Network Event (online)
Transnational meeting, Prešov (SK) / Transnational meeting, Amsterdam (NL)
The Civic eState network worked on new models of urban co-governance based on the commons. Two years of EU cooperation for promoting urban co-governance and experimenting public-community partnerships to enable inhabitants and local communities constitutional rights to self-organize and collectively act for the urban commons.
The network outputs aim at guaranteeing the collective enjoyment as well as collective management of urban essential facilities, to secure fair and open access, participatory decision-making, sustainability and preservation for the benefit of future generations.
Pooling Urban Commons
Governing commons, is it even possible?
Creative communities have long been a vital element for city regeneration: groups of people helping to improve urban spaces, buildings, initiatives or services, opening them up for neighbourhood use in order to answer local needs. For city administrations seeking sustainable ways to develop their territories, one approach is to improve such community participation. Naples (IT), for example, introduced a governance model that allows communities to manage public assets as 'common goods' – a solution transferred to six other EU cities through the Civic eState network. This collective management of so-called 'urban commons' was the focus of a recent URBACT City Festival session entitled "Governing commons, is it even possible?". URBACT Expert Liat Rogel reports.
In the context of urban commons the city is seen as "a platform utilised and optimised by citizens from all backgrounds and social statuses", explained Cristijan Iaione, URBACT Lead Expert for Civic eState and an expert on urban commons. To be a successful platform, the public administration first has to recognise the benefits that could come from such collaboration. Second, it should adopt new tools and governance policies that enable and empower citizens.
Also, the involved parties, including NGOs, and formal and non-formal groups, need to recognise themselves as collaborators, part of a joint movement promoting commons. Governing commons means finding the right path to regulate something as dynamic, spontaneous and agile as a community. Can this even be possible? Can a city guarantee a good governance of commons without the risk of compromising the character of urban communities? These are some of the key questions Naples and their Civic eState partners Amsterdam (NL) and Gdansk (PL) tackled at the URBACT Festival, alongside Turin (IT) from the UIA – URBACT network CO4CITIES.
Amsterdam: recognising the commons movement
Very often, working on commons starts with recognition and identity, according to Nathalie van Loon, Commons coordinator for the City of Amsterdam. She said: "in Amsterdam, there is a real old tradition of commons in practice. Civic participation has been part of urban development and people are used to protest, offer different solutions or collect consensus. However, there is no recognition of the term 'commons' and no sense of larger identity between the different stakeholders that are actually commoners. We need to build a new narrative and adapt to a worldwide movement. People do not recognise themselves as part of the movement."
One of the ways to start the sense of identity and begin a collaborative conversation was the creation of a commons catalogue. "In Amsterdam, we asked artists to make a city catalogue for commons. It tells the story of Amsterdam commoners, of change in the city, and gives concrete examples from the local context. We have a network of commoners now and we look for ways to work on neighbourhoods rights, but we will work better on collaboration." Nathalie van Loon described integrating the term 'public-common partnership' as a way to increase collaboration, build a set of tools to facilitate this partnership, and to ensure the movement is both recognised by all stakeholders and sustainable in the long term.
Naples: a city forced to think outside the box
Public-community governance has proven to be successful in Naples, which has seen a major development of tools and methods for urban commons over the past decade. Experience the city shared during the recent URBACT Transfer Network Civic eState. Nicola Massella, from the City of Naples, described how the city administration was put in the position of having to come up with new tools. Citizens and communities reclaimed public abandoned spaces, occupying them and then making them available to residents, with cultural activities and even social services.
"Our administrative tools were developed after things already happened," said Nicola Massella. "As public servants, we understood that we cannot programme the future of a neighbourhood without collaboration with the people living there. We were forced to take action. We were linked to the idea of the government and the people forced us to think out of the box."
In Naples, the recognition of formal and informal groups is based on constitutional values. The community must allow open access and be socially inclusive and non-discriminative. If those principles are in place, the administration recognises the collaboration and provides services like water, electricity and other affordable services. Eight spaces in eight neighbourhoods are now up and running in this way. Whether it's a park, or a beach, these spaces are mainly used for cultural initiatives that preserve local traditions. As well as this 'immaterial' gain, social infrastructure and services are also being set up by communities. Examples include spaces for teenagers to study, social spaces for the elderly or administrative assistance for immigrants. These structures are relatively economically accessible and maintain their quality over time.
Turin: experimenting with and testing tools in different contexts
Change of mindset is a main topic when talking about commons in Turin. "Through experimenting with new tools, it became clear that this change is needed not only inside the municipality, but also in the local, not-for-profit organisations that usually are involved in offering spaces or services to the community," said Giovanni Ferrero, city of Turin. "With Co-City, we tested local regulation with the aim of governing commons. In our testing period, the city developed the pact of collaboration. It is oriented towards a collaborative governance model. It implies a change of mindset, change of approach both from the public and the third sector. On one side, the public has an authoritative role that needs to change; on the other hand, non-for-profit organisations – and the citizens they support – are used to making requests from the public. Both need to change their roles here."
Turin developed two experimental spaces during their UIA Co-City project, and now, as a way to continue and develop the collaborative governance tools, they are working with three other cities in the UIA-URBACT network CO4CITIES. "We will continue working on local regulation with the aim of governing commons and will benefit from this European exchange." One of the cities involved in the project is Gdansk, where the issue of trust and roles is also very relevant.
Gdansk: building trust and letting go
Magdalena Skiba, from the municipality of Gdansk, explained how encouraging work on urban commons "demands even more from the administrations than the communities. Communities of active citizens are ready for taking responsibility, but the municipality is not necessarily ready to 'lose control'. The administration must learn how to become an enabler and not a ruler." This topic was carried ahead first with a previous URBACT project BoostInno, where the city was defined as a 'broker'. Magdalena Skiba added: "we have worked with local communities for about 15 years in Gdansk. We were happy to be pushed by the opportunity of working on a specific building, towards a related work on our Neighbourhood houses."
Neighbourhood houses are given to local NGOs by the municipality in exchange for the support they provide through activities for local residents. The city also covers some maintenance and management costs. Working on those, it was clear, said Magdalena, that "also local NGOs need a change of mindset: they usually act as if they were the owners and lack collaboration with the neighbourhood. We would like to move towards community ownership." In a country with low levels of public trust in government, the last point from Gdansk is crucial: "we trust only our close families. In my opinion, the most important thing is to build trust between communities and the administration. The broker role, not to force solutions, but to enable them."
The answer to the question in the title is indeed tricky. One way to frame it may be a change of paradigm and approach. We do not have to see commons as something to govern, but rather something to enable. Perhaps the main question is not how to govern, but how we can support commons and guarantee their long-term sustainability.
While local stakeholder participation is at the heart of URBACT's approach, the recent URBACT networks Civic eState and Co4Cities focused specifically on the co-management of urban commons. URBACT experts in this field include: Christian Iaione, Director of LabGov; Levente Polyak, Lead Expert of CO4CITIES; and Mary Dellenbaugh-Losse, who recently published a book on the topic.
URBACT articles include:
Pooling urban commons: the Civic eState
Scaling the commons: the experience of the European Commons Assembly
Covid-19 emergency in Naples: the key role of self-managed spaces and urban commons
This article is part of a series exploring the latest challenges in sustainable urban development, based on discussions with cities and experts at the 2021 URBACT City Festival. Topics range from community participation in urban renewal and gender in public procurement, to cities tackling climate change. View Festival highlights here.
BluAct second wave
SEPTEMBER / Kick-off meeting (hybrid event)
NOVEMBER 2021 / Ocean Hachathon in Boulogne sur Mer
JANUARY 2022 / TNM#2 / Location: Metaverse
MARCH 2022 / TNM#3 / Boulogne sur mer, France
JUNE 2022 / TNM#4 / Koper, Slovenia
Lead Partner : Piraeus - Greece
Gdańsk - Poland
Boulogne sur mer - France
Koper - Slovenia
Following the success of the first generation of the Urbact BluAct Transfer Network - in which 6 European cities were supported to transfer a Good Practice in Blue Growth Entrepreneurship from the city of Piraeus between 2018 and 2020 - a further 4 cities have now also been given the opportunity to learn from the Piraeus Good Practice. The new partners in the BluAct Network will benefit from the rich experience of the city of Piraeus and will work alongside a nominated lead expert who led the original Transfer Network. With much of the hard work already done to break down the Good Practice into understandable blocks, it should be easier second time around to apply the URBACT transfer method.
Starting up the Blue Economy
BluAct final REPORT web.pdf
(PDF, 40Mo)
BluAct
BluAct is a Transfer network of 7 European port cities including Piraeus, Mataro, Ostend, Galati, Matosinhos, Burgas and Salerno aiming to share good practices in Blue Economy entrepreneurship. The project follows the success of Piraeus' Blue Growth Initiative, an entrepreneurship competition that
Blue Growth Piraeus
Starting-up the Blue Economy
Lead Partner : Turin - Italy
Cluj-Napoca - Romania
Launch of pilot network (03/09)/21
Kick-off Meeting (05/10)
1-TNM-Kick-off meeting - Virtual (08/01)
Boot Camp in Ljubljana (SI) (09/06)
Kick off meeting (09/14)
Gdańsk Meeting (09/16)
Kick-off meeting (September), Transnational Meeting (November) (09/21)
SEPTEMBER / Kick-off meeting (hybrid event) (09/22)
Thematic Transfer meeting in Osijek (HR) (11/08)
NOVEMBER 2021 / Ocean Hachathon in Boulogne sur Mer (11/10)
Budapest Meeting (11/25)
Algeciras Transnational Meeting (12/15)
2-TNM-Grosuplie (Slovenia) - Virtual (12/16)
JANUARY 2022 / TNM#2 / Location: Metaverse (01/26)/22
3-TNM-Jelgava (Latvia) - Virtual (02/11)
Cluj-Napoca Meeting (02/21)
Thematic Transfer meeting in Bansko (BG) (03/21)
MARCH 2022 / TNM#3 / Boulogne sur mer, France (03/22)
Carlow Transnational Meeting (05/04)
World Play Day 2022 (05/28)
Thematic Transfer meeting in Bergamo (IT) (06/06)
JUNE 2022 / TNM#4 / Koper, Slovenia (06/22)
Alexandroupolis Transnational Meeting (06/30)
Torino Meeting (06/30)
4-TNM-Igualada (Spain) - In presence (07/07)
Thematic Transfer meeting in Sosnowiec (PL) (09/26)
Split Transnational Meeting (09/28)
Transnational Meetings (April, June, September), Final Event (December) (10/14)
Final Conference in Ljubljana (SI) (10/24)
RU:RBAN 2nd Wave Final Event in Rome (11/09)
Disadvantaged neighbourhoods
CO4CITIES is the UIA - URBACT Transfer Mechanism pilot network that transfers the methodological structure of UIA CO-CITY: the Regulation on collaboration between citizens' organizations and the Municipality in the co-management of urban commons; the Pact of collaboration, a legal tool providing for a change of attitude in the public/communities relationship; the essential role of Community Hubs in the process of community empowerment and in the path of building a new collaborative approach between the citizens and the public administration.
Collaborative Tools for Cities in Urban Regeneration
Transfer Mechanism
UIA Transfer Mechanism: five pilot projects ready to take off!
Urban Innovative Actions and URBACT come together to put into practices the lessons learnt from the Transfer Networks.
Last week, on the 9 March, URBACT's Monitoring Committee have approved five pilot networks to transfer innovative solutions. In 2020, the UIA first call projects came to a close and a proposal was made to test a new URBACT tool which aimed to support the transfer of innovation. The UIA Transfer Mechanism experiment will support a group of EU cities to understand, adapt and prepare to re-use the UIA practice through the co-creation of an investment plan. The 18-month journey of these networks builds on the success of the URBACT Transfer Networks model.
Following a competitive call, 7 pilot projects were submitted for approval. When considering all the 28 potential city partners, 6 candidates were URBACT newcomer cities from 5 different countries, while 16 cities were also newcomers to UIA. This shows what a unique opportunity this networks represented for cities discovering the universe of EU cooperation! As foreseen by the Terms of Reference, eligible proposals have been assessed by a two assesors from URBACT and UIA. Scroll down to find out more about the five newly approved networks.
The URBACT Programme acknowledges and thanks every city that has submitted proposals and used the URBACT Marketplace for this call. URBACT also warmly welcomes the new UIA Transfer Mechanism partners, who will take their first steps in the kick-off meeting on 23 March.
PARTNER CITIES
Smart specialisation in advanced services towards the digital transformation of industry
Bilbao (ES)
Bielsko Biala (PL)
Tartu (EE)
Timisoara (RO)
The collaborative management of urban commons to counteract poverty and socio-spatial polarisation
Torino (IT)
Budapest (HU)
Gdansk (PL)
Cluj-Napoca (RO)
Unlocking social and economic innovation together
Birmingham (UK)
Trapani (IT)
Poznan (PL)
Innovative local public-private-citizen partnership for energy governance
Viladecans (ES)
Eriges Seraing (BE)
Nagykanizsa (HU)
Trikala (EL)
New skills for new jobs in peri-urban agriculture
Milan (IT)
Almere (NL)
Stara Zagora (BG)
Vila Nova de Gaia (PT)
*Bold letters used for UIA cities who will act as Lead Partner
Interested in the findings of the URBACT Transfer Networks?
Check all related activities here!
CityMobilNet
ARRIVAL CITIES
Bringing (more) sustainability to cities: 5 golden rules
How are cities putting sustainable urban development into practice?
Here are 5 golden rules from URBACT's City Lab.
Leipzig Charter
The second URBACT City Lab took place in Brussels (BE) on 2nd and 3rd July 2019: "How are cities putting sustainable urban development into practice?" wa
s the core question that drove us through general and specific considerations in the fields of Air Quality and Mobility, Energy Transition and Climate Adaptation and Sustainable Food Systems. When seeking to feed into the work of the updated Leipzig Charter, it appeared that on the one hand sustainability is still a complex paradigm to get into and embed for a city, but on the other hand, cities are leading the way in what can be done.
Here are 5 golden rules for cities to become sustainable.
1. Sustainability is polysemic
Angeliki Stogia, Councilor at the City of Manchester (UK) asked us: "what do you, what do we, actually mean by sustainability?". Although its official definition from the 1992 Brundtland Report is unambiguous, but, what does it mean and how should cities approach it? The realm of participants showed a variety of understandings. For example, for Filipa Pimentel from the Transition network it is for society to become more resilient, which in turn would make our ecosystems more resilient. From a people-based approach, to a planning-based one, focusing on regeneration (or the inclusion of environment in local policies) can only bring in consensus and a chance for all stakeholders to adjust their visions and priorities.
2. Sustainability should be tackled at all levels
Our discussions started with Thomas Béthune from DG REGIO, European Commission, stating his needs to be in touch with cities themselves to feed sustainability into European policies. They were wrapped up by Filipa Pimental who expressed the leadership of citizens who become actors of change. In between the two, the Leipzig Charter is focusing on neighbourhoods and Alicja Pawlowska, Head of EU projects and mobility management at the City of Gdynia (PL) stressed the importance of this in their daily work. Cities are where changes take place and these considerations stress the need for territorial and contextual approaches. This would be impossible without the collaboration and inputs from member states, as Olli Maijala, Adviser at Finnish Ministry of the Environment suggested.
3. Sustainability requires a new mindset
Experimenting in cities is not new, yet they need to keep on being innovative, combining social and technological innovation (e.g. Urban Innovative Actions (UIA) Vilawatt project in Viladecans (ES), developing market-based instruments (e.g. Stockholm's successful congestion charges), in addition to nature-based solutions (e.g. Chinese sponge cities, which mainstream urban water management into the urban planning policies and designs), and consumption-based approaches (e.g. URBACT BioCanteens network) and to focus on processes.
Increasingly, cities need to change their vision, and to think out of the box and take risks. The inner change needs to look beyond traditional city-makers, including other profiles such as psychologists (as strongly supported by the Transition network and already tested in Gdansk (PL).
4. Sustainability applies to all
Sustainability applies to jobs and skills creation such as a Food Innovation Hub in Milan (IT) within the UIA OpenAgri project, as well as to the city of Gdynia seeking to make freight transport more effective in cities within URBACT FreightTails. Not to mention the H2020 Ruggedised where Rotterdam (NL) experiments smart city developments.
Mobility. Energy. Food. Air quality. Digitalisation. Health and well-being. Urban planning. Sustainability should be a transversal approach, and "business as usual" as Angeliki Stogia phrased it. In order to support this process, city governance should be rethought to be bold and to be participatory, with citizen scrutiny.
New forms of involvement and partnerships should be promoted as with the engagement of citizens in air quality control within Helsinki's (FI) UIA Hope project; the public-private-citizen partnership for energy production in Viladecans' UIA Vilawatt project; or the use of culture and arts to mobilise citizens to address climate change in the URBACT C-Change network.
Sustainability also requires cross-departmental collaboration such as in the City of Schaerbeek (BE) cross-cutting solutions which tackle social environmental and neighborhood issues within an action-research project on organic waste transformation, Phosphore.
5. Sustainability requires strong leadership
Leadership for sustainability can happen at all levels of cities. Angeliki Stogia from Manchester, Gilles Perole from Mouans-Sartoux (FR) (lead partner of BioCanteens) and Laura Rodrigues from Torres Verdas (PT) (2015 Green Leaf Capital City) are the elected representatives who took part in this second URBACT City Lab, confirming their city's commitment to this challenge. This is just the beginning of a global movement of awareness and action towards more sustainability in cities.
Read on the first City Lab: URBACT's City Labs on Participation: Refreshing Europe's urban policy principles
The key principles of the original Leipzig Charter provided the focus for each URBACT City Lab.
Explore the related outputs on Participation, Sustainability, Integration and Balanced Territorial Development.
URBACT's City Labs: Refreshing Europe's urban policy principles
The 2007 Leipzig Charter established the EU's urban policy principles. Ahead of its 2020 EU Presidency, Germany is refreshing this key document. URBACT's City Labs, linked to the Charter's principles, are supporting this process. The Labs will identify what works, where cities are struggling, and how we can build their capacity to build a bright sustainable future.
The Leipzig Charter
What comes to mind when we think about effective urban policy? We'd probably say that it should be sustainable, focusing o
n the best use of our resources and the wellbeing of the planet. We might add that it should involve different levels of government – including cities themselves – in decision-making. As levels of trust in politicians are historically low, we might also underline the need for participation – particularly the involvement of citizens – in our processes.
Back in 2007, the principles behind this approach to urban policy were captured in a single EU document for the first time. Under the German EU Presidency, the Leipzig Charter proposed a model of effective urban policy – sustainable, integrated, participative, multi-level – which anticipated much of what we take for granted today. For example, we can see these principles reflected in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Urban Agenda for the EU, which continue to shape much of our work in cities.
URBACT City Labs
In the second half of 2020 Germany will assume the EU Presidency again. In anticipation of that, work is under way to refresh the Leipzig Charter's relevance for Europe of the 2020s and beyond.
URBACT will support this through a series of City Labs related to the Leipzig Charter principles. The first, exploring the principle of Participation took place in Lisbon (PT) in September 2018. The second, in Brussels (BE) on 2nd and 3rd July, examined the principle of Sustainable Development. The final City Lab in Berlin (DE) will combine our key messages in the spring of 2020.
Each Lab will explore how these principles are understood now. There will be space to examine what works well – how cities are embedding these principles in their approaches – as well investigating where the barriers are. A key question relates to the obstacles preventing more cities from adopting these principles – and what needs to be done to support them.
Participative Cities
From our City Lab on Participation it was clear that 2019 looks very different to 2007. Linked to diminishing levels of trust in established institutions, we see declining levels of political participation, particularly at the local level. There are also rising incidences of civil unrest, combined with the growth of populism in many parts of Europe.
These are fast changing developments to which many city authorities are struggling to respond. However, our City Lab activity shows that many cities are adopting a proactive approach, with a willingness to experiment and to redefine the working relationship with citizens. The driver for this is recognition that our established governance tools no longer meet our needs – particularly in the digital age.
Our first City Lab report captures some of the headline activities. Amongst these is Decide Madrid, a leading digital platform for engaging citizens in urban decision-making. It has grown from a modest process to redesign a city square to one with almost half a million registered members.
Citizens have submitted more than 20 000 proposals via the portal, which commits the city to implementing those receiving enough backing from citizens. Voting is a mix of postal and digital platforms, with over 200 projects funded to date through a budget of EUR 100 million.
The importance of mixing digital and face-to-face mechanisms is also a clear message from other cities. Influenced by their monumental and greatly missed former Mayor, Pawel Adamowicz, Gdansk (PL) has also pioneered new ways to engage citizens in decision-making, not least through the design and implementation of Citizens Assemblies, a methodology which is attracting a growing volume of interest amongst decision makers. At the City Lab, officials from Gdansk spoke about the influence of URBACT in shaping their approach to citizen engagement.
Devolving financial decisions also emerges as an important way to increase levels of citizen engagement. Participative budgets are another effective tool to enable this, as two URBACT good practices demonstrate. Paris (FR) has a large sophisticated model operating at city and neighbourhood level as well as involving young people through schools. However, the city of Cascais,
in Portugal, shows that these approaches work in cities of all sizes. Its model now accounts for 18% of the total investment budget and has directly involved 115 000 citizens, more than half the population.
Nearby, the Portuguese capital, Lisbon (PT), has also experimented successfully with the Community Led Local Development (CLLD) model. The subject of an earlier URBACT article, this approach has focused on the city's most deprived 67 neighbourhoods, enabling investment of over €9 million channeled through over 250 projects. Two interesting dimensions of the approach are its strong focus on neighbourhood capacity building and the requirement placed on grassroots organisations to collaborate. This URBACT Good Practice is at the heart of a Transfer network called Com.Unity Lab.
The City Lab also underlined ways to involve specific sections of our communities that may be under-represented. Braga (PT) explained their approach to youth engagement, building on their URBACT experience, whilst Parma (IT) shared their work to encourage women to be more actively involved, a key dimension of URBACT's Gender Equal Cities campaign.
What's ahead?
The URBACT City Labs are shining a light on effective city solutions. They are also underlining where we are getting stuck, and what must be done to implement more effective urban policy. In this way, they are feeding directly into the future version of the Leipzig Charter, and a better future for Europe's cities.
You can join us, by following our City Lab news (@URBACT #CityLab), and by participating in future events.
Consult URBACT's City Lab Report "Reflections on citizen's participation in Europe's cities"
Naples' Urban Civic Uses policy is characterised by the way artists, creatives, innovators and city inhabitants are entitled to organise themselves to establish forms of self-government for critical social infrastructure including urban commons such as abandoned, unused or underused city assets. Christian Iaione, URBACT Lead Expert, tells us how Naples' Good Practice is being transferred to other European cities thanks to the Civic eState project.
The Civic eState network is all about the policy challenge of recognising and/or co-designing legal and sustainable urban commons governance mechanisms enabling city inhabitants and local communities constitutional rights to collectively act in the general interest.
The urban commons are tangible and intangible assets, services and infrastructures functional to the exercise of fundamental rights considered by the city of Naples as collectively owned and therefore removed from the "exclusive use" proprietary logic to be governed through civic "direct management".
The revitalisation of the urban historical heritage represents a cultural, economic and social challenge, but also a spur for the city to re-elaborate its identity, creating a new bond with and between the local activists, civic entrepreneurs and the active citizenship scene.
The city of Naples carved out a policy based on several city council and mayor's office resolutions to overcome the traditional top-down command-and-control approach bringing city inhabitants to the centre of the decision-making and city assets management process, strengthening participation in political decisions relevant for the care and regeneration of the urban commons.
These are new policy tools that aim to give back to the community public and private abandoned properties.
Transferring Naples' Good Practice on urban commons collective governance
Naples' Good Practice consists of enabling collective management of urban essential facilities conceived as urban commons. This public-community governance approach secures fair and open access, co-design, preservation and a social and economic sustainability model of urban assets and infrastructures, all for the benefit of future generations.
Collective governance is carried out through the involvement of the community of neighbourhood inhabitants in designing, experimenting, managing, and delivering new forms of cultural and social services.
The network's objective is to transfer, with appropriate adaptations and improvements, Naples' Good Practice to partner cities: Barcelona (ES), Gdansk (PL), Ghent (BE), Amsterdam (NL), Iasi (RO) and Presov (SK).
The path to civic use
During the last decade, the city of Naples has been experimenting with new urban governance tools to give new life to abandoned and/or deprived buildings. Different movements and informal organizations have highlighted the need for such spaces to be used and managed by city inhabitants in common through self-organization mechanisms that turn such spaces into new institutions. The civic use of these empty buildings implied a temporary use and it represented a starting point for their "renaissance". It also created a stimulus to start searching for innovative mechanisms to use such spaces as community-managed or a community-managed estate.
By revisiting the ancient legal institution of "civic use" and adapting it to the urban context, the administration structured a new form of participatory governance that intends to go beyond the classic "concession agreement model", which is based on a dichotomous view of the public-private partnership.
The civic use recognises the existence of a relationship between the community and these public assets. This process makes community-led initiatives recognisable and institutionalised, ensuring the autonomy of both parties involved. On one hand the citizens are engaged in the reuse of the urban commons and on the other hand the city administration enables the practice.
Urban commons
The first asset recognised as common property, to be managed through the collective governance mechanism of the civic use, was the ex-asilo Filangieri, an URBACT Good Practice (resolution of Naples City Council n. 893/2015). It is there that the first Declaration of Civic and Collective Urban Use was carved out.
One year later, 7 other public properties were recognised by Naples City Council as "relevant civic spaces to be ascribed to the category of urban commons": ex-Convento delle Teresiane: Giardino Liberato; Lido Pola; Villa Medusa; ex-OGP di Materdei; ex-Carcere Minorile – Scugnizzo Liberato; ex-Conservatorio S. Maria della Fede; ex-Scuola Schipa (resolution n. 446, 27 May 2016).
The recognition will be finalised with appropriate agreements after the communities managing the spaces draft a Declaration of Civic and Collective Use, on the model of those of the ex-asilo, securing inclusivity, accessibility, impartiality and usability of the governance of the assets.
In the future, the list can be enriched with more urban common resources. These assets were unutilised or under-utilised urban buildings and spaces, informally occupied and re-generated by informal communities that animate them and still contribute to their regeneration (in many cases, the renovation works could not be completed at the beginning of the informal management and were carried out through self-funding schemes). These assets constitute the civic heritage of the city of Naples, co-used and co-managed by Naples' city inhabitants in the general interest.
Public-civic partnerships: a transferable model
Naples' Good Practice (i.e. the civic uses resolution) has forged one of the first examples of a new generation of public partnerships, the public-community or public-civic partnership (PCPs). PCPs are aimed at transforming city assets into sustainable social infrastructures that produce public value and social impact through social & solidarity, cultural & creative, collaborative, digital and circular economy initiatives.
Nicola Masella, lead partner, stresses the value of the Naples' Good Practice for the EU by saying that "the mechanism proposed by the city of Naples, although anchored in the Italian legal system, is certainly characterised by a high degree of adaptability to other European urban contexts as it is based on largely shared ethical, legal and social values. In contrast to the models proposed by other Italian and European cities, where the municipality is in charge of setting up of the rules for the management of commons, the tool implemented in Naples has been built by recognising the citizens' self-organization models, through a continuous exchange between the community and the municipality."
A blueprint for the future?
The Civic eState approach could generate a prototype methodology for cities to generate a new breed of cooperative agreements or projects between city governments and civic, social, local businesses aimed at developing cities through an integrated approach. In particular the civic uses resolution could be considered a blueprint for a larger category of legal tools in compliance with EU law, especially the relevant EU legislation on public procurement and state aid, stifling cooperation among urban actors in order to build and deliver social infrastructure and services such as education, healthcare and housing.
It might also be able to generate through the hybridisation of these places and economic models new community-based job opportunities and forms of civic entrepreneurships. These cooperative agreements, partnerships or projects could be the basis for more sophisticated and solid forms of financing that could fund social projects through new funding mechanisms including social impact bonds, social project finance schemes and many other new public-private partnerships that involve the participation of long-term investors to generate a sustainability model through social bonds and impact investing mechanisms.
Visit the network's page: Civic eState
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
T 2298/13 () of 7.10.2016
H01L 51/05
Thin-film transistors
Inventive step (yes, after amendment)
I. This appeal lies from the decision of the examining division refusing European patent application No. 09 154 334.8.
II. The decision was based on four sets of claims, namely a main request filed with letter dated 19 November 2010 and three auxiliary requests filed with letter dated 3 April 2013.
III. The examining division refused the application on the grounds that the subject-matter of the claims of all requests lacked inventive step in view of the disclosure of documents D1 and D2:
D1: US 2003/0227014 A1; and
D2: B. S. Ong et al., "Thiophene Polymer Semiconductors for Organic Thin-Film Transistors" Chem. Eur. J. 2008, 14, pages 4766 to 4778.
Starting from D2 as closest prior art the examining division saw the problem to be solved by the application as filed as being to improve the mobility and current on/off ratio of the field-effect transistors by further improving the uniformity of the deposited organic semiconductor film. The claimed solution was obvious for the skilled person in view of the disclosure of D1.
Alternatively, the claimed subject-matter lacked inventive step starting from D1 as closest prior art and combining it with D2, the problem now being to provide specific polythiophene derivatives. The skilled person would consult D2 and arrive at the claimed solution.
Similar arguments applied for the subject-matter of the auxiliary requests, which lacked inventive step for the same reasons as the main request.
IV. On 28 August 2013 the applicant (in the following: the appellant) filed a notice of appeal. The statement setting out the grounds of appeal was filed on 29 October 2013, including a main request and a first auxiliary request which replaced its requests before the examining division. The appellant requested that the decision under appeal be set aside and that a patent be granted on the basis of the main request or, in the alternative, on the basis of the first auxiliary request.
V. In a communication dated 15 July 2016 the board raised objections under Articles 123(2) and 84 EPC against the claims of the main request and informed the appellant that, if these objections were overcome, the board intended to remit the case to the examining division for it to grant a patent.
VI. By letter dated 13 September 2016 the appellant filed a new main request based on the previous main request, in which the observations of the board had been addressed. Independent claims 1 and 6 of the main request read as follows:
"1. A thin film transistor comprising
a gate dielectric layer; and
a homogeneous semiconducting layer, wherein the semiconducting layer comprises an insulating polymer and a semiconducting polymer selected from the group consisting of polymers A to D:
FORMULA/TABLE/GRAPHIC
wherein R and R' are independently selected from hydrogen, alkyl or substituted alkyl containing from 1 to 20 carbon atoms, a heteroatom-comprising group, and halogen; and n is a integer from 3 to 200."
"6. A process for forming a thin-film transistor comprising:
providing a substrate, a gate electrode, a gate dielectric layer, a source electrode, and a drain electrode;
depositing a semiconductor forming composition comprising a solvent, a crystalline semiconducting polymer selected from the group consisting of polymers A to D:
wherein R and R' are independently selected from hydrogen, alkyl or substituted alkyl containing from 1 to 20 carbons atoms, a heteroatom-comprising group, and halogen; and n is a integer from 3 to 200 and an amorphous insulating polymer upon the substrate, wherein the crystalline semiconducting polymer and the amorphous insulating polymer are dissolved in said solvent, and
drying the composition to form a homogenous semiconducting layer comprising the semiconducting polymer and the insulating polymer;
wherein the semiconducting layer and the gate electrode each directly contact the dielectric layer; and
wherein the source electrode and drain electrode each directly contact the semiconducting layer."
Claims 2 to 5, 7 and 8 are dependent claims.
VII. The relevant arguments of the appellant may be summarised as follows:
- The subject-matter of claim 1 had been limited to thin-film transistors comprising a homogeneous semiconducting layer, formed from a semiconducting polymer of formula (A) to (D) (see claim 1) and an insulating polymer.
Document D1 was concerned with the formation of a thin-film transistor comprising a semiconducting layer formed from a dispersion, and did not qualify as closest prior art.
- The closest prior art was D2, which belonged to the same technical field, relied on the same deposition techniques and used the same type of semiconducting polymers as the application. The problem to be solved in view of D2 was how to improve the mobility of the thin-film transistors of D2. The claimed solution would not be obvious for the skilled person given that D1 taught something entirely different, namely that a heterogeneous semiconducting layer was formed when a semiconducting polymer was dispersed in an insulating polymer matrix.
VIII. The appellant requests that the decision under appeal be set aside and that a patent be granted on the basis of claims 1 to 8 according to the main request as filed on 13 September 2016.
1.1 Compared to claim 1 on which the appealed decision was based, claim 1 now under consideration further specifies that the semiconducting layer is a homogeneous semiconducting layer in accordance with claim 4 of the main request before the examining division.
1.2 Claim 1 results from the combination of claims 1, 3 and 6 of the application as filed, with the word "substantially" deleted.
1.3 Claim 6 is based on claim 13 as filed, but limits the semiconducting polymer to the preferred thiophene-based polymers (A) to (D) disclosed on pages 2 and 3 of the application as filed and also specifies that the semiconducting polymer and the insulating polymer are dissolved in a solvent as disclosed on page 10, lines 1 to 3 and lines 24 to 25 of the application as filed.
1.4 Dependent claims 2 to 5, 7 and 8 correspond to originally filed claims 4, 5, 7, 8, 14 and 15, respectively.
1.5 Thus, the amended claims fulfil the requirements of Article 123(2) EPC.
2.1 D1 does not disclose (the formation of) a thin-film transistor with a semiconductor layer that is homogeneous.
2.2 D2 does not disclose (the formation of) a thin-film transistor with a homogeneous semiconducting layer that comprises an insulating polymer in addition to a semiconducting polymer.
2.3 The subject-matter of claims 1 and 6, and by the same token of all remaining claims 2 to 5, 7 and 8, is thus novel over D1 and D2.
3. Inventive step
3.1 The invention relates to a thin-film transistor comprising a gate dielectric layer and a homogeneous semiconducting layer, the latter comprising an insulating polymer and a semiconducting thiophene-based polymer (claims 1 to 5), and to a process for forming said thin-film transistors (claims 6 to 8).
3.2 Closest prior art
3.2.1 The examining division started from D2 and/or D1 as closest prior art. The appellant considered D2 to represent the closest prior art.
The board agrees with the appellant that D2 is indeed the closest prior art for the subject-matter of the amended claims now under examination wherein the semiconducting layer is homogeneous:
D2 discloses printed organic thin-film transistors as a potentially low-cost alternative to silicon technology in electronic devices. Such thin-film transistors generally comprise three electrically conductive electrodes (source, drain and gate), a gate dielectric layer, and an organic or polymer semiconducting layer (see D2, page 4767, right column, second paragraph and figure 1). In D2 a review is made of the structural studies and design of thiophene-based polymer semiconductors with respect to solution processability, ambient stability, molecular self-organisation, and field-effect transistor properties for organic thin-film transistors applications (see abstract).
In order to obtain a homogeneous semiconducting layer it is necessary that the polymer can be dissolved in the solvent of the composition used to form the semiconducting layer. This is recognised in D2, which explains that solution deposition is a prerequisite for good film-forming properties (see page 4768, paragraph linking the left-hand and the right-hand columns). Several thiophene-based polymers for the semiconducting layer are discussed in D2.
D1 in contrast is concerned with the formation of a thin-film transistor comprising a semiconducting layer formed from a dispersion (see abstract and paragraph [0040]). It is thus further away from the homogeneous semiconducting layers used in the application.
3.3 Problem and solution
3.3.1 According to the appellant, the problem to be solved by the application in view of D2 can be seen in the provision of a thin-film transistor having a homogeneous semiconducting layer with improved performance, in particular improved mobility (see application, page 1, penultimate and last paragraphs; see also statement of grounds of appeal, page 2, third paragraph from the bottom).
3.3.2 As a solution to this problem, the application proposes the thin-film transistors according to claim 1, including a homogeneous semiconducting layer in which an insulating polymer is present together with the thiophene-based semiconducting polymer. As set out above, the presence of such an insulating polymer in addition to the thiophene-based semiconducting polymer is not disclosed in D2.
3.3.3 The example in the application shows that the thin-film transistor with polystyrene (as insulating polymer) has higher mobility than the one without polystyrene. According to table 1 a thin-film transistor with addition of 10 wt% of polystyrene shows an increased average mobility of 0.28 cm**(2)/V·sec, compared to 0.22 cm**(2)/V·sec without polystyrene.
The board is therefore satisfied that the above problem is indeed solved by the claimed means.
3.4 Obviousness
3.4.1 It remains to be decided whether, in view of the available prior art, it would have been obvious for the skilled person to solve the above problem by the means claimed.
3.4.2 D2 itself does not provide any hint towards the claimed solution. D2 is completely silent about the use of any insulating polymer as a component of the semiconducting layer.
3.4.3 The skilled person would not find the required motivation in D1 either. As indicated above, D1 discloses the use of a dispersion to form the semiconducting layer, and the layer thus obtained has distinct phases, namely the insulating polymer matrix and the semiconducting polymer particles.
There is no hint at all in D1 that the use of an insulating polymer would improve mobility. The skilled person starting from D2 and confronted with the problem of increasing mobility would thus not have used the insulating polymer of D1 in the semiconducting layer of the thin-film transistor of D2. Furthermore, even if he had done so, he would not have arrived at the claimed subject-matter. More specifically, he would in this case have incorporated the insulating polymer into the thin-film transistor of D2 in the form of a distinct phase, as taught in D1, and would thus not have obtained a homogeneous semiconducting layer as required by claim 1.
3.5 For these reasons, the board considers that the subject-matter of claim 1 and, by the same token, of dependent claims 2 to 5 involves an inventive step. The above reasoning also applies to the subject-matter of claims 6 to 8 directed to a process for forming a thin-film transistor having a homogeneous semiconducting layer.
2. The case is remitted to the examining division with the order to grant a patent on the basis of claims 1 to 8 of the main request filed on 13 September 2016, after any necessary consequential amendment of the description and the figures.


text:
Kasoulides to attend EU FM Council, Ukraine, EU – Palestine relations and terrorism among the topics
January 20, 2023 cnadmin Governance
Ukraine, EU relations with Palestine and terrorism will be among the issues that the EU Foreign Ministers will discuss at the EU Foreign Affairs Council, which will take place on Monday and will also be attended by Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides who departs for Brussels on Sunday.
A press release by the Ministry says that the Foreign Ministers will discuss the developments in Ukraine following the Russian invasion and assess the EU's coordinated response. During a working lunch, the Foreign Ministers will exchange views with the Prime Minister of Palestine Mohammad Shtayyeh on EU-Palestine relations as well as on aspects of the Middle East Peace Process.
Other topics include the security situation and the rise of terrorism in the Sahel region and West African coastal states, human rights in Iran, the oppression of women in Afghanistan and the situation in Armenia.
During his presence in Brussels, Kasoulides will have short bilateral contacts and meetings, the press release says.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs returns to Cyprus January 24.


This is a shallow triangle that is built quite easily from the top down, alternating stockinette and garter panels. The basic pattern can be mastered by beginners. For more intermediate/advanced knitters I've added an optional perpendicular detail that creates a striking balance to the long lines formed by the stripes. The perpendicular lines can slowly grow to make a deep triangle (as shown in the blue and variegated red/teal), or can remain one size to maintain the shape of the shallow triangle (as shown in the blue and yellow version)--instructions will be given for both options.
The pattern is going to be available in an upcoming book (Fall 2014). However, if you want to make this now, it is our May knitalong, and will be starting on May 1 - June 30. You will receive this pattern in parts but you must first cast on, then post a photo of the Artyarns or TSCArtyarns yarns you are using (you need 2 of these) you will be using for the pattern. Once you have posted your photo, I'll send you part 1. When you have posted part 1, I will send you part 2, and so on. THERE IS NO DEADLINE as long as you post the completed part 1 by June 30. You can join at ANY TIME during this period.


Barely 10 years on from the financial crisis, the Fed is ready to trust bankers again.
The ever-shrinking ecosystem of Wall Street safeguards now has a new endangered species, after the Federal Reserve moved to undermine a key restriction on the high-risk practice of funding a bank's wagers with the same money it would need to pay off any bets that go bad.
Fed governors launched a formal overhaul of the key post-crisis policy on Wednesday, voting 3-0 to begin taking public comment on a proposal to gut the so-called Volcker Rule. The rule restricts a broad category of risky investments known as proprietary trading, or business maneuvers made in a bank's own interest rather than in service of its clients' needs. The proposal moving Wednesday would radically reduce the safeguards Congress applied to those trades after the last financial crisis.
Though the change fits neatly into the recent pattern of rapid deregulation of the financial industry under President Donald Trump, the Volcker Rule's enemies have been swirling and building consensus for this particular set of changes since the regulation was first crafted in 2010.
Indeed, the Volcker Rule itself is a neoliberal compromise that attempts to straddle the divide between hard-and-fast restrictions on the markets and highly technical, theoretically effective restrictions on the industry's worst impulses. The rule illustrates the transpartisan nature of financial deregulation over the past four decades: The disastrous trading activities that prompted it were only able to do so much damage because of a devil's bargain between neoliberal Democrats and conservative Republicans in the late 1990s that destroyed the Depression-era firewall between investment banking and retail banking.
In the 2016 Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton proposed to strengthen the Volcker Rule while Bernie Sanders advocated for restoring the old firewall that would make the rule obsolete. Each candidate's proposal aimed to provide working-class interests a more absolute protection from the machinations of the pinstriped financier set than what's in place today. But Wednesday's move in the opposite direction is more a product of longstanding Washington and Manhattan consensus than of Trump's 2016 win.
The Fed proposal seeks to frame the changes as relatively minor. Quarles called it "simplifying and tailoring" the rule, implying a no-alarms tinkering in the margins with a rule that's simply too tedious for the megabanks that dislike it. Not so, said Americans for Financial Reform's Marcus Stanley in an emailed statement.
"This proposal is no minor set of technical tweaks to the Volcker Rule, but an attempt to unravel fundamental elements of the response to the 2008 financial crisis, when banks financed their gambling with taxpayer-insured deposits," Stanley wrote.
Both perspectives are basically true. The adjustments the Fed is proposing to the rule would not erase it, but significantly reduce its effect. But that is tantamount to pulling the rule's effective constraints of megabank self-dealing and risk-taking out of circulation entirely.
The collapse of the housing bubble would have happened with or without the kinds of restrictions that the Volcker Rule contains. But if the ban on wagering with your own bank's holdings had been in place, the toxic consequences of the mortgage industry's deceitful practices might have been contained to the banking industry. Instead, it produced a global conflagration fiery enough to destroy trillions of dollars in real-world wealth and financial security for middle- and working-class families.
The Fed proposal would allow banks to miscategorize risky bets with house money as risk-reducing investments, an opposite-day quirk of the deregulatory scheme that Stanley's group says would make repeats of the 2014 "London Whale" fiasco at JP Morgan more likely. Again, concealed and understated risk was the primary vector that allowed Wall Street's sloppy and dishonest housing maneuvers to spill out into the Main Street economy and cripple working-class families for generations to come.
Policymaking based on what banks say is reasonable is bad enough. But the other, deeper justifications offered for boring new holes in the Volcker Rule are transparently bogus. Megabanks have started to figure out how to navigate the rule's requirements in the past couple years, and ratcheted up their risk profiles modestly as a result. They are not able to operate at the same level of daily market exposure as pre-crisis — but that's the whole point of writing new rules to prevent history from repeating.
When banks really do have a valid case that their house-money trading maneuvers are in the best interests of their clients, they are able to proceed with schemes that would seem on their face to qualify as proprietary trading. As Bloomberg columnist Stephen Gandel recently noted, Goldman Sachs has been able to show that both its Bitcoin trading plans and its proprietary-ish trading in a particular homebuilder's debts were being done to serve client interests, and thus allowed under Volcker.
Gandel's examples suggest the supposedly crushing weight of Volcker still leaves smart bankers plenty of room to maneuver in the best interests of their clients. The real reason Wall Street and Trump's Fed are going after Volcker, he wrote Wednesday, is just that it's annoying to have to show the government their proprietary work isn't unduly dangerous.


text:
Q: session expires to soon in php I want to extend a session time so that a session variable does not expire after 12 hours.
The problem is that after 24 minutes (default time for a session until it expires) of inactivity it still expires the session and hence gives me undefined indexes for those SESSION variables.
What else do I need to do in my code in order to be able to extend the sessions so that it does not expire on its own until 12 hours has passed:
The code below doesn't work is ini_set() is above session_start();
<?php
    ini_set('session.gc_maxlifetime',12*60*60);
    ini_set('session.cookie_lifetime',12*60*60);
    phpinfo();
    session_start();

    // .... rest of code below

?>

The code below doesn't work is ini_set() is below session_start();
<?php
    phpinfo();
    session_start();

    ini_set('session.gc_maxlifetime',12*60*60);
    ini_set('session.cookie_lifetime',12*60*60);

    // .... rest of code below

?>

In phpinfo(), it states this below for gc_maxlifetime:
                           Local Value  Master Value
session.gc_maxlifetime       43200        1440
session.cookie_lifetime      43200          0

A: You're currently only setting the time for garbage collection.  You should also set the cookie to expire in the browser with the session.cookie_lifetime setting or session_set_cookie_params() function.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Quantifying anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide titres: clinical utility and association with tobacco exposure in patients with rheumatoid arthritis
D M Lee,
R Phillips,
E M Hagan,
L B Chibnik,
K H Costenbader,
P H Schur
Department of Medicine, Division of Rheumatology, Immunology and Allergy, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
D M Lee, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Rheumatology, Immunology and Allergy, Smith 552B, 1 Jimmy Fund Way, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA; dlee1{at}partners.org
Objective: To determine the significance of quantitative levels of antibodies to cyclic citrullinated peptides (anti-CCP) in a population of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
Methods: A total of 241 consecutive sera from patients with RA sent from a large rheumatology clinic for laboratory testing were selected for precisely quantifying anti-CCP antibody titres with the anti-CCP2 assay. Patient charts were reviewed for demographic information, smoking history, clinical diagnosis, rheumatoid factor (RF) titre, radiographic information and other laboratory information (erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and C-reactive protein (CRP) level). Correlations with anti-CCP titre and RF titre, disease parameters and smoking history were assessed.
Results: We confirm previous findings that anti-CCP seropositivity is associated with a higher incidence of erosions in patients with RA (56% vs 20% CCP+ vs CCP−, κ = 0.297, p<0.001). We also found a moderate correlation between anti-CCP titre and RF titre. However, we failed to find an association between anti-CCP titre and presence of erosions, between anti-CCP titre and CRP or ESR level, or between anti-CCP titre and age or disease duration. Interestingly, we did find significantly higher anti-CCP titres in patients with a history of smoking (452 units/ml vs 229 units/ml, smokers vs non-smokers, respectively; p = 0.02).
Conclusions: Although anti-CCP titres were not associated with clinical parameters of disease, they are increased in patients with RA with exposure to tobacco. By contrast, no elevation in RF was noted in patients with a history of smoking. These observations are consistent with a pathogenic contribution of smoking to RA and suggest the immune stimulus for anti-CCP is distinct from that for RF.
Competing interests: None declared.
Funding: Funding support was received from the Cogan Family Foundation.
Ethics approval: Ethics approval was obtained.
2009 BMJ Publishing Group and European League Against Rheumatism


Do you want a die cutting machine, but are confused about which one is best for you? Do you own a die cutting machine, but have never used it? Hopefully, I can demystify the two leading machines for you! I will explore the pros and cons of the best die cut machines and 'get under the hood' so to speak. They can be a little intimidating at first. Trust me, I understand your reluctance. I have a confession! I had a Cricut Expression that I never…ever took out of the box after spending around $300 for it. I don't want this to happen to you. They are too much fun for Mixed Media artists. Let's uncomplicate them and get you cutting.
What is a Die Cutting Machine?
An electronic die cutter is a tool used by Mixed Media artists, sign makers, book makers, scrapbookers, paper crafters, card makers, etc. It can open up a whole new world for your art and crafting. The machine uses a blade to cut designs, shapes, letters and numbers, plus patterns out of cardstock, papers, vinyl, felt, foam, fabric, etc.
While the machines may seem a little complicated, once you jump in and learn by doing, it will probably become one of your favorite tools. Plus, the loyal fans and followers of each machine have formed giving and sharing communities where you can quickly and easily find help and tips.
I especially love to cut The Graphics Fairy images into stencils (above); frames, boxes…and so much more. This is one of the many projects from my upcoming Stenciling eCourse here at TGF!
Today I am comparing the Cricut Explore Air 2 vs. the Silhouette Cameo 3 electronic die cutting machines. This is truly analogous to describing the features of an iphone and android phone and attempting to determine which one is better than the other. It cannot be done because there is a set of people who swear by each. Similarly, the Cricut and Cameo 3 are products with commonalities and differences but are both exceptional products, and it really is subjective to attempt to determine which is better. So I will just provide information to help you understand what they do best.
I need to be transparent with you up front. I own a Cricut Explore Air 2. I do not own or use a Silhouette Cameo 3. However, for this article I have spoken with several crafters who use each of the machines. So I am confident that this will be a factual, unbiased comparison of both. There are good things and a few cons about both machines. It really comes down to which machine will do what you want or need it to do.
Let's first look at the software. Both machines are WiFi compatible. The Cricut utilizes cloud based software through the Internet whereas the Silhouette uses software that is downloaded onto your computer. There are also Apps available for both. The App for Cricut is currently only fully operational on an Ipad or Iphone. It is in Beta phase for Android. The Cameo 3 has Apps for both systems.
The Air 2 software is called Cricut Design Space (above) and the Cameo's is Silhouette Studio. Both are great. The Studio software is actually a bit more advanced than that of the Design Space. Therefore, Silhouette has a higher learning curve. The initial setup time of the Silhouette is longer but if internet access is an issue it may be the better alternative. The Cricut is generally more user-friendly than the Cameo 3 for beginners. Both units have bluetooth capability so designs can be created on your tablet or laptop and sent wirelessly to the cutter. This makes the cutting easy and fun!
The Design Space software enables the use of Cricut fonts, which are free. You also have the option of paying $9.99 per month or 99 cents per download to select from a much larger image and font library. Silhouette Studio provides the use of 8 fonts (some are free) with the same option of paying for downloaded fonts and designs for minimal fees. Both Silhouette Studio and Cricut Design Space allow you to import The Graphics Fairy SVG files from the Premium Site, or your own designs created in Illustrator or another vector software program. I created the DIY Mercury Glass Reindeer project below by using a reindeer image from TGF to cut on my Cricut.
The Cricut allows for cutting sizes up to 11.5″ x 23.5″ and the Silhouette 12″x 10 feet. The Silhouette therefore is the obvious choice if you are creating signage or longer designs. The Cricut cutting space is reduced down to 6″ x 8.5″ if you're using the Print and Cut function or importing your own designs from Illustrator or another non-Cricut software program. It is browser dependent.
However, the Cricut uses superior blades made with carbide and is more amenable to making the best precision cuts. This is particularly true when cutting highly intricate patterns and designs.
Additionally, the Cricut is faster at both cutting and drawing with its Fast Mode feature, which can be used on card stock, vinyl, and iron-on materials. Both cutters have a dual carriage, which enables writing and drawing or writing and scoring to be completed in one step instead of two. Plus, both can cut over 100 different kinds of materials. Remember, the Cricut actually runs at a faster speed than the Silhouette.
Both cutters have automated features and are easy to use. The Explore Air 2 has what is called a Smart Set Dial on the front, which has settings that automatically calibrate for the most often used materials such as vinyl, paper, card stock, and bonded fabric. You can also customize the automatic settings by selecting from over eighty additional materials with the Design Space software.
The Cameo 3 has a large touchscreen designed to minimize user errors. It also has an Auto Blade setting that automatically calibrates the correct blade settings according to the materials being used.
I'll finish by noting that both products are visually appealing. They are designed to be a part of your creative desktop. This is a 'beauty in the eyes of the beholder' issue. The Cricut Explore Air 2 is available in several pastel colors, raspberry, and black.
The Silhouette Cameo 3 is available in white, black, grey, pastels, and a few limited edition colors at specialty stores. It is truly quite sleek and stylish. Both have lots of storage space for tools and blades. The Cameo 3 has an intuitive touch screen with audio alerts. The Cricut has automatic settings available through the Smart Set Dial.
I create Photoshop Elements tutorials over on The Graphics Fairy Premium Membership site. You can find even more of my art, DIYs, and whimsical shenanigans on Cre8tive Compass Magazine, Cre8tiva (just launched), and loads of my digital art on Instagram.
Thank you so much for this article. I have wanted a die cut machine for a while now – and I'm mostly interested in cutting fabric and patterns, so this information was really helpful.
I am so glad Elaine, go for it and more importantly, have fun!
Quite awhile ago I won a Cricut Explore Air 1 but got stuck installing so never got to use machine,know I would have for so many projects. I am definitely digitally challenged so get stuck when I don't know what to do. What a shame and waste. Need to try it again, can't remember what got me stuck, shame on me, was too long ago. Will try again.
I understand JaneEllen, just start at the beginning and take it slow. You can also contact the company, they may have a help department and then there is always Youtube, they have a how to video for virtually everything! Good luck, I have faith in you!
Thank you for doing that…I've been trying to figure this out for myself and was mystified. I have a small retail business and i think the ability to create signage and other various necessities would be great.
I feel like I can make a much better choice now that I have this info.
Thanks for the great article. I have often wondered about these machines but never really knew anything about them. I make my own Christmas cards, birthday and shower invitations, small wooden crafts and many other things by hand, and have been curious about how these machines could help me out. Like Jane Ellen, I too am digitally/technologically challenged. That, combined with the fairly expensive initial cost of the machines, has always made me a bit afraid of trying one, in case I can't properly use the thing and end up leaving it unused on a shelf. Now, I feel like I have to have one! Thanks for opening my eyes.
Your attempt at fairness failed. Since you have not used the Cameo, your opinion is based on second-hand knowledge at best which is meaningless. This comparison is obviously skewed toward the Cricut. Next time you decide to compare two machines, you should use both and it would be best if neither products were owned by you. That is the only way to compare fairly.
thanks for sharing the results of your research!
I am quite sure that the Cricut machines do have their field of application. But isn't the main difference that designing with a Cameo is much more flexible than with a Cricut? As far as I know – I might be wrong! – that Silhouette Studio Software is a self-contained graphic software. And although it is not as comprehensive as the original graphic software brands, it provides you with a versatile tool to create your own designs (especially when using Designer or Business Edition). Cricut is much more limited with that – or you'll have to use other software. To summarize: Cricut is for consumers, Silhouette is for designers. Don't get me wrong: Just talking about the software! And – not to forget – Cricut Design Space requires an internet connection. So, if for whatever reason your net is down – you can't work! I prefer to be more independent.
I can't say anything about cutting capabilities of Cricut machines as I haven't had the opportunity to try one yet. And yes – the Cameo has it's issues. But Cricut may have some, too. We should not forget that we are talking about private crafting tools – not about professional cutting machines. So, for most crafty application they will do their job.
A big thank you to all members of the Graphics Fairy who provide us with graphics, ideas and information! I really appreciate that!
As someone who has both machines, I have to agree with Anka. Silhouette is much more versatile for people who want to create what they cut. Every font on your computer can be used in Silhouette Studio (note not every font is ideal to cut) you don't need to buy them. Yes, there are hundreds- or thousands of images you can purchase, but if you know how to use the designer program you can cut any image you can find online.
Thank you for an awesome website!
Oh, and Silhouette standard blades are carbide, their Premium blade is Sintered Tungsten Alloy. I do not know about speed, but you do set it yourself and the manual says 10 to 100 cm per second.


alaTest har samlet og analyseret 11 anmeldelser fra magasiner og hjemmesider. Mange kan virkelig godt lide muligheden for at medtage. Også sensoren imponerer, men anmeldere er mindre positive med hensyn til billedstabilisatoren.
Vi analyserede bruger- og ekspertratings, produktalder og andre faktorer. Sammenlignet med andre Digitale Kompaktkameraer får Sony Alpha a6400 en samlet alaScore™ på 98/100 = Fremragende kvalitet.
The middle child in Sony's mirrorless camera line-up offer fantastic specs and features for the price.
The Sony a6400 is a camera that straddles the line between consumer and enthusiast, delivering automatic operation for family snapshots with the image quality and speed aficionados love.
Compact build. 24MP APS-C image sensor. Quick, accurate autofocus. 11fps continuous drive. Large, sharp EVF. Selfie LCD. Built-in flash and hot shoe. 4K video without recording limit.
Omits in-body image stabilization. Flip-up screen not ideal for vloggers. Some operational frustrations. External charger not included. Only full-frame lenses are weather sealed. UHS-I card slot.
Bottom Line: The Sony a6400 is a camera that straddles the line between consumer and enthusiast, delivering automatic operation for family snapshots with the image quality and speed aficionados love.
A mirrorless system with E-mount lenses, the A6400 offers great autofocus and subject-tracking in a compact format factor.
We had the opportunity to shoot with the new Sony A6400 at an event Sony put on in San Diego a couple of weeks ago. It's taken us until now, though, to digest our thoughts and experiences with it.
Gavin Stoker goes shooting with the Sony Alpha A6400 and gives his first impressions of the Sony Alpha A6400, 24mp APS-C CMOS mirrorless camera. Find out how it performs.


Hi, my question is about pie-assing. I say this all the time and try not to be it. Does anyone know the etymology of pie-assing? I had to explain it to my grandson the other day when he was not giving his all to a project he committed to.


It's like being a brownie again, doing a good turn every day.
I took my son to the airport, and eben woke him up when he slept through his alarm - the deal was I would take him but he was responsible for dragging me out of bed at 5am.
Improve your photography with classical art.


text:
The Year 2022 – Good Riddance; Hello 2023!
For those of you who would prefer to listen:
2022 comes to an end. Good riddance. It was an eventful year, in global proportions, and a really tough one for investors. Here's a bit of a summary of what went down in 2022:
It started out well for the Bulls but proved to be a huge fake out. The first trading day of 2022 resulted in a historic day for the US Stock Market. It hit another fresh, all-time high. That was a theme throughout 2021. Apple became the first company in history to reach a $3 Trillion value. Asset prices across the country soared. Euphoria was rampant. Then it reversed hard. A Bear Market took over. The Bear had a tight grip on stocks the whole year. The S&P fell nearly 20%. The Tech-heavy NAS fared the worst, down 33%. The Bond Market had its worst year ever, and experienced back-to-back decliners for the first time in history. There were few places for investors to hide. Bedell Frazier played aggressive defense the whole year to protect portfolios and minimize declines.
Perhaps the biggest event of the year was the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It's been referred to as a Black Swan event, meaning nobody saw it coming. That said, Vladimir Putin made it clear in 2014 when he annexed Crimea what his intentions were. But a full out invasion seemed unlikely. It happened. Most intelligence officials believed Kyiv would fall to Russian forces in just days. Quite the opposite. The Ukrainians fought back courageously, defending their home. It's a supreme example of the power of who wants it more.
The Western alliance responded with coordination and collaboration. NATO is now stronger than it's been in decades. Corporate America took a stand too. McDonald's made a major statement by closing all of its locations in Russia. You may recall that the first Golden Arches opened in Moscow in 1990 to global fanfare. It set a record for customers served in a day at 30,000. McDonald's in Moscow was a major sign of advancement after the wall came down. Things sure have changed. The War in Ukraine has proved to be a tactical blunder for Russia and President Putin.
The price of Oil surged to $130 a barrel for the first time since 2008. Gas prices followed. Commodity prices spiked too. The price of Wheat went soaring. The Consumer Price Index jumped 9%, marking the fastest pace of inflation in four decades. Interest rates spiked faster than any period since the early 1980s as inflation was declared public enemy #1 by the Fed. The 40-Year Bull Market for Bonds came to an end. Rates went from near 20% four decades ago to near zero at the Covid low. A new cycle was born. Interest rates headed higher.
The era of free money is over. Early in the pandemic, the Fed took interest rates to zero. It started buying up assets at a rate never before done. The goal was to stimulate spending. The crisis commitment was, "whatever it takes." It worked. People spent. Americans wanted to buy houses, they wanted to get out of the cities and move to the suburbs. They left high-tax states in droves. Home prices spiked as demand overwhelmed supply, creating a bubble. In fact, the historically cheap and, in some cases, free money created bubble-like conditions throughout the landscape. The bubbles popped in 2022. Whatever it takes comes with a cost. 2022 brought the check.
The Market had become so used to low rates and a supportive Fed, kind of like a spoiled kid always getting their way. It all started back in the Financial Crisis of 2008. Easy money was like a magic elixir for assets. The change has been abrupt and the spike in rates acted like a shock. The yield curve inverted for the first time since the Financial Crisis. We've seen the Fed try to tighten over the years, but it always backed off when the Market got rattled. You've seen those spoiled kid tantrums. They're not pretty. Tantrums became the norm. Inflation was never an issue before. It was in 2022. The Fed went toe-to-toe with the Market. The Fed has not flinched. The Market keeps fighting back. The Market got super-spoiled in 2021. The Market ain't spoiled anymore. The Fed likely flinches in 2023.
Activity in the Housing sector was heavily influenced by the Fed's aggressive rate hiking cycle. 30-Year mortgages hit 7% in the Fall. They've since settled down in the low-to-mid 6% range. But monthly mortgage payments jumped significantly in a short period of time. That was another shock to the system. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, median home payments across the country jumped 43% in 2022. As I've stated time and again this year, a 7% mortgage buys a lot less house. Buyers fled. Prices fell.
A cooling Stock and Housing Market is just what the Fed wanted in terms of lowering inflation and economic activity. The Fed was complicit in the bubble build. The Fed made certain it played a key role in the bubble burst as well. Fed Chair Powell made it clear in Jackson Hole; The American people will feel pain. Pain sure has been felt, from coast to coast.
Bear Markets are designed to clear out the excesses in the system. It's worked. There were serious excesses everywhere in 2021, rivaling the Dot-com days. That came to an end. Companies have been forced to curb spending and control costs. That's the responsible thing to do in running a quality, sustainable business. But executives still need to invest in future growth. Companies need to continue to innovate and find new methods of getting products and services to customers. Quality companies are doing just that, but in a more responsible way.
Investing for beyond the now is still a thing. It sure can be hard to do in challenging environments. But it's the right thing to do if done responsibly. That's where opportunity lives. The Tech Titans saw their stocks get hit hard in 2022. This was fairly novel, given that they had been considered untouchable for over a decade. Reality finally set in on valuation, but the business models for many remain very much intact. Here's an example of how the commitment to innovation and growth is continuing:
Amazon just launched its Prime Air drone delivery project in 2 locations: Lockeford, California (50 miles from Sacramento), and College Station, Texas. The Federal Aviation Administration approved it back in 2020. Customers can see Prime Air-eligible items on the Amazon site and app. Orders are entered regular way. Customers then receive an estimated arrival time with a status tracker. For these Prime air deliveries, the drone will fly to the destination, descend to the customer's backyard (if they have one), and hover at a safe height. It will then release the package and rise back up to return to the fulfillment center to get its next delivery assignment. It's pretty wild considering the possibilities. Amazon is playing catch-up here.
Alphabet (Google) launched its drone delivery service, called Wing, back in April. Australia has been a large testing ground. Texas is the primary market for Wing in America. The program began back in 2014. Wing's mission is to optimize the delivery industry in order to match the appropriate package with a similar-sized vehicle. Roughly 90% of packages delivered across the country weigh 5 pounds or less. The company has different-sized drones capable of carrying various weighted products. Wing primarily delivers pharmaceuticals and other small packages today. It plans to expand in size next year.
Walmart also has a drone delivery program. It's currently in circulation around Dallas, Orlando, Phoenix and Tampa. It delivers daily items to customers in as little as 30 minutes or less. The slogan is, "if it fits, it flies!" Pretty cool slogan. Walmart plans to expand the program next year to Arkansas, Utah and Virginia, with the goal of 1 Million drone deliveries in 2023. Innovation keeps taking flight.
Back to the Market: There was some positive Market momentum heading into 2023. It might not have felt that way, but there was. Q4 was the only positive quarter for the Stock Market in 2022. That came after hitting new lows in October. It closed the year well off the lows. The Bond Market got hit hard too, but has shown serious signs of stabilization heading into the new year. The 10-Year Treasury started 2022 yielding 1.5%. It ended the year near 4%. Remember, higher yields mean lower Bond prices.
Bear Market rallies can be as ferocious as Bear Market declines. It's part of the deal for investors. Bear Markets leave their mark. But they don't last forever. We expect the volatility to continue with wide swings, both up and down, in 2023 as this Bear runs its course. We will cover it in our 2023 Outlook piece next week.
New Year's is about promise and opportunity. For many, it's like a re-boot. It's a new day. It's aspirational. The hope is a better tomorrow. New Year's resolutions tend to reside around losing weight, exercising more, quitting a vice and/or trying new things. Perhaps being nicer to others is on the list too.
Investing for a better tomorrow is Bedell Frazier's professional purpose. There are many ways we aim to do this. Our goal is to have these investments reflected in our portfolios and in our service, in our community involvement and in our core values. Our brand stands for clear messaging and personalized service. Our brand stands for honesty, integrity and hard work. Our brand is built to last. Past, present and future, that ain't going away.
The Market is closed on Monday in observance of New Year's Day. Our office will be closed too. We will be back, dark and early on Tuesday. We look forward to serving you in 2023.
Mike & the Bedell Frazier Gang


The online Entrepreneurship program at our university is designed to equip graduates with a practical, hands-on understanding of what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur in today's environment.
As an entrepreneur, you know that an idea is only as great as your ability to execute it. That's why we've created our entrepreneur program – to help game-changers like you synthesize inspiration with proven strategies, technologies, and behaviors. Whether you're interested in global ventures, small start-ups, or nonprofits, success begins with a spark and industry know-how.
Through our dynamic master's program, you'll collaborate with peers and professors sharing the same entrepreneurial spirit as you navigate market and legal barriers to entry and formulate a sound business plan that's ready for the real world. Classes are facilitated entirely online, allowing you the flexibility to complete a quality education while balancing your work-life priorities.


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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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Tag: Saber Interactive
Dakar Desert Rally: Rallying…
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4A Games reassured all fans: although it was acquired by Saber Interactive, they do not make a generic multiplayer.…
Metro Series: The Development…
The Embracer Group has acquired the creators of Metro and 7 other studios, here are the details of what…
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We already didn't understand how The Witcher 3 Geralt's story even got a Nintendo Switch version, but now, it…
More Nintendo Switch Games…
Saber Interactive, after pulling off the seemingly impossible by porting CD Projekt RED's games to Nintendo's hybrid platform, confirmed…
World War Z exceeds…
The exclusivity with Epic Games Store on PC "has not affected sales," says Saber Interactive. Since a few days…


The Opportunity Q&A feature allows you to directly message your Vendors and vice versa through the portal, throughout the Open and Evaluation stages. Alternatively, you have the option to set a defined period of time to message your Vendors (i.e., only during your question-and-answer period). The feature is enabled at the Portal level (i.e., once turned ON it will be applicable to ALL projects).
Vendors are able to ask questions and you're able to respond or initiate new conversations from the Messages section of the project dashboard.
Vendors are not able to see messages to and/or from other vendors. Buyers will be notified of new vendor messages via email. It's important to note that only Project Owners can respond to Vendors through Opportunity Q&A; no other user role is able to respond.
NOTE: Strictly only Department Managers and Org Admins will be able to view the Q&A section. Reviewers and Advisors are not able to view the Q&A.
The Opportunity Q&A can be viewed under the Messages section. The numerical value in blue brackets (0) behind the Messages title indicates the number of messages that still require an action (i.e. messages that you haven't responded to yet).
You can now start new conversations with All Vendors, All Active Vendors (Vendors that have interacted with your project), All Work in Progress Vendors or All Eliminated Vendors. You are able to attach files in your responses using the Attach File button. Vendors can also attach files in their questions, but only if you allow them to by activating the Vendor Attachments toggle.
In the sample screenshot below we have two Vendors that have submitted questions during the Evaluation Stage that still require action (need a response). It also highlights the ability to filter messages, start new Opportunity Q&A threads, attach files in messages to Vendors, and toggle the ability for Vendors to attach files in their messages.
Opportunity Q&A emails are automatically queued and sent once every half-hour (30 minutes).
The Q&A report can be downloaded in the Reports section. More on exporting reports here.


BASIC Follow Jesus. ."Clean your room."
To download this video, right-click here and select "Save link as" or "Save target as"
A component of the District Realignment Plan is the creation of a Missional Strategy Team in each district. It is recommended that these teams would consist of 12-15 of the district's most spiritually mature lay and clergy leaders to assist the District Superintendent in the role of Key Missional Strategist.
As we implement the Realignment of Districts of the Oklahoma Conference one of the primary principles is to develop Missional Areas. It is hoped that these Missional Areas will make it easier for local churches to strategize and collaborate with each other.
Rev. Robert Johnson is changing the identity of his church by taking the ministry of God to the streets.
as a tool to help grow their church.
BASIC Follow Jesus. . . .
After logging in go to "My Maps" click "Accessible" you will find the map for the Oklahoma Conference. Watch the video below for complete details on what the symbols mean and how to use the map.
See Documents box below and view "How to Register" before going to the Mission Insite, if you are a new user.